Food and the City: New York's Professional Chefs, Restaurateurs, Line Cooks, Street Vendors, and Purveyors Talk About What They Do and Why They Do It - Hardcover

Yalof, Ina

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0399168923 ISBN 13: 9780399168925

Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2016

Synopsis

A behind-the-scenes tour of New York City’s dynamic food culture, as told through the voices of the chefs, line cooks, restaurateurs, waiters, and street vendors who have made this industry their lives.

“A must-read — both for those who live and dine in NYC and those who dream of doing so.” —Bustle

“[A] compelling volume by a writer whose beat is not food . . . with plenty of opinions to savor.” —Florence Fabricant, The New York Times

In Food and the City, Ina Yalof takes us on an insider’s journey into New York’s pulsating food scene alongside the men and women who call it home. Dominique Ansel declares what great good fortune led him to make the first Cronut. Lenny Berk explains why Woody Allen's mother would allow only him to slice her lox at Zabar’s. Ghaya Oliveira, who came to New York as a young Tunisian stockbroker, opens up about her hardscrabble yet swift trajectory from dishwasher to executive pastry chef at Daniel. Restaurateur Eddie Schoenfeld describes his journey from Nice Jewish Boy from Brooklyn to New York’s Indisputable Chinese Food Maven.

From old-schoolers such as David Fox, third-generation owner of Fox’s U-bet syrup, and the outspoken Upper West Side butcher “Schatzie” to new kids on the block including Patrick Collins, sous chef at The Dutch, and Brooklyn artisan Lauren Clark of Sucre Mort Pralines, Food and the City is a fascinating oral history with an unforgettable gallery of New Yorkers who embody the heart and soul of a culinary metropolis.

About this title

About the Author:

Ina Yalof has been writing books and articles about such diverse subjects as medicine, science, religion, and happiness for more than thirty years. Her books include the widely acclaimed oral history Life and Death: The Story of a Hospital, What It Means to Be Jewish, How I Write (coauthored with Janet Evanovich), What Happy Women Know, and Food and the City. Yalof’s articles have appeared in numerous national publications, including GQ, Harper's Bazaar, and New York magazine. She lives—and eats—in New York City.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected proof***

Copyright © 2016 Ina Yalof

INTRODUCTION

 

 

I grew up in Miami Beach, a child of parents who didn’t cook—unless throwing frozen TV dinners into the oven every night is your idea of cooking. There were, however, two exceptions. The first featured my father’s “famous” (more like “infamous” to my brother and me) Sunday-night salmon croquettes.  Into a green, chipped, medium sized bowl he emptied a can of Bumblebee salmon, two eggs, and as much Pepperidge Farm breadcrumbs as the dish would hold. Next, he melted a quarter stick of butter in a cast iron pan until it began to sizzle  - or burn – depending on whether or not he had left the room to get a cigarette. Into this pan he slid the four fish patties, browned them on both sides and voila! Leo’s Famous Croquettes. The second exception was when we went out for dinner--an infrequent event to say the least. When we did go, our destination was either Wolfie’s Coffee Shop or Junior’s Coffee Shop. And on very special occasions, the Hickory House, a real restaurant.

 

It was only when I married a New York boy who loved to eat – and met his mother - that I saw what I had been missing all those years.  My mother-in-law lived in the Olcott Hotel on 72nd street in what was known at that time as an “efficiency apartment.” Meaning it had a kitchen - if you want to call it that.  It was actually a converted closet with a tiny sink, a two-burner hot plate and an electric oven that rested on a makeshift counter.  The refrigerator stood majestically in a corner of her bedroom, covered with vine-patterned Con-tact Paper  so it would “fit in” with the décor.  And whereas my mother kept golf balls in our refrigerator because she believed it increased their potential distance, my mother-in-law  jammed enough food to feed a hockey team into hers.  

           

It was she who taught me how to cook.  And it was her son who taught me how to eat like a true New Yorker.  By the time our kids could say “bagel” we were already dragging them around with us for catsup-smeared crinkle-cut fries at Nathan’s in Coney Island, bialys and whitefish at Barney Greengrass, and frozen hot chocolate at Serendipity.  For years, we traditionally broke the Yom Kippur fast at Peking Duck in Chinatown and then walked two blocks to seal the deal with cannolli from Ferrara’s.  I was in heaven. Sometimes even literally.  Pig Heaven was one of my favorite Chinese restaurants (which, as it turns out, was the brainchild of Ed Schoenfeld, whose story appears on page tk/.)

 

Fast forward a few decades and a few million food trends, and here I am, more fascinated than ever by the gastronomic landscape of New York City, where what to eat and where and when seems to be all anyone talks about.   

 

What got me started on this book was a chance encounter on a balmy early March afternoon--the kind of day that summons thoughts of spring. Walking home from lunch at some new vegan restaurant, I passed a butcher shop on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side. The door was wide open, and inside I glimpsed a heavy-set man in a white coat, seated behind a low counter against the back wall, talking to a customer. I kept walking, but something – who can ever say what that “something” is?  - told me to circle around and look again.  I did.  This time the customer was gone, and the man was staring straight ahead at the doorway, almost as if he were expecting me. I went in and ordered two pounds of chopped meat.  While an employee was grinding it fresh in the back, the owner and I began talking about what it means to be a butcher these days.  His repartee was so entertaining, his observations so intriguing, his passion for his work so infectious that it got me thinking: how many others like him are there around this city? How many others might have stories worth sharing?

 

It turns out there are a lot.

 

After several intensive years of research in all five boroughs, I can tell you that there are more than enough to fill an encyclopedic number of volumes.  Since I could do just one, an equally encyclopedic number of choices had to be made.  I began with a long list of people who have influenced what and how New Yorkers eat, but ultimately chucked that list and started all over again, because the people with the most riveting tales to tell were, more often than not, people I’d never heard of or read about. 

 

I found some of the best subjects in unexpected and often serendipitous ways. One weekday in midtown, for example,  I followed the irresistible scent of grilled onions,  which led me directly to the food cart of an Egyptian-American guy – Mohammad Abouliene -  who was, at that moment, producing plates of Halal lamb at warp speed for a block-long line of hungry people working in the area.  It turns out that that particular food cart has been the most popular, and the most imitated venue of its kind in the city for years. 

 

 This being New York, of course there was networking involved: Someone knew someone who knew someone else who could get me in touch with Bobby Weiss, a fourth-generation fish wholesaler at the new Fulton Fish Market in the Bronx...or Lauren Clark, a praline artisan in Brooklyn...or Miriam Tsinov, an Israeli-Uzbeki waitress with a following all her own.  My own daughter introduced me to LuLu Powers, a much-in-demand caterer, who sent me to her foodie sister, who connected me to the general manager of a four-star restaurant, who arranged for me to meet Ghaya Olivera, their new executive pastry chef, who ended up being one of the best of all possible subjects.  And so it went.

 

This book is an oral history: The characters speak for and about themselves. They are executive chefs and line cooks, restaurant owners and night managers, wholesale suppliers, cheese purveyors, bread bakers, street vendors, caterers, institutional meal planners, and more. Together, their narratives shine a spotlight on the competitive, unpredictable, often grueling but mostly satisfying lives they live in this epicurean culture where restaurants open and close before anyone knows their name, dreams are toppled and rebuilt, and things can and do turn on a dime.

 

They are a disparate group, to be sure, hailing from the ethnic enclaves of the four outer boroughs to the tony neighborhoods of Manhattan.  Their backgrounds range from Egyptian to Italian, Dominican to Croatian, Mexican to American.  Some names will be familiar to any casual observer of the food world; others may be unknown even to those for whom they work. I specifically avoided the so-called “rock-star chefs”, reasoning that they’re already overexposed—at least to the eighty-eight million viewers of the Food Network.

 

In the course of this work, my subjects led me into their inner sanctums.  I explored an icy meat locker in Hunts Point in the Bronx, and observed from the perimeter more than my share of oppressively hot kitchens.  I studied the New York art of slicing lox from a Zabar’s pro, listened to tales of jilted grooms from a Pierre Hotel banquet director, and didn’t notice I was freezing to death in the “21 Club’s” wine cellar, so entranced was I by reading the labels on some of the 4,897 bottles surrounding me.

 

Certain themes recur in these stories. Everyone has his or her own version of Proust’s madeline, a taste memory that opens a window to the past.  But not everyone has the chance to translate these memories into reality in the here and now. Were just such memories the trigger for Betony’s Eamon Rockey when he devised a drink he calls “The Old Dog Shandy” using flavors that evoke memories of the smoke from his grandfather’s pipe and the honey from his grandmother’s cherished beehives? Was it Eddie Schoenfeld’s memories of eating Chinese food with his parents as a young boy that, twenty-two years later  turned into his Sautéed Lobster, Egg, & Chopped Pork dish at Red Farm? Did Alexander Smalls’ recollections of the stories he heard about his great grandparents, all slaves, lead to his fascination with the African Diaspora that is the basis of his restaurant, The Cecil? I’m guessing yes, yes and yes. 

 

The power of the media was another theme that ran through a number of interviews. This doesn’t come as a surprise in this day and age of information sharing. And it seems when it comes to food, two particular Forces (capital “F” intended) can literally make or break the objects of their evaluation. The first are food blogs such as Eater and Grub Street - the overwhelming craze for Dominique Ansel’s  runaway bestselling cronut can attest to that. Also, The New York Times, whose food critic’s attendance in their dining rooms directly impacted the future of a number of restaurant people I spoke to. The other Force is Oprah, whose television show has been off the air for five years now, but whose effect still resonates with the success of those she has touched.  Can anyone put a price on the value of a simple affirmative nod from this woman? Just ask Niño Esposito of Sette Mezzo or the women from Levain Bakery.

 

If I’ve learned anything from my extended immersion in the rich soil of New York City’s food world, it’s this: What makes the great ones great – waiters to caterers, executive chefs to line cooks, newly arrived to fourth-generationals – is that when it comes to food, they know even the most minute detail can make a huge difference. It doesn’t matter if you’re slicing a steak or selling it, embellishing a cake or serving it, raising a flock of ducks or lowering the price of olive oil, in the end, as line cook MacKenzie Arrington tells us: “...you’re all there with the same mindset and drive and passion for food. That’s what comes first and that’s all that matters.  The food, the food, the food.”

 

I.  STARTING FROM SCRATCH

 

Each of the seven narrators in this chapter created and built food-centered businesses from scratch. None went to business school. None were cushioned by trust funds, or had friends in high places paving their way. Most are immigrants, hailing from Poland and Greece, Egypt, Croatia and France. Not one is a native New Yorker. Instead of seeking small ponds for a big-fish advantage, every one of these people plunged into the biggest pond of all. New York, New York...hear the music?

  

If I can make it there...

 

And make it they did.  Somehow, in this food-crazed metropolis already overrun with food-centered businesses, there was room for seven more—these seven, anyway. A rugelach specialist.  A wholesale butcher. A Halal-cart chief.  A tortilla supplier, praline artisan, pastry king, a couple of restaurateurs.  But why, while so many others have come and gone, do these seven companies continue to flourish?  Diverse though their enterprises may be, are there certain ingredients common to all—maybe even a shared secret recipe for success?

 

Common sense plus a quick Google inquiry into “entrepreneurial qualities” will yield adjectives like passion, drive, perseverance, resourcefulness, vision, and self-confidence. Pretty much all of them describe the subjects of this chapter—just as pretty much all of them describe every other self-made man or woman in any field. But we’re talking about men and women who work with, in, and around food. Not laptops or screwdrivers or cars or shoes or archaeological sites, but food. Glorious food.

 

Why the food world? For those involved with their native fare, there’s clearly the comfort factor of working within the culture of their native home.  But there are so many other possibilities as well.  Such as the many prospects for entry-level jobs that require no English and little training; or maybe the ever-expanding eating establishments and markets that pepper the city’s landscape are the draw. Or maybe it was a philosophical choice that even they, themselves, were unaware of. Food is a – and in some cases the--locus of family life.  It triggers memory (see: Proust and the madeleine). It gives pleasure and comfort and warmth, emotional and otherwise. Food is energy; without energy, forget about passion, drive, perseverance, and the other facets of entrepreneurial spirit.  Forget, for that matter, entrepreneurs—and everyone else.  Food sustains life.  Food IS life.  Can’t live for long without it.

 

And then there’s love. Neighborly love, romantic love, familial love, animal love, self-love—what is preparing and serving food, for oneself or others, if not an act of love as well as survival? The subjects of this chapter share this awareness and perhaps that’s the ingredient they have in common: They feed people, and in so doing they comfort and sustain themselves.

 

Dominique Ansel                                          Dominique Ansel Bakery

 

He seems a happy guy. Tall, dark and lanky. Despite being in this country for almost ten years, he still speaks with a heavily French accent. He’s been cooking professionally since he left high school at sixteen, ultimately landing a plum position at the long established Paris epicerie, Fauchon. From there, it was on to New York City and Restaurant Daniel, where he toiled for six years under Daniel Boulud as executive pastry chef.  During his tenure at Daniel, the restaurant won three stars from Michelin and four from the New York Times.  In 2013, he left to open his eponymous bakery in SoHo.  

 

***

Opening day of Dominique Ansel Bakery is still so clear in my mind.  I was very nervous. Holding my breath.  I didn't know how many people were going to show up – if any. I didn't know what their reaction would be to my pastries or my bakery.  I went in very early that morning to get everything set up and ready to open. The last thing was to remove the brown paper that the builders had left covering the inside of the windows facing the street.  When I pulled down the paper, I saw at least ten people standing there, some of them trying to open the doors.   But that’s New Yorkers for you. They see something new is coming, and they immediately have to know all about it.

 

Within a few days, we got a small write-up in The New York Times, and that was all it took.  That first weekend it seemed everyone knew we were open.  We got so slammed.  We weren't ready for it. We had opened the shop with a very small team of six people.  Very humble, very simple.  And boom!  Right ...

About this edition

• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0399168923
• ISBN 13: 9780399168925
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384