“All right, girls and boys,” I said. “Grab everything and follow me.”
“This,” I told my team, sweeping an arm over the landscape, “is the place for us, right in front of the press.”
100 food journalists from all over the USA.
We were in Newport at the Astor Mansion to make a light lunch before the big evening show with Guy Savoy featuring the latest culinary truth: no butter or cream in the food.
Turns out there was plenty of both, but first a lunch without any, unless you count fresh coconut ice cream in the dessert.
Six-foot grills were no mystery to us because “Greta” at our Berkeley’s Santa Fe Bar & Grill was that size, taking a whole bag of Mexican mesquite at a time. Along with, occasionally, a .22 bullet as a Mexican joke on us and to keep us on our feet. Or off them and onto the floor as our Master Griller, Steven Vranian (now at Gianni’s steakhouse in Wayzata MN) often had to do. I was on the cold station opposite the grill. When I saw Steven moving very fast, I would duck. As fast as I could.
We were supposed to have the Mansion’s kitchens for the morning hours, but the French arrived just after us and told us to get lost.
We did.
Outside on the lawn overlooking Long Island Sound.
Center stage.
We could not be missed.
I pushed the red sunglasses up on my sweating nose and got to work.
We lined up four five-foot grills just far enough from the press to keep the smoke from their eyes but close enough so they could see the color of ours. The grills were meant to have been kept out of sight; now they would be the focus of everything—a great stage and the center of our entertainment. I insisted that only the most beautiful things should show, that all the mechanics be stowed away under the tables, so the food would “appear” seemingly effortless.
Two hours later, the press materialized.
Their schedule gave them thirty minutes to wander around with glasses of wine before sitting down, so we served them a snack that I could cook and talk about simultaneously: the fresh fennel sausage coiled into large rings, skewered, and grilled whole, then cut into bite-size pieces on large wooden planks. They were served still sizzling from the grill with the juice from our newest exotic ingredient, Rangpur limes, and sprinkled with a salt we flavored with ground, oven-dried peel of lime and cumin seeds. On the side were bowls of grilled tomatillo salsa and a garlic smoked chile sauce.
The journalists took one look at us, one bite of sausage, raised their eyebrows with expectation, and away we went: salsa, ancho chiles, grilling, and California were suddenly it.
Roasted Garlic & Smoked Chile Sauce
Serves 4—6 ·
2 dried ancho chili pods
1 head fresh spring first-crop garlic
2 sprigs fresh thyme
l/2 cup mild extra-virgin olive oil
I ripe lime, zested and juiced
1 ½ tablespoon fresh oregano leaves, chopped
4 ounces unsalted butter
Salt
Grill the chilies over a charcoal, wood, or low gas flame until they puff up, about 3 minutes. Put them in a bowl with enough warm water to cover them. Weight them down with a small saucer, and soak for 2 hours. Drain, saving the water, and remove and discard the stems and seeds.
Meanwhile wrap the head of garlic loosely in foil with the thyme and a tablespoon of the olive oil. Cook over low fire or under a broiler until the garlic is tender, or about 20 minutes. Remove the stem and rough outer layers of the skin and discard. Put all the cloves in a food processor arid puree the garlic with the remaining olive oil. Pass through a sieve and discard the residue.
Puree the chilies with just enough of their soaking water to make a smooth puree. Sieve. Clean out the food processor.
Put the garlic and chili purees in the processor with the lime zest and juice, oregano, butter, and a teaspoon of salt. Puree until soft and smooth. Add more salt if necessary.
Serve on top of grilled fish and shellfish.
Tropical Fruit Compote
But they weren’t totally floored until we grilled the dessert.
After grilling 100 goat cheeses (the French would not let us use the ovens in “their” kitchen, )we were high on fatigue and adrenaline poisoning. I pushed the red sunglasses up on my head and commanded each cook to down a glass of champagne and pick up two huge sauté pans. On a signal from me, they filled them with the tropical fruits, passion fruit, and sugar syrup. Then all of us in unison tossed the fruit compote up in the air like master omelet makers.
That got a standing ovation.
We plated the tropical fruit ragouts, scooped fresh coconut ice cream into the center of each plate, added shortbread cookies—and we were done.
Serve the warm compote either with custard, vanilla or coconut ice cream, mascarpone, or English clotted or heavy cream. And cookies of your choice, like shortbread or warm gingersnaps five minutes out of the oven.
Serves 4—6
2 ripe mangoes, peeled, cut in quarter inch slices
1ripe papaya, peeled, seeded, cut in ¼-inch slices
2 ripe passion fruit, cut in half, pulp and juice saved
½ cup medium sugar syrup
2 limes, juiced
1 tbs unsalted butter
Salt
Shredded fresh coconut for garnish
Put the mango and papaya slices in a medium-size nonreactive frying pan. Whisk the passion fruit pulp with the sugar syrup for I minute to break up the pulp, and add to the fruit.
Warm the fruit over medium heat until just heated through—about 3 minutes. Add the lime juice, butter, and pinch of salt. Turn up the heat, and swirl the pan around until the butter is just melted.
Serve immediately in soup plates with the cream or ice cream in the center.
California Cuisine
The journalists and their 100 newspapers and magazines spread the word about “California Cuisine.” So much so that the word reached that hotbed of trend, Hong Kong.
The Mandarin Hotel wanted to transform its stuffy old-boy (they thought) Mandarin Grill.
That same year, 1983, they called to persuade me to introduce Santa Fe Bar & Grill’s what had just been called “New California Cuisine” at the Grill. As I talked to them, I could feel the starched heavy linen sheets in the suite with its own butler. I needed a rest. I sent them a list of 150 American Regional dishes, hinting that we should take the event beyond Califonia.
Some of which were:
Anaheim chilies stuffed with California goat cheese, Chinese black bean sauce
Warm avocado salad with shiitake and lobster mushrooms
Palm Beach crabmeat salad with pomelo
Duck prosciutto with pear and spiced pecan salad
Grilled oysters with crispbarbecued duck skin
Gumbo with crayfish, smoked duck sausages, fried pork belly
Grilled sweetbreads with sea urchin cream sauce
Buffalo steak with BBQ sauce
Astor Mansion Cranberry-glazed lamb loin
Turtle Cay bananas in rum with durian cream
Tropical fruit compote with coconut ice cream
Cornmeal blini with American caviar
The Mandarin’s press release said “Inspired by the superb natural produce and wines of California, and fresh Pacific seafood, Jeremiah Tower is leading a revolution in American restaurant kitchens with a highly inventive, highly personal style of cooking, giving new flair to ethnic and regional dishes, whilst maintaining their basic simplicity. Dishes are brilliantly eclectic blends of wholesome ‘country fare’ and exotic imported ingredients such as blood oranges, Maui onions, Oregon morels, nasturtium flowers, stone crabs, quail eggs, American caviar, and garden tomatoes.”
Well, that sounded like a trend.
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