The next day I received an invitation from Kodansha International, a large publishing house. To my astonishment, they wanted to talk to me about a cookbook. At the meeting, it transpired that our guests of the previous night had raved about the dinner I had served and felt that the Japanese would enjoy a cookbook that used Japanese ingredients in such an original way.
I was very flattered, but I told the publisher, “Although I love Japanese food, I cannot cook like a Japanese. Japanese cooking requires years of training and hours of preparation. I work in New York, and I have no time to spend hours in the kitchen. What I like to do is cook Japanese ingredients my way but serve them in the spirit of Japanese cooking tradition. I will give them recipes different from what they are used to.” For the next two weeks, we discussed a book contract. Finally, it was decided that I was to come back to Japan at their expense and explore other Japanese cooking traditions. I thought, just for a minute, that my family and Jimmy would not like that, but I said yes very quickly.
I left Andre though he was still worried about his future. Later, I was pleased to learn that Seibu happily gave him permission to use their gallery to show the work of French painters. The dinner had worked! However, a few months later, he was recalled to Paris and resumed his career as a writer.
Back in New York, I prepared myself for another trip to Japan, talking to Arakawa, Peter Grilli, and other Japanese friends to plan my itinerary the following June. I made a list of cities that I wanted to visit.
The following June, I left, once again for Tokyo. On my arrival, I was visited by Hiroshi Teshigahara, the filmmaker I had met at the Arakawas. I had loved his film, Woman in the Dunes. Hiroshi was also a master of flower arrangement and had a very successful school teaching young women classical Japanese flower arrangement. A few days after I arrived in Tokyo, Hiroshi asked me if I would do a friend of his a great favor. The friend had invested in several crêperies, but the business was failing, and he wanted me to look at the restaurants to see why they were such a failure. For the next two days, I visited the crêperies and realized immediately that the batter was wrong and that the cooks had not leaned how to make a perfect crêpe. I gathered all the cooks together in one of the restaurants, made a batter, and taught them how to make a real French crêpe.
The next day the owner sent his manager to the hotel where I was staying. He handed me an envelope and said, bowing very low, “Please count the money. Mr. O. is so pleased and thankful for your help.” I refused the envelope, saying “I did very little. Thank you, but there is no need.” He insisted, and so I opened the envelope and nearly had a heart attack as I counted the money. There was the equivalent of $30,000 in my trembling hands. Bowing even lower, I thanked them both and rushed to my room. I picked up the phone, called Jimmy, waking him up, and told him to take the first plane to Tokyo to join me, explaining briefly what had happened.
A few days later, Jimmy arrived, and together we traveled, eating our way through Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Jimmy took pictures, and I took notes of everyone and every dish we ate.
A year later, Jimmy told me that his firm was doing very well. “Thomas is graduating this spring. He will be going to college in the fall. We can manage without your teaching. Would you like to quit school and just write?”
This had been my dream for several years, and so the following June, I resigned from my position at school and said good-bye to all my friends. I shed a tear or two, and with great trepidation and fear, I looked forward to a year of not only just writing, but also traveling and this time writing about it.
CHICKEN LIVER MOUSSE
Clean 1 pint of fresh chicken livers, removing fat and gristle. In a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and sauté the livers for 3 minutes on each side. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and 1 tablespoon of dry tarragon. Remove the livers and place in a food processor along with 2 eggs and 1 cup of heavy cream. Process until all the ingredients are pureed. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve. Pour the strained and pureed livers into a 2-quart soufflé dish. Place the soufflé dish in a baking pan and add 6 cups of water to the pan to create a water bath. Bake in a 350° oven for 40 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with toasted baguettes.
Serves 4.
LONG CHINESE STRING BEANS
For this dish you need 1 pound of string beans; cut each string beans in four pieces. Place in a saucepan and cover with boiling water and 1 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and cook for 8 minutes. Drain. In the same saucepan, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Add 2 minced garlic cloves, ½ cup of chopped parsley, and salt and pepper. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring all the while, then add the string beans, mix well, and simmer for 4 minutes. Serve with roast chicken or steak.
DIPPING SAUCE FOR RAW VEGETABLES
In a food processor, place 1 cup of spinach, stems removed, with 1 cup of watercress, stems removed; 2 cups of plain yogurt; the juice of half a lemon; and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Process until all the ingredients are pureed. Remove to a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Makes 3 cups.
Standing in front of our Sullivan Street house
7
The Journalist
Every few years Jimmy would give me a wonderful present for my birthday: a bound book written and illustrated by him. Each of the books told the story of what had happened to me in the last few years or decade, picking up where he had left off before. Today, as I sat down to write, I picked up the 1979 to 1989 book and looked at his magnificent drawings. I flipped through the book and saw a drawing of me topless in an open bath house in Japan; a drawing of my daughter Marianne being married in our garden; a drawing of me writing in a tiny room surrounded by hundreds of cookbooks.
By the fall of 1988, I had stopped teaching at St. Ann’s in order to devote myself full-time to writing. The first few weeks were difficult. I had to adjust to the fact that I did not have to get up at six in the morning to be at school at 8:30 A.M., that there were no children to take care of. Marianne was about to get married and dreaming about becoming a teacher, Juliette was in Turkey teaching English to young girls, and Cecile was about to embark on an architectural career. As for Thomas, Jimmy and I had just driven him, our youngest child, to Dartmouth College. Now during the day, the house was empty. I was free to do whatever I wanted. I did nothing for a few weeks; I roamed around the house aimlessly, thinking over and over, What if I could not find anything to do? What if I have no ideas for stories? What if people forget me? What if the telephone never rings? I was scared and lonely and missed the challenge of teaching and the conversation and laughter of my teacher friends. I missed the anticipation of creating new programs. I missed running my department.
To prepare for my “new life” as a full-time writer, I began by organizing my space in the house. Until now, I had used the smallest room in the house as my study. I decided to move my books and computer to one of the children’s deserted bedrooms. The room was large and airy, and I hated it. I missed the comfort of my compact office, and so I moved back. I tried to work but failed to write even a single line. I was experiencing not only the “empty nest” syndrome, but also a change in the way I looked not only at my work but also at my life. For years I had taught because we needed the money. What I had really wanted to do was pushed aside simply out of necessity. But when the opportunity came my way, I had to cope with too much change all at once. The same month I resigned from St. Ann’s, I lost my job at New York Magazine.
New York Magazine had been my lifeline to the food world. Years before, I had started to write short pieces for their “Best Bets” section. It all started when I met Gael Greene, the food editor of New York magazine at a party in East Hampton. We had a lot in common. We both liked good food, we were both good cooks, and, above all, we both liked to write about it.
One day I received a call from Gael. Would I be interested in becoming The Underground Gourmet restaurant revie
wer for New York magazine? I had wanted to review restaurants for many years, and this, I thought, would be the perfect job for me. Gael explained that the magazine was considering three other writers for this spot. The rules of the underground gourmet column were very strict. No main dish could cost more than $8.50, not an easy criterion to meet even in 1982. But I knew Chinatown and ethnic restaurants very well, so I was sure I could do the job. Gael suggested that I choose a restaurant and write a review.
I chose an Ethiopian restaurant on Thompson Street. I had two very close Ethiopian friends, and had eaten at their house several times. Also, I was introduced to Ethiopian food on my visits to Africa. I felt I knew the food quite well. So I wrote my piece, had Jimmy check for English and grammar mistakes, and sent it in. A few weeks later, I was hired.
I worked as The Underground Gourmet reviewer for the next three years. I loved discovering small, new restaurants. I remember once walking to visit South Street Seaport, which had just opened. I had lost my way and ended up on a side street. I noticed a seafood restaurant that advertised mussels, a whole bowl with Italian bread for only $6. The restaurant was empty, the mussels were deliciously fresh, and when I spoke to the owner, I was astonished to learn that he was a wholesale fish monger at the Fulton Fish Market. He had always dreamt of opening a restaurant. He was trying to make a go at it, but had not been quite successful. I wrote the story, and a few weeks later, passing by I saw a line of customers waiting to be seated. Another discovery was a bistro called La Luncheonette, on Essex Street, run by a Frenchmen who was the cook, the waiter, and the sommelier. A year after my story was published, he moved his restaurant to Tenth Avenue and was able to hire a waiter and a dishwasher. Success stories made me very proud.
Every year, apart from restaurant reviews, I worked on the Round up of New Restaurants issue; stories on the best potato pancake in New York, the best barbeque, the best restaurants for take out, and many more. Writing these survey stories was incredibly hard work. My writing was straightforward, very accurate and knowledgeable in describing the food or the décor, but I knew that my style did not quite match the witty, trendy New York magazine “new journalism” style. This would prove my downfall.
In 1988, Chinatown saw an explosion of new restaurants. Loaded with cash, Chinese were arriving in droves from Hong Kong. They were used to much better fare than the mushy meals served in New York’s traditional Chinese restaurants, which were geared to an imagined American taste. I suggested a piece on the best new restaurants in Chinatown. My piece would describe the many dishes new to New York. Everyone at the magazine agreed that this was a great idea, and I set out to select the ten best. I turned to my closest Chinese friend, Suzanne Chen. Suzanne and I ate our way through Chinatown. I wrote my piece and presented my expense account. The editor-in-chief liked my story but said that it lacked the New York magazine voice. Furthermore, he added, he was astonished by my soaring expenses. “Look,” he said, brandishing my expense account, “you say here that a bird’s nest soup cost $30! That’s outrageous!” He then pulled out of his desk drawer a soiled take-out menu from the hole-in-the wall Chinese restaurant around the corner. “Look, a perfectly good bird’s nest soup here is only five bucks. I’ll pay you for the article but will not reimburse your expense account. Take it or leave it!”
I tried to explain that the bird’s nest soup I had written about was the real thing. What he ate at his desk was just make believe, a tasteless version. Refusing to back down, I walked out and thus lost a job I had loved more than any other.
So now I was a freelance journalist. It is a very difficult job, no matter how well-known you may be. I was not shy, but I found it very tough to knock on doors, and also at this point, I had no idea of what I wanted to write. A chance encounter put me in the right direction.
The food world was changing dramatically. The Greenmarket on Union Square, a Farmers’ Market thought up by our friend Barry Benepe, was now offering chefs’ ingredients available formerly only from Europe or Asia that local farmers were now growing on New York and New Jersey farms near the city. In the Greenmarket on Union Square and in the new Korean produce stores, herbs such as fresh pineapple mint, real French tarragon, purple basil, or Greek oregano, and organic vegetables were becoming ordinary, daily fare. New Yorkers were now clamoring for better breads. Bakeries such as Our Daily Bread and the Sullivan Street Bakery were opening in many neighborhoods in New York, offering French baguettes, croissants, or Italian cibatta or Pugliese. Dean & Deluca, Balducci’s, Whole Foods, and Gourmet Garage in the Village were a few of the pioneering stores where one shopped for unique ingredients from the world over.
Soho had greatly changed since we had bought our house in1967. Up Sullivan Street from our house. Once Upon A Tart, the gourmet café run by Jerome, served small vegetarian quiches, scrumptious sandwiches, and exotic salads along with excellent muffins, cheddar-dill scones (I was addicted to them), fruit tarts, and rich black French roast coffee. Around the corner on Prince Street, Luigi’s restaurant was replaced by Raoul’s, a hot French restaurant, filled with beautiful people. It had just received a two-star rating from The New York Times. There were many new trendy boutiques such as Diesel Jeans, Hans Koch leather bags, and a Tibetan silk and jewelry store, and, most important, a twenty-
four-hour Korean vegetable grocery with a street-side flower shop at the corner of Thompson and Prince Streets, which changed the whole aspect of the street. But my favorite place was Dean & Deluca, a brilliant new grocery and produce store on Prince Street and Broadway. The store was the idea of two men, Joel Dean, who took care of the buying, and Jack Ceglic, who designed the store. Added to this pair, was a third man, an Italian, Georgio Deluca, whose main interest was cheeses from all over the world.
One day walking down Prince Street, I stopped short in front of Dean & Deluca’s window. I could not believe my eyes. The window looked like a window from Fauchon’s in Paris. Intrigued, I entered the store and asked Joel Dean who had designed the window. Joel introduced me to Lee Grimsbo. Lee was a tall, young, laconic man with a shy smile. He came from the Midwest and was the son of a biologist who got Lee interested in the cultivation of organic fruit and vegetables. What Lee wanted most in life, he told me, was to share his knowledge with the public and at the same time help his friends. I liked Lee; we had the same goals. Every day I would stop by the store and talk to him, asking about what new vegetable or fruit he had. He brought in cardoons that the Italians had eaten for centuries; he showed me a Romanesco cauliflower from Holland, a cross between a cauliflower and broccoli. I would go to my kitchen, try these new vegetables, and come back to him with recipes I thought he could share with his customers.
One day Lee asked me why I had not written a story about the revolution in the agricultural world in the United States. He suggested a trip around the country where he would introduce me to all his friends. I asked an old friend, Philip Herrera, then managing editor of Connoisseur magazine, if he was interested in such a piece. Philip talked to Tom Hoving, editor-in-chief, and my story got the go-ahead. They were willing to pay for the trip.
In early June, Lee and I flew to San Francisco where we visited several of Lee’s farmer friends. Most of them were in their twenties, did not come from farming families, and had degrees in English literature, chemistry, engineering, etc. Bored with the prospect of futures as engineers and scientists, they had decided to buy a few acres and start farming. A few told me that Alice Waters of Chez Panisse Restaurant had inspired them to grow vegetables such as ramps, the wild onion, or fiddleheads from the banks of brooks. Some began to grow delicate miniature vegetables. Others visited Europe and came back with seeds for patty pan squash, miniature zucchini, and five different kinds of potatoes; one or two brought back purple potatoes from Peru. We met with very different growers from the Driscoll Company, a large corporate enterprise who caught on to the exotic vegetable and berry market and now grew different kinds of fruit plus salads such as frisee, red leaf, radicchio,
and red and white radishes.
We then drove to the Napa Valley, not to look at wineries, but to visit the exquisite Fetzer Winery vegetable garden, precisely planted with Jerusalem artichokes, oriental eggplants, baby leaf spinach, chayotes, tiny Italian artichokes and green or yellow miniature zucchini. On a commune in Sonoma Valley, we hung out with young hippies who cultivated, in a very large garden, white asparagus, fennel, and five kinds of lettuce they called mesclun, and they sold these at nearby farmer’s markets. As we walked through the commune garden, wilder looking than the others we had visited, Lee picked up a tiny purple salad leaf: “Look Colette how small and delicate! It belongs to the spinach family. Taste it; it’s so amazingly sweet.”
The World in My Kitchen Page 17
