MARIANI’S

Virtual Gourmet


  January 31,  2021                                                                                            NEWSLETTER



JANUARY 31

Founded in 1996

    Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean filming "Giant" (1956)


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IN THIS ISSUE

WHY ALL THE FUSS? DOES ANYONE CARE RIGHT
NOW ABOUT EATING FROU-FROU FOOD?

By John Mariani


NEW YORK CORNER
LOVE AND PIZZA
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

By John Mariani


NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
HAMILTON RUSSELL WINES
By GEOFF KALISH




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Why All The Fuss? Does Anyone
Care Right Now About Eating Frou-Frou Food?

By John Mariani

"Vatel" (2000)


        More than once I’ve been accused of favoring high-end fine dining  over more modest restaurants or unpretentious holes-in-the-wall. For someone who for 45 years has been championing barbecue and taco stands, fish camps and bayou crawfish boils, pizzerias and gyro shops, the charge is baseless, but at the same time I have with giddy delight dined well at, and written in praise of, deluxe restaurants around the world, from New York to New Delhi.
        The beauty, luxury, fine wines and service at posh restaurants may not always be as warm and fuzzy as some easily intimidated diners might like, but the standards such restaurants uphold are to be cherished and reveled in at their best. As I’ve written before, despite the ravages of Covid on the restaurant industry, fine dining will survive and thrive, if its entrepreneurs are willing to change a little to fit a world raring to dine out but to do so with care and an understandable desire to be comfortable.
        What I do not think will survive are the pretensions of a kind of cuisine made more for a magazine photo shoot than to be eaten.  One expects that a dish at a fine dining restaurant will be presented with appropriate garnishes and flair, not just picked up from under a heat lamp and plopped on your table with the question, “Who gets the chili burger?”  But the extravagance of some chefs to create plates of stunning creativity, mounted with extraneous sauces and ingredients not even consumed, now seems ridiculous at best and wholly out of step with what is sensible.
        Part ego, but largely done to grab attention and photo spreads, such pretensions are proffered by chefs who desperately want a Michelin star based on how gorgeously their plates are mounted, even if Michelin insists that all its inspectors are interested in is the quality of ingredients and how the food tastes—a rubric no one in the industry believes, given the exorbitant prices for the fantastical cuisine to which Michelin gives its highest rating of three stars.
      
 
Ironically, extravagant food has not always been the model for haute cuisine, except among the royal families of France before so many
of them lost their heads in the French Revolution. Even Marie-Antoine Carême (1784-18), called the “king of cooks”  and the “cook of kings” (although the only king he ever cooked for was the Russian Czar), stressed lightness of sauces and digestibility over extravagance. Still, Carême’s dominating influence on banqueting, where scores of dishes would be set on the table, became a game of one-upmanship among aristocratic hosts.
        A century later, however, when the first edition of Larousse-Gastronomique,  the so-called “bible of French cuisine,” came out in 1928,  Carême’s style of cuisine was dismissed as out of touch. “Nowadays,” it scoffed, “we no longer approve of this ostentatious manner of setting out cooked dishes. We have banished display from our tables, as much for the sake of hygiene as for reasons of expediency.”
        The Great Depression and World War II put the kibosh on fine dining—even though the hotel dining rooms of Paris and Maxim’s thrived on the exclusive attendance of German officers in the occupied city. After the war, a sure degree of opulence returned in the form of centerpieces, complex dishes wrapped in foie gras, truffles and pastry, and widespread use of heavy silverware and candlesticks, meant to cater to a new international crowd with money, some taste and expectations of glamor in the dining room.
        But plate presentations were fairly simple. To dine in a Michelin star restaurant in the post-war period was to receive a plate on which there might be an impeccably carved duck with sauce bigarade (right), or a perfectly cooked rack of lamb with roasted potatoes, and then a nice slice of Tarte Tatin.  True, sometimes such dishes were dramatically set on fire tableside, but overall the food on the plate looked like and was intended to be eaten with gusto.
        When the so-called “la nouvelle cuisine” came along in France, its original “ten commandments,” crafted by food writers Henri Gault and Christian Millau in 1973, cautioned chefs to avoid too rich sauces, return to regional cooking, consider diet and health, and invent constantly. Extravagant plate design was never the original intent of la nouvelle cuisine, but its novelty dazzled the media, especially in the U.S., because it was so beautifully, artfully, colorfully photogenic, usually set on Villeroy & Boch china (below) with Christofle silverware.
        Everyone, including myself, was initially impressed by plates on which the main ingredient, say, a fillet of salmon, was set in a pool of sauce that had another sauce spread into it like a spider’s web or brushed to the sides of the plate. Everyone also learned how easy that was to accomplish, simply by putting a ribbon of the second sauce on the plate then using the tongs of a fork to pull it into a pretty pattern. It  soon became de rigueur to add more and more ingredients to a dish in order to increase its novelty (and its price). Even so, the amount of the meat or fish could be disturbingly chintzy, leading Chef Paul Bocuse to define la nouvelle cuisine as “less food on the plate and the higher the bill.”
        Soon there were raspberries and gold leaf atop risotto, kiwi fruit on sea bass, caviar on baked potatoes and truffles shaved on everything. Microgreens with no flavor and flowers no one wanted to eat were placed with tweezers just so on dishes, sometimes by two or three cooks huddled around the plate. So many of those constructions took so long to plate that the food came out lukewarm.
 


    
Not that any of it necessarily tasted any better than something less fanciful, and some chefs, like the canny Spanish self-marketer Ferran Adrià,  would deliberately create dishes to confuse the guest, from using Rice Krispies on some dishes and making ice cream from Parmigiano cheese. Dishes at such restaurants arrived under glass with dry ice fumes pouring out of them; a dish would be “inspired by Miró” and shrimp was paired with white chocolate. The $180 menu at San Francisco’s Atelier Crenn doesn’t even tell you what the dish is, instead listing only items like “A gentle smell. Oceanic, of yummy feeling” and “Birth which gives its morning mystery.” The so-called “Modernist Cuisine” required equipment like centrifuges and test tubes just to reduce sauces.

        Some of it was meant to shake up stultified kitchens, even to the point of recommending live ants be introduced on the plate by Copenhagen’s Noma. But, whatever else it was meant to achieve, it was the publicity value that made getting a reservation nearly impossible at some of those restaurants, even a year in advance. Yet, somehow the anonymous Michelin Guide inspectors managed to pay multiple visits to such places before awarding them three stars.
         Now, with Covid closing every restaurant in France down tight, Michelin has just issued its 2021 Guide, somehow researched when most restaurants were not even open. In France one new three-star restaurant was announced, AM in Marseilles. When it’s open, for a prix fixe dinner it charges 872 euros for two persons, or 694 euros, or, the least expensive, 536 euros, which includes two glasses of wine, coffee and water. From the photos (I have obviously not eaten there) the food looks more like the inside of a kaleidoscope, with many dishes puzzling as to what any of the ingredients might be. Of the food, served within a remarkably spare, inelegant dining room, Michelin raves, “In this chic and residential area of Marseille, the talented Alexandre Mazzia is following his path, refining his culinary personality along the way. There is an emphasis on vegetables, fine fish and seafood ingredients, a smattering of African influences (the chef lived in Congo until the age of 14), and only one rule – audacity!”
         But one has to wonder: Even when dining out gets back to some kind of pre-Covid normalcy, is this the kind of food and experience people will want? Is all that frou-frou on the plate anything other than gimmickry? I’m sure there are plenty of wealthy curiosity-seekers who may make a special journey (which is how Michelin defines a three-star restaurant) to Marseilles just to dine at AM, but it is difficult to imagine that most people, including inveterate gourmets and gourmands, wouldn’t prefer to have a beautiful bouillabaisse down by the old port in Marseilles.
        


Le Gavroche, London


Again, I am wholly optimistic that fine dining, albeit expensive, will return robustly in the future, and I am  among many who look forward to sitting at a well-set table with good linens and china, charming flower arrangements, well-trained, pleasantly dressed professional waiters, a fine wine list and array of cheeses, and a menu of dishes I will find nowhere else at such a high level of quality and execution.

        I crave that experience. What I will not be eager to do is to pay $500 for a meal that has some dishes that delight me and others that confound me. I’m not asking or expecting imaginative chefs to hold back on their creativity, but they’d better re-assess if it’s the kind of cuisine anyone is willing to pay so heavily for any more.
         I always roll my eyes when people are presented with a dish they say “is too beautiful to eat,” which is like saying a fully equipped Ferrari is “too beautiful to drive.” If that’s the case, you have to wonder what the chef was really thinking when he put the food on a plate.         





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NEW YORK CORNER
By John Mariani
                                                          

    Since, for the time being, I am unable to write about or review New York City restaurants, I have decided instead to print a serialized version of my (unpublished) novel Love and Pizza, which takes place in New York and Italy and  involves a young, beautiful Bronx woman named Nicola Santini from an Italian family impassioned about food.  As the story goes on, Nicola, who is a student at Columbia University, struggles to maintain her roots while seeing a future that could lead her far from them—a future that involves a career and a love affair that would change her life forever. So, while New York’s restaurants remain closed, I will run a chapter of the Love and Pizza each week until the crisis is over. Afterwards I shall be offering the entire book digitally.    I hope you like the idea and even more that you will love Nicola, her family and her friends. I’d love to know what you think. Contact me at loveandpizza123@gmail.com
—John Mariani


To read previous chapters go to archive (beginning with March 29, 2020, issue.

LOVE AND PIZZA
 
 

By John Mariani

Cover Art By Galina Dargery



CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

 


         And Nicola did arrange it, although it took some lying to her parents.  “I’m twenty-one years old and I have to lie to get out of the house!” she said to herself, coming around to thinking that if she threw herself into modeling from then until she went to graduate school in the fall, she might be able to rent her own apartment, outside the neighborhood.
         She thereupon called her agency and told the booker she was wide open for work, which came as great news to Steven Holtz, who told her, “I think you could be one of the star models around, Nikki.  So does Elena and a lot of people who’ve seen your work. I want to build a campaign to put you into the top ranks.  You’ve got the experience and the credits from Milan, and your monthly appearances in Willi have people talking. So let’s build your career into something much bigger.”
         “Okay, Steven, but just so long as you know I’m going to grad school next fall.”
         “Believe it or not, Nikki, there are a lot of models out there who are doing the same thing.  It’s not so easy to do both and expect major success, because of the traveling, but it can be done. I think you’ll do just fine and by the end of the year, everybody will know the name Nikki Santini. The time is just right for your look.
         “In the last few years the look has been that squeaky clean American girl—Christie Brinkley, Cheryl Tiegs, Patti Hanson (below), you know the names.  The girls who do the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. But now they’re looking for a little bit more of a crossover, half-American, half-European, even some more exotic types like this African girl Iman (below). You being Italian-American is a real boon for you at the moment, your coloring, your swagger, and you have a chameleon-like quality that allows you to do many stylizations.  I think you can be one of the super models.”
         The term “super model” had been bandied about since the Sixties, when the British model Twiggy (left) first burst on the scene, and since then a few individuals had been so crowned by the fashion media—Margaux Hemingway, Beverly Johnson, Janice Dickinson, Marisa Berenson, Lauren Hutton (below) and a few others.  By 1986, however, the term had not yet been used in the aggregate—that would come in the next decade—to describe a passel of models whose “super” status everyone recognized.
         The prospect of such hype quite literally scared Nicola, because she did not know if she could resist the money and blandishments that went with such stardom.  For, however committed she was to following her own star to graduate school and the arts, she had no idea how strong the temptations might become to set her goals aside or fail to pursue them at all. 
         Nicola knew very well her upbringing would preclude her ever trafficking with the drug-fueled elements of the fashion industry—and she was counting on Steven to be her Jiminy Cricket in that regard.  She told herself that modeling is not a career that lasts forever, or even for very long.  So, even if she did pursue it full-time, she could always go back into the art world before she even turned thirty.  The money would certainly help, though.
         So, for the time being at least, she gave herself over to Steven Holtz to get her some good jobs and make her some good money.  Maybe she could move out of Belmont and still pay for grad school.  In fact, those prospects were increased when Columbia offered her nearly a full scholarship for the PhD program, which basically meant any money she made that spring and summer could be put away for an apartment while she was studying.  In the first year, the Master’s year, she would be mainly attending classes and seminars, then in the PhD years she could take her time before finally taking her oral exams and writing her thesis.  Indeed, she was well aware of many students who took a decade or more to finish, and almost as many never finished at all. 
         That was not going to happen with Nicola, whose resolve was clear and abiding that spring.  So, when the phone rang the next day and the SNAP booker had six casting calls for her, Nicola was more than content with the prospects.  She then became delightfully stunned when she got two jobs that first day, one with Mademoiselle, another with Ralph Lauren.  And, of course, she had her monthly “gig” with Willi. 
         When she told Marco the good news, he was very happy for her, especially when she said she’d probably be moving out of her parents’ house.  “All I need is a studio like yours,” she said. “I’ll be going on calls all day or traveling to shoots, probably some will be out of the country—the spring Milan Fashion Week is coming up in March—so I don’t need anything else.”
         “I don't suppose you could move in with me then?” asked Marco.
         “That would be highly improbable.  First, because my parents would find out and, second, because I doubt your employers are going to let you have me live with you and cook for the family.”
         Marco admitted she was right but didn’t mind if in the meantime she lied about occasionally staying at his apartment by telling her parents she was staying with Catherine or one of her friends on the Columbia campus.  It was a tightrope Nicola was very anxious about walking.
         By the beginning of February, Nicola was getting bookings several times a week, mostly in New York, but increasingly outside of the country. Her fee was going up, too, and when it did it seemed the fashion industry wanted her even more.  Willi had been very good to her and gave her constant, monthly exposure, but the designers paid better than magazines, so that Nicola making a thousand dollars or more each week had become almost routine.
         Most of that Nicola socked away, but, ever appreciative of what her family had done for her, she bought them gifts, which her sisters happily accepted but her parents insisted they didn’t need.  What Nicola wanted most of all was to have Marco cook for her family, but, given the size of his apartment, that was impossible.
Instead, she asked him if he’d like to cook at Alla Teresa one night—just for the family, not the clientele—and Marco accepted readily.
        “Give me some time, though,” he said. “I need to search for the right ingredients,” suggesting that Tony was not getting the quality Marco insisted upon.
         “Well, don’t take too long, Marco,” said Nicola, “as soon as I get back from a shoot in Martinique this week, the Milan shows begin in ten days.”
         Marco understood, though he was seeing much less of Nicola than he wanted, and, owing to the little time she had to herself, she had not found enough to search for an apartment of her own.


© John Mariani, 2020

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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR


HAMILTON RUSSELL WINES
By GEOFF KALISH



        As previously discussed, it seems to me that for many years South African wine was off on the wrong track—promoting primarily two varietals (acetone-scented Pinotage and flabby, pale Chenin Blanc) that poorly matched food. And with very little well-organized group marketing or educational effort in the U.S., it’s not surprising that many shops provide so little shelf space for South African wines. However, a growing number of vintners are following a new path with wines that express the most flavorful aspects of “old world” grape varieties, like Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. And, based on a trip to South Africa some six years ago, and some recent tastings, I feel that Hamilton Russell Vintners is at the forefront of this movement, with its wines (3 of which are discussed below) available across the U.S.—albeit some local hunting and special ordering may be necessary for particular bottles. 
        Founded in 1975 by the father of the present-day owners (Anthony Hamilton Russell and his affable wife, Olivia), this winery is located in the Hemel-en-Arde (Heaven and Earth) Valley on the southern coast of the Western Cape. There, cool breezes from the Atlantic Ocean allow for the ideal ripening conditions for the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes grown on the 128-acre, clay-rich soil estate. Also, with production usually around 10,000 cases annually (about 2/3 Chardonnay and 1/3 Pinot Noir), great attention can be paid to harvesting and vinification, with innovative techniques explored, such as aging a portion of the fermented juice in specially made large clay amphorae rather than oak barrels. 
        Of note, six years ago, when visiting the winery, we found the results well worth the effort, with the 2010 through 2012 Chardonnays and the 2009 through 2012 Pinot Noirs reminiscent of first-class Burgundies. For example, the Chardonnays (particularly the 2011) could easily be mistaken for a Puligny-Montrachet, with a dry, crisp taste and smooth, elegant minerality in the finish. Also, the 2009 Pinot Noir was similar in aesthetics to a Clos du Tart, with a bouquet and taste of cherries and spice, and the 2011 Pinot Noir was remarkably comparable to a Volnay, with a memorable taste of raspberries and herbs. 
        And we recently tasted the currently available vintages of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and found them even better. Again, the 2019 Chardonnay was more like a Premier Cru Burgundy than a Chardonnay from other South African, and even most Californian, vintners. Made in a very difficult year (because of massive fires surrounding the property, cooler than usual weather and a drier season than normal) this wine showed an elegant bouquet and taste of well-integrated flavors of apples, pears and touches of lime in its long smooth finish—great to mate with the likes of lobster, shrimp or scallops. (Importantly, like many Chardonnays this wine should not be served too cold to retain its very delicate and rich bouquet and taste.) 
        While the proprietor claims that the 2019 Walker Bay Pinot Noir ($50), is a “one off” wine (since it is composed of grapes from nearby Walker Bay as a result of the possibility of  “smoke-taint” from the fires surrounding the estate-grown grapes that usually make up this wine), based on our recent sampling, perhaps the winery should consider making it a staple of their brand. Akin to a top-rated Pommard from Burgundy (unlike the usual Pinot from this producer that’s more like a lighter Volnay) it showed a full-bodied bouquet and easy-drinking taste of ripe plums and raspberries with notes of cranberry and vanilla. Mate this wine with roast duck or veal chops, even swordfish or salmon.
   
In addition, under the “Southern Right” label (named for the rare whales that are frequently seen in nearby Walker Bay), the company produces a first-class Sauvignon Blanc from vineyards located on the western edge of the Hamilton Russell estate, just behind the old fishing town of Hermanus. The recently sampled, well-priced  2019 vintage ($15) shows less grapefruit than many other Sauvignon Blancs but a more complex bouquet and taste of citrus and gooseberry with notes of herbs in its refreshing finish. It marries well with oysters on the half-shell, grilled branzino or even swordfish. (Note, for each bottle sold the winery donates to the conservation of the whales and/or local area.)

 


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DEPT. OF RUN-THAT-BY-US-AGAIN?
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Ghost Bar in NYC will be delivering cocktails in 6-  to 10-ounce portions for $12-$24.

 









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Modesty forbids me to praise my own new book, but let me proudly say that it is an extensive revision of the 4th edition that appeared more than a decade ago, before locavores, molecular cuisine, modernist cuisine, the Food Network and so much more, now included. Word origins have been completely updated, as have per capita consumption and production stats. Most important, for the first time since publication in the 1980s, the book includes more than 100 biographies of Americans who have changed the way we cook, eat and drink -- from Fannie Farmer and Julia Child to Robert Mondavi and Thomas Keller.


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FEATURED LINKS: I am happy to  report that the Virtual Gourmet is  linked to four excellent travel sites:

Everett Potter's Travel  Report

I consider this the best and savviest blog of its kind on the  web. Potter is a columnist for USA Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury  Spa Finder, a contributing editor for Ski and  a frequent contributor to National  Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com  and Elle Decor. "I’ve designed this site is for people who take their  travel seriously," says Potter. "For travelers who want to learn about special  places but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for the privilege of  staying there. Because at the end of the day, it’s not so much about five-star  places as five-star experiences."  THIS WEEK:






Eating Las Vegas JOHN CURTAS has been covering the Las Vegas food and restaurant scene since 1995. He is the co-author of EATING LAS VEGAS – The 50 Essential Restaurants (as well as the author of the Eating Las Vegas web site: www.eatinglasvegas. He can also be seen every Friday morning as the “resident foodie” for Wake Up With the Wagners on KSNV TV (NBC) Channel 3  in Las Vegas.



              



MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Publisher: John Mariani. Editor: Walter Bagley. Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Robert Mariani,  Misha Mariani, John A. Curtas, Gerry Dawes, Geoff Kalish, and Brian Freedman. Contributing Photographer: Galina Dargery. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 

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