Charlie Trotter

Charlie Trotter has just announced that his 25-year-old testament to obsessive restaurateurship is closing next August.  In recent years, even he admitted business was off a little, but  his reasons are to pursue other interests — a philosophy degree among them. His decision makes one remember both how very famous he was (and is) and what it means to be a chef.

In an era of quickly-minted TV reality show “celebrity chefs,” it can be hard to recall that chefs used to really cook — and to remember that cooking is doing the same movements, the same recipes, the same preparation and clean-up over and over and over. It’s not winning a contest or being the loudest in the room,  but instead perserverance, and as he once told me “just showing up.”

I looked up a piece I wrote on Trotter for The Boston Globe in 1999, when Charlie Trotter’s was a slip of 12 years old, and  the chef came to Boston for a cookbook event (remember when cookbook publishing was important?). He agreed to talk to me, but it had to be at 11 p.m. because he was cooking with Rene Michelena who had worked for him, in La Bettola, a tiny South End restaurant where Petit Robert Columbus is now. That meant that Chef Trotter, then one of the two or three best-known chefs in the US, was hoisting pans and cutting garnishes in a kitchen the size of a closet.

When we talked in the basement office, Trotter’s first words were about the valet service at the restaurant the night before. No one greeted him when he got out of the car, and he thought that was disgraceful. We talked for over an hour, and despite the lateness and the fact that Trotter had been cooking all evening, and would leave for Chicago early the next morning, he could not have been more engaged, thoughtful, and passionate. He’ll take those attributes into his next career. And his example, if not his style of restaurant, should be the plan to follow for the chefs of tomorrow.

Americans are obsessed with using food as an indulgence, as something to get away with. And it’s not just junk food. From the current foodie craze of gourmet calorie-laden hamburgers to Big Mac’s double cheeseburgers, from sugar-laden classic cocktails to Red Bull as a breakfast substitute, from poutine (a Canadian dish of French fries, cheese curds and brown gravy) at the trendy gastro pubs to boxes of Dunkin Donuts at the soccer match to iced mocha blueberry lattes with whipped cream flooding the land, we’re cheerfully adding calories onto calories, from gourmet land to trailer park.  Some of us may have more restraint — or more access to the gym — but it’s not just the cola-dependent poor who need to rethink their relationships with food.

I say tax sodas, fries and whatever else (Bittman was a little murky about exactly what might earn taxes) fat-laden can be added. But until a bowl of perfect green beans minutes out of the garden are as tempting as bacon-laced chocolate ice cream, we’re going to have trouble turning the tide. Who has some ideas on how to rock those beets for the common man?

Mangalista pig

by Chef Jason Bond. His is a short menu but so deliberate and carefully thought-out that it’s a little scary. All the newest, the most cutting-edge, the best-for-you ingredients are there: a bread with seaweed and dried shrimp, handmade burrata, teff polenta, periwinkles, burdock root, sassafras sorbet, triticale wheat berries. You almost need a glossary.

But luckily Bond is not only creative with his ingredients, but a really, really good cook. Lovely, pale green sorrel vichyssoise was velvety on the tongue with just enough hint of bitterness from the leafy vegetable, one of the first in the spring garden. The nutty, dark brown teff polenta provided a good foil for root cellar vegetables, and the morel and mousseron mushroom ragout for little scallops.

The best was an asparagus and calaminth risotto with lobster, mussels, and tiny periwinkles. All lovely, but draped across like a wisp of veil was Mangalista prosciutto, almost all transparent fat. It added a pretty terrific depth to the sea-clean tastes of the seafood, and in a funny way cut through the creaminess of the risotto.

The Mangalista, originally from Hungary and now being grown in the US, doesn’t really look like a porker, more like a sheep. Bond explained, as he talked to us for a few minutes after dinner, that he cured this prosciutto for two years, and that it was almost all fat.

Which was the beauty of it — the flavor is in the fat, and the proof of Bondir’s menu is in the eating.

Oishii sushi

The place was more than packed — a sold out house — and the food fantastic. Spicy pork meatballs with fonduta sauce from Dante;  oysters from Neptune, a spicy Asian-style taco from Tico, and pristine sushi from True World Foods, which supplies many of the sushi restaurants around town. But we found ourselves hanging around Oishii’s sushi bar where chefs, including this very young rockstar sushi chef (below), were putting out tray after tray of simple and irresistible sushi.

Sushi chef at Oishii

(By the way, we gladly paid the $100 each for the benefit — a belated and treasured Valentine’s Day gift to each other).

Johnny cake with smoked trout and caviar

Finding a table for two at 1:30 for lunch should be easy, right? Especially on a frigid, windy day. Even on a holiday Monday. If your destination is Neptune, the sliver of an oyster bar on Salem St. in the North End, don’t take it for granted. At 1:30 there’s a 20-minute wait, and the line stretches through the heavy flaps designed to keep cold off the tables near the door when people go in an out. In fact, Neptune is always crowded, and most evenings, especially weekends, crazy busy. It’s small, and cramped, and so noisy that shouting is the norm, and today at least half of it is freezing every time the door opens. But no one seems to mind, as what seems to be the lone and very hard-working waiter runs back and forth in organized frenzy.

This is a shaky season for restaurants. The South End has seen two big closings. Rocca, led by talented and veteran owners and a TV celeb chef, folded Jan. 1. Ginger Park, with another well-known chef, closed a month or so earlier. There are rumblings about more. Meanwhile, openings pop up like mushrooms after rain. And it’s January. And it’s cold. And it snows and snows and snows.

So how come Neptune is so busy this January day? Neptune has been going strong since November 2004, so owners Jeff Nace and his wife had the advantage of building up clientele and reputation in the fat years. In fact, it’s easy to see that the word has spread beyond Boston when you see patrons toting suitcases out, and the couple next to you is talking about home in Atlanta.

Small helps to fill the place, but turnover matters most — and Neptune’s kitchen staff, working in a closet-sized space, is fast, and the waiter super-efficient. Not to mention the lightning-quick shucker in the window. The menu is almost all seafood, and not cheap, but irresistibly appealing.

And then there’s that feeling that everyone is so happy to be there — to have found a spot even if the two young dudes adjacent are practically in our laps, and the couple on the other side is rather loudly explaining step-by-step their tourist trail  through Boston, and those blasts of cold air recur intermittently. We’re happy slurping oysters, and checking out who’s getting the clam chowder, and who’s holding out for lobster rolls. The feeling of everybody being in this together may be one of Neptune’s biggest and most-enduring attractions.

Making pizzoccheri in Valtellina

Cold weather was a long time coming this year, but now it’s settled in. Thinking through recipes that warmth the spirit as well as the body, I’m recalling a snowy day in Valtellina, the magical valley in the Lombardian Alps. There, on a tour through Lombardy’s fabled wine regions, along its lakes and through fascinating cities such as Brescia, Bergamo, and Mantova, we happened upon the perfect dish to chase the chill.

There in a winery that had once been a monastery, a small and very precise woman made pizzocheri, the region’s famous buckwheat pasta famed for its wholesome heartiness. First she measured out the flour, called “black flour,” added white flour to give the pizzoccheri enough body to roll out, and then water. As she kneaded the dough on a wooden board, she explained that most of the work in pizzoccheri is in this step of forming the soft buckwheat flour by hand. Eventually, she rolled the dough out and cut into wide and irregular strips. Pizzoccheri is usually served as a casserole, layered with Swiss chard or other dark greens, potatoes, and plenty of cheese plus garlic and sage. The resulting dish is hearty, just right for skiier, vineyard workers, or even travelers weary from searching out Lombardy’s very diverse landscapes.

We ate the pizzoccheri along with bresaola and other regional treats in a long room flanked by tall windows looking out into the snowy landscape. The mood seemed hushed as we savored the robust goodness of pizzoccheri. For a little while, the world and the winter paused, made warm by pizzoccheri.

A display of cheeses

The food(ie) controversy du jour is the New York Times article last Sunday about USDA support and money spent surreptiously to encourage Americans to eat more cheese. Aaargh! Will cheese suddenly become as dangerous as high fructose corn syrup? Will there be a rush to de-cheese our diets? Or to push low-fat or diet cheese, one of the abominations of the dieters’ world.

Or, like so many other puzzle pieces in the American love/hate affair with food, is there an alternate view? As Walter Willett of HarvardPublic Health, the healthy food oracle for our times, says, cheese eaten in sensible amounts can be part of a good diet. However, when Domino’s Pizza and other chains are doubling down — cheese in the crust, more cheese on top, cheese hidden — we get the familiar American scenario. Instead of food as a life force and as a social joy, we seem determined to view food as an obsession or as a danger. 

If those of us who love cheese — definitely count me among them — can agree that cheese is not a diet food and should be eaten in moderation, couldn’t we join the French,  known for eating a lot of cheese, but not known for obesity? Enjoy cheese, really good cheese  – on your cheeseboard, in fondue, even on a pizza. But know what you’re eating. Cheese, glorious cheese!!

Hazelnut oil over veal crudo

After a week in Italy, most of it at Salone del Gusto/Terra Madre in Torino, I can safely say that artisanally-made, and sometimes a little eccentric, food is still the Italian way of life. We saw amazing products from small producer (check www.salumeriaitaliana.com where I’ll continue to talk about what we saw and what will hopefully turn up in the North End shop and in the online store). And met amazingly committed and articulate people.

But now a trend blast — Italy, even in landlocked cities and towns like Torino and Modena, is in the grip of crudo, both seafood and meat served raw. A fascinating restaurant in a Torino neighborhood, Al Grassi,  served course after course of delicious seafood crudo — my favorite was scallops sliced thinly and delicately over monkfish liver with a French olive oil. And in Modena, not only did I eat delicious crudo, but a favorite of the Italians at our table one night was steak tartare matched to a steak burger with a baked potato in foil in between.

But the very best was at the show. The Gava brothers, who produce lovely Piemonte wines, are also bottling 100 % hazelnut oil from their vineyards, where hazelnut trees are everywhere. To show off the oil, they improvised an antipasto by slicing raw veal sausages into chunks, making a hole at the top, and pouring in hazelnut oil. Magnificent!!

Salone del Gusto in Torino

It’s time to cook from the pantry. Next week I’m going to Salone del Gusto and Terre Madre in Turin, Italy. We’re looking for more organic, natural products for Salumeria Italiana so that customers and I can dream of summer through New England’s cold.

Roasted garlic and Spanish anchovy pizza, Spaghetti with cracklings and hot peppers

Before you tell me I should know the answer, I do know the answer. Umami is the reason that I can’t get enough of anchovies. The flavor is part of it. The saltiness has a key role, and the crunch of barely remembered bones plays into my texture mania. But even so there’s just….something about them. And I guess it’s umami.

Last night, I ate a Roasted Garlic and Spanish Anchovy pizza at Scampo’s bar. I’d been craving pizza, and this one was just what I wanted — nothing wimpy about this pizza. Oh, it was nothing to look at, not a pretty thing like tomato and mozzarella or one with zucchini blossoms and figs. This one included some potato slices and red onion but it was basically a chunky mass with distinct curves of anchovy on a crackly, puffy edged crust. (To her credit, Lydia Shire is never afraid to let flavor trump everything.) And it was sooo good.

In fact, there’s a cold slice left over in my refrigerator that’s calling to me. Will I be able to resist?