Star-kissed Skies and Sparks

There's an awesome scene in Lawrence of Arabia where Peter Toole looks out into the vast, empty dessert and says, "I love the dessert..." I've always admired that particular breed of Arabists, Englishmen, spies, cartographers, scholars, and mischief-makers who fell in love with the 360 degree vistas of sand and sky they found in the middle east. I saw the same love up close in the face of a young man I met this evening at Barnes and Noble. I was scouring through the travel section and came across: The Egyptian Pyramids. I guess he saw I had a keen interest in Egypt and very shyly asked if I wanted to visit Egypt? YES!

We quickly entered into a vivid conversation about his life in Egypt, roaring around in a 4x4 Jeep, sleeping under the stars, and answerable to no one. The only thing in sight would be a fire crackling, throwing off sparks at a distance. His belly, full of delicious roasted lamb and surrounded as far as the eye could see by nothing but the dark rises of an ocean of sand. Those were the nights.

He told me that Egyptians are surprisingly friendly towards Americans and you actually hear a "hello" , "thank you", and "welcome" here and there. Speaking of surprises, the cab drivers are truly wonderful in an unbelievably crowded and unruly city where there are no traffic lights. There apparently seems to be a language of car horns, honks, coded beeps, and taps containing a large vocabulary of implications as the bumper to bumper cars intermingle with the floods of pedestrians. He explained to me how Pythagorus would have been dazzled to see the traffic pattern in Cairo. Enough about the traffic, give me food!

A typical dish of Egpyt is ful. Ful is smashed fava beans cooked in a copper pot with olive oil and garlic and served with large amounts of flatbread - referred to by the locals as "stone in the stomach." Precisely the solid style food needed for the daily adventures in the dessert. Since pharonic times, the poor and working class have filled up on the stuff as pretty much their principal meal of the day. If you're doing well monetary wise, you get an egg with it and perhaps some chopped pickled vegetables. The problem is most Egyptians aren't doing well, and most do not know what three meals a day is - Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. They just know Ful once a day.

Nonetheless, there is a place where traffic, poverty, and language does not matter. A majestic landscape designed by Imhotep, built by the Pharaohs, and considered to be the oldest monumental structures on earth: The Egyptian Pyramids. There are 138 discovered pyramids in Egypt but the best known ones are on the outskirts of Cairo, known as Giza. The most famous pyramid being Khufu, the largest of the pyramids at Giza and is the only one of the Ancient Wonders of the World still in existence today. The mystery and majesty of the Pyramids is beautiful and intriguing to me as they were built with the belief that they were steps serving as a gigantic stairyway for the soul of the deceased pharaoh to ascend to heaven. The shape of the Pyramid was designed to be representative of the descending rays of the sun.

Interested? Amazed? Perhaps....Is Egypt a place with a long magical past awaiting the future? I do not know that I will ever understand the Pyramids and its history, I do not know why a young man would take time to explain to me the beauty of his country in a Barnes and Noble store, and I do not know why there are certain places that plague our curiosity. However, after the travels I had with this young man by his extremely descriptive conversation about his homeland, I DO understand why the Arabists, Englishmen, Cartographers, Scholars, and mischief-makers fell in love with the 360 degree vistas of sand and sky....

For the young man, a night in Egpyt, meant a night with far away sparks under the star-kissed sky...

Fortune-Telling Picture

There's a picture I look at everyday.

For years I have been studying this picture giving it the time you'd give a masterpiece. Its truly a mesmerising picture: vivid, haunting, packed with detail and movement. There are days when its lifted me, inspired me, and driven me to move forward. If it had a title, perhaps it would be called life. It has the power to change a life. I can't measure its value to me and I didn't pay a penny for it. I can't imagine anyone else would want to own it. Its a picture that is on display but only has had an audience of one. It is a picture in my mind: one single, soulful memory of when I last shared a time in the kitchen with someone very special to me. A lingering memory that has been there with me from event to event, and kitchens to kitchens all over the place. Its a recurring image flashing in and out of my head as I have worked my way from one dimensional chef to author, speaker, and restaurateur. The image is invisible to the press, media, and critics. It feeds the child within me and is the foundation for the person I am today. It's a snapshot of a time of innocence, reverie, and fairytale hopes. A flash, as if it were lightning, where fate and prophecy collide.

It's that special person sitting around the counter, and I, not even old enough to do many things (I recall I still had braces) , making them a meal. At that point in time, I had not decided to become a chef yet. This was surely the first meal I had ever made for someone and it rendered that feeling of satisfaction chefs attain when they know they've made a wonderful dish. Ironically, it was purely unintentional and one of those moments where someone says, "I'm hungry, make me something to eat." So I put my game face on, and took a shot at it, afterall, doubt would not feed an empty stomach. I looked in the pantry, the refrigerator, and gathered my ingredients and equipment. Two hours later and a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I had created a semi-delicious meal for someone and it was by accident - or not.

That day, that person told me, "I hope you cook for me like this for the rest of my life. You should think about becoming a chef. But if you don't want to become a chef, whatever you do, do it with as much love, detail, and passion as you did this dish, today."

As one of my mentors once said (Thomas Keller), "We take one fundamental lesson we learn from our youth and apply it to everything we do later in life and this will translate into our cooking. A vision or memory will move us toward the pursuit of our dreams."

As fate would have it, I became a chef. Back then, even though I didn't know it, my life was being shown to me in one moment. It was beautiful. Cooking without rules, recipes, or guidelines. I was doing it to merely feed someone - a gesture of kindness, nuture, and nothing else. However, in its innocence and virtue lay a fortune-telling greatness.

Now, I still see that picture and it drives me. " I hope you cook for me like this for the rest of my life........whatever you do, do it with as much love, detail, and passion as you did this dish, today."

It's that picture that has taken me everywhere.

Paris

The year was 1945. The month was November. The city was Paris. The world had passed through the long darkness of the "war to end all wars" - World War II, and was now ready for the brief brilliance and frenzy of the Gatsby's. The city was filled with artists, writers, composers, army officers, journalists, businessmen, and diplomats all with one thing in common: a passion for Paris. They came from all different directions in search of romance, beauty, and a tender utopia where they were free to kiss in the streets, hold a glass of champagne, and dance on the cobblestone in the wee hours. Something they found in old flower markets, haute couture, bibliotheques of novels, a night a Les Halles, La Vie Moderne, Chocolateries, Maxims, La Vie en Rose, the Eiffel Tower, magical Bistros, quiet corners, and secret benches. Paris is the mecca for both romance and food alike. The Gourmet capital of the World. Afterall, Paris means Foie Gras, Charcuterie, Wine, Cassoulet, Croissants, Muille Fuille, Champagne, Truffles, Confit, Butter, Breads,and Tartars. There is something so enchanting about sitting outdoors on a cool spring day in a boulangerie or bistro at three o'clock, sipping a fine wine, munching on a crusty golden baguette with amazing butter. Followed by fresh oysters that burst in your mouth with a perfect mignionette, escargot with a magnificent garlic parsley butter that has the ideal balance of garlic to bread crumbs, steamed mussels with Pomme Frites that are to die for - so good you have to dip the fries in the sauce, Coq Au Vin that falls right off the bone, and finished with airy profiteroles filled with vanilla bean ice cream drizzled with a luscious, velvety chocolate ganache. The city passes you by in conversations, landscapes, and street muscians. The sounds, flavors, and words captivate you and you realize you have been transported to another dimension. A dimension of what life is supposed to be. A life you are in love with.

As lovers say in the movies, "We'll Always Have PARIS..." We've actually always had Paris. It's time to revist the magic and the flavor. I think we are all ready (once more) for the brilliance of the Gatsby's. The year is 2010, the month is January, the city is PARIS.