CHEF is a Movie Even the CIA Could Love

There are foodie films and then there are movies that reach beyond
Hollywood’s stereotypes about romantic soufflés into the art of heart
of why professional cooks cook. One wonderfully different film that
pulls no punches is Jon Favreau’s new film CHEF.

The authenticity of this film is amazing from knife skills to how
chefs create. The story begins as Chef Carl Casper (written and played
by Jon Favreau) faces culinary boredom as a ‘successful’ high-end Los
Angeles chef who has been cooking the same dishes for five long years.

When Chef Casper learns that he is about to be reviewed by the famed
critic Ramsey Michel (played to perfection by Oliver Platt) he decides
to alter the long established menu and create something new and
innovative.

His urge to create brings him into direct conflict with the
restaurant’s owner (played as cold hearted money man by Dustin
Hoffman). The result is a disaster that literally goes viral thanks to
the Internet and soon the Chef is unemployed, drifting without a
compass professionally or personally.

The rest of the film plays in humor and pathos as the Chef rediscovers
thanks to a food truck, an insightful son and fine friends that
cuisine to be authentic must reach beyond the kitchen and connect with
life.

In the end there is laughter and music and joy for both the Chef and
the audience lucky enough to catch this uniquely honest film that in
the end does more than show the stress and strain of the back of the
house. It captures as few films do the true reason cuisine is an art –
when well done we can changes lives: including our own.

Thank You Nelson Mandela for the Truth You Shared

Yesterday a great man died. He inspired us; he reminded us to be all that we can be, never less.

Whether it was his courage to withstand hunger without hate in the hell that was the prison on Robben Island or the joy with which he viewed the rounded gourd-shaped World Cup soccer stadium, he demonstrated daily the depth and width of the human heart when filled with understanding love.

He led South Africa to freedom, without the horror of massacre. He showed the world that problems can be solve without burning restaurants and shattered hotel windows.

The lessons he taught have flowed like a mighty river beyond the borders of his single country. As a result, country after country, of which he was not even a citizen, have lowered their flags today in respect and gratitude.

This global gesture is done to honor a man, who showed through a courage that defines the very heart of love, that compassion - not explosions, is the path to peace and fellowship.

Thank you. Thank you for being Nelson Mandela.

May we never forget the lessons you shared, the lessons you taught. 

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

El Somni Is Truly a Culinary Opera Dream Come True

For over a year now the famed Roca Brothers of Spain have been crafting a unique culinary presentation, El Somni, a culinary opera.

Their truly amazing creation is a stunning collaboration of cuisine, form, music and wonder – worthy of the esteemed name, ‘Opera’.

The universality of this 'great work' (for that is what the word ‘opera’ actually means), is reflected in the diversity of the first 12 individuals invited to experience the work.

The premiere guest list included an HIV researcher, a fellow chef, an anthropologist, an actress, a theoretical physicist, a poet, an artist, a film director, a research biologist, a conductor, a food writer and a robotics researcher.

The composition of the work is divided into 12 concepts or courses that wrap the viewing diner in The Dream that is the experience’s title translated.

The courses pay homage to the great French chef François Vatel, who killed himself in 1671 when his concept for a vital banquet that was to be served to the French King Louis XIV was destroyed by the late delivery of fresh fish from the coast.

Such was the temperament of a dedicated artist when art was an expected part of the 'noble' life.

EL SOMNI MENU

•  Prelude: Water Nymph (Vegetable soup at low temperature, sprouts, flowers and light)
• The Dream Begins (Moon)
• Space (Foams frost Indian figue) 
• Ophiucus (Electric eel)
• Under the Sea (Shrimps, plankton, and anemones, sea urchins, cockles, seawater, crustaceans)
• Garden of the Hesperides (Anarkia)
• The Courtship (Ying yang Palo Cortado oysters with garlic and white all black)
• The Carnality (Pueblano pigeon breast with mole, grilled strawberries and roses)
• Apple/Brittle (Golden apple)
• War (Royal hare roial with blood orange and beet)
• Mercy/Death (Parmentier potatoes with purple bone marrow,caviar, purple flowers and incense smoke)
• Glory (Dessert mass mother, mother dough ice cream)
• Awakening (Sweet spring)

Yet the wonder of the evening does not rest solely on the event's innovation cuisine. Expanding on the talents developed in the three brothers’ world famous restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, these three creative chefs also collaborated with a diverse group of visual artists, including Franc Aleu, Daniel Molina, Pere Grife, and Peret, to create an experience that defies the limits of culinary classification.

After its initial premiere in Barcelona, this unique work will be hosted at 12 different locations around the world, followed by a documentary book, exhibit and finally a film by Mediapro.

If possible, do all you can to attend.  Like listening to great opera performed well for the first time, afterwards you will never view the world in quite that same way as before. And that is, truly, the definition of great art. 

 Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Remembering Kennedy Warmly

Fifty years ago America, like so many other countries, lost a promising young leader to hate and senseless violence. Kennedy was a leader who hoped for peace because he had seen the terrible face of war.

He was also a man who found some small part of that peace at sea. When time allowed, which was far too seldom, he left the White House and sought time sailing. There he was away from the stress of decisions that affected millions and from the pain that dogged his days.

Who shot him and why is still debated. Was it Cuban terrorists, was it the Mafia, was it a lone gunman? We may never know. But the singular truth remains that such violence, in the end, solves nothing and only leaves behind tears and fears and a thousand unanswered questions.

As America pauses and remembers that horrid day that shocked and shattered the nation, it is so easy to forget the man, a man sailing with the wind in his face, seeking answers he was never allowed to find.

Let's not forget he was not a monument or a demi-god - just a person daring to seek sane solutions in a world that seems to offer few.

Often after he finished sailing, he enjoyed a warming bowl of chowder made in the New England style. Later, when his duties as president keep him sitting painfully hour after hour behind his large oak desk in the Oval Office, he would often send down to the White House kitchen for his favorite chowder and continue working long into the night, still guiding the ship of state. 

Here is the White House recipe for that very chowder - enjoy and then pause and consider the challenge he left behind for each of us to steer a good and noble course in life:

Kennedy's Favorite New England Chowder

INGREDIENTS 

• 2 pounds Haddock
• 2 ounces salt pork (diced)
• 2 onions (sliced)
• 4 potatoes (diced)
• 1 cup celery (chopped)
• 1 Bay leaf (crumbled)
• 1 quart milk
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Freshly ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

1. Simmer haddock in 2 cups of water for 15 minutes, drain and reserve broth.
2. Remove bones from fish.
3. Sauté diced pork until crisp, remove and set aside.
4. Sauté onions in pork fat until golden brown.
5. Add fish, potatoes, celery, bay leaf, salt and pepper.
6. Pour in fish broth plus enough boiling water to make 3 cups of liquid.
7. Simmer for 30 minutes.
8. Add milk and butter and simmer for 5 minutes.
9. Serve chowder sprinkled over pork dice.

 Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013

Two Legends Reign as St Regis NYC Re-installs the King Cole Bar Mural

New Yorkers are cheering as the St. Regis Hotel has now reinstalled Maxfield Parrish's famous King Cole Bar mural after a four year absence. After a century of being surrounded by smokers, the artwork has been restored to its original stunning luster. The result is like seeing the large 30 foot painting for the first time.

The restored mural now glistens with an iridescent effect that is exactly what Parrish famously created during his lifetime without equal.

Like a master chef who layers flavor on flavor to create a final culinary masterpiece, Parrish placed layers after layer of light-enhancing varnish between his individual colors to create the unique glowing effect that the staff of the Rustin Levenson Art Conservation Associates have so carefully reclaimed.

Art historians, as a result, consider Parrish to be in a class by himself – just like the famed King Cole Bar itself. Year after year the rich, the famous and the talented have favored this New York landmark. Most often it is the Bar’s famed Bloody Mary cocktail that everyone seems to ask for at least once (or twice).

Indeed, this esteemed cocktail was created in its final form at the King Cole by bar master Fernand, “Pete” Petiot.  And although there had been previous versions, it was at the St Regis that it was finally christened the Bloody Mary – all thanks to James A. Michener and Juanita Hall.

Prior to 1947, the Bar had served the cocktail under the name of the Red Snapper. But that year a previously unknown writer, James A. Michener, released a small book entitled, Tales of the South Pacific. Within a year this collection of revealing stories about war in the Pacific theater would win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. It would go on to be transformed into the epic musical, South Pacific, by Rogers and Hammerstein.

Enter Juanita Hall. In the Broadway production and also in the 1958 movie version, she would play a unique character entitled, yes – you guessed it, Bloody Mary. A skilled jazz singer in her own right, she made this role her own. Her haunting rendition of the song, Bali Ha’i, won her the Tony Award, the first ever presented to an African American woman. 

In one of those rare moments when a society acknowledges a major cultural change, the name of this half tomato-half vodka (plus spices) cocktail converted overnight to the Bloody Mary, the name of Juanita Hall's unforgettable character.

And so it has been called ever since. Oh, various individual people would, through the years, say they alone named the drink. Such occurances, however, seldom stem from a single source - history rarely works that way.

No perhaps, just perhaps, it was the conscience of the American people who decided to honor a book, a musical, a pivotal role – a difference, an acceptance of equality... all still presided over to this very day by ol’ King Cole in the restored mural that now glows softly behind the bar at the legendary St Regis Hotel. 

Post Note, November 21, 2013: Chef John De Lucie just finished his relaunch of the King Cole Bar and Salon. Among those present to celebrate the re-installation of Parrish's grand painting at the St. Regis Hotel were Uma Thurman and Hilary Rhoda - definitely ladies of discerning taste and style.

Your Culinary World copyright Ana Kinkaid/Peter Schlagel 2013