A Celebration of Chefs

Ephemera: A La Carte

Millions of people all over the world will open a restaurant menu today. They will look at menus for the food and the price and make their selection, then the menu will lay on the table, ignored, an annoyance taking up elbow space.

Not so for Jim Heinmann, whose new book Menu Design in America: 1850-1985 (Taschen) asks that you set aside the hunger pangs and examine the menu, admire its design. Heimann’s book made its appearance at one of the best-catered signings in recent history. Delicacies and drinks provided by Taschen’s Beverly Hills store’s glamorous neighbors: Mr. Chow, Spago, The Cheese Story Beverly Hills, Vosges Haut Chocolate, The Spare Room and Remy U.S.A.

The dress code was country club casual. I was struck by a number of women with seventy-year old hands and faces as smooth as river stones in pretty summer dresses, light layers of lavender and other gentle shades of purple daringly accented with a coral pink or chartreuse accessory. Their hair was sparse with age but coiffed into cotton candy halos. It was all very Palm Beach or Palm Springs on Easter Sunday, or Beverly Hills before black became de rigueur. None of them smoked, not upstairs at the open-air bar or out on the clean, expansive sidewalk, but their hushed, hoarse voices betrayed a secret habit, some sweet vice recently abandoned.

The Kitchen Artist

Fcouple No one goes to Francois Kirkland’s house for dinner. Friends go there to dine.

What her husband, the photographer Douglas Kirkland’s studio is to him, the hub of his art, the capital city of his creativity, the kitchen is to Francois.

It is the stage she was born to dance on.

Being French helps.

At 19 she met and fell in love with Douglas who was in Paris shooting CoCo Chanel for Life Magazine. Dropping out of University to follow the tall, lanky, ultra sexy artist back to New York to be his young bride, it never occurred to her that she would spend so much of her life in a kitchen.

Or perhaps it did. Again, she’s French.

Cooking, though, is indeed her art form and Francois is a gifted artist.

Jar

It all started with my Mom’s 1/2 gal of dill pickles 40ish years ago....I was always facinated with the glass jar itself, the settling of spices in the bottom and the beauty of how the small cucumbers were so artful and lovingly arranged. Our Mother could cook like an angel inspired by Julia and the Time/Life series to guide her. Everyday of the week she watched and read and plotted and planned for the weekend.

Living the Dream

mister chef “Please don’t wake me from this dream!” I said out loud to my husband while eating the brilliant meal in front of me, prepared by my live-in chef. Uh-huh, you heard correctly. My private chef.

Let me take you back five days. I received a late-night email. It was from an old friend, Olivia. She told me her son was here in Los Angeles from London (where they live) and that the minute he arrived, he had a bust-up with his girlfriend. She said that he could use a friendly face. I answered immediately: “Of course, have him call me.”

First call the following day was Oscar, whom I’ve never met. In fact, I have not seen his mother in thirty years. Since he was already in Venice, I asked him to meet me at one of my favorite restaurants, Gjelina on Abbot Kinney. My husband Michael agreed to join us. Oscar, looking lost and forlorn, told us he had planned to take his now ex-girlfriend to Valentine’s dinner here at this same restaurant the following night. We offered our home to Oscar for the rest of his vacation. I didn’t think we would be too intriguing, but later that day he told me that eating lunch with us was the most fun he had had so far in Los Angeles. And when he told us he was a chef, I nearly screamed. Actually, I did, but only internally.

Moules Provençale

VICTORY! SUCCES FACILE! VITTORIA TOTALE!

Oh those personal chefs of Palm Beach – those white jacketed, croc-shod, Bluetooth-eared, clubby bunch that troll the aisles of our local supermarket! Is it simple envy that knowing they wield a knife better than I that has made me feel less than human as I wheel my cart past them? Probably. But, today there was victory! Today, There was Deliverance! Equality – nay – Superiority! (They don’t have to know I usually cut my finger when I cut a bagel – and you don’t have to tell them!)

I am shopping for an intimate Moules Provençale dinner, and I am in a snit trying to find the shallots. I humbly ask one of “them” if he knew where they stocked the shallots. After a delicious amount of time wasted as he poked about the onions and garlic, we simultaneously found them among the potatoes. “Thank you.”

Later he sought me out. “I noticed you were buying shallots. You must be a serious cook.” (Excuse me, that is all it takes for a woman to appear ‘serious’ in Palm Beach!)

A Celebration of Chefs and Others