Recipes from Bill Fuller, big Burrito Restaurant Group Corporate Chef

If you want to point out grammatical errors, typos, and blatant omissions, or if you’d just like to drop me a note and say hello, or if you want to throw out an idea for a future column so I don’t have to sit around and scratch my head for a week, or if you actually cook a recipe and want to say how it came out, me. I would love to hear from everyone.

Maybe if your e-mail is offensive enough, we’ll put it up here.

The online archive of big Burrito Corporate Chef Bill Fuller's recipes and essays from 2010

January

Happy New Year!

2010 just looks nice when you write it down with its alternating zeros. Clean and simple, it is a nice, decent looking date. Feels solid and dependable, a year you’d let your daughter date. A year you’d lend money too. A year that will grow up to be a prime time news anchor. I’m looking forward to it.

To start the year, I have some announcements:

This year is the fifteenth anniversary of the openings of Kaya and Casbah. (This also means that this is the fifteenth year I have been back in Western Pennsylvania.) We opened Kaya in the spring of 1995, Casbah that fall. In celebration, I intend to party just like we did when we opened those restaurants. (Maybe not quite so much.) Keep an eye out for celebratory events, like probably the greatest KayaFest ever and construction of the world’s largest Orecchiette Pasta at Casbah.

As we look around and realize that there continue to be many people living in need, we have realized a need to give back a little bit more. So, in addition to hosting our Benefit Dinner Series at Casbah the third Thursday night of every month, we will host a similar event at Eleven on the eleventh of each month. Our kickoff organization is the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, my favorite charity! All the info is listed above. See you this Monday night at Eleven to kick it off.

After fifteen years of sourcing the fields, farms, and foragers of Southwestern Pennsylvania, I am excited to see so many other restaurants and foodservice operators following our lead and putting their purchasing dollars in the pockets of local producers. Buying local accomplishes so much for everyone; it improves the nutrition and flavor of the foods we eat, it solidifies our local economy, and it cleans the environment by reducing the pollution from shipping cross country. We will continue to pursue our program and develop more sources for excellent local foods. To help you know more about the farmers, I’ve added a page on our website that provides information about our producers and links to their websites, if they have them. I’ll add more information as I get it pulled together and we’ll update this page whenever we get a new producer. From our home page, click on “About big” then “Local Producers”.

Look out for fried chicken, pie, great new cocktails and some hot new Chefs at the restaurants.

Really, I am more excited about the year ahead than I have been in a long time. It’s going to be a great one. Come along with me and let’s eat it!

Thanks for being part in the BurritoSphere!

Bill

Chef Eli's Tasty Mussels

February

big Chef on Skis!

I write this from a cabin in Canaan Valley, West Virginia. I’m on a little post-holiday break to get my breath before it all gets going again. I needed to get some fresh air, sunshine, and to run barefoot in my swimsuit across the frozen deck to jump into the hot tub. I also came here with a decided goal. The kids and I have never skied. Never. So at 6, 8, and 42 years young, we are learning to ski.

I had tortured images of this weekend in my head. Blood, ambulances, and tears exploding in an Eastern winter paradise, teen-aged snowboarders sneering at my broken, writhing body, shame on my entire family. And all hidden behind my fake positive smile placed on my face to keep the kids’ spirits positive.

It worked out better than I had hoped. Although there was no way to avoid the sneering teens. Never is.

My advice to any adult learning to ski is to take lessons. The kids and I had a great teacher, a burly warm twenty-something named Rob. He took time, encouraged each of us separately and together, gave me some big-boy advice, and walked us right into mastery of the Bunny slopes. Of course, the kids got it faster than I did based I am sure entirely on their much higher tolerance for falling and complete lack of concern about how they will go to work with a broken leg. But they got it. And I did too.

Here is the evidence.

So, in a desire to get out of the cabin and back to the slopes, I’m going to draw it to a close. Here are some simple recipes for Superbowl Snacks. I think I’ll cheer for the Saints, for no particular reason.

Salmon Ceviche with Lime and Habanero, Goat Cheese and Portabello Quesadillas, and White Bean-Walnut Pâté

Tröegs Nugget Nectar

March

Just can't say goodbye

I recently had lunch with a local food blogger who is also a writing MFA student. MFA students are always an interesting bunch; smart and creative and full of enthusiasm for their art. I am jealous of them a little, wishing sometimes that I’d pursued a career of writing novellas and teaching Composition 101. My journey down that path would have led to a poorly conceived romance with a pipe and cherry flavored tobacco, lascivious thoughts about undergrads, probably a sabbatical in a secluded Canadian cabin to finish The Novel, and definitely a lot less yelling. There is the chance that I’d have travelled a ribald path to literary stardom, but the public’s desire to read masculine stories by a terse war correspondent seems to have entirely faded.

In any case, these students often swim in a dark current of worry as they grapple with the concept of weaving their passion into the strictures of securing a paycheck. It is hard to write or sculpt or paint for a living, at least in any way that satisfies the artist. We discussed this topic just a little, mostly focusing on restaurants, food travels, food writing, and food in general. After I left, I felt good in my choice of careers, one solid and grounded in business and cooking and less fraught with the whims of art and trend and fad. Secure and mature at the aforethought evident in the intelligent choices I made. Maybe even a touch sanctimonious.

Silly me. The restaurant world is as stressful and flighty and artistic and dramatically foolish as any. You need a lot of people to like your art to be even a little successful. Your art is created with very perishable ingredients. Your art usually needs to adapt to the changing tastes of the people. And your art requires a massive outlay of cash up front. Makes painting portraits for a living look like a breeze. And there are those non-linear creative urges that blast through our heads, pushing us into new ideas at the expense of stepwise completion of other tasks.

One of the most difficult “artist-y” urges we chefs have is the desire to walk away from a dish after it has been around for some time. Like a sculpture from our earlier naturalist clay phase, it pales against the interpretive stainless steel and paper mobiles that are the focus of the next show. Sure it sells. Sure it is popular. Sure the same guest returns to Pittsburgh on her great aunt’s birthday every year and when she is in town she stops in to have it and it is just as delicious as it was the first time she had it. Sure you can make it in your sleep. But you can’t even stand the smell of it anymore. It was a whim designed ten years ago by an immature, inexperienced you that would get laughed out of the kitchen by the veteran line cooks of today. So the old you, not the new you. And it fills a slot on the menu where you’d like to put a new, exciting dish. What do you do? Change it? Ditch it?

You keep it. Keep it and try to re-understand it. Why is it popular? Why has it hung around for so long? What is right about it? You then ask what could be better about it. Can you adjust the acidity of the sauce a little? Would a better grade of pancetta improve it? Does it need so much rice? Finally, you accept the dish for what it is and curl up with it, thankful for a faithful old friend even if he has the weird habit of loud mouth-breathing.

And hope a new dish becomes the next darling of the menu, proving that your current worth to the world of cuisine is relevant to the one previous.

Since I don’t want to r e v e a l which dishes have moved into the emeritus league by offering their recipes in this space, I thought I’d share a couple of simple, homey recipes of dishes I have been cooking at home. This was dinner last Sunday.

Pork Chops with Smoked Paprika
Roasted Parsnips with Rosemary
Broccoli Gently Steamed with Butter and Soy

April

Brunch-y

Where I come from there is no brunch. Breakfast, yes, and on the weekends it might run a little later and be a bigger deal, but brunch was a TV word. Like quiche and sparkling water, brunch was a sissified concept for spoiled city people. Scrapple and bacon and toast, with eggs and pancakes, that was breakfast.

My first experience working brunch was at the Dutch Pantry in DuBois. Again, we never said “brunch”. It was the Sunday morning breakfast shift. And we were always busy, especially summer Sundays. We’d have the Early Risers - elderly regulars who had built their social life around breakfast at the counter - followed closely by the Travelers - stressed families getting their road day started with a plate of creamed chipped beef and an apple dumpling. There would be a little lull for us to re-stock and spot sweep the dining room before the hordes of Church people poured through the door filling the restaurant with Aqua Net and holiness.

I worked every Sunday morning. The law allowed me to work a full shift that day since there was no school and I am sure that my minimum wage pleased the manager’s labor costs. It was a good shift, almost everyone worked including the cute redhead that usually worked at night. She never really paid any attention to who was behind the line and was usually completely miserable after Saturday night, but I liked seeing her.

Barb was the lead breakfast cook, Linda the second. They worked alone during weekday mornings but Sundays they worked together because it took two cooks to keep up the pace. They hated each other. As AM dishwasher and unwilling confidant to each, their grievances would be aired on smoke breaks. Of course I didn’t smoke at 15 but a smoke break is lonely without some company. Of course they’d never smoke together and the servers were afraid to be thought to show preference for one by the other. So I got the job. “Linda is a slob!” “Barb treats me like crap!” “I have to get a new job, I hate it here!” “I can’t believe how badly she set up this morning. I had to reset the whole line!”

Finally, when (I presume) the manager had had enough of the bickering, it was announced that Linda was going to nights. Another part-time cook would cover her breakfast shifts and I’d do Sundays. Sundays cooking!? With scary Barb?! My fear of Barb was mostly overcome with relief at getting off the Sunday morning dish shift. It wasn’t the onslaught of sticky, dirty plates that bothered me; it was the 6 AM changing of the sign outside, especially in winter.

At first, I did prep in the back, called to the front line only when Barb needed help re-stocking, or when the new dishwasher had gotten behind and I had to catch him up. But during that lull before the Righteous arrived or their feeding, she’d have me come up and learn. Pretty quickly I had mastered the steam table set up and the schedule for back-ups, all the plate presentations, how to make the pancakes, and the best way to cook bacon in a hurry. The last lesson, the big one, was eggs.

We cooked our home fries on a griddle and I figured the fried eggs would go on there too. In fact, some of the other cooks would cook them that way - crack two eggs into a pool of butter, let them sizzle, and flip them with a spatula. Barb would have none of that from me. “A proper cook cooks eggs in a skillet.” She kept a set of small, non-stick skillets at the restaurant for her use. They were the egg skillets. She’d keep them near the stove, warm but not screaming hot. When an order came in, she’d put a skillet on the stove. Into it would go a splash of clarified butter, which she had taught me to do on a previous lesson and had had me make every week since. She’d crack two eggs (or three, for some plates, or one for an elderly person or a child). She’d let it cook until the whites were nearly opaque, then she’d flip it.

Right there, that flip, that was the meat of it. Barb explained that the flip was the sign of a real cook. Any monkey could make fried eggs on a griddle, spread out and ugly and flipped with a greasy spatula, but only a real cook could flip an egg in a skillet. That is, flip it without breaking it. First, you’d lift the pan off the fire and give it a little swirl to make sure that the eggs weren’t stuck. If they did, you’d loosen them with a small rubber spatula. Once the egg was free, you’d slightly tilt the pan away from yourself, allowing the two yolks to settle into the curve of the skillet. Then you’d softly push and pull the pan into the air, popping the front edge up at the beginning of the pull. “Eggs don’t weigh much,” Bard would scold when I’d break a yolk, “So you don’t need to throw them all over the kitchen. Just lift it up. Loosen that wrist for God’s sake. You can’t flip an egg all tight and hard. It isn’t arm wrestling. Just flip it. Aww, stop, stop. Be gentle, see, it's just eggs. Here, I’ll show you one last time. Like this. See. Soft. Barely move it. And it isn’t really a fast flip you are just turning ’em over. Soft.”

Eventually, I’d get to stay up on the line with her. Sometimes she’d leave me up there while she prepped some more bacon or got the lunch mise en place together. Before I left there, I could work any Sunday rush. All the pans moving, eggs going over hard, sunny up, shirred, and scrambled, calling the dishwasher to re-stock my plates, yelling for the new cook to hurry up with the pancake batter, arguing with the servers about their bad hand-writing. I was the breakfast cook.

April recipes: Bill's Brunch (Bacon, Eggs and Homefries)

May

Kaya @ 15

This month, we celebrate Kaya's fifteenth anniversary of being open. Kaya was my first restaurant opening, my first job with big Burrito, and my true introduction to Pittsburgh.

I moved from Berkeley, CA to Pittsburgh in December 1994. I had grown up in Western Pennsylvania, and thought I was ready for winter here. However, winter in DuBois, Pa, my hometown high on the Allegheny Plateau, is snowy and cold, yet crispy clear in between snows. My first experience with the rainy, gray slush of Pittsburgh was crushing, especially after the blissful perfection of the Northern California climate.

Returning east carried with it some feeling of defeat. I was unsure of my career path reversal, my selection of city, and every reconsidered piece of my life. Finding a decent cook's job was impossible and only a few minimum wage entry-level positions were offered. I took a job working salads at Christopher's on Mount Washington. Chef Mimi Stutz treated me well, but my position depressed me. I had gone through the ranks ten years before, and was exhausted at the idea of doing it again at 27.

After two of months Christopher's, I learned that an old friend from my DC days had moved to Pittsburgh to help open some Mexican restaurants. I called Pete Echeverio and joined up.

Mex on Smallman

By the time I joined, the originally planned third Mad Mex had transformed in concept to a tropically-themed restaurant. Pete had gone to Miami on research, eating Cuban sandwiches, conch fritters, and ceviches. A pile of cookbooks had been acquired and we started research and test cooking. At the time, Nuevo Latino food was a hot trend. Douglas Rodriguez had just moved from Miami to New York City and opened Patria, Norman Van Aiken of Norman's in Miami had won a James Beard Award, and the fresh, hot flavors meshed with the recent onslaught of fresh, modern cooking from California.

Up to this point, life was work and home with two days off a week. We cooked and planned and talked. I'd spend the day at Gary Terner's or Tom Baron's house, cooking with Pete and Gary, trying out recipes, working on dishes. Pete was the Corporate Chef, Gary was the Executive Chef, and I was a cook. I guess I was Gary's Sous Chef, but only in fact, not in title. At the end of our cooking days I'd take the notes and recipes home and type them up on my old Mac Power PC. The word Tropas evolved at this time (Tropical + Tapas = Tropas, short "o") and we refined the concept. It seemed easy, get everyone hired and train them. Order food, prep it, and open.

After two weeks together, we moved into the dirty Fat Frank's space. Everything that hadn't been ripped out had to be scrubbed, and scrubbed again, and scrubbed every day all day until the last few details of construction were complete. We jostled with carpenters and plumbers trying to get started while they tried to finish. This pattern dominated every opening over the following decade and a half. Finally, a menu was ready, we were a week from opening, we'd hired some staff, and most of the work was complete. We paced initial orders and began prepping.

Once we got in, it was every day, all day. We'd arrive at 8 or so, begin production, receive and put away deliveries, and train cooks until late at night. We'd have a lunch team to train, and then a dinner team. The basement prep room was filled with cooks. We had five days to get the restaurant set up and come together as a cohesive kitchen team. Of course, there is no way to create a kitchen crew in five days. It took months.

I worked all the time at this point. The pressure of the project crushed me; the need to realize the final sculpture in my head and transmit it to the rest of the crew dominating all my consciousness. Not only did they need to learn dishes and recipes, but the entire organization of the place, our standards of quality and excellence, the style of service, and our mission philosophy had to be instilled. I was the hammer, the piston, the bass line. While Pete trained the dining room staff and Gary organized and ordered, I trained and disciplined the cooks and dishwashers. And we all cooked.

Opening night loomed

Before one opens a restaurant, one usually has two events, the mock service and opening party. Mock service is a series of trial runs. Friends, staff, local foodies, and hangers-on are invited in to dine at the restaurant, usually for free. This gives the kitchen and the floor an opportunity to try out their wings for the first time. The Kaya mock services rang with the cacophony of disaster. Hour-long ticket times, spilled trays of food, incorrect table numbers, angry guests (and how bad does it have to be to get angry over free food?), raw pork chops. We wallowed in our miserable mock services, learning nothing. Servers argued. A cook walked out. Dishwashers just didn't show up.

Soggy March dragged into gray April. Between the weather and the work, I never saw sun. Everyone was ugly; the cooks, the servers, the people walking by our windows. I was ugly. The city was a dirty hole, gritty and gray I was already tired and nobody in the restaurant seemed to be getting it. The servers couldn't ring checks correctly, nobody made anything that tasted good, dishes were never clean and the kitchen layout was wrong. Nobody cared. We would fail. Pittsburgh sucked. I had failed.

Finally, we hosted the pre-opening cocktail hors d'oeuvre party. I wanted more training, more mock services, and was confident the party was a complete waste of time and money. We weren't ready and weren't going to be. We needed more time. But we got our jackets on, set up the kitchen, and prepped the hors d'. The sun went down and the party started.

For the first few hours of the party our heads were down over pans and trays. Thumping and voices rolled in from the dining room but our sole focus lay in front of us. The guests crushed the food as fast as we could send it. The restaurant was so full the servers had to go out the alley door, run around to the front of the building to fight to get in to serve the guests in the front of the bar. I stormed up and down the line, shouting and fuming, furious at everything.

Finally, when we were out of food and spent, the party turned towards drinking, and we got a break before breaking down. I washed my hands and ditched my apron and wandered out into the dining room.

It was beautiful. I hadn't yet seen Kaya's dining room properly lit at night yet. The polished wood, the steel superstructure over the bar, the brick walls opposite the long bar, the tropical art, it was perfect. Sexy, urbane, and warm. And it was filled with beautiful, smiling people. Fit men in styling shirts, curvy ladies showing skin. These could not be the same people I had slopped through winter with, who shopped with me at the Strip District markets, who shared the gray misery of Pittsburgh. These people smiled and laughed, their faces glowed, they loved their lives. And finally, I saw Pittsburgh the Beautiful.

Thank you for all the great years since. I love you, Pittsburgh. I love you, Kaya.

Bill

P.S. There are three OK (Original Kaya) employees left at big Burrito. Gary Terner - Catering, Rob Hirst - Soba, and myself. To blatantly steal a great line, "What a long, strange trip it's been."

P.P.S. A couple of recipes. First, our Lime Cilantro Vinaigrette. This is one of our most requested recipes. So many people like this dressing that we moved it to Mad Mex a few years ago. Second, our Sorrel Tea. This is made with dried hibiscus flowers which can be purchased at Reyna's in the Strip. The hibiscus is called Flor de Jamaica in Mexico, so this beverage is simply referred to as Jamaica. It is a delicious iced tea and even better with a little Cruzan rum stirred into it.

June

The local role call

So far, this has been a great local product year for us. It started with getting fresh, locally produced tortillas in Mad Mex and Kaya. Nick has finally gotten his larger tortilla machine in from Mexico (a Herculean feat). It is up and operational and now cranking out our 6 flour tortillas for Mad Mex and Kaya. Soon, hell be branching out into the larger sizes. His tortillas are delicious, bready and supple, and make everything better.

Ramp season arrived mightily, driven by the very wet winter and rapid spring warming. I have never seen so many perfect and delicious ramps. Chad Townsend, Sous Chef Extraordinaire, used what little spare time he had to dig us bushel after bushel of ramps. I dont know if it was just me, but they seemed to be sweeter this year, less hot (but still stinky). Morels came in a blast after the cycle of warm early April then wet late April then warm mid-May. They were everywhere. At one point I was speaking to one forager on the phone when another texted me with yields.

The exhilaration of the first ramps led, as usual, to my annual Southwest PA asparagus search/beg/grovel during which I hound local farmers for any spears they might deign to bestow on me. Thanks to Mary for finally calling me after a two year hiatus, I knew youd come back to me. She and her crew taught me how to sort and bundle asparagus showing me the minute changes as the spear goes to seed and how the flavor gets a little stronger and more bitter along the way. Also, Neil did a great job beating the bushes and cajoling his farmers for extra, Amy brought me a few pounds from her old patch and a little taste from the new one (cant wait until next year!), and Mose stopped by with a few pounds of his ever-perfect product. May they all have even more next year!

This spring, our chicken situation improved dramatically. I finally was able to develop a source of natural, humanely-raised chicken in a quantity and quality to continue transitioning the Mad Mex restaurants to this better product. I visited this Ohio farm in April and was really pleased with what I saw. Also, Pete began to bring us his pastured, organic, GMO-free, happy chicken for Kaya, Casbah, Soba, and Eleven. Never have I eaten a more delicious bird. He believes that he will be able to increase his production enough to be able to bring us his chickens year-round. So exciting! The chicken just gets tastier everywhere.

Which brings us to June. Honeysuckle and blackberries are in full bloom and the first fireflies are here. Strawberries just showed up, so brightly perfect. Looks to be a good run for them too. Shell peas are here, spring cooking greens, herbs, and lettuces. Squashes will show soon, and in a few weeks Ill start to look for the very first field tomatoes. They wont be ready, nor will the corn, but Ill start to ask.

Have a great summer! Here are two easy little recipes.

Kaya Three Salads

Kaya Scallop Appetizer

July

Summer cooking is here, but where am I?

I usually like to make the July column a missive from vacation, a simple, breezy commentary on some fun beach meal I made last night with comments about my relaxed beach recreational life. Often, cocktails and dolphins figure into the picture. This July finds me still fixed in the real world; planning our new Mad Mex Highland Avenue, travelling to meet farmers and produces, visiting equipment manufacturers to learn their products’ capabilities. The restaurants are all still hopping keeping my hands dirty and my knife moving. Completely scheduled, I jump from stove to laptop to meeting to dining room to telephone interview to KDKA to the PLCB. Not summer yet.

True to form of my current pace, I write this for you in the Chicago airport at dawn, crusty and a little grumpy from not making the flight home last night and getting three hours sleep in another hotel room, waiting on standby hoping a couple of people oversleep or get stuck in traffic so I can get to my 10 AM meeting with our kitchen designer. We need to get the Highland kitchen done NOW as the rest of the project awaits final kitchen mechanicals. But the kitchen awaited the results of our trip to St. Louis to decide on a new piece of equipment that should fundamentally improve the flow and pace of the kitchen. If I don’t make it, I’ll have to reschedule later today, interfering with interviews with a couple of management candidates and preparations for Chef’s tables tonight and tomorrow night at Eleven.

Vacation comes soon, but not yet.

So I escape to thoughts of summer cooking. Summer cooking has to be easy. You don’t want to roast the house with kitchen heat. Planning dishes with a bunch of steps, and you lose kayak time with the kid on the Allegheney. Too long a process and the margaritas go to your head before the food gets to the table. And you surely don’t want to do a lot of dishes. It’s better to make a quick dinner and get out into the yard to hold the firefly jars for the neighborhhod gang.

Also, I don’t like to eat anything heavy this time of year. No braises, no stews, no rich sauces. And if I don’t want to eat it, I sure won’t toil over my home stove for it. But, unless you are a devout raw food devotee, you do need to cook a little, and I like to keep it to a little grilling or quick sautéing. In the heat, it almost seems a shame to cook the food at all.

So how to do it? I always keep a couple of avocados and limes around. I like to buy four or six avocados at a time, selecting half that are really hard and half that are ripe. This way, I have tonight’s guacamole and Sunday’s avocado salad. Avocados ripen beautifully on the counter, the hard ones should be supple and delicious in between one and three days. Don’t refrigerate avocados before they are ripe, as they’ll brown before they ripen. However, refrigerating a ripe avocado will give you a day or two more to use them. And leaving the pit in an avocado half does NOTHING to prevent browning. Lime juice will do that for the short term. Better yet, just eat the rest of it.

In addition to these tropical lovelies, I regularly hit our great farmers’ markets, picking up what ever looks good. I modo a lap first, scoping out the various vendors. After that, I return and select the best products from the first lap. Remember, if only one farmer has canteloupes, the they are probably not in season. Stick to the fruits and vegetables that you see on different tables. Right now, we are about to leap into the corn season. The first corn has trickled into thhe cities, and the next week will open the floodgates. I picke the first few ripe sungolds of my porch plant on Sunday, indicating that tomato fever is about to strike as well. Of course, the frenzy of the market drives me to buy too many goodies, but it does keep the compost rich.

So this leaves us with dinner. A simple delicious salad of avocados, tomatoes, sweet onions and Ponzu (definition – citrus and soy sauce). Another simple dish of tomatillo avocado salsa, some corn cooked with a bit of bacon, and beautiful Alaskan halibut (now in high season). And the cocktail to freshen it up.

Hey, they called my name, I’m getting back to Pittsburgh this morning! Things are looking great, the weather is beautiful, and I can almost taste the salt in the air…

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Lime Ponzu

Sautéed Halibut with Tomatillo Guacamole

Grapefruit Basil Margarita

August

If you can't take the kitchen...

I have no kitchen at home. Where the kitchen was, unfinished drywall dangling Romex surrounds tool belts, a compound miter saw, and a cooler. The refrigerator is in the dining room, the coffee maker is in the basement. There is no food, just some juice and milk in the fridge, a bag of Lays on the construction table in the dining room.

It started as easy. The ten-year-old temporary stove couldnt ignite on three of four burners. It embarrassed me, a cheap stove to put in our new house a decade ago that we would replace when we did the kitchen. It was small and had no firepower. And was falling apart. Of course, we had no dishwasher, the cabinets were unhinging, and the fabric wall paper was falling off. So we decided to remodel, lose the rose pink tile on the floor, put in decent cabinets, and get a real stove. With six real burners! And a hood! Seemed easy enough, a couple of weeks, throw some insulation in and better lighting, see ya, done.

Well, we knew we had to gut it. The plaster under the paneling under the drywall under the fabric wall paper was shot. So since the walls would be open, we should re-do as much wiring as possible, running it up to the second floor and attic for future renovation. But also, while the walls are open, we should consider what we might do one day with the bathroom, which sits directly above the kitchen. Furthermore, if we were ever to want AC, this was the time to do it.

Okay. We decided on AC. I sweat a lot, and am particularly churlish in the hotter parts of the summer. We would use the chase that ran along the chimney for plumbing and duct. (The chimney which we wanted to remove but were utterly overwhelmed by the scope and cost of that part of the project.) The bathroom would wait until a future date ($$).

Of course, when the electrician arrived, he pointed out that our small panel would never be able to accommodate all the appliances as well as the 220 line for the central air. In fact, the reason the front bedroom lights dimmed when the dining room window AC unit kicked on was because every circuit in the small panel was over-loaded. OK, well we seem to need that. (And I knew this was coming, so wasnt really surprised. By the bill, yes. But not the panel.) Go ahead, go for it.

Assessing the house with the HVAC guy was exciting. We have known for years that replacing the 40s era boiler loomed, but have been waiting for it to force our hand. It wants to die, struggling on life support and sucking down cash as it supports at least three new Marcellus shale wells, and since we were doing the work, we asked them to price in a boiler, hoping the EnergyStar tax break might offset some of the cost. Of course, there is the choice of high efficiency costs more or regular wont save us as much on bills. We chose to get the green so we spent the green.

Great, the mechanicals were set. We chose tile and cabinet color and flooring. The flooring discussion was a good one. As we stood in a group, Bill (my contractor), my mother-in-law (present for all decisions and actually a huge help managing this train wreck), Mary (shell shocked by decisions and expense), and myself, staring down at 100 year old paper thin wood flooring and pink squares of tile. The tile in the foyer was on top of the flooring maybe and both layers had to go. To make the floor level on the main floor, it all had to go. Great! We always wanted to replace the hardwood.

Floor, furnace, AC, electric panel, wiring, dumpsters, plumbers. Clearing the whole downstairs, half the attic. Losing the little grass in the front and back yards. Living like squatters, washing dishes in the laundry sink in the basement. Disorganization, early mornings with contractors, dust everywhere. Ugh.

36 Bluestar range with six open burners (incl. 2 22k BTU burners) and convection oven. Hood that moves up to 1200 CFM of air. Combination convection oven/microwave. And a dishwasher.

Oh yeah, thats why Im doing this.

Any how, weve been eating out a lot and not cooking when we eat at home. Here is a cold soup and a spicy, delicious salad for those of you without the ability (or desire) to cook this summer.

And Ill be making these on KDKAs Pittsburgh Today Live on August 5.

Gazpacho

Spicy Cantaloupe Salad

September

Opening Casbah

October 27, 2010 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the opening of Casbah. As some of you may know, this was the first restaurant I opened as Executive Chef. Fresh off eight months of eighty-plus hour weeks of Kaya’s birthing, I leapt right into the really serious job of guiding a new restaurant as the Main Man. It astounds me, really, when I look back at that time.

I was right. Never more right. I knew how to structure a kitchen, how to build the menu, what to buy, who to hire, and how one should speak to a Chef. We wrote a menu, mostly mine but with interjections by the two chefs in big Burrito that were then my supervisors, Michael Hooker and Pete Echevario (an old friend of mine from the Occidental in Washington, DC). Fresh from Berkeley, I wanted to wrap the flavors of Northern California in what I’d read of North African and Southern European cuisine, bring the ideas of buying local products and cooking seasonally to Pittsburgh, and build a kitchen based on the principles I’d learned as a young cook. There was no option for me to be the best. And to bring everyone with me.

In the years since, I have evaluated in retrospect the structuring and execution of my initial reign. It was based on expecting more than any person could deliver and in less time, detailed with discipline and passion, punctuated with blasting yelling and bullying ridicule, and capped with my endless obsession with getting it right. Ordering waitresses to stay out of my kitchen, driving the boy waiters to tears, ordering cooks to “Get your s__t and get the f__k out!”, and my epitome of ridiculous fanaticism of ejecting the three of four line cooks from the middle of Saturday night dinner rush and working all their stations in a fury. I pity the fourth cook, some young kid trapped in the salad station at the blind end of the line, unable to escape me except to possibly climb through the plate-up window. Which fear kept him from trying.

I started at seven or so and stayed until the end of dinner service. I’d leave after the storm of my panic and anger and need had blasted the entire staff, drained and disappointed and disgusted with myself walking home to my empty efficiency up the street. We never seemed to get it right; slow service, dishes that failed to become what was in my head, sous chefs on my team but reading a different page, cooks hung over and hating me, servers more interested in dollars than service. I’d ruminate on our errors and missteps until I drank sleep into my bed. I’d awaken to dry mouth and a melted Wild Turkey rocks on the floor, alarm squawking, the day’s structure forming itself. I’d drive it harder, fix that sauce, get that sauté cook to get it right.

Our first review was in Pittsburgh magazine, within the first month we opened. We were as panned as Pittsburgh Magazine ever panned. It made me nuts. I’d try harder, get rid of the dead wood, push it better. If everyone else didn’t like it, they could get out. I went to work very early the next morning. I re-wrote menu changes that I’d been told to wait on, threw away the mise en place for any item that had anything to do with anyone’s ideas but mine, and prepped new items. When Michael and Peter got there later, the menu was changed, we were into service, and there was no way back. They sat me down after lunch and blasted me. Insubordinate and arrogant, I told them that I didn’t care if their feelings were hurt but the items had to go. I’m not making them. We’re not serving them.

Of course, the endless ranting drifted into the dining room. One time, a couple having dinner at the bar were fortunate enough to be treated to two hours of pure expletive-laced insanity as we struggled through a difficult service. They wrote a scathing complaint letter. I was forced to write an apology letter. The incident even made it onto the front page of the Wall Street Journal. My name didn’t.

By the end of February I was exhausted. I had worked nearly every day since before we opened Kaya in March. And these days were long, filled with my emotional explosions mixed with really hard work. Right after Valentine’s Day, I broke. I’d started to feel poorly, running a fever and sweating. I went home and collapsed. When Mary stopped to check on me, a massive fever from a subcutaneous infection in my leg had me hallucinating and ranting. I remember things clearing two days later, awakening in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm. It was Friday. I asked to leave, but was told that I needed to stay one more day. I had used up my body and allowed an opportunistic infection to set in. I needed more IV antibiotics or it wouldn’t get better. I stayed another day.

Saturday I was discharged and went to Casbah. There was work to be done.

Here are a couple of recipes from way back then. I loved the flan dish, it is delicious, but never seemed to be able to sell it. I also love the butternut squash crème brulee. I still make it at Thanksgiving.

Point Reyes Blue Cheese Flan with Beet Vinaigrette

Butternut Squash Crème Brulee

Wild Turkey and Cider Cocktail

October

Never Give and Inch

My favorite novels are ones that tell stories of passionate and alienated anti-heroes trapped on a quest of their own design. Single-mindedly pursuing a ridiculous goal whose purpose lies in opposition to all their best interests, they neglect everything except that which is eminently material to the cause. The goal is true, and noble, and there is no question that it must be achieved. On the Path, those of lesser vision fall to the side, or are discarded. Great personal injuries occur, often leading to death at the fulfillment of the quest, or just before. But most of all, our hero’s wracked torture as he watches everything close stripped from him, trailing away in fish-eyed confusion, broken and torn by his mission, is the meat that keeps me turning the page. “Will he come to the conclusion that he is wasting everything?” “Will he die in his pursuit?” “Is there any compromise that he can fashion to achieve his truth and stay human?”

Unfortunately, in life, things do not get tidily wrapped up in 427 pages. The hero rarely gets to give everything for the one true holy thing. There are PTA meetings to attend, spouses and children, and it’s nice to keep a friend or two in pocket. This dilemma, the fractured interface of the ideal of the perfect restaurant with the compromise of reality, is where we, the Chefs, find ourselves. We believe in our vision; for the dish, for the concept, for the kitchen, for the restaurant. And the requirements of our trade make sacrifice a fundamental theme. We truly bleed for the craft, and sacrifice our backs and friends and weekends, and thrive in a milieu where the truest yardsticks are pain. How many hours spent over the stove, how wickedly scarring the burns, and how many screaming attacks survived are strung like black and jagged pearls along life’s string. The quest strips us, breaks us, isolates us, and we follow it through the darkness for our light at the end.

But the light is never to be found. Every day begins anew. No matter what the achievement of yesterday— covers served, excellent sauce, perfect medium rare, rocking service— today winds a new clock and sets it to tick. Yesterday’s masterpiece is gone, washed down with wine into the organic soup of life. Today we begin anew to bang nature’s raw products into form and flavor to please our eyes and tongues. When finished, they fly from us, never returning as we turn to the next plate. And so go the days and weeks and seasons and years, continually trying to accomplish the goal of assembling perfection amid the erratic beauty of this earth. The stone is rolled up.

But we believe that we can. That we will. That we HAVE to. And that if you don’t like it, then f__k off and go away and leave us to our mission. Because if you can’t be there with me, then I’ll do it myself. And for the hours of sweating, cursing, and screaming, we find the occasional bits of beauty and that keeps us moving forward.

That, and off color butternut squash humor.

But there is no redemption. A good chef believes that he or she is right, completely. And this right needs not be questioned. To competently lead a disparate group of young men and women into the stressful pressures and conditions of service, they must be prepared to execute the commands of the chef. To question, to disobey, is to slow down the machine and break the flow. And without the flow, there is chaos. And chaos is the enemy of the restaurant. Only by applying incredible organization and control can the endless details of the evening’s dinner service be executed.

Chefs are jerks by definition. A chef is an egotistic creative control freak, usually with a neatness fixation. He has little patience for fools and no time for drama. Play your part, carry the weight, and step in line. This does not make for a great personal life as these traits carry into relationships with friends and family. Even with other restaurant people, the chef is alone. Between the competition with other chefs (don’t even try to deny it, every last one of you), the master/student relationship with the cooks, and the flirty yet distrustful connection to the servers, there is a quiet place where the Chef sits alone, even in the center of the room.

But we have no choice and love it. We grow, and adjust, and develop some ability to step back from the quest and breathe. But it is always there, waiting for us to slide back in and rage…

Casbah revisited

So, to pick up where I left off last month, I went back to work. Assumed my position and rolled my stone. Over the next fifteen years, a lot occurred at Casbah. The restaurant progressed steadily through many changes in leadership. Thanks Matt Millea, Lon Durbin, Vince Smith, Derek Stevens, Heath Miles, Eric “Spud” Wallace, Chef by Committee, Derek Stevens again, Alan Peet, and current chef, Eli Wahl. My relationships with you have stretched from angry antagonism to intimate friendship, often in the same conversation. Everyone knows that being the Chef at Casbah is difficult. And you all had to date my baby and survive it. Nice job.

Also, thanks to General Managers Brian Bennett (who taught me the most important wine knowledge ever – “if you like it, it’s good”), Michelle Lavelle-Denk, Eric Shultz, Michelle again, Jennifer Fisher, Chris Thinnes, and current manager Paul Schupp. You quieted me when I had my fits, smoothed over things with the floor staff, helped me focus during crazy nights, and reminded me to clean up my act when I needed it.

Finally, if I could list all the rest, the string of Sous Chefs and Assistant Managers, the hard-working cooks, servers, and dishwashers, I would. But I haven’t the memory or the space. I send a serious and deep thank you to all of you.

A few noteworthy Casbah memories:

The Punafish Incident – A cook mistakenly tried to slice and serve a piece of just-seared pork loin in place of the just-seared rare tuna loin. I went berserk and made the whole kitchen staff stay and scrub until nearly dawn. How anyone could let that leave the kitchen was beyond me.

The Carjack – Michael Hooker, the then company head chef, was carjacked and placed into his trunk the first New Years Eve. His story of escape by working open the latch from the inside and running into the early morning dawn of Homewood is epic.

The Sexy – For the first few years, many of you seemed to find a meal at Casbah so arousing that it was impossible for you to wait to get even to the privacy of your car. The lower level restrooms were always a favorite, but kudos to the gentleman who received a helping hand from his date in the middle of the upstairs dining room during dinner service. We saw you two!

The Wacky Iraqis – During our fist few years, Catholic Charities made great efforts to get many Christian Iraqi refugees out of Iraq to escape persecution. We employed a number of them. Of note: Abbas, the ringleader who would translate for the others and review their paychecks every payday, Abdul Hamid, the best cook of the bunch, and as high-strung as they come, Fassel, who made numerous cameos at various Burrito restaurants over thee years, and one who shall remain nameless who stays in my memories as shoe prints on a toilet seat. Seems his village used the old-fashioned squat toilet. Seems also in his village that the toilet paper went in the garbage, not the toilet.

The Cuban Refugees – Less colorful, more angry. Same Catholic Charities. More angst. They were all familiar with the workings of modern plumbing, however.

Crush the Gardemanger – A game we played for years. The gardemanger, maker of salads and some appetizer, worked at the far end of the box-end line. We would whisper to each other and, on cue, run down the line and smash the poor culinary student against the wall. This game ended one day when I was caught unaware on the Gardemanger station and forced against the hot convection oven by a kitchen full of cooks. When I cleared them off me and pulled my seared rare upper arm off the oven door, I announced the end of the game.

Upstairs with Wife, Downstairs with Girl Friend – And it was more than one gentleman who followed that pattern when making reservations.

The Pants – Local judge dropped trou in the cocktail area of the restaurant. We had to ask him to go.

Finally, The Romance – Mary and I met at Casbah; me the brooding Chef, her the young and sweet server. She caught my attention with an off-color joke about parsley. All she wanted to do was to keep out of the crosshairs. Instead, I followed her around until she liked me. We were the impetus for the creation of the no fraternization rule. Fifteen years later, this story is also still going strong.

So, we’ll be drinking some wine and cooking some food this month. Come on by. I’m starting the next fifteen years. There is a lot of unfinished business at 229 South Highland.

Classic recipes from Casbah:

Butternut Squash Manicotti in Gorgonzola Cream

Roasted Beets, Dinosaur Kale, Sumac, and Pistachios

November

Nothing New Under the Sun

Often, I am asked how we come up with new dishes. I always struggle with an answer. While I believe that people want to hear that there is some internal glowing sphere of creativity into which we travel, lifting glowing morsels of culinary brilliance from the branches of Meyer lemon trees that line the lavender-scented cobblestone pathways, exploding from this sweaty reverie with a handful of brilliance to cast upon the plate, brilliance exemplified. Truthfully, things just work. We know combinations that taste good, then we play riffs on those themes.

For example, thyme, corn, bacon, clams go great together. It is one of my all time favorite flavor combinations. If you place all those ingredients into a pan - render a couple strips of bacon, diced, drop in 2 dozen clams and some sprigs of thyme, a good pinch of black pepper, half a cup of leftover white wine, cover and steam, throw half a cup of corn in at the end when the clams have started to pop – you have a great bowl of clams to share with a friend and some crusty bread. Great. So, from here, we replace the bacon with the fermented peppery flavor of pancetta. And a pinch of red pepper flakes. I’ll switch to oregano, second cousin to thyme, and a fresh bay leaf. Still a splash of white wine, but instead of corn at the end, I’ll do 2 cups of tomato sauce. Pour over pasta.

We can continue to expand. Sweet Thai sausage replaces bacon (still cured pork), a dash of red curry replaces the tomato sauce/chili flakes, keep the white wine, and add a can of coconut milk, kaffir lime leaves, and a few sprigs of cilantro at the end. Maybe adjust with a little fish sauce. Serve with Jasmine rice. We keep all the elements that work with the clams: the cured deliciousness of the pork product, a little spice, some wine to add cooking juices and acidity, aromatic herbs, some sweet vegetative matter. And guess what, you can remove the clams and dress mussels the same way.

So, to expand on the theme, we apply the same flavors to an entrée. In the spring, summer, and early autumn, we are gifted with the brilliant blank canvass of fresh Alaskan halibut. Not fatty, simple delicious flavor, clean texture, it takes almost any garb and wears it elegantly. So, how to dress this slim beauty of the culinary runway? Well, you always sauté it in oil and some whole butter. Grilling is too brutal, and technically difficult, for halibut, and poaching is difficult with a fish this lean (and people really don’t like it that much). Corn easily becomes a corn coulis, finished with whole butter and fresh thyme. Instead of bacon, we slice prosciutto thinly and bake it flat on a sheet pan. While the fish is cooking, we steam three clams separately in a pot with some previously cooked diced potatoes and leeks and a little prosciutto fat. A spoon of corn coulis goes on the plate, the potatoes and leeks lifted out with a spoon and placed in the center of the coulis are a bed for the halibut. Fish on the plate, three clams placed equidistant around the plate, a dribble of the clam liquid (quickly reduced after the clams are finished) on clams and fish, and a little salad of cilantro sprouts and baby arugula across the fish for color and texture. Crispy prosciutto on top.

Leeks and potatoes? Oh yeah, clam chowder. There are a million iterations of this. Steam 50 clams, reserve liquid. Pick clams from shells. Render ¼# minced bacon/pancetta/prosciutto. Add 1 bunch of the light parts of leeks, diced, and sweat until soft. Add 2-3 # potatoes (peeled and diced) and 2 C. corn, clam liquid. Bring to boil, simmer until potatoes are cooked. Add clams back, a cup of cream, some chopped fresh thyme, cook a few more minutes. Chowder.

So we wander through our memories of our food themes, adjusting the elements that we know work and replacing with similar accents, bringing some of the elements forward, letting some drift back, tasting all the way. And this is a way we make new dishes. Scallops crusted with chilis, thyme and a scratch of allspice, delicate egg white leavened corn pancakes, tiny cubes of rendered fatback, a deglaze of the scallop pan with a splash of light sake and finished with a dribble of the pork fat and spooned around the plate? Excellent. I did this dish when I cooked at the British Virgin Islands food and wine festival last year. I wanted to use these flavors of summer, tied to the often abused concept of Jerk – the thyme/chili rub – to make an elegant appetizer.

One of the greatest parts of this wandering through flavors is that they almost always tie back to a real meal, a moment in time, a cultural element of significance. If any of the readers of this column have ever attended a clam bake, it is absolutely obvious how these flavors combine. Also, clams are coastal in my mind, and beach time is late summer, and I always buy some local ham or bacon as I drive to the beach. Finally, salt pork and seafood tie together throughout European/American cooking history.

So, we rarely do something “new”. But we draw upon themes, memories, and nature and try to re-balance and make a plate that is familiar yet exciting, but always delicious.

Some other flavor patterns:

Tomato, basil, garlic – of course

Butternut squash, sage, citrus, butter, nuts

Morel, asparagus, chervil

Eggplant, rosemary, tomato, olive

Greens, tomato, bacon, lemon

Pasta is a great canvas upon which to paint these flavors. Attached are three recipes for simple gnudi dishes, each within one of the themes above.

recipes:

Gnudi Three Ways

1. in Simple Tomato Sauce

2. with Pancetta, Chard, Tomato and Lemon

3. with Butternut Squash, Hazelnuts and Sage Brown Butter

December

Brussels Sprouts

Man, did I hate Brussels sprouts as a kid. I remember a mushy, pale green mass of fart-scented glop, little texture, no flavor. I don’t know how they were cooked, but every member of the extended family seemed to possess the same putrescent recipe. I hated seeing them in my grandfather’s, growing taller and bushier and warning of Christmas dinner nastiness to come. I could not understand whey they grew them every year, and why the adults ate them. All I knew is that I would take as little as possible (always corrected to the high side by some watchful adult relative nearby). I would bury them in gravy, or cranberry sauce, and choke them down.

Blech.

Thirty five years later, I have learned at least two things in my life. I have learned to love Brussels sprouts and I have learned to cook Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts (a member of the Brassica family) work best when treated half like a full-flavored leafy green and half like cabbage. If one drifts too far into the cabbage realm, say cooking for a very long time until the leaves are meltingly tender, the bitterness of the chlorophyll takes over. White, gentle head cabbage has less of these, and when soft develops into a friendly, gentle Polish grandmother.

On the other end of the spectrum, if sautéed like, say, rapini, there is not enough time for the tiny heads to tenderize and you are left with crunchy greenness that hasn’t relaxed enough for the leaves to hold the flavor.

So, what to do? I am offering three recipes this month.

Brussels Sprouts with Bacon

The first is my basic Brussels sprouts for the Holidays recipe. In this recipe, the sprouts are cooked with rendered cured pork product, covered, and braised until tender. Pancetta, bacon, Virginia ham, prosciutto are all dear friends of the Brassicas, and especially the Brussels sprouts.

Crispy Brussels Sprouts, White Anchovies, Lemon Vinaigrette, Parmigianino Reggiano

The second recipe comes from Derek Stevens at Eleven. Over the last few years, we have been fascinated with frying winter vegetables and tossing them with boldly flavored sauces and marinade. Cauliflower and Brussels sprouts work excellently in this process. Derek is currently featuring this dish at Eleven.

The crisp and slightly bitter ends of the Brussels sprout leaves balance well with the less cooked soft centers. Saltiness of anchovies and cheese combine with the sour fruitiness of the lemon to cut the richness of the sprout and the fat from frying.

Sheep's Milk Gnudi, Fried Brussels Sprouts, Butternut Squash Puree, Hazelnut Browned Butter

Finally, I have Eli Wahl’s current gnudi appetizer that he is featuring on the menu at Casbah. This combines the fried Brussels sprouts above with the gnudi (last month’s newsletter) and some butternut squash. Man, it is delicious.

Enjoy! And maybe you’ll get lucky and your kids will like these.