How about that gruesome, attention-getting title? Chef memoirs are all the rage these days, with the Food Network having made chefs cool. The first one for me was Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, which I read twice. Gabrielle Hamilton, a notable New York chef and owner of the restaurant Prune, has entered the fray. Just as Bourdain does in his book, Hamilton pulls no punches in describing her life and culinary path. Rather than writing a full review, I’ll just point out a few things about it that may be of interest.

Butter, widely popularized by Julia Child. It's what's for dinner.

Her writing, just as the blurbs claim, is excellent. It’s very much in her own voice, and extremely vivid – so much so that during many passages I could feel stress and exhaustion as she described some of her kitchen life and activities. Later on, her warm feelings and passion spill over as she tells tales about her experiences in Greece and Italy. It’s a roller-coaster ride of incidents and impressions. Bourdain extols her as having written the best chef memoir ever, and his opinion carries weight, as he is an exceptional writer. That said, I find Bourdain’s writing a lot funnier, and I can scarcely think of a more entertaining and incisive essayist and polemicist. But she’s great, make no mistake. Hamilton has an MFA in writing, but having read about her career, it’s hard to imagine her having any time to do that – her energy level must be spectacular.

Unappetizer

Hamilton’s early life is poignant, as she was essentially left by her parents to fend for herself at a certain point. Messed-up family life is part and parcel of many chef’s backgrounds, I gather. As a teenager, just short of legal age, she recounts a lengthy stint as a waitress at the Lone Star Cafe in New York (a place where I saw Larry Coryell play guitar once), where the extra-legal activities and antics are amusing, and even instructive for aspiring bar owners.

Tonight’s Specials

There’s a great anecdote about watching famous chef Andre Soltner make an omelette. Yeah, I know, it doesn’t sound like much, but if you’re a serious chef or real food geek, you’ll love it. I found the most pleasurable parts of the book to be her lyrical chapters about meeting special people and eating scrumptious food in Greece and Italy. I wonder if she recovered some of the missing family feelings in these visits.  Finally, she painted a lucid picture of her views on women in the culinary industry, framed by her appearance on a “great women in the industry” type of panel at the CIA. While some of the women were blithely touting getting into a relationship with your local organic farmers and other such ideal circumstances, Hamilton cringed, thinking that these very young women need to be told that they may be under trial by fire indefinitely, possibly never to see the lofty restaurants and luminaries at the posh top of the food chain. Oh, and as a bonus, they’ll be treated badly because they’re women, and don’t forget the massive student loans!

¡No más!

I confess that as much as I admired her writing and enjoyed parts of the book, I think this will be the last chef memoir I’ll read for awhile. Simply put, I’m burned out, after having visited the CIA (Culinary Institute, not that one) several times, having observed my stepson getting educated there, and having read too many foodie books. I’m thinking of moving on to something lighter, such as combat memoirs. Mario Batali’s blurb on the cover describes how he’ll read this book to his children. Hmmm, I wonder which parts they’ll like the best?  Family abandonment? Drug use? Tremendous hardships that come with a kitchen life? Getting married for a green card? Oh, maybe it’s the tasty omelette!

Hit Me, Beat Me, Make Me Write Bad Paychecks!

The sheer insanity that is running a fancy restaurant no longer appeals to me as a reader. Two parts of Hamilton’s book drove this home. One was where she talked about meeting someone and instantly being able to tell they’re in the business, and how gratifying that is. It reminded me that I am very much an outsider, never would have succeeded in that business, and can’t really relate to  it. Restaurant owners demand loyalty, work attendance even when sick (scary for us diners, no?), and unrelenting hard work, all for crappy pay. (Come to think of it, they’re just like bandleaders!) And as she says in the book, when someone “crosses her” by deigning to quit at a bad time, that person is “dead to me”. Then again, when’s a good time to quit a busy restaurant? Under the stress they live in, with small profit margins and nearly no time for a normal life, it’s understandable that she’d react that way. Yet from the outside, I’m thinking, I can’t believe that they stay as long as they do. It’s cuckoo land, essentially volunteering for abuse.

But anyone who does buy into that lifestyle or who loves the hardcore restaurant life will LOVE this book.

In my role as manager of Puente Flamenco, upstate New York’s only full flamenco troupe, I contacted chef Ruben Lopez to see if our music and dance might be a fit for any events he might be doing there. We arranged for a time when I could come out to talk with him, and it was then that I cleverly suggested to Dave that we also eat there (duh!).

After a really pleasant chat with Chef Lopez, we settled down for dinner. Our waiter brought us a couple tastes of red wines so we each got exactly what we wanted – one glass of an Aragon Monte Oton and one of a Rioja Cortijo tinto. As always, we leave the wine reviews to the experts and generally focus on the food, which in this case was a very good idea.

We ordered one appetizer to share: a trio of roasted piquillo peppers stuffed with goat cheese nestled next to a bit of frisee salad. The peppers were sweet, ice cold and piquant, a perfect counterpoint to possibly the lightest, creamiest cheese I have ever eaten. It was not airy, yet I thought, “I’m biting into a cloud of cheese!” The thought of it is making my mouth water anew.

To our surprise, a tray of three tapas showed up, courtesy of Chef Lopez. These were real tapas, the kind that are made in Spain, not just any little tidbits. Chorizo sausage in a dark savory sauce were on the spicy-hot side, and Dave ate just about all of them. I come with my prejudices, and one of them stems from the way I ate in the north of Spain in the mid-’70′s. Once you eat chorizo casero asturiano – home-made chorizo in Asturias – it rather becomes your mother. Nothing else is ever quite the same. So I generously gave up most of my share of the chorizo to Dave and launched into the papas bravas. These are potatoes done something like the best home fries you ever had, except much, much better. I honestly don’t know what made them so good, but I’m guessing it was a dose of hot smoked Spanish paprika and, for a sauce, just the right amount of mayonnaise. (I suggest you go there yourself and let me know if I’m right.) “I don’t really like potatoes,” I thought, and then I said out loud, “but these are damned good!”

The star of the trio was the shrimp al ajillo – shrimp in a sauce that stars garlic and parsley. A more respectful treatment of shrimp I have never had. And that means: not over-cooked! Once again, the sauce was brilliant and yet served to bring out the natural flavor of the main ingredient, not overpower it. The garlic was just mild enough so that even our friends of northern European descent can enjoy this exquisite dish. With “just a taste” tasting this good, we will definitely be back for Tapas Thursdays at Zabroso.

I had ordered the Jail Island salmon filet with a crispy olive/herb crust, roasted fennel, sautéed green beans and fennel-tomato vinaigrette. I’d chosen it because I really wanted a bunch of vegetables. So I started with the green beans, long and thin and cooked just to perfection, and the gorgeous roasted fennel in that bright vinaigrette. Then I bit in to the salmon en croute – that “crust” being the lightest wrapping of what seemed to have been just one sheet of filo. The surprise and joy of this first bite was a burst of olive, hiding under the salmon, that instantly brought me back to an olive shop in a small town south of Valencia.

Then something happened that also happened the last time I’d eaten another artistically orchestrated series of true Spanish tapas. It was at Jose Garces’ Amada Restaurant that I bit into something only midway through the meal and I simply began to cry. The sensory overload was equivalent to listening to the “Ode to Joy” after the rest of the Ninth Symphony. I could not contain myself. Oh man… when I bit into that salmon and the olives and the vinaigrette, and after all that had come before it, I just had to stop, put my fork down, and wipe the tears from my eyes.

Whew!

After awhile it was time to do our usual routine – we switched plates. (How many of you out there do this regularly with your favorite dining partner?) After the crescendo of the salmon, the deep, dark flavors of Dave’s dish were calming. He’d ordered braised Atlantic halibut with wild mushrooms, bacon, and pearl onions, roasted Yukon Gold potatoes with fresh thyme. The onions still had a nice little crunch and good onion flavor. The mushrooms were done right, by God, something that is still too danged rare. Bacon makes everything better, and I got to eat fish “just for the halibut.” But I was getting so stuffed, I have to confess, I couldn’t touch the potatoes.

However! I had to try dessert, not because there was any room at all for it, but because I really had to know if a correct flan could be obtained in these parts. Dave’s eyes were crossing for having overeaten, so, alas, I had to eat the flan all by myself, which was not difficult in the least. It was utterly smooth and creamy, the not-too-sweet custard in harmony with the very sweet caramel. My personal taste is for a darker caramel, just two shades shy of burnt, but then I’m the one who insists on turning her marshmallows into torches before eating them.

I turned to Dave and said, “I don’t like the music.” He continued to look cross-eyed at me, so I figured I ought to explain. “Well, I have to write something negative or nobody will believe me!” So there it is. Half the time the music was delightful Latin American and in Spanish (noted the Spanish teacher). But then some other music came on that just didn’t seem to fit the room nor the food. Dave says it was Jack Johnson.  Whatever. It just didn’t do anything for the ambiente. What else could I possibly fault this restaurant for? Ummm… difficult to find the parking lot in the dark (we never did). Er… let’s see… while the service was very good, the waiter could use pronunciation lessons for foreign words. What else? Hmm… the lighting actually was excellent – not too dim, not too bright, quite lovely since much of it came from wall sconces that originally were gas lamps. And everyone was friendly but not intrusive. Dang. Not enough negatives. Sorry. Just go to Zabroso sometime and see if there’s something I’ve forgotten. One thing is for sure, I will never forget the evening we just enjoyed there. ¡Qué sabroso!

How I Became a Butcher

Giving thought to my most memorable food moment, I can’t help thinking about the countless times I have been in the kitchen getting ready to make dinner and having my now five-year-old daughter ask if she can help. Where does the desire come from that makes a child want to learn how to cook? I think in my daughter’s case it comes from wanting to be next to me and be a part of what I am doing. On many occasions I have found myself getting items ready when I hear her run into the kitchen, asking me if she can help, pulling her “Dora chair” up to the counter and standing on it so she can reach the counter top to ask me, “What can I do?”.  In most cases I will be cutting something up and she will put it in the pan or the bowl for me. I get a great feeling when she asks me, “How are you doing, Dad?” I love to watch her grind pepper onto a piece of meat and pour kosher salt into the palm of her hand and make her best effort to sprinkle it on the meat in her best “daddy” impression.

It’s at these times that I think back to my younger years in New York when I had to make my own breakfast or dinner because my Mom was at work. I always found cooking to be a time when I did things for myself. I remember a time when I was about twelve years old, and I was at a friend’s meat shop watching him make sausage, thinking to myself, “Wow! I want to do that.” So I asked and asked if he’d let me until one day my dream came true.

Now I’m not sure if anyone knows this, but when you’re making sausage for a co-op in midtown Manhattan it takes a massive amount of pork. In this case it was the almighty pork butt. So I was going to get to be a part of this great sausage-making moment and, like every new guy, I had to “make my bones” by prepping the pork butts.

Here I was, twelve years old, maybe a hundred pounds, a big kid with a boning knife in one hand, wearing a butcher apron and standing at the block ready to make sausage. It was cold, but I tried not to let on that I was freezing. I turned around and sitting there on a wooden pallet was a four-foot by four-foot gaylord filled to the top with pork butts, three thousand pounds, to be more exact. The butcher shop foreman came up to me and pulled a pork butt out, slammed it down on the block and, in one swoop, boned the thing out, cut out the gland, sliced it in half and threw it into a hopper. Me being a kid, I asked, “How many do I have to do?” He smiled at me and said, “All of them. When you’re done with that, then I will teach you how to make sausage.”

Now, it was a Saturday morning and I was thinking, “Man, this is crazy! What have I gotten myself into?”  But I started in on it anyway and it took me, like, five minutes to bone out one pork butt and I was thinking that was good. The foreman came over about twenty minutes later to check on me and I had only gotten about six butts done.

At that moment I thought for sure he was going to get mad at me and throw me out of the place. I was wrong. He went over to the wall, pulled a knife from the holder and scooted me over a bit and got next to me. He pulled two pork butts from the massive container, put one in front of me and one in front of him and at that moment I became a butcher.

He stood with me, held my hand, walked me through the best way to hold the knife, showed me how to start and cut around the bone and, within a matter of ten minutes, it took me thirty-five seconds to cut out the bone, remove the gland and get it to the next stage.

I came back the next morning to learn the rest of the process. It took him and me the whole day to get through the three thousand pounds of pork. I remember the feeling of satisfaction I got from him showing me how to chop and season the pork, how to get the casing ready to stuff the sausage, how to link and package it. The same feeling I’m sure my daughter gets when we present our hard work to Mommy at the table. Just hearing her tell her mom what she did, what Daddy taught her, going through what she did and how she did it, and telling her mom she’s Daddy’s little chef – it’s these times that I am so grateful to have my family, to know that I am a hero to one little girl who has the passion and the willingness to step up to the counter and learn, the same way I stepped up to the butcher block, to learn.

Michael Sweetman
Chef & Artisan Butcher

“ONEONTA _ Catlin Thomas, 23, of Oneonta, lost his courageous battle with cancer on Sunday evening. He passed peacefully at his grandmother’s home into the Lord’s hands surrounded by many of his loved ones.
Catlin had an enduring spirit throughout his life and illness.
He was born Jan. 8, 1986, in Stamford hospital. He attended Oneonta Job Corps in the Culinary Arts Department under his mentor Chef Eric Erway from Nov. 30, 2004 until Sept. 17, 2006. He graduated completing all three levels within the trade and logging over 1,200 hours of work based learning. He was a curious and creative student, never giving up on his dream and excelling in his studies. Cooking was a huge part of who he was and he truly loved entertaining for his family and friends.
He loved music, fishing and camping with his family, gardening with his grandmother and the simple things in life like his PB & J’s…”

The above is taken from Catlin’s obituary in today’s Oneonta Daily Star. It does not explain why Catlin is in this blog and why we are so deeply saddened by his death.

Some years ago, when our son was a young knucklehead working in restaurant after restaurant in the Syracuse area, he was told about Job Corps by a friend. It seemed the perfect opportunity for him to see if he could make it in a school that would teach him some culinary skills. We felt that if he could get his certification at Job Corps, maybe then he would be ready to handle something like SUNY Delhi.  We didn’t know he’d run into Chef Eric Erway.

To be frank, and in Scott’s words, Job Corps was like a cross between the military and prison. You had to earn privileges, and Scott was not the only student who had more than a thing or two to learn about rules, boundaries and proper behavior. But Scott wanted to cook… very badly… and hung in there, taking the majority of his classes with Chef.

To make a long story short, Scott did so well, Chef felt Scott could make it at his alma mater, the Culinary Institute of America (CIA). We had never considered this as a possibility, for many reasons. But Chef pushed Scott to reach for his fullest potential, and he took a few of his best students to visit the CIA to make it real to them. With the help of Chef and other staff members of Job Corps, Scott made it into the CIA and went on to earn two degrees there.

In the meantime, Catlin Thomas was the next up-and-coming star in the Job Corps culinary program. Chef took him, too, to the CIA. Ill health interrupted his Job Corp schooling for a time but he went back and worked hard. We were rootin’ for him, hoping to see another Job Corps student make it to graduation from the CIA.

Time went by, and Scott stayed in touch with his mentor. Today he got the phone call from Chef Erway; Catlin had passed away.

This is the point at which words are ridiculously insufficient. Something tells me that we have a responsibility to this family to do something for some kid who has a passion that needs to be nurtured. Perhaps we know someone who needs some guidance and some high standards to reach for, as Chef Erway provides to his students. And for goodness’ sake, maybe we can teach them how to grow and cook their very own food. I think that would make Catlin smile.

It’s not often that a great chef happens by to chat over the garden fence. But that’s what happened a few weeks ago as Dave and I worked out in the veggie plots.  Mike Sweetman and his wife and daughter were out for a walk and found us with dirt under our fingernails. We ended up in a long conversation about food, all of us more than a little pleasantly surprised to find serious foodies just three houses apart on the same street!

So when Mike got a job at the River House in Pulaski (north of Syracuse, NY, for you international readers), he started sending us emails detailing the evening’s specials and we just couldn’t resist. We travel for food, and 40 minutes on 81-north isn’t too much of a sacrifice for a meal like the one that awaited us.

River House is smack dab in the middle of little Pulaski, so you can’t miss it even if you try. It’s sitting on a spot that has had one hotel, tavern or restaurant after another, each one burning down in turn. Well, we hope this one doesn’t follow suit! It’s a new building with ample parking, a ramp and stairs up to the front door, and three separate rooms for the public. The first is the bar, a casual place for dining and/or drinking. Then there are two distinct restaurant rooms, one of which you see here – look at the picture over the mantle to see one of the earlier iterations:

We were seated in the next room over (didn’t get a picture of it) and, after looking over the menu, decided to go with the specials that Mike had put together for the evening:

The appetizer:  SURF AND TURF- Pan seared tenderloin and scallop medalions – shitake mushroom – white truffle butter:

I don’t quite know how to convey the series of sensations that this dish caused to take place in my mouth. Every bite was a descent into the depths of every flavor Chef Mike could bring out of the simple ingredients. I do not remember ever having had a scallop so expertly prepared, incredibly moist and tender, the caramelization and black pepper contrasting so pleasingly with the tender textures and flavors of the interior. Amazingly, the tenderloin provided the same experience, in its own beefy way. Even the bit of greens was an eye-opener. Heavenly.

Dave ordered the pasta dish, described by Mike thus:

PASTA – Shrimp & Angelhair al’ Arrabbiata – Seared jumbo shrimp – house-made arrabbiata sauce – aglio spinach.

“Arrabbiata sauce is made with whole plum tomatoes, garlic, basil, sugar, olive oil. It has a very faint spice and is sweet and just a nice hint of garlic. I know it may sound a bit strange; arrabbiata means angry. It was made by an old Italian chef who got pissed off one night and threw a pan of sauce that landed with another; someone tried it and loved it. There is nothing angry about how it tastes.”

Again, expert handling of the seafood, and this time a sauce that was certainly not angry-making, but indeed surprising. I don’t like sweet stuff in my dinners, yet in this case the wee bit of sugar was used like a salt or a spice. It just brought out the best in the sauce. Dave was very kind to let me have as much of it as he did.

My own meal was something I haven’t dared to order in decades, literally. Delmonico steak. I have fond memories of one of these from back in the’70′s, and every other one since then has disappointed. Well, not tonight. Mike managed to coax out all those deep, dark layers of flavor that a good Delmonico should deliver.

Delmonico steak – caramelized onions – white truffle butter – wild mushroom risotto:

The caramelized onions were the deepest brown I’d ever seen. I asked Mike about this some time later and he said that those onions are in the pan for over an hour. It takes that long for all the chemical changes to take place. This is dedication to an onion ideal.

The wild mushroom risotto was as good as my own. I don’t make a lot of really outstanding food (most of it is good to pretty good), but I’m picky when it comes to risotto being done right. I make a good one. But this one was every bit as good… okay, it was better. It was sooo good! When I need comfort food, this is what I want.

Most meals fall into one of three categories:

1. It’s pretty bad, but we’re traveling in upstate New York and there’s no good food for fifty miles so we’d better just shut up and eat.

2. It’s a decent meal. You know, most of it is average but one or two items are really good, worth considering a return trip.

3. It’s memorable. Everything is right – the lighting, the service, the food, the beverage selection. One or two items are truly outstanding and the rest is quite good. But mostly, you’re glad you came and will return some day.

But then there are those meals that just build, one course at a time, from one excellent experience to another. The care that the chef or cook takes, the feel that they have for what treatment would make these ingredients really sing, is evident in every single bite.

We’ve had two other experiences like this just in the past few months; once at Amada Restaurant, chef Jose Garces’ place in Philadelphia. We were eating their tapas menu and at one point, overcome with sensation, I simply started weeping. I couldn’t help it! Fue superior a mí.  It bested me.

The next time was at the home of a couple we happened to meet at an art opening in Albany. They guided us slowly through course after course, and at one point that feeling of overwhelm started to bubble up. Trying to look like a rational human being, I dabbed daintily at my eyes and admitted that it was all so delicious I was moved to tears.

And wouldn’t you know, it happened again at some point at the River House Restaurant – probably during the steak. You don’t get this with just one great dish. It’s like a symphony – every instrument has to be in tune and every movement has to be played not only expertly but with feeling and even love. If you have never cried at some point while listening to the Ode to Joy, then you might not know what I’m talking about.

But you might give it a shot at the River House. Tell them you read this blog and you want Mike’s suggestions for the evening. I’d be interested to know how it goes for you.

That’s Chef Mike Sweetman. Actually, he’s adamant about introducing himself as co-chef along with co-chef Sam Carpenter, whom he dragged out of the kitchen so we’d know who was responsible for part of the meal.

The RiverHouse Restaurant is at 4818 Salina Street, Pulaski, N.Y. 13142
Phone: (315) 509-4281