So what food experiences, be they dining, cookbooks, chefs, or any combination are the most inspiring to you?
I have 3.
The first is Michel Richard, the book "Happy in the Kitchen" which a food-interested person could just read for the pleasure of experiencing how Chef Richard experienced and wrote about food without ever making a dish from it. I was lucky enough to eat at two of his restaurants in the Washington DC area. RIP, happy chef, we miss you. Two dishes come to mind right away when I think of Chef Richard, his Sante Fe Corn (a summertime staple in my kitchen) and his chocolate grapes <recipe below>
Chocolate Grapes
The next chef in my list wold be the "fat man," Paul Prudhomme, and his cookbook, "Louisiana Kitchen." In my early 20s my friends and I would congregate over at one friend's house almost every Friday night, for a night of poker playing, music making, and whiskey drinking. One of the guys always had something going on in the kitchen, and he pretty much first taught me how to cook and gave me the cooking bug and it was here that we worked our way through a lot of that cookbook. To this day, jambalaya is an almost weekly staple for my family. Eventually I was lucky enough to eat in his New Orleans place, K-Pauls before he passed, RIP chef.
Lastly, and these are in no particular order, is Chef Jean-Louis Palladin, eating in his Las Vegas restaurant, "Napa," was a twice in a lifetime epiphany for me, I'm not sure I ever looked at the artistry of cooking, plating, and serving food the same way again. I did finally score his cookbook, "Jean-Louis, Cooking with the Seasons" but honestly I have never cooked from it, it is more of a coffee table book of inspiration so far, maybe someday. Chef Jean-Louis was taken way too soon, RIP.
I have 3.
The first is Michel Richard, the book "Happy in the Kitchen" which a food-interested person could just read for the pleasure of experiencing how Chef Richard experienced and wrote about food without ever making a dish from it. I was lucky enough to eat at two of his restaurants in the Washington DC area. RIP, happy chef, we miss you. Two dishes come to mind right away when I think of Chef Richard, his Sante Fe Corn (a summertime staple in my kitchen) and his chocolate grapes <recipe below>
Chocolate Grapes
- 1/4 lb of semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, melted
- 1 lb of red seedless grapes, make sure they are fairly dry
- 2 Tbs cocoa powder
- sea salt or flaky salt of choice <this is my addition, not part of Richard's orig. recipe, optional>
- With the grapes in a mixing bowl, use a rubber spatula to drizzle the chocolate over the grapes a little at a time. Make sure the chocolate is not scalding hot first (touch a dab to your lips, it should not burn). Mix them up, add a little salt if desired (omg, the salt really makes it pop, do it!) and add a little more chocolate until it is all folded in. <at this point, everything will look like a giant congealed/stuck-together disaster!>
- Using a fine mesh small strainer, dust the cocoa powder over the chocolatized grapes, gently prying them apart with the spatula and you mix it in, as all the powder is added, they will fall apart individually and readily, disaster averted. Note: use just enough powder to lightly coat them and help them separate, any more will just be wasted falling to the bottom of the bowl...
The next chef in my list wold be the "fat man," Paul Prudhomme, and his cookbook, "Louisiana Kitchen." In my early 20s my friends and I would congregate over at one friend's house almost every Friday night, for a night of poker playing, music making, and whiskey drinking. One of the guys always had something going on in the kitchen, and he pretty much first taught me how to cook and gave me the cooking bug and it was here that we worked our way through a lot of that cookbook. To this day, jambalaya is an almost weekly staple for my family. Eventually I was lucky enough to eat in his New Orleans place, K-Pauls before he passed, RIP chef.
Lastly, and these are in no particular order, is Chef Jean-Louis Palladin, eating in his Las Vegas restaurant, "Napa," was a twice in a lifetime epiphany for me, I'm not sure I ever looked at the artistry of cooking, plating, and serving food the same way again. I did finally score his cookbook, "Jean-Louis, Cooking with the Seasons" but honestly I have never cooked from it, it is more of a coffee table book of inspiration so far, maybe someday. Chef Jean-Louis was taken way too soon, RIP.
