food butter and marmalade I made a couple nights ago from oranges and Meyer lemons. What foods are always in your pantry? Beans of many types, because I love playing around with beans. I love my pressure cooker, because it makes life easier for that kind of thing. I often have some kind of pork and a half-eaten watermelon in the fridge. In the summer, if I don’t have a watermelon in the fridge, I don’t feel like life is right. Our family is very fruit driven. There are some City Market plums in there, too. If you could have any chef in the world prepare a meal for you, who would it be? David Chang.
What’s the dish you’ll be remembered for? A properly cooked steak.
If money were no object, what kind of restaurant would you open? Small, 40 seats or less, a relatively open kitchen to interact with the guests a little bit. Oh, and a wood-fired or open grill. What’s your favorite beverage? The things I drink are water, coffee, beer, wine and cocktails. My favorite beverage is probably a really nice glass of wine, but a really good beer would be a close second, and a really good cup of coffee would be a close third. What kind of music do you like to listen to in the kitchen? A pretty eclectic mix. The predominant style would be kind of honky-tonk altcountry — I do not like pop country at all — bands like Son Volt. I have a long history with the Grateful Dead, so I play the Dead a lot. And a lot of old-man music like Neil Young and classic rock like that. And if I’m alone, I blast Nine Inch Nails.
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If you weren’t a chef, what would your job be? A traveling food writer. What’s your most embarrassing favorite food? Soft, white bread. I rarely have it in the house, but if someone gives me like, a baloney sandwich on Wonder Bread, I’m gonna love it. Or a close second would be a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish. I only allow that once a year or something.
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Describe your best meal ever. There’s a restaurant in San Francisco called Nopa, and one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten was sitting at the bar at Nopa, ordering a continuous stream of stuff off their menu. They do things tapas style, which is my favorite way to eat. This is how I’d imagine a little candlelight bistro in Spain — and everything they served to
What’s your favorite cookbook? I really like Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller, the French Laundry chef. A Platter of Figs [and Other Recipes] by David Tanis and Alice Waters. And the Tartine Bakery & Café cookbook. Though most of the time when I look at cookbooks, I’m really just looking at the pictures. I might look at the description, but I mostly just look at the concept and run with it.
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What’s the worst dish you’ve ever created? I did a really not-great version of ramen once. I was trying to teach myself how to make a proper dashi and I just used so much seaweed and kombu. I got all the pork and vegetables and stuff, but I messed up the broth — it was way too salty and seaweed tasting; then I overcooked the ramen and the pork that goes on top of it. So we sat down, and I was really excited by all the work I’d done, and took a few bites, and it was, like, “Wow … that sucks.”
And your worst. Anywhere in Florida! My mother’s going to kill me when she sees that. When we were down [in Orlando] getting the truck, I googled, “Where in the world can you find good food in Florida?” In Orlando it’s all geared toward tourists. But where my mom lives in Sarasota, there are some good restaurants, and Miami is one of my favorite places to eat.
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You’re trying to impress somebody with your culinary prowess. What do you make? I might challenge them a little bit with some grilled baby octopus, which has become something I really love. I [also] think I’d be looking at proteins. I’m kind of known for my wood-grilled or woodroasted meats. I don’t go in to the supertechnical dishes, and that’s in part because I’m still learning, but also because I’m not drawn to them. By and large, I’m just really drawn to high-quality ingredients and not messing them up. I think that might be a product of my age. I didn’t go to culinary school and work my way up through a restaurant. I don’t have an inclination to really impress people; I just want to feed them.
us was great. There were peas and mints in butter sauce, and it was delicious; pork belly in sauce, and it was great. Plus the fact that we were sitting at the bar, having really nice cocktails and chatting with the bartender — it’s just the way my wife and I like to eat out.
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