The Olives Table - Hardcover

English, Todd

 
9780684815725: The Olives Table
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0684815729 ISBN 13: 9780684815725
Verlag: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

In The Olives Table, the artistry of one of America's top chefs is on display, with more than 160 dazzling recipes from Olives and from Todd's home kitchen, illustrated with beautiful photographs by Carl Tremblay.

In 1989, Todd English and his wife Olivia opened the original Olives; since then the restaurant has moved to larger quarters, and Todd and his bold, inventive Mediterranean-inspired cooking have earned an international reputation. Voted one of the Top Ten Restaurants by Esquire magazine and the Best New Restaurant by Boston magazine, it has also been voted Favorite Restaurant in the Zagat Guide to Boston and Vicinity.

Todd's robust, intensely flavored food begs to be savored and shared with others. And since the complexity of English's cooking comes from the layering of tastes and textures—not exotic equipment or techniques—by following the careful, step-by-step instructions, even the timid cook can recreate the dishes that the patrons of English's hugely popular Boston restaurant enjoy at the Olives table.

Pull out the stops and begin a meal with Todd's signature Olives Tart, baked in a crisp crust and rich with olives and creamy goat cheese, pair Gingered Slow-Braised Lamb Shanks with Apple-Fennel Mashed Potatoes for your main course, and finish with Falling Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce. Or for a lighter repast, try Pan-Fried Cornmeal-and-Cumin-Rubbed Cornish Game Hens served with Arugula Salad with Tomato and Cucumber Juice; finish with Mango-Raspberry Granita. Plan a simple but deeply satisfying supper of Roasted Clams with Chicken, Tomatoes, Artichokes, and Bacon served with roasted new potatoes and end with Gingersnap Risotto Pudding. Whatever meal you decide to create from these recipes, you won't be disappointed.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Todd English is the chef-owner of Olives and the three branches of Figs, all award-winning restaurants located in Boston. Todd graduated from the Culinary Institute of America with honors; he has cooked with Jean-Jacques Rachou at La Côte Basque and was executive chef at Michela's, an award-winning Northern Italian restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1994, Todd was named Best Chef in the Northeast by the James Beard Foundation after having been named National Rising Star in 1991; he is also the recipient of the first Robert Mondavi Award for Culinary Excellence. He has taught cooking classes in the United States and abroad and has been featured in Bon Appétit, The New York Times, Food & Wine, The Boston Globe, The Boston Phoenix, and other periodicals too numerous to mention. He lives with his family in Boston.

Todd English is the chef-owner of Olives and the three branches of Figs.

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Chapter 1

TODD PUTS HIS WORDS ON A PLATE

Sally: Where did you start in order to end up where you are today?

Todd: One night, when I was fourteen, I stopped by to see my friend Ivan. He was working at a little Mexican place in Branford, Connecticut, and he asked if I had plans for the evening -- thinking he had something great in mind, I said that I had none. Instead, he said that his dishwasher was sick and asked if I could help out. There was no "dishwasher"; you washed pots and plates and silverware by hand. I just jumped right in and for some strange reason, I really loved it. I don't know why -- well, okay, you got as much free beer as you wanted.

Sally: Seriously....

Todd: There was a family feeling that I liked. There was energy and camaraderie and at the end of the night, a great sense of accomplishment. I liked it so much that when Ivan offered me the job, I took it and washed dishes for three to four months. When I turned fifteen, I got promoted to prep cook and made chips and meat sauce and chopped whatever was needed for the next day. I continued working all through high school.

Sally: Is cooking in your blood?

Todd: Definitely. Well, I haven't always had the confidence to believe that it was there because I'm the kind of person who watches and observes and learns but in the end, I have to do it my own way. That's scary, because I'm always throwing myself out there rather than relying on the tried and true.

When I was a child we used to visit my great-grandmother, Bettina, and my great-grandfather, Rosario, in their home in Kent [Connecticut]. I remember going in their small, dark bedroom and seeing pasta drying on her bed. She rolled pasta dough around a knitting needle to make tubular pasta. She also made little ravioli and gnocchi. She let me stand on a stool next to her and show me what she was doing. Bettina was from Calabria and there were always lots of tomato-based meat braises and roasts. We ate antipasto first, then a pasta dish, and then a roast or a meat. Quintessential Italian cooking. She used to let me sip off the wooden spoon -- I can still taste those sauces in my mind.

I took home economics in high school, but I only went to two classes. We made cakes from boxes, and I went straight to the counselor and said, "This class is not for me, I don't make cakes from boxes." I knew in my heart that it wasn't right.

Sally: Why did you go to cooking school?

Todd: I took cooking very seriously. It made sense to formalize what I had learned, but I didn't really know what I was getting into. I learned early on that you get out what you put in and I happened to be ready to go in 100 percent. Actually, I realized how little I really knew.

I went to the CIA [Culinary Institute of America] because it had the best reputation. What you can gain in ten years of experience, you can get in two years of schooling. But it's not practical experience. They have state-of-the-art equipment, especially at Greystone [the new facility in Napa Valley] but, let's face it, it's not reality. Chances are that you graduate and get a job in a really nice restaurant and work on a range that you have to light with a piece of paper or the burners get clogged or your mise en place is floating in a pool of melted ice. The reality is that you're not working in perfect conditions but you have to perform as if you were.

Sally: When you hire a cook, do you care whether they've gone to cooking school?

Todd: It helps, but it's not absolutely essential. It shows a commitment to cooking as a profession, but I don't think that the only good cooks come out of cooking school. The more perspective you have, the better. Cooking is an interpretation of one's experiences and one's knowledge.

Without schooling, what I'm interested in is that they've had some experience and are willing to learn. I also want people who have an athletic background, because it enables them to have an understanding of teamwork. It also means they have stamina, good hand-eye coordination, agility, and the drive to be in shape, all qualities that help in a kitchen. At least in mine.

Sally: What's the difference between an okay cook and a great one?

Todd: You've got to love being a cook. You either dive into it and you live it and breathe it and dream about it or you don't. You have to have the drive and you have to have something to prove. Part of being a great cook or chef is knowing who you are and what you're about.

Sally: There was a time when being a chef was not as appealing as it is now. Now, being a chef is not only well respected but glamorous, even sexy.

Todd: There's a certain energy you get while cooking. It probably makes you exude endorphins. It's a high that's kind of sexy when things are really pumping and you're feeling creative. Other than great sex, there's nothing like it. It's a kind of excitement that's addictive. I've talked to a lot of chefs about this-we're all junkies on this high, which is probably why we do what we do and work the kind of hours we work.

Sally: Are you talking about the thrill that comes from being in the limelight?

Todd: No. I hope that glamour isn't what attracts people to becoming chefs. If you're in it for the glamour, that's the wrong reason. You're not going to last; you've got to love it.

Sally: What was it like working at La Câote Basque [in Manhattan] in its heyday?

Todd: I have never been so nervous in my life. I used to wake up sick to my stomach. I was terrified that I couldn't perform. I had never stepped foot in a kitchen quite like it. Either you ran and jumped on the fast train or you got off. So I ran and ran.

La Câote Basque had just reopened with Jean-Jacques Rachou as the chef and he was doing a combination of nouvelle and classical cuisine. At that time, nouvelle was Rolled and Poached Sole with Kiwi Slices and lots of raspberry sauces. Salmon with Mango Beurre Blanc. I liked his rustic dishes best. Like cassoulet, osso buco, and simple roasted chicken. I loved his sense of aesthetics. I got a lot of practical training, not only in the classical sense but also in production, because we really had to crank it out.

Sally: Were you married then?

Todd: No, Olivia and I got married in 1986. We met in 1982, when we were both students at the CIA. I took her picture for her school ID. You know, love at first snap. She cooked for a while but I don't think she ever really loved it. We moved to Boston in 1984 to work with Michela [Larson, owner of the former Michela's in Cambridge, Massachusetts] and when the opportunity came for her to run the front, she grabbed it. Olivia knew that it was the better fit for her and with our personalities, it was better for us not to compete. I got the job as the sous chef and went off to Italy for a while to study Italian cooking.

Sally: Cooking in restaurants in Italy must have been an incredible experience in every way.

Todd: When I came back from Italy, I knew that even though I wanted to be authentic, it wasn't going to work for the American palate. I used northern regional cooking as a base and went on to discover my own interpretation of what I had seen and tasted. For example, we would take a simple roast loin of rabbit with a balsamic vinegar glaze, then serve it over polenta and with roasted radicchio and some sort of green. In Italy you would be served these dishes on three separate plates, but we served them all on one, layering the flavors.

Sally: So when people see your food, they think it's very wacky when in fact...

Todd:...it's traditional. When I cook, I believe in evoking some sort of memories. Some people are more adventurous and some are more staid. Some people live to eat and some eat to live, but when it comes down to it, everyone is looking for a certain...

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster
Erscheinungsdatum
1997
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0684815729
ISBN 13 
9780684815725
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
webstar
casetta@mondadori.it

Via Mondadori 1,
Segrate Milano
20090
Italien

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