country at my place, Les Halles in New York. I'm afraid we no longer hold the U.S. title. Needless to say, they know how to cook, and rest, a steak at Bouchon. Desserts (a tarte au citron and a chocolate mousse) were, yes, you guessed it, fantastic. They make it look easy. And it's easy to eat there. No behaving for the waiter. No jacket and tie required. Everything—the room, the service, the menu—conspires to make a beautiful argument that it is, in fact, possible to do it right in Vegas. That one can create a pocket of calm, casual, yet sophisticated pleasure, of culinary excellence smack in the middle of—yet comfortably removed from—the carnage and ugliness below.
I found, I think, my perfect metaphor, had my final Vegas epiphany on my last day in town, as I hurtled face-down at accelerating speed toward the surface of the earth, free-falling from two miles above the desert, a Flying Elvis strapped to my back.
When you jump out of a plane for the first time, the first thousand feet are pure adrenaline-pumping, endorphin-juiced thrill. Straight down, head first, your mouth stretched into a silent scream. Then you level off a bit, as Elvis taps your shoulder and you stretch your arms out, legs back, into the "banana position."
For a few long moments more, you actually sail through the sky. All your childhood dreams come true, as for second after glorious second you are—before the chute opens and yanks you back to reality—almost convinced you can fly. When you feel something touch your outstretched fingers, you almost believe that one of the spangled, ducktailed figures on either side of you, connected in formation as you fall through space, could actually be Elvis.
Maybe that's what it's all about. What Vegas has come to mean for chefs, for cooks, for gamblers, diners, for all of us who go there: While we may be rushing inexorably toward the hard realities of the ground, surely and inevitably arriving in the same place (unless our chute fails to deploy or we crap out, in which case we end up there sooner rather than later), for a few moments, or hours, or even days, Vegas convinces us we can stay aloft—forever.
ARE YOU A CRIP OR A BLOOD?
i just finished reading Canadian author Timothy Taylor's Stanley Park, a brilliant, if irritating, novel with a chef as hero. Taylor's protagonist breaks down the world of chefs into two camps: the Crips—transnationalists, for whom ingredients from faraway lands are an asset, people who cook without borders or limitations, constantly seeking innovative ways to combine the old with the new—and the Bloods, for whom terroir and a solid, rigorous connection to the immediate region and its seasons are an overriding concern. "Crips" would describe chefs like Norman Van Aken, Nobu Matsuhisa, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, guys who want the ingredient, at its best, wherever it might come from and however long it might have traveled, practitioners of "fusion." The Crip relies on his own talent, vision, and ability to wrestle ingredients into cooperation, hopefully breaking ground, revealing something new about ingredients that we may take for granted by pairing them with the exotic and unfamiliar. We have seen what the Crips are capable of at their best, and also what they can do at their worst, the terrible sameness of some of-the-moment Pacific Rim, Pan-Asian, and Nuevo Latino menus, in which chefs misuse Asian or South American ingredients with the single-minded enthusiasm of golden retrievers in heat, humping blindly and unproductively at your leg.
The earliest and most notable example of a Blood would be Alice Waters, whose Chez Panisse in Berkeley remains the cradle of the "slow food" revolution, a restaurant whose ingredients
almost exclusively represent the bounty of northern California and the Pacific Northwest of America. Fergus Henderson is a Blood, his food a proud expression of both nation and culture. It's a compelling argument, to say I will cook what's available
I found, I think, my perfect metaphor, had my final Vegas epiphany on my last day in town, as I hurtled face-down at accelerating speed toward the surface of the earth, free-falling from two miles above the desert, a Flying Elvis strapped to my back.
When you jump out of a plane for the first time, the first thousand feet are pure adrenaline-pumping, endorphin-juiced thrill. Straight down, head first, your mouth stretched into a silent scream. Then you level off a bit, as Elvis taps your shoulder and you stretch your arms out, legs back, into the "banana position."
For a few long moments more, you actually sail through the sky. All your childhood dreams come true, as for second after glorious second you are—before the chute opens and yanks you back to reality—almost convinced you can fly. When you feel something touch your outstretched fingers, you almost believe that one of the spangled, ducktailed figures on either side of you, connected in formation as you fall through space, could actually be Elvis.
Maybe that's what it's all about. What Vegas has come to mean for chefs, for cooks, for gamblers, diners, for all of us who go there: While we may be rushing inexorably toward the hard realities of the ground, surely and inevitably arriving in the same place (unless our chute fails to deploy or we crap out, in which case we end up there sooner rather than later), for a few moments, or hours, or even days, Vegas convinces us we can stay aloft—forever.
ARE YOU A CRIP OR A BLOOD?
i just finished reading Canadian author Timothy Taylor's Stanley Park, a brilliant, if irritating, novel with a chef as hero. Taylor's protagonist breaks down the world of chefs into two camps: the Crips—transnationalists, for whom ingredients from faraway lands are an asset, people who cook without borders or limitations, constantly seeking innovative ways to combine the old with the new—and the Bloods, for whom terroir and a solid, rigorous connection to the immediate region and its seasons are an overriding concern. "Crips" would describe chefs like Norman Van Aken, Nobu Matsuhisa, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, guys who want the ingredient, at its best, wherever it might come from and however long it might have traveled, practitioners of "fusion." The Crip relies on his own talent, vision, and ability to wrestle ingredients into cooperation, hopefully breaking ground, revealing something new about ingredients that we may take for granted by pairing them with the exotic and unfamiliar. We have seen what the Crips are capable of at their best, and also what they can do at their worst, the terrible sameness of some of-the-moment Pacific Rim, Pan-Asian, and Nuevo Latino menus, in which chefs misuse Asian or South American ingredients with the single-minded enthusiasm of golden retrievers in heat, humping blindly and unproductively at your leg.
The earliest and most notable example of a Blood would be Alice Waters, whose Chez Panisse in Berkeley remains the cradle of the "slow food" revolution, a restaurant whose ingredients
almost exclusively represent the bounty of northern California and the Pacific Northwest of America. Fergus Henderson is a Blood, his food a proud expression of both nation and culture. It's a compelling argument, to say I will cook what's available
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