Image from iStockphoto.com

“I Was A Teenage Cheesemonger.”  Title of my autobiography?  Uhm, well, maybe.  Too early to say.  And I wasn’t actually a teenager.  I was twenty years old.

I hope this isn’t becoming too much of ‘me, me, me’ but I am proud of the few things I did do in the food and restaurant business.  Buying and selling cheese was one of my proudest food-related occupations.  Looking back on my rather un-storied food career I see that I was a jack-of-all-trades/master of none-type of food professional.  But I am proud nonetheless of the varied things I did do, the people I met and worked with, and the places I was able to go.

I stumbled into selling cheese; happily.  The year was 1979 and it was after I’d completed the Culinary Arts and Hospitality Studies program (cooking school) at City College of San Francisco; before cooking school I had returned from living in France, and I’d been head line cook at Sourdough Jack’s in Santa Rosa, California.  My first job after cooking school was working as lunch chef for a tyrannical French chef at a place called Today’s on San Francisco’s Union Square.  I didn’t last long.  The French chef was truly a tyrant: unreasonable, flew into rages, yelled and screamed.  I might have lasted two months but it was probably less.  One day at the end of a shift I quit by sliding a note under the chef’s office door; he was already gone.  I never saw him again.  Not my finest professional moment but I was desperate.

The Wine & Cheese Center

After the horrors of the French chef I got a 9 to 5 job as a foreign exchange teller at Security Pacific National Bank.  That didn’t go so well either but on the ground floor of the bank building was a shop: The Wine & Cheese Center.  It sold a huge variety of domestic and imported cheeses, had a full selection of wine, and did most of its business selling sandwiches to the office workers in the skyscraper above the store.  It was my entrée into selling cheese.  I learned the varieties, types, styles, what countries they came from, how to cut, wrap and display them, when they were ripe, and what they tasted like.  My time living in France had given me a nice exposure to French cheese.  This was an education in everything else — the world’s cheese.

Image from iStockphoto.com

‘Maître Fromager’, the Oakville Grocery

I suppose that’s a fair translation of “cheesemonger” although in France cheesemongers are true masters of the trade.   But first my apprenticeship.  When I heard that there was a gourmet grocery store being opened by Napa Valley winemaker Joseph Phelps in San Francisco I applied immediately.  When I started at Oakville Grocery the store had only been open for a short period.  Before my arrival the cheesemongering duties had been seen to by Clark Wolf, the store manager.  Clark knew (and knows) a hell of a lot about cheese.  Before Oakville he ran a small cheese shop on San Francisco’s California Street.  His enthusiasm for, and knowledge of cheese was (is) boundless.  He took me under his wing and taught me what he knew.  This was a true education in all the vicissitudes of buying, storing, selling, serving and eating domestic and imported cheese.

I learned how to cut open huge wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano, Emmental, Gruyère, and English cheddar.   Eventually I understood the many nuances of goat cheese, how it was made, how it was aged, and how what the animals ate, and the time of year can affect the flavor of the milk.  We sold bulk Normandy sweet butter shipped from France in large wicker baskets, probably a first for San Francisco.  I remember clearly the day we got in fresh Italian mozzarella di buffala that had arrived by plane that morning from Italy.  Another first for San Francisco.  We almost threw the cheese a parade everyone was so excited.  I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to Clark for showing me the world of cheese, and to Oakville for an amazing learning experience.  Clark went on to have a very successful career as a hotel and restaurant consultant.

Image from iStockphoto.com

Friends for Life

I also met the most amazing people while working at Oakville; some of them are still friends over thirty years later.  I met chef Jeremiah Tower at Oakville, we’ve been lifelong friends.  One day a French goat cheesemaker, Marie-Claude Chaleix came into the store.  She’d taught American goat cheesemaker, Laura Chenel how to make goat cheese on her farm in France.  Marie-Claude and I became fast friends and I spent a week with her on her goat cheese farm in the Charente region of France.  She took me all over the region and introduced me to the area’s goat cheese makers.  I learned a tremendous amount.  Another friend is Kathleen Lewis, now a personal chef, who oversaw all the prepared foods at Oakville.  We lost touch over the years but she recently found me because of this blog.  She and her husband live in Los Angeles.

DDL Foodshow

My year long stint at Oakville led me to another cheese-related opportunity: to work with Italian film producer, Dino de Laurentiis in opening the first of a series of Italian-themed food shops, DDL Foodshow.  I was hired in 1982 to help him and his staff open the flagship store on New York’s Upper West Side.  When the store opened I became cheese manager, or head cheese buyer.  I placed orders, controlled inventory, was responsible for the display cases, sales and managing a staff.  It was an exciting time for me.  While I worked for Dino I met two more life long friends: Martine Rothstein who worked the cheese counter with me, and Lori Berhon who worked in Dino’s film offices, and at the store.  Before I started working at DDL I was lucky enough to go on a three week buying trip with the general manager to France and Italy.  While I was in Italy I went to Milan and saw the food shop of all food shops, Peck.  Amazing selection of cheeses, jaw-dropping displays.  I was inspired.  (I wrote a bit about here: Peck di Milano — my first ever blog post.)

Cheese became a part of my life and it still is.  I may not eat quite as much as I did when I was a cheesemonger, and a bit younger but I still eat it often.  The best part of having been a cheesmonger is the cheese knowledge I’ll always have.  I can go into any cheese shop and know what the cheeses will taste like, where they came from, how they’re made.  And for that I am very happy.

Recommended Los Angeles-area Cheese Shops: Cheese Store of Pasadena; Cheese Store of Silver Lake; Say Cheese; Cheese Store of Beverly Hills.

Recommended Reading: Cheese Primer (Steve Jenkins); American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, and Farmhouse Cheeses, Who Makes Them, and Where To Find Them (Clark Wolf); Culture: The Word on Cheese (magazine).

My Status:  Enjoying the gradual arrival of spring in So Cal and the last of the lovely winter produce: amazing citrus, kale, broccoli, collard greens, fennel.  Continuing to blog, cook, and eat.

I’m published!! My recipe “Chef Wally’s Baked Papaya” was selected to be in the cookbook: “Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voices.”  You may order it here.

Upcoming Posts: More on my great-grandmother’s garden, and my California childhood.  A visit and tour of Ojai Valley citrus grower Friend’s Ranch. More The Local Reports coming soon. Cookbook Reviews: Grilled Cheese, Please! by Laura Werlin, Southern My Way by Gena Fox, and Heartland: The Cookbook by Judith Fertig.

Gabrielle Perdrizet and me, spring 1977, ready for the Montgomery High School Senior Prom. Santa Rosa, California

I took my prom date to dinner at the French Laundry.  No, really, I did.  In 1977.  Granted back then it wasn’t the French Laundry it would grow up to be.  The French Laundry now owned by uber-chef Thomas Keller.  The world renowned French Laundry; a place where everyone who knows good food wants to eat at least once in their culinary lifetimes.  This past spring I was in the Napa Valley (where the French Laundry restaurant is located in the town of Yountville) and I went to the restaurant.  It was closed as I was there between the lunch and dinner services.  I didn’t have plans to eat at the restaurant.  I wanted to see the building.  I wanted to see if it was true; that I actually did take my prom date, the beautiful and very French, Gabrielle Perdrizet (see photo) to dinner at the restaurant before we went to our Senior Prom at Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, California, thirty-three years ago.  It was.  I did.

Keller Buys the French Laundry

In 1994 Thomas Keller purchased the building that the current French Laundry is in.  The beautiful stone building dates back to the 1880s when it first served as a saloon.  When alcohol was outlawed within two miles of Yountville it became a brothel.  In the late 1920s it became a French steam laundry.  In 1974 the Mayor of Yountville, Don Schmitt, and his wife purchased the building and opened a restaurant naming it the French Laundry.  The name stuck and when Keller came along he kept it.

I went to high school in neighboring Santa Rosa in 1976 and 1977 during the time that Mayor Schmitt owned the restaurant.  I have no idea how I even knew it existed.  I may have read something about it in the newspaper, or maybe I saw it on a family outing to the Napa Valley.  What I do know is that once Gabrielle, a French foreign exchange student, accepted my invitation to attend the prom it only seemed fitting that we go there.  Yountville is almost twenty-eight miles from Santa Rosa; it’s over hill and dale, it takes close to an hour to drive to.  I think we arrived at the restaurant at five-thirty.

My mother let me borrow her fading powder blue V.W. Hatchback.  The car didn’t have a lot of power, we sputtered along as there were problems with the muffler.  We made it there and back.  I don’t remember what we ate.  To my young developing palate it was the most amazing meal I’d ever eaten — at least in my current memory.  I do remember that we sat at a table next to a window looking out on to flower boxes, or possibly flower beds.  I know we had a good time.  It was Senior Prom after all.  And I don’t have any pictures; we didn’t take a camera, it was before the days of photographing everything.

The 12 foreign exchange students who attended Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa, California, during the 1976-77 school year. The countries represented here are Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Sweden (x2), Greece, Scotland, France (x2), and Denmark

All Things French

My introduction to all things French happened in 1976, the year before the infamous prom date, when at the age of sixteen I went with my French class on a week long trip to Paris.  It was my first time out of the country, my first time to Paris, and I fell in love hard.  I loved Paris, and everything about it, I still do.  It was an eye-opening experience that led to a lifelong connection to the country and its people.

There were twelve foreign exchange students during my senior year of high school, two of them were French.  My interest in all things French grew further as I came to better know Gabrielle and Amélie, the two French exchange students.  Gabrielle became my girlfriend and prom date.  So being the budding Francophile and wanting to impress Garbrielle, I chose a place that seemed to be French for our prom dinner.  At least it had the word French in the name.  I probably thought it served French food although now I can’t say if it did or did not.  No matter what type of cuisine, nor how good or bad it may have been, I have the memory of the experience.  That’s enough for me.

Me in front of the French Laundry, Spring 2010

Now to the Gap

Through my friendships with Gabrielle and Amélie I was introduced to the idea of working in France as an au pair, or mother’s helper.  I did it.  After I graduated from high school I went and lived in France for a year where I took care of four French children.  I returned home knowing how to cook French food, and speaking French.  The experience cemented my relationship with France.  It’s now like a second home.  It also started me on a path of cooking both professionally and personally that I remain on today.

So after my year in France I returned to Northern California and began my professional career in the restaurant and retail food businesses; it was San Francisco in the early 80s.  All was going very well.  I was working in top restaurants with top chefs.  Then I decided I wanted to work in the film industry which I started to do after graduating from the New York University Film & Television program in 1988.  I slowly moved into film and away from food.  I missed the advent and rise of a chef named Thomas Keller.  It was the late 90s and Keller’s star was truly ascending, and I kept hearing things about a restaurant called the French Laundry that Keller owned.

Photo by Jo Stougaard

I often wondered: is this the French Laundry I took Gabrielle to for our prom?  It sort of gnawed at me.  Could it really be the same place?  It was so famous now.  In the early 80s when I was working in San Francisco restaurants I went to the Napa Valley often but this was before the arrival of Keller, and his ownership of the French Laundry.  Until this past spring when I went to the area to attend the Cochon 555 event I wasn’t sure if it was the same place or not.  One thing I did know: while I was there I would be stopping by the French Laundry to see for myself.  I did, and it is, or was, the same place I’d been to all those many years ago with my prom date, the lovely, the beautiful, the very French, Gabrielle Perdrizet.

So it’s true.  I took my prom date to dinner at the French Laundry.  I recently told this story to a friend and he told me he took his prom date to White Castle for dinner.  (He went to high school in New Jersey.)  Where did you take your prom date to dinner, or where did you have dinner before the prom?

Bon appétit!

KCET Top 10 List: I wrote this piece for LA-based PBS station, KCET ~ ‘Walking and Eating in Atwater Village: A Top 10′

Coming Up: International Food Bloggers Conference (IFBC), August 27 – 29, 2010, Seattle Washington.  So much fun last year that I’ll be attending again this year.  Are you?

Upcoming Posts: Cookbook Reviews: Steak and Friends: At Home with Rick Tramonto by Rick Tramonto, Spice Dreams by Sara Engram and Katie Luber, Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly by Joan E. Aller.

]]> http://www.100miles.com/prom-date-the-french-laundry/feed/ 18 http://www.100miles.com/cochon-555-5-chefs-5-pigs-5-winemakers/ http://www.100miles.com/cochon-555-5-chefs-5-pigs-5-winemakers/#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:11:53 +0000 Charles Thompson http://www.100miles.com/?p=2321

Chefs and winemakers can be a rough and tumble crowd.  Throw butchers into the mix and watch out.  Then there are chefs who also butcher.  Time to run the other way.  This spring my friend, Jo Stougaard (of My Last Bite), and I attended ‘Cochon 555 – 5 Chefs, 5 Pigs, 5 Winemakers’ in the Napa Valley.  The name pretty much says it all.  Both of us were curious to learn more about butchering, what goes into the process, and how it’s done.  This event sounded both fun and educational — and it took place in the Napa Valley.  The added incentive for me was that two of my favorite chefs were competing: John Stewart and Duskie Estes of Zazu Restaurant & Farm, and Bovolo in Sonoma County.  So one chilly Friday morning in February we set off on what ended up being a three day food filled adventure which I’ve been meaning to write about ever since.  Hate to use a worn out phrase but where does the time go?  So much went on during our trip, and we took so many pictures, that it would take hours of writing and editing to recount every detail.  This will be a somewhat condensed recap, then I’m going to let the photos that Jo and I took tell the rest of the story.  (For more photos look for the ‘Flickr Stream’ links below.)

Photo by Jo Stougaard, My Last Bite

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Lunch at Chez Panisse, Berkeley, California

Our first stop was on the drive up to Napa from Oakland International Airport:  lunch at Chez Panisse, the café not the dining room.  I had eaten in the restaurant (both the dining room and the café) a handful of times when I worked in the restaurant business in the Bay Area in the 80s and 90s but Jo had never been.  It felt a bit like a pilgrimage.  The restaurant and Alice Waters have become so much more famous since the 80s and 90s.  The fact that Jo, a serious restaurant diner, had not been before made it even more fun.   We ordered a number of dishes so we could really get a sense of the menu and the food.  Everything, the food, the service, the ambiance, was wonderful; we had a primo seat (we also had one of the first reservations); it was the perfect start to the weekend.

Flickr Stream for Chez Panisse

Dinner at Ad Hoc, Yountville, California

Dinner that night was at another hallowed chef’s restaurant:  Ad Hoc. The chef being Thomas Keller.  Ad Hoc being one of many restaurants he owns on both coasts of the U.S., three of which are in the small Napa Valley town of Yountville.  I had heard so much about Thomas Keller’s restaurants but had never been to any.  Finally, I was in one.   It was wonderful.  I don’t think it’s the pinnacle of T.K. hallowed-ness which would have be The French Laundry (down the street from Ad Hoc) but it was a fine runner-up; and it represented perfectly the idea of ‘ad hoc.’  I liked the casual yet professional  atmosphere and service.  The food was hearty and straightforward, no gimmicks, and was prepared with obvious skill and attention to detail.  A garden behind the restaurant provides some of the restaurant’s produce.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Breakfast at Bouchon Bakery, Yountville, California

Yountville is jokingly referred to as ‘Thomas Kellerville.’  He has three restaurants and a bakery in a town that has one main street and a population of 2,916 (based on 2000 U.S. Census figures).  Chef Keller owns Ad Hoc, Bouchon, and the world-famous The French Laundry.  Opposite Bouchon is Bouchon Bakery where we had breakfast the two mornings we were in town.  Beautiful breads,  pastries, sandwiches, chocolates and other confectionery including foie gras doggy biscuits were among the baked goods that people stood in line for.  I wish there was a Bouchon Bakery in my neighborhood.  I’d ‘take’ my coffee there everyday all the while pretending to be in Paris.  It is that good.

Photo by Jo Stougaard, My Last Bite

Stop at The French Laundry, Yountville, California

After breakfast I took Jo on a tour of the Napa Valley, well, a mini-tour actually.  After walking around Yountville where we saw Ad Hoc in the daylight, Bouchon Restaurant, Bottega, Michael Chiarello’s place, and the retail food shop Napa Style, we made another pilgrimage, this time to The French Laundry.  Not that it was open, or that we were eating there, we simply stopped to be food tourists, to take pictures, to peer through windows, and be in the presence of culinary greatness.  We weren’t alone, there were Japanese tourists that asked us to take pictures of them to which Jo naturally obliged.  A side note here: when I was in high school in neighboring Santa Rosa in the late ’70s I took my prom date, Gabrielle, a French foreign exchange student, to The French Laundry in Yountville for a pre-prom dinner.  At the time the building that houses the current The French Laundry was a restaurant also named The French Laundry.  Years later when Keller took it over he kept the name.  The pre-Keller The French Laundry was quite good (at least to my 17 year old palate).  I’ve always wondered if it was one and the same as the place Keller now owns, and has made so famous.  Now I know.  I made my triumphant return.  Now to snag one of those oh-so-hard-to-get reservations!

Snack at the Oakville Grocery, Oakville, Caklifornia

Next we headed further up the Napa Valley to the little town of Oakville where the original Oakville Grocery is located.  I have a personal history with the renowned retail food store in that I worked as a cheese buyer at what was supposed to be the flagship Oakville Grocery in San Francisco back in the early ’80s.  I started just after the store opened and stayed for about a year before moving on to help film producer, Dino de Laurentiis open his gourmet food emporium, DDL Foodshow in New York City.  Those were heady days in the gourmet retail food-iverse.  Oakville Grocery was my introduction to the world of high end, fancy food. My days as a cheese buyer at Oakville are some of my fondest food memories.  It was fun to see the original store again after so many years.

(See below at bottom of post for Flickr Stream for Napa Valley Restaurants & Shops)

Butcher, Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats breaking down a heritage pig. Photo by Jo Stougaard, My Last Bite

Afternoon at Cochon 555, Silverado Resort, Napa, California

The main event, the reason we made the trip, took place on Sunday afternoon.  Cochon 555’s goal is to celebrate and raise awareness of heritage breed pigs like Gloucester Old Spots, Yorkshire, Duroc, and Berkshire Cross.  Cochon 555 events take place all across the country.  5 local chefs are matched to 5 local heritage breed pig farmers and must come up with dishes using their specific heritage pig.  The dishes are then judged by professional judges and the public who is in attendance.  5 local wineries supply the wine.  The chefs competing at the Napa event were Chris Kostow, The Restaurant at Meadowood; Peter Pahk, Silverado Resort, John Stewart & Duskie Estes, Zazu Restaurant & Farm, Devin Knell, The French Laundry and Dennis Lee, Namu.  Each chef created and served several pork-based dishes.  Butcher, Ryan Farr of 4505 Meats held a butchering demonstration where he broke down a whole pig.  Jo and I mistakenly thought the event would be five chefs breaking down whole pigs before an audience of judges and public — so not the case.  It was a tasting event with very good food from all the chefs.  The winner of the Napa event was Devin Knell of The French Laundry.

Flickr Stream for Cochon 555 Napa Event

Late Dinner at Bottega Ristorante, Yountville, California

After the Cochon event ended we still had room to have a late dinner at Chef Michael Chiarello’s restaurant, Bottega.  We both liked the food, the atmosphere and the impeccable service.  Chef Chiarello maintains the high quality that chefs and restaurants in the Napa Valley are known for.   During our three day eating extravaganza I didn’t eat one bad bite.  It was all, every morsel, stellar including the food at Bottega.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Breakfast at Bouchon Bakery, Yountville, California

Again!  Of course!  Where else?!

Stop at Napa Valley Olive Oil Mfg., Saint Helena, California

This was our last day.  We had a mid-afternoon flight out of Oakland International Airport.  I, of course, had a few more things to show Jo.  I’m forever reading articles in magazines and on the Internet, and tearing them out, or printing them.  I’d seen something about the Napa Valley Olive Oil Mfg. somewhere, had never been and wanted to go.  It’s further north in the Valley, up in Saint Helena, and worth the trip.  A tiny place chock full of dried sausages, salame, mushrooms, canned items, and bulk olive oil that is dispensed from a huge metal tank.  A foodie’s treasure trove.  As we were poking around, finding a few things to buy, Jo whispers to me: ‘Isn’t that Cindy Pawlcyn?”  I’d met Cindy years ago, eaten in her Napa Valley restaurant, Mustards, many times but I hadn’t seen her in years.  Sure enough, Jo was right.  We saw her in the parking lot and Jo spoke to her.  It was indeed Chef Pawlcyn.  Oddly enough our last stop before leaving the Valley was her restaurant Mustards.  But first a quick nip into Dean & Deluca – a new addition to the Valley since my regular visits in the ‘8os and 90’s.

Dean & Deluca, Saint Helena, California

I actually remember when Dean & Deluca was one store on Prince Street in SoHo in New York City.  Now it’s a global company with stores around the world including, apparently, one in the Napa Valley.  After we left the Napa Valley Olive Oil Mfg. we quickly stopped in as I wanted to see what this D & D looked like.  All the usual high end food products and produce in a gleaming metal and glass building.  If I lived in the area I’d certainly shop there – in fact as we were leaving Chef Pawlcyn was pulling in and waved to us – but I miss the old store on Prince Street with its uneven wooden floors and overflowing barrels of all sorts of good things to eats.

Photo by Jo Stougaard, My Last Bite

Lunch at Mustards Grill, Yountville, California

When I worked in the retail food and restaurant business in San Francisco during the ’80s and ’90s I made frequent weekend trips to the Napa Valley.  The weekend always ended with a late lunch at Mustards before heading back to the City.  When I first went to Mustards it was Chef Cindy Pawlcyn’s only restaurant.  She went on to open Fog City Diner in San Franciso, the Rio Grill in Carmel, and now has Go Fish and Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen in Saint Helena.  I always thought Mustards felt like an old-fashioned road house both in design and menu.  The food, ‘American Grill food,’ was always good; trustworthy and dependable.  At the end of a weekend it was the perfect antidote for too much Napa Valley wine and the fuel we needed to get us home.  Not much has changed.  A plate of oven-roasted garlic, a perfect cheeseburger with stellar French fries and we were ready for the return trip home.  Our food-filled weekend coming to a perfect end.  Jo and I have been on two food oriented trips together and have had the best time.  She’s a fantastic traveling companion, and I look forward to our next foodie adventure.

Flickr Stream for Napa Valley Restaurants & Shops

Recommendation: Savor Los Angeles, Friday, July 30th, 7pm to 10pm ~ a sweets tasting event of one-of-a-kind bites from an exclusive set of L.A.’s best purveyors of sweet treats.

Coming Up: International Food Bloggers Conference (IFBC), August 27 – 29, 2010, Seattle Washington.  So much fun last year that I’ll be attending again this year.  Are you?

Upcoming Posts: Cookbook Reviews: Steak and Friends: At Home with Rick Tramonto by Rick Tramonto, Spice Dreams by Sara Engram and Katie Luber, Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly by Joan E. Aller.

My great-great grandmother Martha Cloud’s husband, Sam Miller, circa 1941, Modoc County, California

‘Offal is a culinary term used to refer to the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. The word does not refer to a particular list of organs other than muscles or bones. People in some cultures shy away from offal as food, while others use it as everyday food, or even in delicacies that command a high price.’ — from Wikipedia. ‘Nose to Tail Eating,’ a term seemingly coined by British chef and restaurateur, Fergus Anderson, involves food preparation using the entire animal (or plant) from nose to tail. Chef Anderson, author of the book, ‘The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating,’ owns St. John, a restaurant in London where according to Amazon.com ‘he serves up the inner organs of beasts and fowls in big exhilarating dishes that combine high sophistication with peasant roughness.’

I think I’m a pretty good eater; I don’t shy away from too many things. But like most of us I have my likes and dislikes; more likes than dislikes. I abhor any kind of dried fruit; I simply don’t eat it. And I don’t like cooked apples so not a big apple pie eater. My dislike of dried fruit disallows a goodly number of cereals, granolas, trail mix, and some baked goods and desserts. I’ve learned to check first to avoid the interminable picking out of unwelcome items. The reason I don’t like dried fruit is textural. I hate that it sticks to my teeth — end of story. I can’t get beyond that. I can’t exactly explain my issue with cooked apples just that they’re oddly, uhm, slimy. I hate apple sauce. Again, it’s a textural thing; how it feels in my mouth affects how it tastes. Offal can and does fall into the textural issues category but I’ve still eaten my fair share of it. I wouldn’t say I’m an avid consumer of it however. Living in and traveling often to France I’ve had many French offal preparations, liver and kidneys, among others that I’ve enjoyed. I do like sweetbreads, and blood sausage a lot and will order them in restaurants. However if there are offal dishes on a restaurant menu invariably I’ll choose a non-offal dish. Recently I’ve noticed that there seems to be a much keener interest in offal here in the U.S. — at least in restaurants, in food journalism and in foodie circles. It’s almost as if offal is replacing pork this year as the favorite food item? This offal uptick has me wondering why I don’t eat it as often as I eat other animal protein, and I’ve decided there are a few reasons.

The first is related to the dried fruit issue: textural. A lot of offal is gelatinous, sinewy, and chewy in ways a well-prepared steak is not. Depending on what gland or organ is being cooked the feel of the food is different too: liver, kidneys, tongue, brains, tripe and so on. It has a different texture, and often a different smell, than cuts of beef, pork, lamb or chicken. These differences have always given me pause. And then there’s the cultural issue. I wasn’t raised eating the stuff. It wasn’t a part of my diet growing up in the ’60s and ’70s. It was a part of the diet of my relatives, a generation before my mother. My great-grandparents, my grandfather and great-uncle ate it. They had a ranch; they raised their own chickens and sheep. My great uncle hunted, butchered and prepared deer. My mother tells the story of watching my great-grandfather chop the heads off of chickens and how they ran around headless until they died. That was normal to them. I’ve never seen an animal killed let alone butchered. We bought our chicken already cut up, wrapped in plastic in a Styrofoam tray. If we did buy a whole chicken the giblets were wrapped in a small sealed paper bag which was easy to just throw away. Fast food did not help my palate adjust to eating offal either. Just think of the textures in fast food: ’soft’ comes to mind first; with flavors that are ‘bland,’ ’salty’ and ’sweet.’ We ate a lot of fast food when I was a kid and while it probably contained offal we didn’t know it. My mother did cook us a fair amount of liver and we hated it; it wasn’t until I left home and lived in France that I first understood that offal could be tasty and interesting. I ate my first blood sausage at a French friend’s house: broiled blood sausage, couscous, a green salad and cheese. It was a revelation to me. I ate a few other offal dishes the year I lived there. After France when I was first back home in Sonoma County, a friend and I went to a ‘fancy’ restaurant and we both ordered sweetbreads, and they were delicious. Besides the liver I ate as a child and the dishes I ate in France those sweetbreads are the first offal food memory I have. I’ve eaten sweetbreads over and over ever since.

I hate to admit this but I think I’m a picky offal eater. I am not, I have come to realize, the type of ‘I’ll-eat-anything-put-before-me’ eater that Anthony Bourdain is. I have foodie friends who are very adventurous who will eat almost anything. I admire heartily the enthusiasm of Bourdain and my food-obsessed friends. I fully appreciate the nose-to-tail movement as it is economically sound and environmentally conscious. It easily fits into the ‘100 miles’ philosophy: when possible use all of whatever we take from nature. I have eaten pigs feet; they were good, I enjoyed them. I will eat them, and other offal and nose-to-tail dishes again. Many cultures use offal and nose-to-tail ingredients in their cuisines. What better hangover cure is there than menudo? I’ll keep trying new things, new dishes, domestic and foreign. My point here is that if I’d lived during my great-grandparents,’ and grandparents’ time my palate and diet would have been more acculturated to eating the whole animal. More than likely I would have been involved in the slaughtering and butchering of the animals. For economical reasons we would have used the entire animal. Sadly, I grew up in the industrialized grocery store, frozen everything, fast food era. That’s not to say that I won’t eventually become more adventurous, and I do know plenty of people who grew up the way I did who are ‘eat anything’ eaters, but for me right now: I am a picky-less-adventurous-offal-eater that’s willing to grow. I have friends who will lead the way. You know who you are!

Upcoming Trips: Napa Valley – 2/27-3/1 – Cochon 555 ~ 5 Chefs, 5 Pigs, 5 Winemakers ~ 2010 US Tour. Big Sur - 3/5-/38 ~ Dinner at Big Sur Bakery.

Upcoming Posts: An Interview with Chefs John Stewart & Duskie Estes, owners of Zazu & Bovolo restaurants in Sonoma County. Reviews: Venezia: Food & Dreams by Tessa Kiros, My Nepenthe: Bohemian Tales of Food, Family and Big Sur by Romney Steele, The Spirit Kitchen: Everyday Cooking with Organic Spices by Sara Engram and Katie Luber and Kimberly Toqe.