An Exercise in Constraints: The Cuisine of David Chang and Nathan Myrvold

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Chef Anne Haerle

A few months ago, I wallowed an amazing food fantasy weekend that included a tribute dinner to David Chang in Seattle and an extravagant tasting menu at Nathan Myrvold’s Modernist Cuisine lab. Afterwards, as I stumbled through my fancy food hangover, I started mulling over constraints—namely, the limitations that control and ultimately shape creativity. Before becoming a professional chef, I spent many years as a graphic designer and marketing professional where creativity was pushed and prodded by constraints every day. The client needs three completely different creative concepts, and can you get those out in the next two days? Oh, and they have a tiny budget. And the entire executive team has to sign off on the final concept. And the CEO’s wife likes blue, so make sure one of the designs oozes navy. As graphic designers, we tackled these kinds of challenges daily. And while the agency pressure cooker frequently tenderized your brain in mere minutes, it also forced you to problem solve on the fly. Many times the force of these constraints squeezed out great creative solutions like diamonds from coal.

As I transitioned from a design career to the culinary world, the hyperkinetic atmosphere of the professional kitchen felt strangely familiar, like a heaping helping of déjà vu. The plates for tonight’s main course sitting in the plate warmer, which no one noticed had stopped working, were stone cold at service time. Okay, let’s set up a makeshift brigade and shuttle stacks of them back and forth to the combi oven where we can flash them just before plating. Oh man, we just had a customer walk in who requested an entirely gluten-free menu. How can I reinvent my pasta dish in the next 20 minutes by using the meager pieces of extra produce sitting in the walk-in? Countless scenarios like these play themselves out every day in restaurant kitchens everywhere. But if you can swallow the surge of panic from your stomach and stay focused, often you can reach down and pull out a gem of a creative solution when circumstance demands it.

Which brings me back to David Chang and Nathan Myrvold. In reading the Momofuku cookbook, which I recommend to anyone with a deep passion for any pursuit, David weaves his tale of becoming obsessed with learning how to make the perfect bowl of ramen. His relentless pursuit drove him into many of New York’s best kitchens and to Japan, where he worked tirelessly to learn not just how to cook, but how to cook well.

When he finally decided to take the all-too-familiar plunge into restaurant ownership,  he built his Noodle Bar with his bare hands, cobbling together the plywood interior by day and crafting his menu at night. The miniscule kitchen and limited equipment forced him to be excruciatingly efficient, like cooking a ten-course meal in a photo booth. David is fiercely proud of what he and his team accomplished with very little space and even less money. In fact, these vice-like limitations spawned many culinary creations on which Chang has built his budding empire.

In his book, Chang talks about how much pork fat his kitchen generated after accidentally roasting a batch of pork bellies at a too-high temperature and rendering out too much fat. Chang couldn’t throw out the bellies since a chef can’t violate the first cardinal rule of restaurant cooking, “thou shalt not throw anything away, lest your profits land in the alley dumpster.” Chang decided to lower the oven temperature and braise the pork in a bath of its own fat, or an accidental confit. To deal with the river of pork fat his cooks were creating with this new roasting method, Chang used it for everything, from flavoring kimchi stew to deep frying. Not only was he generating a cheap source of cooking fat, he was infusing many of his menu items with a layer of porky goodness that helped launch a massive culinary trend. Chang will be the first to tell you, as he did at the dinner I attended, that the constraints he faced—of limited space, little funding, and a tiny pool of good quality local ingredients, forced him to become a better cook as he pursued his passion for the perfect bowl of noodles.

Now cut to following night at the Modernist Cuisine lab, an event which David Chang also attended. Nathan Myrvold, Microsoft’s first and former chief technology officer, also pursued a passion for modern cooking techniques, or what many call molecular gastronomy. An avid practitioner of sous vide cooking, Nathan decided in 2004 to write a book on the cooking method which was just gaining mainstream attention in this country. As Nathan explored the scientific and culinary aspects of sous vide, his area of study rapidly expanded to include food safety, food science, and beyond. Slowly but surely, a straightforward manual on sous vide cooking exploded into a five volume missive.

By no means a simple set of cookbooks, Modernist Cuisine is a sweeping exploration of all aspects of cooking, both modern and traditional. Want to see what happens on a microscopic level when drop of water dances across the surface of a hot griddle? Then say hello to the Leidenfrost effect, which is covered in Volume 1. Ever wondered about the pH level of a banana? You’ll find that in a beautifully designed table in the gels section. Dying to unlock the secret of a perfectly roasted chicken, with skin that alluringly crackles under the pressure of your fork? Then break open Volume 5 and bask in the high-resolution glory of the obscenely gorgeous photography, all taken in-house by Nathan’s team. The sheer breadth and depth of culinary knowledge captured in 43 pounds of books is breathtaking. Such a literary undertaking seems nearly impossible, yet the Modernist Cuisine team’s four years of labor is now in its second printing. Even before its release, Modernist Cuisine was inducted into the Cookbook Hall of Fame at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.

Nathan, at first blush, is a man completely unfettered by constraints. After all, how  could anyone conceive and create a project of this scope and devote the substantial resources needed to pull this off? How can one person drive an undertaking this technically complex without making any compromises, from using state-of-the art photography equipment, all the way down to the finest quality ink and printing paper?  And most astoundingly, how does one person have the time and attention span to dive to these depths of food and cooking while running an 800-person research company? Does this guy ever sleep?

Nathan certainly doesn’t feel the same constraints of funding, space, and resources  that shaped David Chang’s entrepreneurial beginnings. Indeed, without these typical limitations it would be easy for someone like Nathan to plunge deeper down the research “rabbit hole” without ever coming up for air. But as a scientist, Nathan is guided by the rigor of disciplined research—to pose a question, develop a hypothesis, and test it exhaustively, all while methodically documenting the results. The constraints of the scientific mind keep Nathan marching resolutely to uncover what happens when we attempt to change mere ingredients into works of culinary art. And it is this scientific discipline that drove Nathan to bring this 747-sized cookbook project in for a landing.

Just as David Chang hammers out a solution for the perfect ramen noodle, Nathan unleashes his relentless curiosity to discover how the alignment of ground beef strands in a hamburger creates the best texture. And while they both operate under very different constraints, they are each driven to discover the reasons why certain things happen when we work with food and how to constantly make them better. And for anyone who has enjoyed David’s wildly creative cuisine or who will see Nathan’s multi-volume masterwork, they will be much richer for it.

Filed under: Corporate Chef, David Chang, Modernist Cuisine, Restaurants, Seattle, Sur La Table | Leave a Comment »

Modernist Cuisine: One Pioneer, Five Volumes, and 29 Courses

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Chef Anne Haerle

While writing recipes for a Sur La Table cooking class, I started thinking about how many of us learn to cook. Growing up in the South where food is tightly woven into the cultural fabric, I picked up bits of kitchen wisdom over the years like why you handle biscuit dough gently like picking up a newborn baby. I also discovered in dramatic fashion why roasting the Thanksgiving turkey inside a brown paper grocery bag can explode into a fiery mess. I imagine that many of us learn this way, through tribal knowledge gathered from family and friends and then taking our own tentative steps toward kitchen proficiency.

But while many of us learned the “how” of cooking—how to make a fluffy biscuit or roast a turkey without calling the fire department—we don’t always know the reasons “why” we follow certain rules in the kitchen. Like why does your butter or shortening need to be ice-cold when making biscuit dough? Or why put the darn turkey in a paper bag in the first place? After years of professional cooking, I learned that knowing the reasons why freed me from recipes and unlocked the door to culinary creativity.

It’s this passion for understanding the “why” of modern cooking that fueled the team behind Modernist Cuisine, a 5-volume culinary encyclopedia created with the simple mission of redefining modern cooking. Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s former chief technology officer and founder of his own technological ventures company, began this project in 2004 as a book on sous vide cooking. As he dove deeper into this modern cooking technique, he decided to include key points on food safety and microbiology. As he dove ever deeper into the reasons why, this humble project born in Nathan’s kitchen blossomed into a team of more than a dozen professionals tirelessly testing in the lab’s high-tech kitchen, taking thousands of high-resolution photographs, and capturing the dynamics of cooking with 6,500-frames-per-second HD video.

Recently I attended a Modernist Cuisine dinner at the Intellectual Ventures kitchen lab in Bellevue, Washington. With some of the first sets of books making their way from China via tanker at that moment, I was hoping for a tiny glimpse into all that Nathan and his talented team had accomplished. What I saw and tasted that evening completely blew my mind.

After arriving at the lab, I was graciously ushered into a sleek white conference room where flat screens scrolled through a series of images from Modernist Cuisine. When I first heard about the books at the International Association of Food Bloggers conference last year, I was immediately struck by the quality and detail captured in the photography. Since Modernist Cuisine strives to teach cooking techniques, the team developed revolutionary ways to show what was happening inside cooking vessels. Using an abrasive water jet cutter, the team sliced all manner of equipment  in half, including woks, pots, sauté pans, and even a microwave oven. Hundreds of foods were also sliced in two to show what was happening inside as they cooked. Some of the more dramatic images in the books, like the cross-section stir-fry photo, were stitched together to tell the story of what happens in a hot wok and why stir-fry dishes taste the way they do.

As I took a spot at the mile-long conference table I found myself sitting across from Tim Zagat, one of the founders of the Zagat restaurant guides. He and his wife Nina had come that evening to support Nathan, who worked as Chef Gastronomic Officer for Zagat Survey. As we flipped through the first precious copies of the books laid before us, Tim described them as the most important cookbooks to be published during his lifetime. After spending an all-too-short visit with these amazing volumes, I had to agree.

As I reverently flipped from one lush page to the next, I was struck by both their look and feel. As a former graphic designer, I appreciate the satiny surface and heft of quality paper. No expense was spared here. We learned during Nathan’s presentation that he hand-picked an art book printer in China that could deliver the highest quality printed image and resolution on the page. And for a set of books weighing 43 pounds, 4 of those pounds come from the ink slathered on these pages. Where cookbook authors today often run into limits on page count, number of photos, and printing budget, Nathan’s decision to self-publish ensured that the final product embodied all the precision and attention to the detail of its authors.

But don’t mistake Modernist Cuisine for an overblown coffee table book—in fact, the set of books cradled in its custom-made Plexiglas slipcase could double as an actual coffee table in a New York apartment. These volumes contain over five years of exploring “how” and “why” we poke and prod food using traditional and new tools and methods. With its genesis in modern cooking techniques like sous vide, foams, gels, and thickeners, people might make the mistake of calling Modernist Cuisine the ultimate food geek’s guide to molecular gastronomy. Not so. Driven by scientific rigor and boundless curiosity, Nathan and his team cover everything from culinary history to the physics of food and water to fully enjoying wine and coffee with food. Each page reveals detailed explorations into how various cooking techniques work and why they produce specific results. And to illustrate how Nathan’s talented team of chefs bring their scientific research to life, Volume 4 includes 250 pages of plated-dish recipes. Every one of them reads like a mini-modernist cookbook, with its list of required high-tech tools and detailed tables of precise cooking times and temperatures. As we sit down to dinner, I wonder what kind of dishes the kitchen team will produce using the centrifuges, freeze dryers, homogenizers, and rotary evaporators surrounding our dinner tables.

I soon found out. As our first of 29 (yes, 29!) courses, we enjoyed a platter of razor-thin fried dill pickle and pear chips, delicately crispy and thin enough to read through. Nathan explained that normally items like pears and pickles are too wet to fry so they impregnated them with starch. My table mates and I were still marveling over these fried pieces of modern magic when we were treated to the kitchen team’s take on Pringles potato chips—puffed potato crisps fashioned from modified starch, served with a whipped mousse-like chantilly cream of baked potato juice. The intense layers of potato flavor in the crisps and the cream were balanced with a blast of spray dried buttermilk. Conversation at our table trailed off as we all savored these familiar but uber-heightened flavors of these dishes while trying to unravel how these guys pulled it off.

Soon we all settled into a rhythm of being visually stunned by each new dish, then savoring the clean, pure essence of the ingredients. What struck me most about the dinner was that Nathan and his team deployed their army of high-tech tools and techniques in service to the food. Yes, there are elements of “gee, look at all the cool stuff we can do” in Modernist Cuisine. After all, I doubt that many cooks will whip up a batch of ballistics gel and fire a bullet through a block of the stuff (there’s a recipe for it in the gels section). But each course in our 4-hour dinner was designed to amplify the essence of what we were tasting and at times toyed with our notions of classic recipes.

Early in the evening we were served airy and delicate cheese soufflés resting comfortably on a slate slab, freed from their cooking vessels. A normal soufflé wouldn’t hold its shape on its own but these morsels were reinforced with an emulsifier so they could stand proud on the serving plate. The “rare beef stew,” which at once seemed wrong but oh so right, featured a ruby-red beef jus extracted at a low temperature to preserve the gorgeous color. And the pea butter, fashioned from the centrifuged solids of green peas and coating a thin slice of crispy toast, tasted like the world’s most intense expression of fresh peas in springtime.

Nearly as amazing as the food was the group of diners assembled for this rare evening, including Dana Cowin from Food and Wine magazine, David Chang from New York’s Momofuku restaurant, and Kenji Lopez-Alt from Serious Eats. As we experienced (“ate” doesn’t quite cut it) each mind-bending course, we talked about the books and what they might mean to cooks everywhere. We all agreed that, for professional chefs who want to wallow in the modernist cooking pond, these books provided a detailed and sound technical basis for culinary creativity. For instance, if you want to make a gel out of banana puree, you need to know which gelling agent will give you the firmness and texture you want. But to know which one to use, you need detailed knowledge like how the gels react to temperature, moisture, and acidity. Restaurants who champion these techniques, like el Bulli in Spain or The Fat Duck in England, developed their own base of tribal knowledge. With the Modernist Cuisine books, any chef has access to that knowledge, freeing themselves to focus on creativity. Earlier I had glanced at one of the recipes for watermelon “meat,” where slices of melon were “cured” to concentrate flavor and create something akin to fruit jerky. I began to imagine a charcuterie plate of different cured fruits that showcased their reinvented colors, textures, and flavors.

But what about the home cook who wants a deeper understanding of what’s happening on their stove and in their ovens? We agreed that there’s plenty for them to explore in Modernist Cuisine. Another dish we enjoyed that evening was a perfectly roasted slice of chicken breast, oozing with juiciness and topped with a crisp cap of golden skin that crunched under the pressure of our forks. What cook doesn’t seek one of the holiest of culinary grails—the perfect roast chicken? Nathan’s method, combining detailed specifications for trussing, drying, and slow-roasting the chicken as well as cooking the skin separately, sounds like the perfect marriage of Willy Wonka and Cooks Illustrated. But home cooks, with a little diligence, can replicate a number of techniques outlined in the book. Plus the detailed text and rich photography will transport any cook to a level of detail about the how and why of cooking that they’re never seen before.

As dinner came to a close with gelled gummy worms made from molds used by fisherman to fashion custom lures, we all wondered about the firestorm that Modernist Cuisine will ignite. Nathan, his team and the books have received loads of attention by national media outlets. Already dubbed “the most important cookbook of the first ten years of the 21st century” by the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards in France, Modernist Cuisine can safely be labeled a huge success even before many people hold the books in their hands. But the buzz hovering one of the most comprehensive culinary reference works ever created shows that cooks everywhere can’t get enough of the how and why behind creating great food.

Now that my set of books has arrived, it’s time to wallow in some tribal knowledge. More to come.

Filed under: Corporate Chef, Modernist Cuisine, Seattle, Sur La Table | Leave a Comment »

Sous Vide Yogurt? Why Yes You Can!

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Chef Anne Haerle

As Corporate Chef, I’m always on the lookout for products that make life in the kitchen easier and more fun. I’ve always been a kitchen tools junkie—I love trying out the latest, shiniest items claiming to make cooking a breeze. After years of trying out the great (fish spatula) and the not-so-great (a crepe pan that literally folded in half), I learned that the best tools can easily tackle numerous tasks. Single-use items just didn’t cut it. After all, I don’t know many people who complain about having too much storage space in their kitchen. And I’m no exception.

So when people ask me to name one of my go-to tools, I often tell them it’s my Sous Vide Supreme. Most of the time I get a blank stare back. Sous vide? Isn’t that the fancy machine they use on Top Chef all the time? For most folks, sous vide is some crazy kitchen voodoo practiced in high-end fine dining restaurants.

Sous vide (French for “under pressure”) cooking involves sealing food in a plastic bag and submerging it in a water bath set at a specific temperature. The machine maintains that target temperature to within a degree or less. Foods can’t overcook since they can’t get any warmer than the temperature setting. And you can hold many foods at that temperature for an hour or more. I use it at home to cook the perfect filet mignon. Just set water bath to 125 degrees and cook the steaks for about an hour, then sear briefly in a hot skillet right before serving. Chicken breasts stay moist and succulent—I like to sous vide a batch on Sundays for salads and sandwiches during the week. In a nutshell, sous vide means foolproof and convenient cooking for the home chef.

Recently in the test kitchen I was trying out recipes for our Homemade Cheese and Dairy Workshop cooking class and found myself with a head-scratcher. To make homemade yogurt, I needed to maintain the milk temperature at 116 degrees for 6 to 8 hours. How the heck could I do it without constant fussing? Several resources suggested things like oven pilot lights and heating pads, none of which sounded very precise. I needed a more reliable solution that didn’t require hours of fiddling.

Then it struck me—the Sous Vide Supreme! After all, the machine is made to keep a constant temperature for hours. Problem solved! Late one afternoon I mixed up a batch of milk and cultured yogurt starter and poured it into a food grade plastic bag. But I didn’t seal the bag since I would be cooking the milk at such a low temperature. I draped the open end of the bag over the edge of the machine and placed the lid on top to keep the temperature steady. The next morning I came back and lifted the lid. Perfect yogurt! No muss, no fuss, no babysitting. Problem solved.

If you want learn more about sous vide cooking, check out the sous vide forum on eGullet:

Filed under: Cooking Classes, Corporate Chef, Recipe testing, Sur La Table | Leave a Comment »

A Friday Night at Lark: Staging in Seattle

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Chef Anne Haerle

I shook off the last drops of a slow, steady Seattle rain as I stepped through the door of Lark, a small Seattle restaurant with a big reputation for artisan-focused cuisine. The warm candlelight cast a buttery glow across the white walls and burnished wood tables. Wait staff circled the tables, setting each with starched white napkins, slender wine glasses and curved-handled silverware. Everything about the intimate but understated dining room radiated laid-back comfort, but with a tinge of seriousness. This place, while unassuming, didn’t mess around when it came to the food.

 “Hey there – I remember you. Good to see you,” a familiar voice called out by the bar. I stepped forward to greet the chef, Johnathan Sundstrom. I had met him a couple of times at industry events. “Great to be here—thanks for having me,” I said as I shook John’s hand. I had come on this rainy Friday night to stage at Lark. In the fine dining world, culinary students and aspiring cooks volunteered to work a shift, or stage (pronounced “stahge”), to gain experience with chefs they admire and to make connections for future employment. Most restaurants happily accommodate a stage, since it minimally meant a free pair of hands for the night.

 John led me down the narrow stairs to the restaurant’s office. “Let’s get you set up. You have your knives and chef’s coat, right? I’ll grab you an apron.” He disappeared into the back room while I looked for an empty hook to hang my wet coat. John emerged with a black apron. “You can put your things over here,” he motioned toward the back wall as he handed me the apron. “Sorry, it’s not too fancy down here. I’ll meet you upstairs when you’re ready.” He bounded back up the staircase as I buttoned up my chef’s jacket and surveyed the room. A typical restaurant office—computer and piles of books tucked into the corner, the staff’s personal items crammed into any available spot. It reminded me of being backstage at a theater production. All the polish and finery was out front for the benefit of the customer, as it should be.

 So why was I here on a Friday night to stage at Lark? As Sur La Table’s Corporate Chef, I wasn’t looking for a line cook position. I had asked John if I could come and work for the night for a few reasons. One, I wanted to see firsthand how a chef of his caliber put his creative and culinary spin on the gorgeous local ingredients he artfully prepares. Two, I wanted to draw inspiration from Lark’s approach and keep myself creatively charged. And three, I secretly wanted to see if I could still hack it in a restaurant kitchen.

 I grabbed my knife bag and retraced my steps upstairs where I found the chef in the kitchen. “Are you hungry? We’re just having family meal,” John offered. Many kitchens still observe the tradition of family meal, where a staff member makes dinner for the kitchen team and servers. It’s a chance for everyone to grab some food and a deep breath before service begins. I politely declined the chef’s generous offer. This is one of my personal rules about staging, which I developed during my culinary school days. Whenever I staged, I always strived to earn the respect of the kitchen team by working hard and staying the hell out of everyone’s way, but mostly by working hard. So Rule Number One, any and all free food must be earned.

 John first introduced me to Kelly, his business partner and restaurant manager, and then to the kitchen team. There was Wiley, the sous chef and second in command of the kitchen, a tall, thin and reserved guy with a slight smile. Phil, Wiley’s partner at the stove, stockier with black hair and generous grin, bundled his energy with intensity. And John, the third cook, manned the garde manger, or cold station, where he assembled salads, charcuterie and cheese plates. Everyone greeted me warmly and with a bit of curiosity. I’m used to this. Since I’m not the typical twenty-something culinary student, guys I first meet in the kitchen are usually thinking, “what the heck is she doing here?”

 Phil set me up with a cutting board at a small countertop adjacent to the reach-in refrigerator, tucked into a tight nook next to a large rolling rack. The kitchen at Lark is small—like a “spacious” New York City apartment. Most of the action took place at the gas stove, a massive cast iron beast that blasted orange flames straight up through the six burner grates. Behind the stove sat a double-sided refrigerated work station with wells containing pans of prepared ingredients for tonight’s menus items. Adjacent to the stove was a small “combi” oven, which Mark manned throughout service. Behind the oven sat the salad station, with small reach-in refrigerators underneath the counter. The very back of the kitchen served as the pastry and prep area since it contained the longest counter space in the place. And the dishwashing station occupied the opposite kitchen wall. A lot of equipment, food and people packed into one cozy space.

 As I pulled out my chef’s knife and tucked my bag under the counter, the kitchen team was finishing the last of their prep tasks to get ready for service. Lark’s dining room seats 50 and they typically do two “turns” on a weekend night, meaning the restaurant would serve 100 or more customers. Everyone wanted to make sure they had enough ingredients ready to go, but not too much. One of the most challenging tasks in a restaurant kitchen is gauging the amount of food needed, especially at a place like Lark that didn’t take reservations.

 John came back to check on me and to outline how he anticipated the evening to unfold. “It’s 5:15 now and I expect the dining room to start rocking between 6:30 and 7:00,” he explained, glancing at his watch. ”We should be winding down around 10:00 or so. I’m going to be standing at the kitchen entrance, expediting and checking plates before they go out. Later on we’ll have you stand near me so you can see all the action.”

 I thanked him and checked my set-up. While the chef had been talking, someone had left me a large plastic tumbler of water. I was grateful for this, since a kitchen this small was bound to get really warm once orders started streaming in.

 Now it was time to put Rule Number Two in action: do every job quickly and accurately, no matter how simple or small. I asked Mark to put me to work and he gave me a dead easy job—cut some lemons into supremes. Very simple—just trim off all the rind and white pith from the lemons and then carefully slice in between the membranes to remove the delicate sections. I finished as quickly as possible while making sure the supremes had no remnants of membrane or seeds clinging to them. Once I handed them off to Phil, I put Rule Number Three into action: keep asking “what’s next?” Phil asked me to grab the tarragon and chervil from the reach-in and pick some for service. Done. What’s next? Phil set me up in the back prep area to puree a batch of recently poached sunchokes for soup. He handed me a stockpot half-filled with the lumpy, light brown tubers that look a lot like ginger root, swimming in their pale poaching liquid. I processed the nutty-tasting sunchokes in batches, cutting them with homemade vegetable stock and whipping in wads of cold butter to form a velvety cream-colored soup.

 As I continued to plow through my assigned prep tasks, I noticed the energy level in the kitchen beginning to build as orders started to trickle in. “I need a meatball, a belly and a trout,” John called out to the team as they scurried into action. Wiley scooped the required ingredients from the bins in the prep island and plopped them into a sauté pan sitting on one of the volcanic burners. Phil warmed the cast iron serving vessels in the oven and finished all the baked dishes there. As I gently but swiftly wiped a bushel of chanterelle mushrooms clean with a damp towel and pulled them apart like golden taffy, I watched Wiley and Phil deftly pass dishes between them like two close-range jugglers. When an order was ready for the dining room, Wiley passed it to John who gave the plate an eagle eye and the edge a quick, careful wipe.

 “All day, I need two yellowtail, a crab, three steak, and a burrata.” By 8:00, batches of orders pummeled the kitchen in rapid-fire fashion. Lark specializes in small plates, so a table of four can easily go through ten or twelve dishes in a sitting. ”Still looking for two mushroom, a mackerel, an eel, and two duck.” Wiley and Phil were cranking now, dishes swirling madly back and forth in the narrow space between them.

 John made his way toward me, plate in hand and a slight grin on his face. “We accidently made an extra crab dish, so you guys got lucky.” He handed me the plate, brimming with lumps of fresh Dungeness crab meat cradled in a nest of squid ink pasta. “You should try it first,” he offered as he snaked his way through the action and back to the expediting counter. I twirled a healthy bite onto the fork and sucked it in. Shavings of bottarga, a salted and dried tuna roe, played nicely against the sweet and tart lemony butter sauce coating the pasta and crab. Butter ran down my chin as I inhaled another bite, but I really didn’t care.

 “Okay—two mackerel, a mussel, a beet, and a cheese plate – Capricious, Fourme, and Brillat.” All the sudden Phil called out, “Anne, can you go down to dry storage and grab some squid pasta? We’re running low.” I sprinted out the back door, made a u-turn over the wet walkway and unlocked the dry storage room door. Luckily, I found the pasta stash quickly, grabbed two packages of squid spaghetti and raced back upstairs. Wiley already had a bain marie of pasta water dancing on high heat. He took the pasta out of the package and plunged it into the boiling water. I noticed a chinois, or fine strainer, set up over a prep sink. “When the pasta’s ready,” Wiley explained, “I’m going to hand it to you to drain, then I need a 3-ounce portion as fast as you can get it to me.” I grabbed two clean bar towels to shield my hand from the almost red-hot baine of pasta. “Here it is – go!” I swiftly grabbed the pasta, drained it through the chinois, and carried it over to my station where I had placed a half-sheet pan and a jug of olive oil. I dumped the drained pasta on the pan and coated it with olive oil to keep it from sticking. I stuck one hand into the hot pasta to swirl it with the oil while grabbing a small plate under the counter with the other hand. After quickly weighing out the three ounces of pasta on a small scale, I placed it on the plate and handed it off to Wiley. “Thanks,” he smiled. “You really saved us!” I was happy to make the guy’s job a little easier any small way I could.

 Chef John reappeared in the kitchen. “Why don’t you take a break from those chanterelles and stand up front where you can see more?” I circled carefully around the stove and wedged myself into a spot where I could take the finished plates from the guys and pass them on to the chef. Wiley had just composed a serving of mackerel, nestled on top of a golden dollop of butternut squash puree. The charcoal black of the cast iron dish allowed the natural colors of the dish pop. After handing the mackerel to John I watched him plate a tarte tatin, a serving of crackly puff pastry dotted with caramelized apples. It turned out that the John does double duty as Lark’s pastry chef.

 The chef glanced at his watch again. “It’s almost 11:00. Why don’t you go downstairs and change? There’s an open seat at the bar. We’ll make you a little food for all your hard work.” He didn’t need to tell me twice. After emerging from the basement I slid into a tall chair at the tiny bar where Kelly presented me with a menu. As I scanned the menu items I pictured the parade of gorgeous plates I had seen leaving the kitchen that night. John appeared again and his subtle smile was back too. “Do you want to order or should we surprise you?” I was more than happy to have kitchen design my menu for me.

 My first reward came from the garde manger station courtesy of John. I enjoyed a plate of mizuna, a feathery Japanese salad green simply dressed in a puckery vinaigrette, alongside roasted red pepper strips and a dollop of honey-spiked onion jam. But all of these items sat in service to the star—a large spoonful of burrata, a fresh Italian cheese glistening in a shiny coat of olive oil. A fresh Italian cheese, this glorious blend of mozzarella and cream features a slightly chewy skin and a velvety smooth interior. I’ve made and enjoyed fresh mozzarella before but this was a different beast altogether. I was off to a great start.

 My next plate featured a dainty slab of Spanish mackerel, quickly pan-seared and perched on top of acorn squash puree, floating in a pool of black truffle and leek broth. The richness of the mackerel married beautifully with the starchy sweetness of the squash, and the crispy skin of the fish lent a nice textural note. Many people I know shy away from mackerel’s intensity but I became a huge fan after one bite.

 My third plate happily contained the dish I most wanted to try after seeing it come to life in the kitchen—emu meatballs. These deep brown jewels arrived on top of a delicate sheet of homemade pasta dotted with red chile flakes and chard ribbons. When I saw Wiley finishing an order on the stove earlier, I had wondered out loud how a game meat as lean as emu could work as a meatball. He explained that they had worked a bit of pork fat into the mix to add moisture and succulence. It worked. When I cut into one of the dark mahogany meatballs, it revealed a rosy pink interior that tasted at once like rich beef but with the lightness and fine texture of poultry.

 My final dish arrived in a clear glass, a parfait dancing with red and orange hues befitting late fall. A duo of tangerine and white chocolate sorbets hid a tart, ruby-red cranberry compote. Tiny, pale green jewels of finger lime fruit had been sprinkled on top. The finger lime tree, native to Australia but recently introduced to California, bears long, cylindrical fruit containing little pearls of sour lime juice that pop in your mouth like caviar. The sourness of the finger lime complimented the sweet and citrus sorbets, leaving you feeling refreshed after dessert, not overstuffed.

 As I marveled at the visual and gustatory beauty of each plate, it reminded me of how much hard work and care goes into food of this caliber. Every component, from the nuances of each sauce to how a fish is butchered to the size of a simple herb garnish, is carefully considered and scrutinized. The amount of effort and attention given to every item on every plate would astound the casual cook. And yet, good cooking merely begins with technical skill. A chef like John, who sweats over every detail on the plate, brings his knowledge and passion to the kitchen every day. During an earlier crush of orders, Wiley had called out to the chef, “anything special you want on that steak plate?” John replied, “just some love.”

Filed under: Corporate Chef, Lark, Restaurants, Seattle, Staging, Sur La Table | Leave a Comment »

Go Inside and Outside the Test Kitchen with Chef Anne

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Chef Anne Haerle

My name is Anne Haerle (pronounced “Hurley”) and I have the greatest job in the world. As Sur La Table’s Corporate Chef, I design the themes and menus for many of the cooking classes taught in our 23 culinary programs around the country. I also write the recipes for these classes and test them in our corporate kitchen. Each week feels like a culinary trip around the globe. So far I’ve written and tested recipes for Italian, French, Thai, Spanish, Korean, and Latin American cooking classes, as well as baking and pastry. I use our test kitchen as my lab and playground where I’m constantly exploring new flavor combinations, cooking techniques, culinary products, and regional cuisines. From time to time I’m also asked to develop recipes for special events and cook on TV on behalf of Sur La Table. I started this blog to take you behind the scenes into the exciting and endlessly fascinating world of professional cooking. 

 My former career didn’t always provide so much excitement. After graduating in 1987 with a bachelors in graphic design, I took two whole seconds to decide to move from Kentucky and go to New York City to earn my masters. During grad school I got my first graphic design job and didn’t look back. I worked as a designer for agencies in midtown Manhattan for over ten years, working with Fortune 100 companies on tons of high-profile projects.

 In between hammering out annual reports and slick brochures, I taught myself how to cook by immersing myself in New York’s bustling culinary scene. I prowled the food shops of Chinatown, marveling at the bins of ingredients I have never seen (no fresh turtle eggs in Kentucky!). I bumped into Little Italy and tried my first bite of still-warm mozzarella. I enjoyed amazingly vibrant Greek food in Astoria, ate my way through Indian Restaurant Row on East 9th Street, and grilled short ribs at my table in midtown’s Korean food palaces. And while earning my MBA (yes, I am woefully overeducated) and working over 60 hours a week at the agency, I sopped up as much food knowledge as possible through cookbooks and by cooking elaborate meals in my home kitchen.

 But a decade of the Manhattan pressure cooker took its toll and I needed a change of scenery. I got another agency job in Seattle and left the East Coast in the dust. But after a few more design and marketing jobs, I finally torched my love for the industry and wanted a new challenge.

 My husband helped me rekindle my love of food and cooking when he suggested I become a personal chef. I launched my business while keeping my marketing day job. But when you start cooking professionally, you become acutely aware of what you don’t know. So my husband encouraged me to go to culinary school. I packed up again and returned to the East Coast to attend the Culinary Institute of America.

 After yet another graduation ceremony (my friends were getting tired of the invitations), I returned to Seattle and worked as a rounds cook at The Herbfarm. This venerable fine-dining restaurant features menus crafted from the finest ingredients the local soil and waters could produce. After this culinary grad school of sorts, I joined the Sur La Table team as as an Assistant Culinary Manager and later became Culinary Manager. I got to teach cooking classes and run the culinary program in a local store. Now I could combine my love of cooking with my passion for teaching and put my business skills to good use. How great was that?

 In my current role as Corporate Chef, I get to share my culinary knowledge and discoveries with a growing audience. And it’s a great opportunity to create recipes and gain new insights in the test kitchen. To keep my skills sharp and gather additional culinary inspiration, I regularly volunteer to work in restaurant kitchens to keep one foot in that crazy, addictive world which makes for some great stories. And when I attend special culinary events, visit chefs and producers, and uncover new cooking tools and techniques, you’ll get a special behind-the-scenes look on this blog.

 I’m extremely fortunate to have a job where I can combine my cooking skills and knowledge with my passion for teaching and learning. I’m excited to share these amazing culinary experiences with you.

Filed under: Corporate Chef, Recipe testing, Restaurants, Seattle, Staging, Sur La Table | 1 Comment »

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