Augieland

Top Ten New Chefs '06

The thing I was most excited about for my trip to Food & Wine Magazine's Aspen Classic 2006 was the Best New Chefs Dinner. Saturday night, after a day spent in seminars and walking around in the sunshine and air of a beautiful 87-degree day in the Rockies, Wife and I joined about 998 other people under a rather elaborate network of party tents in the backyard of the Ritz Carlton Club to taste a dish from each of the ten men and women named Best New Chef in the magazine's July issue.

Before I go on to give you my thoughts on the dishes each chef prepared, it is worth mentioning a couple things:

1. These people were awarded best new chef, not best new caterer. I will, as always, be as honest and frank as I can about what my thoughts were regarding the dishes and their execution, but must note that each chef probably made about 3000 samples of their dish, in the mountains, under a tent with a support staff of students. I say this more in praise then as an offered excuse.
2. The team that organized this deserves a huge amount of credit. Besides being able to make it through each line about twice with little more than an eight-minute wait, there was also space away from the tables to stop and talk, enjoy a cocktail with friends, or listen to the music. I have been to a lot of multi-chef/multi-tasting events and seldom are their enough plates, napkins, and glasses (let alone plenty of food) accompanied by a sense of calm.

Ordered according to my preference, the chefs and their dishes were:

Michael Carlson of Schwa in Chicago, Illinois made Prosciutto Consommé with Melon. A demitasse cup contained a consommé so focused aromatically it tasted as if it was being sprayed directly onto your soft palate as opposed to being drunk, while staying ethereal enough to perfectly show off the aroma of the small balls of cantaloupe floating in it. On top of this were a couple of micro-arugula leaves and a dried chip of prosciutto that was the distillation of the taste of an entire plate of the ham in one small, crisp bite.

Pino Maffeo of Restaurant L in Boston, Massachusets offered Slow-cooked Veal Breast, grains of paradise, maple glaze. The yielding rich bite of veal breast was complemented by light notes of smoke and earthy sweetness with black olive while contrasted by a slight onion-like bite. Along with this, Pino served two amuses, a red wine gelée with root beer leaf and crumbled French meringue, and a black truffle popcorn soup. The soup was irrefutably my hands down favorite flavor of the evening and, had it not been just the smallest of tastes to compliment, I would have put Pino at the top of the list. As is, I am planning a trip to Boston as soon as I can confirm this soup will be offered at least by the cup, if not bowl and take-home container.

Stewart Woodman of Five in Minneapolis, Minnesota put forth Au Bon Canard Seared Duck Breast, celery root slaw, lobster vinaigrette. The duck breast was a simple sear focused on crisping the fat side, the slaw was a crunchy light rich counter to its chew and flavors of carmelization. The lobster vinaigrette went almost unnoticed until I was about to put my plate down and realized that the aroma of lobster perfuming my entire head was born of that brick colored sauce I was about to let go of, causing me to reclaim the plate and go looking for a sauce spoon.

Douglas Keane of Cyrus in Healdsburg, California proffered Thai Marinated Lobster, avocado, mango, fresh hearts of palm. Walking a beaten path, Douglas showed his talents in not letting any one of these or the other flavors, like basil, cilantro and oil, take over, so in the long run you had a very fresh tasting bite about the lobster's sweetness and how it plays off flavors at the higher end of the spectrum.

Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Virginia passed Braised Leg of Lamb in Gelée with Braised Leg of Lamb. A simple pan-seared slice of individual lamb muscle set atop a slice of a terrine of lamb meat and aromatics in gelée. Complex richness serving as counterpoint to a simple, pure, slightly gamey version of a component of itself.

David Chang of Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York, New York gave us Steamed Berkshire Pork Buns, hoisin, scallions, and pickled cucumber. The toothsomeness of the pork-belly versus the light flavors and crunch of the pickles and scallion was perfect, each becoming more for the contrast. The bun wrapped around it was also perfect in its lightness, both in texture and sweetness. I am just not sure these two elements should have been combined: the depth of the pork and the etherealness of its bun seemed to be of such different worlds that they may need not have met.

Christopher Lee of Striped Bass in Philadelphia, Pennsylvainia presented Tasmanian Sea Trout, honey-white balsamic caviar, ricotta cheese, fine herbs. The flavors around the piece of fish were great, the caviar a slightly sweet/slightly acidic refreshing, inspired use of espherication played well off the lactic acidity/richness of the ricotta, and the herbs added many little touches of flavor variation. All this went so well together that the fish seemed a superfluous nonentity.

Jonathan Benno of Per Se in New York, New York bestowed Pickled Gulf Shrimp with Ajo Blanco. A shrimp that had been lightly pickled, enough so that its inherent sweetness was masked but not enough that the pickling offered its own identity, balanced impressively and precariously on the edge of a teacup over a medium-thick white liquid that had the tang of fresh yogurt. In an evening of precious little dishes, this one seemed most.

Jason Wilson of Crush in Seattle, Washington was doling out Slow Braised Short Rib "Burgers," tomato jam , truffled pecorino, horseradish. Jason's flavors were composed in an un-ignorable manner. These were great earth flavors layered one on top of the other. In execution, though, the sear on the burger brought out the tough chew of the short rib, and the truffle-scented bun (a stroke of genius aromatically) was crumply so that it disintegrated in your hand and spilled down your chin after the first bite.

Mary Dumont of The Dunaway Restaurant at Strawberry Banke in Portsmith, New Hampshire conferred Seared Maine Scallop sweet corn, fennel confit, haricot vert, smoked bacon, and fennel pollen vinaigrette. The scallop was one-side-seared so that it had the awesome depth of the flavors of caramelization, while maintaining a giving bite. Along with it were wonderfully fresh vegetables as snappy as you could want. The problem was that until a very nice finish of fennel about a minute after swallowing, the pervasive smoke flavor was too overwhelming for the components. You could tell they wanted to flaunt their natural sweetness but weren't allowed.

All the chefs put an amazing foot forward and I look forward to getting to their places as I travel about. If you have the benefit of starting out close, I would get there soon.

P.B. & Jammin

For the last seminar slot on Saturday, I was convinced not to miss Josh Wesson's PB & Jammin' Wines seminar. Josh is co-founder of Best Cellers and has carved out quite a niche for himself as the guy encouraging people to enjoy drinking wine. Josh brings his message to all those who tune in to his Eric Bogosian/Elliot Gould baritone that wine is and should be fun; that you need not spend a lifetime figuring out your particular opinion on reverse osmosis cones to have wines of all types and varieties add to your general quality of life. He pushes the notion that there is good affordable wine out there for everyone and that the industry has done itself a disservice in taking itself far too seriously and encouraging its patrons to do the same. To Josh, wine is just about fun, and if you enjoy sardonic humor, drinking it with him is just that.

In the interest of proving the point that food and wine pairing is a simple thing to both do and comprehend, Josh held a seminar in which he paired six wines to four peanut-butter creations from Peanut Butter & Co in NYC. Josh had assembled a panel of six besides himself, each person somehow related to one of the six wines being tasted, to round out the discussion of pairing notions. Each person on the panel discussed his or her wine, its philosophy, its making, which of the four sandwiches they imagined it would pair well with, and of course why we should all be buying it. We tasted them in ascending order of sweetness as they were discussed. Once all were tasted we then sampled our sandwiches with the wines Josh suggested.

The sandwiches were:

The Heat is On: spicy peanut butter, pineapple jam and grilled chicken

Velvet Elvis: smooth peanut butter, banana, bacon and honey

Classic PB&J: crunchy peanut butter and cabernet jelly

Chocolate Fluffernutter: chocolate peanut butter and marshmallow fluff

The wines and my thoughts were:

Fairview Goats do Rhome Rosé: grass and strawberry with dancing acids, it almost went well with The Classic but I would leave this one for quaffing ice cold in very hot sun.

Three Thieves Zinfandel: actually smelled like simple grape jelly which is what was so surprising about it going well with absolutely nothing.

Rosemont Estate Traminer-Riesling: white flowers on the nose, this was fun in its simple balance of light sweetness and acidity; nice with The Heat.

Domaine Chandon Riche: an extra dry (which due to the beauty of French irony means slightly sweet) sparkler from California, it smelled of roses and grapefruit. Sadly, having lost most of its bead due to the nature of such a huge tasting, it did not dance as well as it probably would have otherwise, but that didn't stop it from pairing well with The Heat, Elvis, and The Classic.

Bertani Recioto della Valpolicella Valpentena: a sweet sticky wine made by arresting the Amarone process with cold while residual sugar remains, it had concord grape, blackberry jam, tarragon, eucalyptus, and clove notes. It paired up respectably with Elvis, Fluffernutter, and The Classic, but at about two to five times the cost of most of the others once you factor in its smaller bottle, it had better have.

Coppo Brachetto d'Aqui: a light pink, slightly frizzante, low alcohol juice that tasted as if someone had washed strawberries and raspberries in Pellegrino water and then bottled it, it had notes of nag champa incense, cranberries, and grass. It tasted quite nice but lacked the backbone to stand up to the fat of the peanut butter.

In general the pairings went much as I expected, but that in no way takes away from the basic fun which was playing with wine and food.

So I spent Saturday morning with a guy I respect as an innovator on the cutting edge of food ideas, and went on to be impressed by a guy who is a master of fusion of a cuisine I am seldom wowed by. Then I joined the throngs to be part of a civilized marketing blitz or as close to such a thing as exists. With my appetite for the wines of Spain and all things pickled well whet, I jumped back in to put sauce with sow and plonk with peanuts, all just to be reaffirmed in my belief that people passionate enough about food and wine to travel to revel in it, or to work hard enough at it to reach the top of their fields, are almost without fail pretty cool people to eat and drink with.

Wine & Swine

After an hour or so in the Grand Tasting tent on Saturday , it was time for the afternoon seminars. From 2:30-2:45 p.m. was Wine & Swine, a salumi course with Dan Phillips of Grateful Palate, and Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality group. The objective was to learn about our taste preferences by tasting wines and salumi together. The Dans swore that if we would simply make the notes "good," "ehh," or "yuck," in their grid (using their smiley-face system), at the end of the exercise we would have learned about our preferences regarding how basic flavors and salt, sweet, hot, spicy and fat play together. We were given six wines, six cured sausages, and a sheet of paper consisting of a grid with boxes for our reactions. In my grid (pictured below) + =good, l = ehh, and – = yuck.

For the record, my bouquet notes on the wine were:

'03 Theo Minges Gleisweiler Hölle Riesling Spatlese: minerals, lemon, pineapple candy

'06 Bon-Bon Shiraz Rose: white stones, aloe, cranberry

'02 Sinskey Pinot Noir Four Vineyards: port, black cherries, booze, wood

'03 Riecine Chianti Classico: flat cherry soda

'04 Alto Moncayo Garnacha: chocolate, tarragon

'04 Shrivington Shiraz : leather, blackberries, wood smoke, salami

My salumi notes were:

Salame Toscano: mineraly like cherry stone clams, salty

Salame Bielese: fleshy tear, rather plain otherwise

Saucisson Sec Basquese: too much spice, little more than hot

Wild Boar Cacciatorni: gamey with chocolate notes

Sopressata: mineral and salt notes combining to taste of clams again

Finocchino: all about the fennel seeds studding it

Here is my chart with contemplation-less reactions to the combinations:

 

I made no big breakthrough as to my preferences, other than to confirm that I am still obviously pretty alone in believing that as far as wine pairing goes (and only as far as wine pairing goes) pork is the other white meat and there are just too many variables in the flavors of cured meats to make a safe bet on the tannins in red wine. The places in the world that make the best sausages are far stronger in whites than reds – think Friulli, Alsace, the banks of the Mosel (Tuscany being an exception because traditional Chianti, prior to the super-Tuscan bulking trends of late, was really just a red white wine, and the same can be said of the Lambruscos of the Parma region) – and to use the food quote that has always made the most sense to me which I first heard attributed to Danny Meyer when I was a budding young food freak, "if it grows together it goes together."

Aspen Day 2, morning

Day two at the Classic was all about the seminars. I imagine if you go to many industry-related conferences these types of things are very commonplace. Four forty-five minute periods during the day in which authorities on a topic discuss their specific expertise with those gathered for the convention, the difference here being that the skill-set of these pundits is one everyone, or at least someone in every family, should to some extent have experience in: the preparation of sustenance. So the crowd consists more of people with a passion, than people with an obligation. When doctors get together they do so either to write off a vacation or because they need to learn new aspects of their chosen profession. People come to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen because they are passionate about food, some of them for no other reason. I am sure there are zealous petrochemical engineers at whatever earth-screwing conference oilmen throw, but I doubt many people with no relation to the industry are lining up an hour ahead of time to get a good seat for the opportunity to hear new ways to crack crude. I am at home among these people.

In the 9:00-9:45 a.m. slot I sat down to see José Andrés take on Two Ingredients Ten Ways. Minibar is certainly one of the most innovative places in America and I was not going to miss an opportunity to see the man behind it make ten dishes. Gathered on a raised stage with a heavily product placement-laden kitchen and a cantilevered mirror over the prep and cooking stations were Katsuya (Café Atlantico and it's Minibar's Executive Chef), a student from the CIA, José, and his two daughters (five and seven years old and proudly sporting Spanish soccer jerseys). A hilarious show ensued for the crowd as we watched the two chefs, gracefully aided by the young ladies, make: Watermelon Gazpacho with Tomato Seeds , Watermelon Cones, a Watermelon Flight, Watermelon and Tomato Skewers, Grilled Watermelon Steaks with Pistachios and Micro Greens, Watermelon Gelatin with Spices, Watermelon Granita with Fresh Blossoms and Fruits, Watermelon with Fruit Salad, Watermelon Air with Sea Urchin, Watermelon Spherification, Watermelon Ice Cocktail, and Watermelon Soda.

All this in under forty five minutes, with time left over for one of the girls to teach her father the word was "juice" not "yewce," and for José to spell out s-h-e-e-t-s after the word gelatin, because he gets yelled at when he tries to pronounce it.

In the long run, as far as flavors and concepts go José and Kats had done little ground breaking in the course of their presentation. Most of the components they used are already understood as playing well together - things like mint, citrus, and the simple refreshing pleasure of a cool watermelon's sweetness and tomato's acidity. What is so profound about José, Kats and what they do is their creativity. Once they have done the hard work of conceiving the preparations - removing the seeds whole from their chamber inside a tomato and laying this filet on top of a cube of watermelon - you can do it yourself, rather impressively, in about four minutes. So why didn't you think of that?

A crowd of about 300 walked out of the conference room in the basement of the Aspen St. Regis having laughed for about forty-three minutes straight, each on his or her way home to either freeze little balls of watermelon, put them in a paper cone and top them with micro mint leaves as an amuse, or maybe sear a watermelon steak (a "silly steak" according to Jose's daughters) in Spanish olive oil; each amused and inspired by where applied imagination and some good ingredients can take you.

From 10:30-11:15 a.m. on the same stage in the belly of The St. Regis stood Ming Tsai, of TV and Blue Ginger Restaurant fame, showing another 300 of us that even with an excruciating hangover, if we could pay enough attention to cut a half-pound of butter into 1/16th inch dice, refreeze it and then operate a food processor for about seven minutes, we too could make a shrimp mousse master recipe.

Ming's Shrimp Master Class then went on to show how with this base master ingredient three dishes could be made quite simply. Ming first spread the mousse onto dried crustless squares of white bread and pan fried them in oil (with sesame seeds) to make Shrimp Toasts. Next, he mixed edamame and chervil into the mousse, and folded it into a wonton skin held in the C made by his thumb and forefinger. This, placed on a leaf in a steamer which had had black tea added to its water (a way of compensating for off flavors in tap water), came out as Steamed Shrimp and Edamame Shumai in Lemon Broth (the lemon broth being warmed chicken stock with the juice of half a lemon squeezed in). Lastly, Ming applied the mousse to a filet of halibut, seared it, and then finished it in a hot oven to make Shrimp Crusted Halibut with Spicy Asparagus Salad (the salad was blanched asparagus spears dressed with a sambal and lime vinaigrette).

Ming has been a TV chef personality long enough to have made quite a shtick of product plugging, forgetting to turn burners on and sweating branded vodka from being out the night before. The truth is, his routine is funny enough, and Ming is so good at translating actually interesting fusion food to a home kitchen that these alone would be reasons enough for me to suggest you catch him if you can. The added bonus of seeing him, though, for me is his childlike admiration of fine cuisine. Being his student and listening to Ming regale the crowd with stories of Morimoto brandishing one of his amazing knives and separating the black skin from the white skin of an albino salmon on East Meets West, or Masa teaching him about Maldon sea salt for edamame, his nodding to all made those he has looked up to and learned from a very comfortable place from which to learn.

Certified Wild American Shrimp

At the center of The Aspen Classic is the Grand Tasting tent. Actually two huge tents with an open-air courtyard in the center, it houses booths for all the marketing interests involved in putting the Classic on. Many and varied companies that benefit from an association with Food & Wine, from Crocs shoes (the orange foamy clogs Mario wears all over town), to Hendrick's Gin (yours truly's favorite Martini ingredient), and all the things in between.

There are well-established brands that hardly exist separate from the magazine, like All-Clad, and brands making a big market push like Fiji Water. The plethora of mid-level wines is dazzling. Rather than try to tell you about them all and about the moments of rubbing elbows under the tents by people excited to get a taste of a mini beef patty from the Jamaican tourist council or sample the next new offering from Absolut, I will instead talk about the folks that won my heart in those crowds of people by offering real food with a sense of terroir.

The Certified Wild American Shrimp group was there representing the thousands of Americans who get on boats every morning of the season to go out to catch wild shrimp. Rather than farming off the coasts of South America or even in the estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico, guaranteeing a boring product that will neither offend nor excite, these guys go out and catch shrimp. Happily, shrimp that taste of place.

At their eight-foot table, they were plating up a simple shrimp cocktail consisting of three types of shrimp: the Carolina White, the Florida Pink, and the Texas Brown. Onto this they would grate on a micro-plane a rock of pink Himalayan Sea Salt, to open the flavor up (there also was some kind of ginger-orange dressing for them if you couldn't conceive of shrimp divorced from some kind of sauce). The three naked, but salted examples all tasted like shrimp I haven't tasted in quite a while. Today's farm-raised shrimp need sauces, they taste of little without them. But here the Carolinians favored the more mineraly flavors, while the Floridians played to sweetness, and the Texans tasted of iodine.

The fact is, all of these are from a part of the world all of our minds have recently been on and if you need a reason other than that they taste better to seek these shrimp out, you can make it that by supporting the market for a product caught in these waters by locals you are putting money into the hands of people working to rebuild in that Katrina-devastated economy. But if you are like me you will seek them out and buy them because you had almost given up on shrimp as an ingredient due to the fact that you can't remember the last time a shrimp tasted like a shrimp and not a sauce, and are saddened by that. Then its as easy as going to their website printing out their card requesting your local purveyors start offering real shrimp, and handing them around your local mongers over and over till your food tastes better.

Sommelier Challenge

For our wedding, Bubby’s big idea for a gift was to give us a reservation for El Bulli he had made for himself but wasn’t going to be able to attend that happened to fall a week before our big day. Chopes’ idea was to give us tickets to the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen for the year after our wedding. Things like this are probably why Chopes is a life-long friend, and Bubby often ends up being struck about the head and neck when we drink together.

Day One, Wife and I kicked off our trip to the Classic with The Sommelier Challenge. Lettie Teague, Food & Wine’s Executive Wine Editor, assembled four pretty heavy-hitter sommeliers for the event: Robert Bohr of Cru, David Lynch of Babbo, Daniel Johannes of Daniel Boulud’s various restaurants, and Larry Stone of Rubicon Estates. Lettie gave them each a wine to pitch the audience, her thinking being that, ultimately, the job of a sommelier is to sell customers wine. It is a sales job that involves ordering, inventory maintenance, market awareness, presence, charm, and product knowledge. So each of these four “superstar sommeliers” was given a wine Lettie had chosen from outside their specific skill set, and assigned to sell it to the crowd (which would vote on who had done his job the best at the end).

First up was Larry Stone with a Tiefenbrunner. With spearmint and grapefruit qualities to its nose and a firm, cleansing acidity, citrus, and minerals on the palate, I appreciated it as simple, yet with a finesse that would make it a good kick-off wine. Larry discussed its universal appeal in that it was assertive enough to pair with most any starter course, yet would stay out of the food’s way. He went on to discuss the wine’s focus and add poetry with observations like hawthorn blossom and citrus notes.

Next came Daniel Johannes and an Etude “heirloom pinot noir.” A new world wine with an interesting bouquet of hickory smoke and BBQ, rasp- and boysenberry, that on the palate was crushed red fruit and wood but lacked an acidity that would have driven these fatter points home. Faced with what I consider the hardest challenge of the afternoon due to this wine being almost trite in its American-ness, Daniel went to a safe place I am sure he has spoken from before. He discussed that pinot goes with Pacific salmon and then began to geek out on the idea of varietal variation among pinot noir clones in Burgundy. He addressed attractive buzzwords like “heirloom” and the fact that this wine would be better with food.

David Lynch was given a Las Gravas from Jumilla Spain made of a blend of cabernet, syrah, and an indigenous grape named Monastrell that I found intriguing in its almost feral qualities. The nose was of morning breath, cinnamon, and diesel, while the palate was meaty like salami with driving red fruit acidity and black pepper notes. In order to sell it to us, David stepped out from behind the panelists’ table and addressed us in a more familiar pose, standing at one of the tables. He discussed the Monastrell grape bringing a spice and acidity to the wine that would make you crave food, and how dinner would be made better for its association with this wine.

Robert Bohr was given Purple Angel Carmenere from Chile, which had a vegetal bouquet with scents of green bell pepper to go along with jammy red fruit notes. To my palate it was spicy, with notes of minerals and earthiness, big extracted fruit surrounding a driving acidic core. Robert first asked we ignore the superfluous modern label with its picture of a purple angel, then started his explanation of why we should choose his wine with the information that carmenere is a little known sixth grape allowable in the Bordeaux A.O.C. rules. Robert shared this with us as one of his favorite tidbits cocktail party discussions, good for sucking the wind out of the sails of self-proclaimed wine know-it-alls. He then went on to explain that bordelaise grapes have a long history in Chile, even to some extent longer than Bordeaux because parts of Chile were spared devastation by phyloxera around the turn of the last century.

History then bridged into Robert’s appreciation of the wine as a unique offering of South America in that it straddled the line between the classic style, which tends to be aggressively linear, and the modern. Robert then did the thing that won him my vote; he used the word “spoofalated” to describe the modern wines of Chile, and the world for that matter.

For the second round, all four superstars were asked to address the same wine, an old vines Chenin Blanc from Saumur in the Loire. Gardenias, minerals, pears and under-ripe plums on the nose, it had flavors of pear with light vanilla notes and acids that would dance with the things you’d grill in olive oil. In turn, the gentlemen addressed: the large boite/new oak program; biodynamic viticulture; the perfection of a peekytoe crab pairing; the gripping acids; and the perfect spot this takes on a wine list for a customer looking for either value, or something from a less beaten path. Each added to the prior’s comments after both agreeing and complimenting the others for stealing what he would have said. In the long run, it was a team effort and as a result I think there might be a rise in the price of the bottle since a room of about seventy people was sold it by a dream team of cork dorks, and I believe only about 1000 cases a year are produced.

Ultimately, Robert Bohr won the day. Maybe it was his younger, more precocious, slightly more needy-of-approval style, maybe he just covered more of the things that make wine attractive to customers at this exact moment in time, or maybe he was given the most interesting wine. The fun as a spectator was watching talented pros, good at their games, riffing, one-upping, and enjoying each other. A large percentage of the time was spent with the panelists, the moderator and the crowd laughing and enjoying, and isn’t that the whole reason anyone would ever become or look for a sommelier?