The World in My Kitchen (20 page)

What was I doing here I asked myself? But my ticket home was not for another three days. I knew no one in Tokyo; Peter had already left for New York. I had no choice but to stay with Andre.

That night, a devastated Andre told me the story and begged me to stay until the end of the month. As cultural attaché, he had to entertain distinguished guests. He needed me. “Please stay, Colette,” he said, with tears in his eyes, “I will pay for your ticket back to New York. I need you.” How could I say no? I called Jimmy in New York and begged forgiveness. I had to stay two more weeks in Japan and help Andre cope with the situation. Jimmy was crushed and argued with me for at least ten minutes, and then with a sigh, he gave in saying no more than two weeks.

The next day, as Andre left for the Embassy, I sat down with Eufemia and studied Andre’s calendar. He had five dinner parties scheduled for the next two weeks. I asked Eufemia, “What about the menus?”

The cook was also a Filipino. When I studied the menus for these dinners, I thought they were boring, not festive enough. In these special circumstances, we had to offer our guests more exciting fare. Eufemia, who was a very bright, lovely young woman, suggested that she and I go food shopping. And so together (Eufemia spoke Japanese), we went to the wholesale fish market where I bought tiny little crabs, the size of a quarter; cod fish liver that I would sauté like foie gras and serve on a bed of greens. At the vegetable market, I bought burdock that looked like French
salsifi,
fresh shiitake mushrooms, and Japanese persimmons to make a mousse for dessert. The cook and I prepared the first dinner. We sautéed the crabs and served them as appetizers with the drinks. Then the cook made a clear soup, adding at the last minute some seaweed I had brought from Wajima. As a main course, I stuffed thin slices of chicken breast with fresh shiitake mushrooms and sliced garlic and surrounded it with a sauce made with the Japanese Uzu lemon. Tiny potatoes sautéed with rosemary finished the dish. The dessert was a mousse of Japanese persimmons. The dinner was a success, and Andre seemed to be calmer.

A few days later, Andre announced that among our next guests were the owners of Seibu, the largest department store in Tokyo with a very important art museum attached to it. Andre had been planning an important show of French painters and was afraid that the Seibu owners might cancel the show. I promised I would make a very special dinner. On my walks through the Tokyo vegetable market, I had discovered that Japanese cucumbers were very long, narrow, and had very few seeds. I decided that the appetizer would be small chunks of cucumber like miniature wells, filled with salmon caviar entwined with edible greens and topped with crème fraîche. They were to be set on
shiso
leaves, surrounded with vegetable pickles from Kyoto in light aspic. The next course was to be a soup of Adzuki beans with endives followed by a poached fresh salmon served with pomegranate and
nashi,
a Japanese pear-apple that is today common in the United States but that I had never eaten before. With it I served grated mountain potato mixed with thinly sliced cooked okra and a parsley sauce. For dessert I tried something that I was terrified would not work, a mousse of fresh bean curd with imported raspberries. That night the owner of Seibu arrived dressed in traditional ancient Japanese clothing—the most beautiful kimono I had ever seen, made of silk and silver threads. He was followed by his slender, pale, stunning Japanese wife, who was dressed in a brocaded kimono of gold and silver threads. The dinner went very well. Our Seibu guests smiled and complimented me on the dinner. By making a slightly strange dinner, I was afraid that I had ruined Andre’s chance for a museum show.

The next day I received an invitation from Kodansha International, a large publishing house. To my astonishment, they wanted to talk to me about a cookbook. At the meeting, it transpired that our guests of the previous night had raved about the dinner I had served and felt that the Japanese would enjoy a cookbook that used Japanese ingredients in such an original way.

I was very flattered, but I told the publisher, “Although I love Japanese food, I cannot cook like a Japanese. Japanese cooking requires years of training and hours of preparation. I work in New York, and I have no time to spend hours in the kitchen. What I like to do is cook Japanese ingredients my way but serve them in the spirit of Japanese cooking tradition. I will give them recipes different from what they are used to.” For the next two weeks, we discussed a book contract. Finally, it was decided that I was to come back to Japan at their expense and explore other Japanese cooking traditions. I thought, just for a minute, that my family and Jimmy would not like that, but I said yes very quickly.

I left Andre though he was still worried about his future. Later, I was pleased to learn that Seibu happily gave him permission to use their gallery to show the work of French painters. The dinner had worked! However, a few months later, he was recalled to Paris and resumed his career as a writer.

Back in New York, I prepared myself for another trip to Japan, talking to Arakawa, Peter Grilli, and other Japanese friends to plan my itinerary the following June. I made a list of cities that I wanted to visit.

The following June, I left, once again for Tokyo. On my arrival, I was visited by Hiroshi Teshigahara, the filmmaker I had met at the Arakawas. I had loved his film,
Woman in the Dunes.
Hiroshi was also a master of flower arrangement and had a very successful school teaching young women classical Japanese flower arrangement. A few days after I arrived in Tokyo, Hiroshi asked me if I would do a friend of his a great favor. The friend had invested in several
crêperies,
but the business was failing, and he wanted me to look at the restaurants to see why they were such a failure. For the next two days, I visited the
crêperies
and realized immediately that the batter was wrong and that the cooks had not leaned how to make a perfect crêpe. I gathered all the cooks together in one of the restaurants, made a batter, and taught them how to make a real French crêpe.

The next day the owner sent his manager to the hotel where I was staying. He handed me an envelope and said, bowing very low, “Please count the money. Mr. O. is so pleased and thankful for your help.” I refused the envelope, saying “I did very little. Thank you, but there is no need.” He insisted, and so I opened the envelope and nearly had a heart attack as I counted the money. There was the equivalent of $30,000 in my trembling hands. Bowing even lower, I thanked them both and rushed to my room. I picked up the phone, called Jimmy, waking him up, and told him to take the first plane to Tokyo to join me, explaining briefly what had happened.

A few days later, Jimmy arrived, and together we traveled, eating our way through Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. Jimmy took pictures, and I took notes of everyone and every dish we ate.

A year later, Jimmy told me that his firm was doing very well. “Thomas is graduating this spring. He will be going to college in the fall. We can manage without your teaching. Would you like to quit school and just write?”

This had been my dream for several years, and so the following June, I resigned from my position at school and said good-bye to all my friends. I shed a tear or two, and with great trepidation and fear, I looked forward to a year of not only just writing, but also traveling and this time writing about it.

E
very few years Jimmy
would give me a wonderful present for my birthday: a bound book written and illustrated by him. Each of the books told the story of what had happened to me in the last few years or decade, picking up where he had left off before. Today, as I sat down to write, I picked up the 1979 to 1989 book and looked at his magnificent drawings. I flipped through the book and saw a drawing of me topless in an open bath house in Japan; a drawing of my daughter Marianne being married in our garden; a drawing of me writing in a tiny room surrounded by hundreds of cookbooks.

By the fall of 1988, I had stopped teaching at St. Ann’s in order to devote myself full-time to writing. The first few weeks were difficult. I had to adjust to the fact that I did not have to get up at six in the morning to be at school at 8:30
A.M
., that there were no children to take care of. Marianne was about to get married and dreaming about becoming a teacher, Juliette was in Turkey teaching English to young girls, and Cecile was about to embark on an architectural career. As for Thomas, Jimmy and I had just driven him, our youngest child, to Dartmouth College. Now during the day, the house was empty. I was free to do whatever I wanted. I did nothing for a few weeks; I roamed around the house aimlessly, thinking over and over,
What if I could not find anything to do? What if I have no ideas for stories? What if people forget me? What if the telephone never rings?
I was scared and lonely and missed the challenge of teaching and the conversation and laughter of my teacher friends. I missed the anticipation of creating new programs. I missed running my department.

To prepare for my “new life” as a full-time writer, I began by organizing my space in the house. Until now, I had used the smallest room in the house as my study. I decided to move my books and computer to one of the children’s deserted bedrooms. The room was large and airy, and I hated it. I missed the comfort of my compact office, and so I moved back. I tried to work but failed to write even a single line. I was experiencing not only the “empty nest” syndrome, but also a change in the way I looked not only at my work but also at my life. For years I had taught because we needed the money. What I had really wanted to do was pushed aside simply out of necessity. But when the opportunity came my way, I had to cope with too much change all at once. The same month I resigned from St. Ann’s, I lost my job at
New York
Magazine.

New York
Magazine had been my lifeline to the food world. Years before, I had started to write short pieces for their “Best Bets” section. It all started when I met Gael Greene, the food editor of
New York
magazine at a party in East Hampton. We had a lot in common. We both liked good food, we were both good cooks, and, above all, we both liked to write about it.

One day I received a call from Gael. Would I be interested in becoming The Underground Gourmet restaurant reviewer for
New York
magazine? I had wanted to review restaurants for many years, and this, I thought, would be the perfect job for me. Gael explained that the magazine was considering three other writers for this spot. The rules of the underground gourmet column were very strict. No main dish could cost more than $8.50, not an easy criterion to meet even in 1982. But I knew Chinatown and ethnic restaurants very well, so I was sure I could do the job. Gael suggested that I choose a restaurant and write a review.

I chose an Ethiopian restaurant on Thompson Street. I had two very close Ethiopian friends, and had eaten at their house several times. Also, I was introduced to Ethiopian food on my visits to Africa. I felt I knew the food quite well. So I wrote my piece, had Jimmy check for English and grammar mistakes, and sent it in. A few weeks later, I was hired.

I worked as The Underground Gourmet reviewer for the next three years. I loved discovering small, new restaurants. I remember once walking to visit South Street Seaport, which had just opened. I had lost my way and ended up on a side street. I noticed a seafood restaurant that advertised mussels, a whole bowl with Italian bread for only $6. The restaurant was empty, the mussels were deliciously fresh, and when I spoke to the owner, I was astonished to learn that he was a wholesale fish monger at the Fulton Fish Market. He had always dreamt of opening a restaurant. He was trying to make a go at it, but had not been quite successful. I wrote the story, and a few weeks later, passing by I saw a line of customers waiting to be seated. Another discovery was a bistro called La Luncheonette, on Essex Street, run by a Frenchmen who was the cook, the waiter, and the sommelier. A year after my story was published, he moved his restaurant to Tenth Avenue and was able to hire a waiter and a dishwasher. Success stories made me very proud.

Every year, apart from restaurant reviews, I worked on the
Round up of New Restaurants
issue; stories on the best potato pancake in New York, the best barbeque, the best restaurants for take out, and many more. Writing these survey stories was incredibly hard work. My writing was straightforward, very accurate and knowledgeable in describing the food or the décor, but I knew that my style did not quite match the witty, trendy
New York
magazine “new journalism” style. This would prove my downfall.

In 1988, Chinatown saw an explosion of new restaurants. Loaded with cash, Chinese were arriving in droves from Hong Kong. They were used to much better fare than the mushy meals served in New York’s traditional Chinese restaurants, which were geared to an imagined American taste. I suggested a piece on the best new restaurants in Chinatown. My piece would describe the many dishes new to New York. Everyone at the magazine agreed that this was a great idea, and I set out to select the ten best. I turned to my closest Chinese friend, Suzanne Chen. Suzanne and I ate our way through Chinatown. I wrote my piece and presented my expense account. The editor-in-chief liked my story but said that it lacked the
New York
magazine voice. Furthermore, he added, he was astonished by my soaring expenses. “Look,” he said, brandishing my expense account, “you say here that a bird’s nest soup cost $30! That’s outrageous!” He then pulled out of his desk drawer a soiled take-out menu from the hole-in-the wall Chinese restaurant around the corner. “Look, a perfectly good bird’s nest soup here is only five bucks. I’ll pay you for the article but will not reimburse your expense account. Take it or leave it!”

I tried to explain that the bird’s nest soup I had written about was the real thing. What he ate at his desk was just make believe, a tasteless version. Refusing to back down, I walked out and thus lost a job I had loved more than any other.

So now I was a freelance journalist. It is a very difficult job, no matter how well-known you may be. I was not shy, but I found it very tough to knock on doors, and also at this point, I had no idea of what I wanted to write. A chance encounter put me in the right direction.

The food world was changing dramatically. The Greenmarket on Union Square, a Farmers’ Market thought up by our friend Barry Benepe, was now offering chefs’ ingredients available formerly only from Europe or Asia that local farmers were now growing on New York and New Jersey farms near the city. In the Greenmarket on Union Square and in the new Korean produce stores, herbs such as fresh pineapple mint, real French tarragon, purple basil, or Greek oregano, and organic vegetables were becoming ordinary, daily fare. New Yorkers were now clamoring for better breads. Bakeries such as Our Daily Bread and the Sullivan Street Bakery were opening in many neighborhoods in New York, offering French baguettes, croissants, or Italian
cibatta
or
Pugliese.
Dean & Deluca, Balducci’s, Whole Foods, and Gourmet Garage in the Village were a few of the pioneering stores where one shopped for unique ingredients from the world over.

Soho had greatly changed since we had bought our house in1967. Up Sullivan Street from our house. Once Upon A Tart, the gourmet café run by Jerome, served small vegetarian quiches, scrumptious sandwiches, and exotic salads along with excellent muffins, cheddar-dill scones (I was addicted to them), fruit tarts, and rich black French roast coffee. Around the corner on Prince Street, Luigi’s restaurant was replaced by Raoul’s, a hot French restaurant, filled with beautiful people. It had just received a two-star rating from
The New York Times.
There were many new trendy boutiques such as Diesel Jeans, Hans Koch leather bags, and a Tibetan silk and jewelry store, and, most important, a twenty-
four-hour Korean vegetable grocery with a street-side flower shop at the corner of Thompson and Prince Streets, which changed the whole aspect of the street. But my favorite place was Dean & Deluca, a brilliant new grocery and produce store on Prince Street and Broadway. The store was the idea of two men, Joel Dean, who took care of the buying, and Jack Ceglic, who designed the store. Added to this pair, was a third man, an Italian, Georgio Deluca, whose main interest was cheeses from all over the world.

One day walking down Prince Street, I stopped short in front of Dean & Deluca’s window. I could not believe my eyes. The window looked like a window from Fauchon’s in Paris. Intrigued, I entered the store and asked Joel Dean who had designed the window. Joel introduced me to Lee Grimsbo. Lee was a tall, young, laconic man with a shy smile. He came from the Midwest and was the son of a biologist who got Lee interested in the cultivation of organic fruit and vegetables. What Lee wanted most in life, he told me, was to share his knowledge with the public and at the same time help his friends. I liked Lee; we had the same goals. Every day I would stop by the store and talk to him, asking about what new vegetable or fruit he had. He brought in cardoons that the Italians had eaten for centuries; he showed me a Romanesco cauliflower from Holland, a cross between a cauliflower and broccoli. I would go to my kitchen, try these new vegetables, and come back to him with recipes I thought he could share with his customers.

One day Lee asked me why I had not written a story about the revolution in the agricultural world in the United States. He suggested a trip around the country where he would introduce me to all his friends. I asked an old friend, Philip Herrera, then managing editor of
Connoisseur
magazine, if he was interested in such a piece. Philip talked to Tom Hoving, editor-in-chief, and my story got the go-ahead. They were willing to pay for the trip.

In early June, Lee and I flew to San Francisco where we visited several of Lee’s farmer friends. Most of them were in their twenties, did not come from farming families, and had degrees in English literature, chemistry, engineering, etc. Bored with the prospect of futures as engineers and scientists, they had decided to buy a few acres and start farming. A few told me that Alice Waters of Chez Panisse Restaurant had inspired them to grow vegetables such as ramps, the wild onion, or fiddleheads from the banks of brooks. Some began to grow delicate miniature vegetables. Others visited Europe and came back with seeds for patty pan squash, miniature zucchini, and five different kinds of potatoes; one or two brought back purple potatoes from Peru. We met with very different growers from the Driscoll Company, a large corporate enterprise who caught on to the exotic vegetable and berry market and now grew different kinds of fruit plus salads such as frisee, red leaf, radicchio, and red and white radishes.

We then drove to the Napa Valley, not to look at wineries, but to visit the exquisite Fetzer Winery vegetable garden, precisely planted with Jerusalem artichokes, oriental eggplants, baby leaf spinach, chayotes, tiny Italian artichokes and green or yellow miniature zucchini. On a commune in Sonoma Valley, we hung out with young hippies who cultivated, in a very large garden, white asparagus, fennel, and five kinds of lettuce they called
mesclun,
and they sold these at nearby farmer’s markets. As we walked through the commune garden, wilder looking than the others we had visited, Lee picked up a tiny purple salad leaf: “Look Colette how small and delicate! It belongs to the spinach family. Taste it; it’s so amazingly sweet.”

As he handed me the delicate pale green leaf, he looked happier than I had ever seen him appear in New York. I thought that this was where he belonged, not in the cutthroat New York food scene.

Later that day we drove to the Oakland Museum, which one weekend a year hosted farmers from around the state, inviting them to display new varieties of vegetables and fruit. We met Nicolas T., a Californian who grew
nishi
or Asian pears and
mizuma
salad that he had first tasted in Japan. Another stand was displaying red, yellow, and orange Tom Thumb tomatoes, even smaller than cherry tomatoes, which were grown on a miniscule farm near Oakland.

Then we flew to Los Angeles to meet Frieda, the “purple lady” (she was always dressed in purple), who was wildly successful, packaged container loads of vegetables like tomatillos and baby avocados and fruit like feijoa or carambola, the yellow star fruit from South America and the Caribbean Islands, and shipped her products to thousands of gourmet stores around the country.

Finally, just before leaving California, we drove to the famous Chino Farm outside San Diego. The Chino Farm grew superb vegetables and fruit for chefs around the area. The Chino vegetables, herbs, and especially strawberries were mouthwatering, the equal of the best of France. Buyers drove miles to pick up a carton of strawberries, tiny artichokes, or pencil-thin haricot vert.