This is one way.
The other is to cook summer menus and the other to read (or reread) The 1955
“Elizabeth David is the woman who changed the face of British cooking. She introduced post-war Britain to the sun-drenched delights of the Mediterranean and her recipes brought new flavors and aromas into British kitchens.”
“A selection of dishes, for table, buffet and picnic, that are light, easy to prepare and based on, looking back to the future, seasonal ingredients with recipes from a simple Salade Niçoise to Strawberry Soufflé.”
Inspiring me 15 years later to come up with these menus and enjoy a few made by friends.
June 1970 Summer Tenants Arrive: Time to Drink the Cellar
[The basement of my Sommerville Mass. House that I was subletting for the summer had no lock, so nothing for it but to loosen a few corks].
Chateau Mouton-Rothschild 1924: Absolute perfection. After all this time and travel. I regretted opening it, and tears for the moment not matching its grace
June 1970 John Sanger, my Texan Friend Cooks in the Heat for a Friend.
[John, like me, was buying old wines from Sotheby’s and Christie’s. He had plenty of money, but this wine s was still cheap. And perfect].
Red Snapper, cold
2 bottles Dom Perignon 1959”
June 1970 Dinner with Annie Meyer
Mussels in mayonnaise
Cold duck
Melon
A German wine. Chateau Margaux 1963, pleasant, never a great Margaux.
1971 While Reading Montesquiou by Philippe Jullian,
“Men no longer wear (tight) breeches at balls, and one can’t tell what they are thinking.” And the phrase “A carnage of geraniums.” Must write a book with that name.
Ripe old Stilton
Sweet meal biscuits
Madeira 1915
Found (the Madeira) in the midst of a liquor supermarket in Revere, Mass!!
1971 Lunch by Myself at the Farm. Eating the Produce
[The farm in Pride’s Crossing, Massachusetts, during graduate school.]
Iced lemon Vodka
Cold roast pheasant
Vosne-Romanée 1961. Superb!
1971 Fancy Dress Literary Fete at Harvard Commons Room
Dressed as Radclyffe Hall, the first lesbian novelist, The Well of Loneliness.
Image: Mathew Lyons
Wearing my mother’s Patou suit from our trip to Paris for it in the 1953. When I fell in love with restaurants and markets.
Stingers and Sidecars
California Oysters
Amphetamines
1971 Michael Palmer at the Farm, Pride’s Crossing, in July Having Arrived from California.
Saturday lunch
Saumon Froid, mayonnaise verte, Ch. D’Yquem 1947
Fraises, Ch. D’Yquem 1966
Mayonnaise with lobster fat, salmon fat and fresh herbs. Superb. The ’47 was outstanding - chilled on ice it hit one’s tongue as too chilled – immediately warming up and releasing an infinite series of finite sensations. Some bitterness. ’66 very promising, delicious, strong.
Talked of the origin of the d’Yquem and roast beef. Told them the Felix Yusupov story of Felix assassinating Rasputin. As told to me by his cousin and fellow assassin Count Sheremetev.
Saturday Dinner
Parsley Pierogi
Pasta lobster marinara
Caesar’s salad
Gorgonzola with grapes
Iced vodka – 4 house flavors with the pierogi. White Côtes du Rhône from then on.
The Caesar a flop: cheese too young (moist) and impossible to find good lettuce. Must grow our own again.
[“Pierogi are filled dumplings made by wrapping unleavened dough around a filling and cooking in boiling water. Typical fillings include potato and cheese, sauerkraut, ground meat, mushrooms.”]
At the end of dinner Michael and I had Romeo y Julietas.
The cookbooks and a cat behind me
Sunday Dinner
Pasta, pesto sauce
Boiled beef, cold, horseradish sauce
Salad
Cheese & fruit
Bulk California Burgundy
1971 Summer Lunch at Albert Stockli, Stonehenge Inn, Ridgefield, Conn. “To celebrate the revolution.”
Stockli was the great chef that made the Four Seasons in NY famous. A genius chef, mostly now forgotten. The best in the US in his day. I talked with him for 4 months to plan this lunch. The California wine, after much discussion of French, were his idea. His passion. He wanted me to taste them side by side. He did not know the vintages before they were open because there were no labels. One of the great meals of my life, he was totally intrigued that a Harvard Student would take months to plan a lunch, and drive down from Boston to do it. The fact that the car was an Aston Martin DB 5 convertible made the journey easier.
[The ham with champagne was a no brainer, nor was the “Our own live Brook Trout, Classic Bleu served with sauce Mousseline”]
Jambon de Grisons
Bunderfleisch de Grisons
Truite au Bleu, sauce mousseline
Soupe de pommes de terre, Suisse
Carré d’agneau Armenonville (haricots verts)
Rosti
Choux fleur au gratin
Salade
Brie
Soufflé Grand Marnier
The wines were Dom Perignon 1959, Beaulieu Vineyards Georges de Latour Cabernet Sauvignon 1934 Park & Tilford Importers, NY, St. Julien 1934.
The ham was air-letter thinness – the beef also. Superb. The champagne was just right after a three-hour drive, fresh, not at all the Camembert bouquet of the ’61 or ’62 but it was deceptively smooth, and as ‘good’ as anything could be. Great color – soft gold. The kindest wine ever. A lovely, lovely thing.
[I would add now, that the air-cured beef sliced tissue thinly with champagne is still one of my favorite ways to begin a meal. They are meant for each other].
Then I saw the blue trout arrive, and my heart leapt at the sight of the three of them in a large sautéing pan in a swimming position, but in a inch of melted butter instead of the seconds ago hot court-bouillon bath. The first time I have ever had them – and although ‘farm-raised ‘from the pond outside, the flavor was full and light. No Purina Chow taste. The mousseline was pale gold, made by angels. Totally complimentary to the fish – a good lesson that the sauce only adds, is necessary to the appreciation of the fish in and of itself.
[This dish inspired me to find a trout farm in California when at Panisse, to import the live fish from Big Sur, kill them to order, and serve a 120 of them. Reminds me of the chapter in Alice B. Toklas’ cookbook about “Murder in the kitchen.”].
With the last drop of the ’59, the hot cream soup – delicious but fortunately whisked away before we could finish.
The lamb – baby cutlets carved from three racks. Superb, each just a mouthful.
The best ‘fried potatoes’ – grated slivers sautéed in a cake, the surface evenly golden brown without a blemish. [Later I would have Richard Olney teach me how to make this dish called a paillasson].
The choux fleur – done to perfection, the sauce light, slightly gratineed.
Salad – I don’t remember.
Brie – ripe but not runny.
How to describe the Beaulieu Vineyards Georges de Latour? It was the winner of the day.
Will I move on to California wines!
1972 Dinner at Locke-Ober – My Farewell to All the Harvard Young Things
Taittinger B de B 1964
Oysters Winter Place
Grilled sweetbreads
Peche Melba
Coffee and sidecars
Bollinger 1966with the oysters, a Grand Vin de Leoville 1937 with the sweetbreads.
August 1972 San Francisco Cocktail to go with Tripes a la Mode de Caen instead of a French 75.
Lemon juice
Calvados
Dash of Pernod
Triple sec
Shake over ice
Serve in frozen up glass
CALIFORNIA BEFORE CHEZ PANISSE
1972 Big Sur Dinner at Emile Norman’s for Elizabeth Gordon of House Beautiful.
With Brooks [Emile’s husband] and Emile. Eliz. Telling stories of Frank Lloyd Wright, Taliesin – the witch his wife – and Mies.
Alice B. with whom she travelled a few times, once to Venice when Alice was old. Even then great courage and knew where to find all the best food and restaurants.
Cannelloni
Persimmons with fenugreek mayonnaise
An unforgettable combination
Chateau Gloria 1966
Chapelle-Chambertin 1961: Superb, velvet
1972 Nightmare Dinner
Waking at 5 am in a dream of designing a restaurant, that I should work in one. I wake up. My 1955 Lafite present from John sits on the shelf.
This is what I dreamed of, all on a plate together.
Steak with marrow bone filled with marrow soufflé
Herb babu au rhum
Puree of celery root
Sauce perigord on steak
1972 A Pafty for Poets
Robert Duncan (on top form), Robert Creeley (drunk and fighting), and Bobby Creeley(who was satisfied after I told her she was one of the most attractive women I had ever met), Gerard Malanga (not as beautiful as I had heard and seen, but boys with him v. desirable), Michael Palmer. Ferlinghetti, and Burroughs (scary).
Cold salmon (decorated with persimmons and avocado leaves)
Rabbit pate
Smithfield ham
Spinach soufflé
Cheeses
Wedding cakes (light English fruit cakes)
Veuve Clicquot Pondsardin brut (oceans of it)
1972 After Reading De Profundis again
3:30 am
Write a suicide note “My silk shirts died”
Goose soup and Chambertin 1934 Cuvee Heritiers Latour.
Decide to live
1972 Letter to my sister from San Fellation
[I was a failure at getting hired as an architect, so was thinking of either a gardener or cook].
Dearest Mary,
Why is it that, inevitably, when I go to a party virtually brimming over with Indians from ancient jungles, smooth Chinese-Malays, Burroughs’ Japanese, Swiss dairy and Argentinian L’Uomo Vogue bathing –suit extravaganzas of boy flesh, I end up tangoing ‘til dawn in the arms of a Garcia Lorca lesbian from Cuba? The rich continue to not pay their bills, and to disappear their ideas and projects when I remind them of their brilliant ideas, once verbalized, to hire me as their field fertilizer, crop seducer, and Mellors extrordinaire.”
1972 What’s in the Refrigerator
Looking after the Michael and Cathy Palmer house
Jerry-
In the freezer there’s bread and vodka in the fridge champagne, et al., and ox-tails with grapes.
Beware of the cats; they try to suck one’s breath at night.
Spring 1972
The virtues of boiled garlic. Spread on new bread and butter. I put with marrow, a paste for toast.
Chateau d’Yquem 1967
Dinner at Cathy Simon and Michael Palmer after seeing the film La Grande Bouffe
Poached Salmon Trout, Horseradish Sauce
Guinea Fowl Vallée d’Auge
Dandelion Salad, Walnuts, Walnut Oil
Sacripantina cake
Taittinger, blanc de blancs, 1964
Chateau Haut-Brion 1962
Chateau Suduiraut, 1949
Calvados
[Vallée d’Auge is shallots, butter, Calvados, cider and cream]
CHEZ PANISSE YEARS
Heading my Journal: “Simple Pleasures are the Last Refuge of the Complex.” Oscar Wilde.
The Bibliography in my journal from 1973 say “Curnonsky, Olney, Elizabeth David, Ali-Bab, Le Guide Culinaire, Gerald Asher and Hugh Johnson.”
Wooed by Gene Opton
Gene the guiding partner at Chez Panisse these days and had put in the money and financial control to keep it going. This menu and evening the way she planned it shows the real sensibility that was moving Panisse forward. She hired me.
Before the Maria Callas and di Stefano last concert.
Turkey Sandwiches with Roederer Cristal 1966
After the Concert at Maurice et Charles restaurant, San Rafael
Salmon Pate en Croute
Vacherin
Lanson 64 (red label)
Back at Gene’s
Cherries
Chateau Suduiraut 1929
The Suduiraut the color of mahogany – but although thus severely ‘maderized’ – still balanced, sugar good, and quite drinkable. V. enjoyable.
June 1974 the Haldeman at Chez Panisse Incident Dinner
[HR during the hysteria of his being seated in the dining room and then coming into the kitchen and shaking my hand].
And the telephones being cut, the board members coming over and threatening to fire me, which they could not, the staff threatening to quit, the riot outside, the head waiter the only one who would take the food.
Pate of fresh duck livers with apples, shallots and port
Puree of fresh Jerusalem artichokes
Veal braised in white wine and cream
Salad or cheese
Fruit and coffee
Quick Trip to Paris
After a dinner at Au Pied du Cochon - where the Plateau Royale is 35 francs [now betwwn 90 and 160 euros per person] - and mediocre cooking at L’Escargot.
The materials are so superior to US produce, the food is that much more impressive. Must speed up the small farm idea and encourage local produce and shellfish, especially the oysters.
Return from this journey really pushing local growers and suppliers. Seems very important moment in the new American food movement. What about making our own house wine? See Phelps and to get a wine importer to bring in local and regional wines. See Kermit Lynch later as I get him to bring in Domaine Tempier and ask Richard Olney to introduce him to local wine makers.
1974 Dinner at an American Friend’s Apartment
All Americans at the dinner, all who live in France except me, and all of them saying why don’t you do this in California? Bring in the best of the local wine and food.
Salade au lardons – excellent
Cotelettes de veau au poivre vert a la crème -
Fromages
Tarte aux Pommes – flour and egg variety pastry, excellent also
Cerises au liqueur (homemade) – excellent idea
A great regional Puligny Montrachet. For 6 francs. Vin rouge de Bourgogne
Real veal! Wonderful veal, with taste, and pure white. Makes the “veal” US version ridiculous. Green peppercorns incredibly superior to US canned. Even though canned here also. Explanation? Sauces only with crème fraiche. The wines from the chic and becoming famous traiteur Lucian Le Grand. Must get Linton or someone to import regional wines to California – or do them ourselves.
Next morning ripped to the tits. Cocaine to wake up. Also, a Vouvray Cremant. And more of that cerises au liqueur. She’s [hostess] a Scorpio – I knew it after ½ an hour.
BIG SUR DAYS & VENTANA
1979 and “What is American Food, let alone Californian?” as my last comment on page 3.
DINNERS OUTSIDE OF PANISSE
1975 Winetasting lunch at Domaine Tempier in Bandol. JT, R. Olney, owners Lucien and Lulu Petraud, and family.
[After this day at the property, we did bring in Domaine Tempier at Chez Panisse, and I did later introduce Kermit Lynch to the wine. Then Olney and I wrote the menus for 2 weeks of Tempier at Chez Panisse, which were the foundation for the later nationally famous Zinfandel Week at Panisse, leading me to get the wine made locally rather than using local French. At the time of this visit Richard introduced me to the wines of Georges Duboeuf, gave me the address and advised me to bring them into California].
From the barrels and barriques we tasted 3 cuvees the 1975 reds, 3– one fabulous! Can get for Panisse?
Then the 74, 73, 72, 70, 64 and the 60.
Lunch at the Family Table
Rose 1964
Fresh bass with fennel grilled over vine cuttings
Sauce with roes, livers, lemon, their olive oil
Tomates provencales
Lamb’s lettuce with garlic oil
Frommages
Fruits
Coffee
The rose, 1961 – spoiled, 1968 rouge, 1964 rouge, Marc 1961
The 61 was the choice for the lunch, but since spoiled Lucien brought out a mystery, the 68, not considered very promising, but this one turned out to be better than should have been. The 64 was to “discover” with the triumph of the cheeses. Was excellent.
1975 Bread and Water with Richard Olney
After the long day with the Peyrauds, and a painful drive over the mountains back up the perilous goat track to Richard’s house we were hungry in that odd way one is after a long day of food and wine. So, we went out in the dark garden and picked some potatoes and onions. This is one of those moments when the food for the moment fit perfectly and becomes a memory that never goes away. Rare and true perfection.
The soup just water, potatoes, onions – finished with butter and salt & pepper and v. stale bread. A lifesaver!
Puligny Montrachet 1971 – very good.
1882 Richard Olney’s House
Krug rose (1st release)
Eggs in crayfish sauce
Roast partridge
THE STARS YEARS 1984-1998
“Soft and precious flavors of the past” says Fellini, and marks on the first page of the 1984 Diary.
1995 Dinner for Richard Olney, Chuck Williams and SF Restaurateurs, at Stars San Francisco
Osetra
Herb timbale with mussels
Beef cheeks, Pasta filled with Corn and Foie Gras
Peaches, cherries
Almond pound cake
“J” Schram, Krug Salon le Mesnil, Kumeu River Chardonnay 1992, Corton, Doudet-Naudin 1964, Beaune, “Les Marechaudes” 1955
1996 Florida Winefest Founder’s Dinner ar Stars
I was the chef and chose the wines from the great Wilson Daniels Ltd. decided to put the chardonnay after the red Burgundy – it worked!
Smoked wahoo carpaccio with grilled Florida frogs’ legs
Pasta gratin with wild turkey
Confit of duck leg with Parsnip & pecan salad
Blue cheese soufflé
Caramelized apple with mangoes and Passionfruit sauce
Wiebelsberg Grand Cru Riesling, Marc Kreydenweiss 1990, Romanee St. Vivant DRC 1987, Kumeu River Chardonnay 1992, Brunello di Montalcino Riserva, Biondi-Santi 1983, Furst Lowenstein Beerenauslese 1989
1997 James Beard Foundation Dinner, Stars, San Francisco
[This was the last big dinner that I gave at Stars before I sold it to an Asian investor].
Champagne Audoin de Dampierre
Smoked sturgeon with devilled quail eggs
Roast chicken broth with ginger and Chinese black bean custard
Duck leg confit with parsnip-celery root-herb salad
White chocolate cheesecake with fresh lychees and passionfruit sauce
Veuve Clicquot Brut, “Magnificat” Franciscan, Oakville, 1994, Iniskillin chardonnay 1994, Vidal Icewine, Inniskillin, 1995
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