Gastronomic Greats

Gastronomy has always captured a special place in my soul. Though I love to cook, it is the study of food's cultural and historical impact by which I am consumed. There is a small group of individuals who added timber to what is now a pyre of passion within me, and I am compelled to celebrate their impact on my thinking. Beginning with the June issue, I will begin to delve into the colorful history of these magnificent individuals, from Fernand Point to Brillat-Savarin, to MFK Fisher and more. To me, they illustrated that food was far more significant than just a method of sustenance.

An Odd Kind of Comfort

I've recently set up a baker's rack in my kitchen, and I am enthralled with the sight of stainless steel and kitchen tools, just waiting to be touched. Some might find this strange, but I experience an odd sort of comfort when surrounded by kitchen equipment. The cold, smooth surfaces are like a beacon to my creative soul. Hey, we all have our quirks.

Handy Mouths

Cooking for good friends brings with it a special kind of joy. To know that your efforts will be savored by more than an anonymous crowd offers spiritual replenishment and a smile for the soul. If you are buried in a project and don't get to see them often, the act of nourishing them in this way puts the focus on the quality of time spent, rather than the quantity. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Of course, said friends are also handy when owning a magazine with recipes that need to be tested. (Like they mind.)

Get Your Hand Off My Glass

With liberty comes the requisite pursuit of happiness, and so I am now on a quest to see if the law will change enough for me to obtain a bottle of this wine. It is one of the most wonderful taste creations I have ever sampled, like a cross between Sauternes and tawny port. The anticipation is almost too much...

After going through the bureaucratic nightmare the first time around, I expounded on the frustrations of U.S. wine prohibition for a New Zealand magazine, where my message to the government was "Get Your Hand Off My Glass." Indeed.

Free the Grapes

Are the suffocating confines of American Prohibition at last being given their final rites? For too long, our vineyards have been shackled by interstate commerce laws that are absurd and antiquated. Let us hope that states now see the wisdom of open commerce, capitalism, and liberty -- as the Supreme Court has done -- and leave us the pleasure of our wine. And may our winemakers experience unprecedented growth and prosperity. In honor of such a momentous occasion, I leave you with a quote from Monsieur Brillat-Savarin:

A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine.
The Physiology of Taste, 1825

Molecular Artistry

Cuisine is both an art and a science: it is an art when it strives to bring about the realization of the true and the beautiful, called le bon (the good) in the order of culinary ideas. As a science, it respects chemistry, physics and natural history. Its axioms are called aphorisms, its theorems recipes, and its philosophy gastronomy.

Lucien Tendret

[Told ya.]

A Reason for Feasting

Let one open any book of history, from Herodotus to our own days, and he will see that, without even excepting conspiracies, not a single great event has occurred which has not been conceived, prepared, and carried out at a feast.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste, 1825

On Food and Sensuality

There is...a state of joy to be found in the preparation of a dish. To a true sensualist, there is a depth of feeling evoked in the creation of edible art that stimulates a profound sense of exaltation; it is a feeling of intimate connection with the aesthetic and bodily pleasures shortly to be discovered. There is a powerful sense of urgency, a desire to unveil a world of unawakened pleasures.

from On Food and Sensuality, April 12, 2004

Hello, Clarice...

At long last, I have been the inspiration for a restaurant menu item -- and in exactly the way that suits my personality.

I was spending some time in the kitchen with my friends at Park Place Restaurant in Goshen, NY, and in a moment of purely sick humor, I suggested they put together a dish with foie gras, fava beans and a Chianti, and call it the Lechter.

Heh...next time I went into the restaurant, there it was on the menu:

"Liver with Fava Beans and a Nice Chianti..."

Ththththththththththth......