Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
I don't worry about touching the habanero. I just wash afterwards with
1 tbsp chlorine bleach in 1 qt. water - that neutralizes it. Or, take
the easiest way, and use one rubber glove on your holding hand.

Eric, thanks for the reply on the salt - I'll look into it. Other
cities must have similar opportunities to buy it like that; it just
takes a bit of looking. I have found good prices on sea salt at Smart &
Final as well, although they don't always have it.

Which recipes in the book (besides the creation or choice of the
flavor blasts) do you think best embody Breakaway cooking.
  

    
Ed: I can't figure out why no breakaway restaurant has sprung up,
either. Seems like a slam dunk: it's so easy to imagine a breakaway
breakfast place, a breakaway bbq joint, a fancier dinner house, a
breakaway takeaway, etc. Can you all get out your rolodexes and send
the restaurant lords my way, please? :^)

But speaking of restaurants: I can't imagine cheffing in one. It's
such a grueling, brutal job, and very much a young person's sport. I
have to rest for a whole day after cooking for private events! But I'd
love to consult more and oversee a few breakaway joints. The hibernator
in me would love to open a breakaway b&b in some gorgeous spot; Pt.
Reyes Station would be perfect, I think. 
  

    
Economically, it would make sense: not many ingredients, but the very,
very best you could get. Restocking would be a snap. And the novelty
would bring people in the door while the quality would keep 'em. 
  

    
Chop chilies with a plastic bag over your gripping hand.
  

    
Recipes I think best embody the spirit of breakaway cooking: 

Definitely maccha poached eggs: make salt, sprinkle on perfectly
poached, local organic eggs, smile and declare victory: easy, unique,
unexpected, quick, and delish.

Toro-yuzu crostini: an ingredient-driven dish, no time, expertise, or
technique involved. Just combine sashimi-grade tuna belly, yuzu,
avocado, and herb of choice, spread on good bread. It's really yummy,
and couldn't be easier.

Supergreen wonder soup: combine four or five fresh herbs with chicken
stock and sauteed leeks in blender, and voila! Light and floral and
superherby, a wonderful ten-minute soup. 

I think all of the tofu dishes in book are classic breakaway. Tofu is
in some ways the ultimate breakaway ingredient, because you can "paint"
any flavor you like on this superb blank canvas, and you can change
its texture so easily. I like the following formula: combine tofu and
two eggs in bowl, stir, mix in herbs and whatever flavorings appeal,
transfer to clay pot, sprinkle something crunchy on top (powdered pink
lentils, breadcrumbs, cornmeal, whatever), spray with olive oil, and
bake. 

Butternut squash pizzettas  for sure --  you can put almost anything
on them and they taste great.Creamy spicy carrots are a total staple
here, I make them all the time, and don't seem to get sick of them. 

There is some pressure in the cookbook world to write fat books:
editors seem to prefer MORE of everything, at the expense of
originality, about which no one seems to care all that much. For this
book I first proposed 65 recipes that I thought were unprecedented--or
at least I had never seen them before--but the editor wanted a hundred,
so that set me back six months. It's easy to come up with several
hundred recipes that are just knockoffs or slight variations of other
recipes, but it's hard to come up with ones that are unlike anything
you've ever seen or tried. 

I wonder how much significance is placed on originality (without
resorting to gimmickry, of course) in the minds of cookbook buyers. 

Gary Danko walks by my house all the time on his way to work. I
sometimes see him and we chat. I asked him why he hasn't published a
cookbook, and he couldn't see a reason to add to this gigantic pile of
nonoriginal stuff,even though it would satisfy his ego and certainly
sell well. Classy guy!
  

    
As an avid reader of cookbooks, I cringe when someone tells me, "you
should write a cookbook!"  I know I shouldn't, because most of what I
do is read other cookbooks and follow the directions.  It takes a bit
of practice to pick recipes that will taste as good as they sound, and
to know when you can tweak them a little, but it's a far cry from
writing original recipes, or going to the source to collect recipes
that may not be original, but are authentically traditional.  

I have made up some original recipes of my own, but they're way
outnumbered in my repetoire by things from cookbooks.  And there is
little rhyme or reason to the recipes I invent--they usually get their
genesis when I'm bored and hungry, and crave something different than
what I've been eating for a while.  I can't imagine trying to shoehorn
them together into a book, even if I eventually got enough of them
together to fill one (I compromised by putting together a web site, so
I can direct people there when they ask for a recipe).  

How do you go about channeling your cooking creativity towards
"breakaway" recipes, especially when you're on deadline because the
editors are asking for more, more, more?  And what do you do with your
"outtakes" that didn't quite fit the theme?
  

    
>>they usually get their genesis when I'm bored and hungry....

This is exactly what drives my recipe creation! It's almost always a
near-empty fridge and a snarling stomach. 

I think what drives breakaway-style cooking above all is KNOWING,
really knowing, what I like. It's all about palate, when you come right
down to it. I know that I like these bright vibrant flavors, so
they're a guide to what makes something a candidate for inclusion in a
book. That and the time element. I'll often cook something good that
has all the components of a great candidate for a book, except for one:
maybe it took long or had too many steps or ingredients, maybe it used
a bit too much fat, maybe I've seen it in too many other cookbooks. I
still like cooking nonbreakaway dishes occasionally, but they just
don't go into the big file called "candidate recipes."

Outtakes--we eat them, of course! Although one of my great loves is
attempting to "bring back" a dish that has gone awry. It's rarely
screwed up so badly that it can't be saved. Salt, fat, and herbs
usually do the trick!!

More challenging for me is the Yahoo column, because I'm constantly
being told (by my editors there) to rein it in a bit if I want to reach
more people. It's a really tough one for me, because NOT reining it in
is the signature of this style of cooking, and what has led to these
books. But then again, I *would* like to reach more readers. But why on
earth does everything have to be "seven ways to xxx" and
bullet-pointed?! You can count the attention span of Yahoo readers in
nanoseconds, and it seems like the editors' main job is to capture
that, no matter what, and it's numbers and bulletpoints, it appears,
that do it. 
  

    
Oh! link for your Yahoo column please?
  

    
http://food.yahoo.com/blog/breakawaycook
  

    
One instruction that makes me feel good every time I read it in your
book is "salt generously!" :-)
  

    

gower, tell us about the pants situation.


a friend of mine ended up in the ER after an episode of pants-free ravioli-
making. it wasn't pretty.
  

    
Eric, I know that your books are popular in Minneapolis. Besides there
(and Japan), have you heard from your readers and fans in far-away
lands?
  

    
Over in chow.ind, we like to call breakaway cooking "pants flying off"
cooking, in reference to the theater reference to "breakaway" body
parts that fly off, gag-style, during a skit. So beware of pants flying
off when attempting to cook breakaway style! 

Winding up in the ER after pants-free anything .... aii! OK, you can't
not tell us what happened to your friend!

Minneapolis! I wanna try me some lutefisk. There is a quasi-hardcore
contingent of breakaway cooks in Singapore, of all places. But it kinda
fits, if you think about the huge confluence of culinary cultures
there.

Normally all this talk would have me hurrying into the kitchen, but
I've got some stomach virus or something--chicken broth is all I've
able to handle for the past two days. God, not eating sucks!
  

    

Feel bettah!

I keep buying Thai Basil, using a few leaves to broil with some 
salmon, then letting the rest hang out and turn brown.  Ooops.

Do you have specific suggestions about how to think about fresh basil?
I thought about making a ceviche and using it instead of cilantro, but 
then I chickened out. 

Is this too granular a question? If so, do you have any suggestions for 
how to think about and play with whatever fresh herbs we do't know so well. 

(and seconding the call for the emergency room drama story, brady!)
  

    
Your book arrived from Amazon today and I have started reading. The
photographs are incredible. So far my favorite is the one of macha.
  

    
Back from shopping, but I wasn't terribly successful finding things.  Where
do you buy the smoked paprika, Eric?
  

    
I ordered some ingredients online yesterday, and made some citrus salt. Need
to modify the proportions of salt and citrus, as I'm having to use too much
salt to get the flavor wallop.

Dinner last night featured grilled golden trout, with your reduced citrus
sauce, Eric. It was very tasty!

Trying to figure out what next . . .

Something I was wondering about: your cookbooks emphasize latitude and an
improvisational style in the kitchen. That willingness to substitute one
thing in a category for another, confident that it will still basically
work, is fundamental to using the principles you're advocating. Given that,
is it weird to settle on "the" version of a dish, in order to document it
and fix it for all posterity as a recipe with a proper name and everything?
How do you go about doing that, and do you ever have misgivings or regrets
about the details later?
  

    
Did you do the food styling yourself?
  

    

I finally broke down and got my new copy of the book dirty. (sob! it's so
beautiful!) I made the minty, boozy chicken and it was fabulous.  I somehow
missed the cilantro on the shopping list and just skipped it, which is a
good sign for you cilantro-avoiders out there, but I can't wait to do it
again with =all= the flavors.

still, I want to do the umeboshi duck legs next, or the claypot ginger pork.
it all sounds so good!
  

    

I was fortunate to be able to attend a talk <gower> gave at a bookstore in
Sonoma, California yesterday afternoon. You have such an enjoyable,
straightforward approach to cooking, and to talking about it, Eric. You make
it all seem like it would be so easy. 

What would you tell somebody who said s/he wanted to try some of these
recipes but felt nervous because of a lack of expertise? 
  

    
Sorry for the hiatus -- I've been out for the count with a nasty case
GI distress. Ugh. I thought it was over yesterday, but it's back today.

Kathbran, smoked paprika is available all over the place on line, at
places like Penzey's and other spice dealers. Also SF Herb Co has it,
as does Whole Foods and possibly Andronico's. Spanish Table in Berkeley
definitely carries it. If you're ever at the Ferry Plaza, Boulette's
Larder has a really nice one. My favorite source is SF Herb.

Bruce: yes, it was VERY hard to settle on finished versions of the
recipes, for sure, for exactly the reasons you mention.  And yes, I
have plenty of misgivings! But you have settle on something at some
point, else no book!

My favorite recipes are the idea-launching pads for exploration. The
butternut squash pizzettas are one: think of sliced wheels of butternut
squash as little pizza doughs, which you bake and top with ...
whatever! In the recipe I suggested a simple basil puree topped with
pistachios, but there are an almost infinite variety of toppings, just
as with pizzas. Those kinds of recipes are the best, and "truest"
breakaway ones.

Also, the ones in the beginning--the "breakaway flavor blasts"-- are
really "tool kit" recipes. You make them ,and they act as springboard
for further exploration, and make cooking easy and fun, once you have
them sitting around your fridge. 

Garlic confit, for example. I can't imagine using regular old garlic
again. I always have a jar of confit around; I'm constantly reaching
for it -- it's so much easier and better than regular garlic, if you're
like me and dislike that "bite" that raw garlic has, especially when
it's minced. And the oil it sits in is very useful, too.  Same with
pickled ginger--a million and one uses for it, and the for the vinegar
it lives in. The pickled fennel is ethereal in color and lightness--the
pickling liquid is like eating plum blossoms! Just a spoonful of the
liquid --which is plum wine, umeboshi, rice vinegar, and honey, blended
together--is magical on stuff, especially salad dressings, tofu,
chicken, sauteed veggies . . . . and it's instant, once it's made. 

So the ideal breakaway recipe is like a Lego that sits around waiting
to become part of something else.
  

    
Sharon, I didn't do the styling on the new book, but I did for the
Breakaway Japanese Kitchen. It was MUCH preferable to just trust
someone else with it. The photo sessions were a true joy: Elisabet, the
assistant of George, the remarkably talented stylist, shopped,
prepped, and cooked all the dishes (and cleaned up). George styled for
Annabelle, who shot and edited. I sat around cooing words of
encouragement and doing the NY Times crosswords! Can't imagine doing it
any other way now. We shot 50 recipes and lots of miscellaneous
(section dividers, still lifes (lives?)) shots in 10 sessions. They
were a true "dream team" to work with, and have since become good
friends. I highly recommend them to anyone.
  

    
Thanks Cynthia -- it was great to see you there. I felt like I was
going to pass out from the weakness of not eating much for the past six
days. Life without real food is grim, but without coffee and wine?
Jesus, pure torture!

Lack of expertise is in some ways (but not others) a feature, not a
bug, for budding breakaway cooks, because they don't bring the baggage
of preconceived notions. I love working with/teaching real beginners;
they seem so happy and liberated when it dawns on them that they don't
have to go through some French hellcamp to learn to cook an interesting
egg, that they can make truly good, healthy food without a massive
investment in time and money. 

Younger cooking students are also great because they've grown up in
this supremely shrunken world, where eating their way around the globe
isn't a strange notion. They love traditional Thai food, Indian food,
Japanese food. They're of course daunted by making it -- who isn't,
with a list of ingredients two pages long and recipes that start out
with "do x for eight hours" -- but they're THRILLED to learn that they
can coax Indian-ish and Thai-ish and Japanese-ish flavors out of their
simple lunches and dinners with the judicious use of global flavor
blasts, using stuff they buy at farmers' markets. No one's ever given
them permission before -- not to mention encourage them -- to NOT be
"authentic." 

I find it tremendously liberating to distinguish breakaway
cooking--which is really about HOME cooking -- from restaurant cooking.
It takes all the pressure off to not be Thomas Keller or Gary Danko or
Jean Georges Vongerichten. We can't be those people or make that food
without armies of 20-year olds on staff, seemingly unlimited budgets,
the best purveyors, 16-hour workdays, etc etc. But "high" food culture
nowadays so lionizes these people -- we buy their books and sometimes
try, but it never works. 

On the other end of the spectrum, we have Rachel Ray and, way down
there, Paula Deen, who appeal to many people today for entirely
different reasons, mainly as sort of "personal cooking
coaches/cheerleaders" who urge us on to do *anything* other than pick
up a bucket of transfats on the way home from work.  At one point
Rachael had five of the 10 top-selling cookbooks! She's certainly
tapped something. I actually like and agree with her main message: that
ANYONE can get something resembling hot real food on the table in not
very much time,and be a whole lot better off for it. I don't go for her
execution of that ideal, and think there are many more and better ways
to achieve it, but it's a powerful message for people in this country.
  

    


hey, gower. word on the street is you're a goddamn pennsylvanian. are there
any regional dishes or ingredients from your youth that ever see any action
in breakaway cooking?

have you come up with breakaway scrapple? shoofly granita? locally caught
salmon in a crust of utz potato chips?
  

    
hah! I tried to come up with a breakaway whoopie pie, but it sucked. I
used some fancy ingredients (good Belgian chocolate, real filling
instead of crisco-based fluff) but it just wasn't the same, and didn't
satisfy at all.
My mother was thrilled with that news.

Snyder's pretzels, salt scraped off, replaced with tangerine salt?
Nah.

I once cooked some incredibly tasty venison loin for my family by
marinating it in a berry puree (blackberry, raspberry, a few others),
then wiping it off, rubbing it with olive oil, and then applying a
really thick crust of ground juniper berries and coriander and frying
that up nice and crispy in a cast-iron pan, then finished it in the
oven, nice and tender in the middle, then drizzled a reduced
berry/butter/balsamic glaze on it, topped with plenty of good salt, it
was incredible! My family HATED it.