The following summer, Paul Bocuse, feeling sorry for me about what happened with the book, invited Jimmy and me to Lyon. He wrote, “I will send you off to visit all my friends: Troigros, Michel Guerard, and Outier. So come and see me.” And so we did.
Bocuse’s restaurant was just outside of Lyon. Paul received us in full chef regalia. We were given the royal treatment. He ordered all the recipes that had made him famous and that I had translated but never tasted. We had his signature soup—the one that he had made for the French president Giscard D’Estaing and that had earned him the title of Meilleur Ouvrier de France. The soup was called soupe aux truffes Elysée, a very strong flavored chicken consommé, with thick slices of black truffles swimming in it; the soup was sealed with a golden, buttery dome of flaky pastry. I broke the pastry dome, and suddenly I was engulfed in the truffles’ strong, earthy aroma. This dish was followed by mullet served with a pistou sauce, then partridge with cabbage, and for dessert, the most beautiful croquette-en-bouche, tiny pâte à choux filled with cream and glazed with spun sugar. For the next two days, Paul took us around Lyon and talked about his pet project: an Oscar of food. (Three years later, true to his word, The Bocuse d’Or was born, and I was asked to be a judge for the first event.)
A few days later, going south, we stopped at Roanne at the Brother Troisgros’s restaurant. Jean Troisgros was the younger brother. A handsome man who loved food, tennis, and architecture, Jean was in the process of remodeling his kitchen. When he discovered that Jimmy was an architect, he kidnapped him and while drinking 100-year-old Armagnac, discussed the remodeling of his restaurant. While they were occupied, I was told to go to the kitchen to observe how a famous kitchen was run. The kitchen staff put me in a corner near a giant stainless steel vat filled with boiling water. I looked around and was astonished by the noise and the speed with which everyone cooked. Then I turned my attention to the vat. I wondered, as I looked around, what the vat was for. Soon I understood it was for making the consommé used in cooking. Every bone, every leftover raw vegetable went in the vat. The young chefs would throw chicken bones from their cooking station, like a basketball player throwing a ball. They never missed! What made this vat different from the others I had seen before was that this one had its own stove and was gargantuan. At the bottom of the vat was a faucet. From time to time, a young apprentice would come and first remove the scum that was building on top, adding salt and freshly ground pepper, then retrieve some broth for the chef de cuisine. At night the broth was strained, degreased, and used for preparing Troisgros famous Filet de Boeuf au bouillon de Pot-au-Feu (a piece of beef poached in this strong delectable consommé), which we were served at dinner that night. The meat was so tender one could cut it with a fork.
Once Jimmy had visited the architect in charge of the remolding of the restaurant and given some suggestions, we left for Saulieu to visit Bernard Loiseau’s La Côte d’Or restaurant with a care package of homemade sausages, fresh bread, and a bottle of Troisgros’s best wine.
Bernard Loiseau was also young, but less of star than Bocuse and more of a family man than Jean Troisgros. In Loiseau’s restaurant we talked about his children and ours. I felt very much at home with him. We dined on breast of chicken poached with truffles surrounded with slices of foie gras, so rich and tender that I can still taste it. The rest of the meal is a blur. The next day we drove to Michel Guerard in the Bordeaux region at Les Près D’Eugenie hotel and restaurant. Michel Guerard, like Paul Bocuse, was a star. He was very proud of his hotel and restaurant and felt strongly that like Bocuse a few years before, he had come up with a new and revolutionary way of cooking. Cuisine Minceur was his contribution to the new woman, and giving me a meaningful look, he said he hoped I would try it. He promised me that his menu Minceur (a gourmet diet menu) would allow me to shed the few pounds I had acquired in my quest for good food. I had a poached sole in a very light broth and delicate miniature vegetables that simply disappeared in one bite. Dessert was a fruit soufflé with just egg whites. If I could cook that way, I would certainly go on his diet.
Jimmy opted for the regular restaurant dinner and splurged on rabbit and Guerard’s famous cannelloni with herbs. I was jealous of Jimmy, who raved of his meal all the way to our next stop.
Before going on to Outier’s restaurant in the South of France, I needed to rest from all this rich food. We drove to Hendaye, a small town on the Atlantic coast, where thirty years ago, Jimmy had proposed to me in front of an old-fashioned hardware store. To our disappointment, it was now a very modern one. A few days later, rested, we went on to Outier.
L’Oasis, Outier’s restaurant, was a beautiful place near the ocean in the small town of La Napoule near Cannes. This was to be the end of our trip. Outier was more like Jean Troisgros. He was tall, very handsome, and believed himself to be the best cook in France. He was very proud of his three-star Michelin rating. Outier was one of the first chefs that I had met who was truly international. He had opened restaurants in Thailand and India. That night, I told Outier what we had done and eaten for the last ten days. He then understood that to conquer us and show me what a great chef he was, he had to serve us something lovely, but simply cooked because by now, I could no longer eat and wished only for plain yogurt! He served us a frothy consommé, light as air, with tiny morsels of fresh raw scallops. This was followed by the best bouillabaisse I had ever tasted. Just before the next dish arrived, to clear our pallet, a small pear and brandy sorbet was placed in front of us. The cool sorbet was so refreshing that suddenly I felt rejuvenated and with enjoyment, ate the roast squab that followed. Later, while I was savoring a fresh fromage blanc drizzled with local honey and roasted walnuts, Outier talked about coming to New York and opening a new restaurant. He had trained a young chef who would run the restaurant while Outier was at L’Oasis. Outier, three years later, true to his word, opened Lafayette, a restaurant in the Drake Hotel in New York. He brought with him the young chef whom he had trained. Jean-Georges Vongerichten, like his mentor, would become the darling of New York and one of the United States best-known chefs. He would also open restaurants around the world.
A few days later, we were back in New York, and I contemplated all I had seen and learned during those two weeks traveling in France. The chefs I had visited had served us smaller portions than the usual ones served in New York restaurants. Garnishes had changed. Fresh edible flowers were now used as garnishes, and the plates were very large and often made of glass instead of china. Soufflés, salty or sweet, were made with no flour, and flavored oils were drizzled on vegetables. Steaming and poaching, it seemed to me, were now the rule. Fresh fava beans, tiny artichokes, shredded leeks, snow peas, and sugar snap peas were the vegetables of choice. Desserts had also changed. For the first time, I ate an oriental persimmon mousse topped with pomegranate juice in a French restaurant. Gone were the heavy cakes; they were replaced with strange tasting ginger sorbets or ice creams flavored with black pepper. Jean-Georges made potato chips with beets and served pig cheeks as a main course. Oriental vegetables appeared in menus, and sesame seeds seemed to be in every dish. Slowly my own way of cooking changed. As I was now teaching in Brooklyn, I often, after work, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge into Chinatown. I would shop there for our evening meal. I discovered that Chinese butchers carried, as I had seen in French open markets, wild ducks, tiny quails, very young chickens, and thins slices of beef or pork that one could cook in a few seconds. Vegetables in Chinese grocery stores were always seasonal and very fresh. Asparagus were thick and tender; there was tiny bok choy, snow pea leaves, and sweet potato leaves that were better than the regular supermarket spinach.
Every night I experimented with new recipes. I started to consider every aspect of a dish: color, texture, overall presentation, as well as the star attraction, taste. I began jotting down recipes I had developed, like a stuffed lemon braised with tiny pearl onions or Brussels sprouts rolled in sesame seeds. Very soon I had a stack of them. I wanted to write a new coo
kbook. This one would contain my very own recipes and would be based on the way we lived. I wanted to write for the working parents who, when they came home, were faced with children clamoring for dinner and no time to spend on long arduous recipes. I really believed that there was no reason why a working woman or man could not turn the kitchen into a place for high adventure. I knew it could be done.
My book would be called, Colette Rossant’s After Five Gourmet. “After Five” because most people left their workplaces at five. I suggested in my book that they shop on their way home and give themselves two hours to prepare and serve dinner. Recipes would be classified by ingredients and time. You could prepare hors d’oeuvres in less than fifteen minutes with ricotta and fines herbs on toasted round bread or a mushroom flan. There were recipes for beef, chicken, or fish that took thirty minutes to overnight depending on the time you had on your hands. At that time I was teaching at St. Ann’s. I was in charge of organizing exchange programs abroad for our students and heading the foreign language department. I had ten teachers to help and many problems to solve. I was running a household and helping my own children with their homework. Despite all these responsibilities, I managed to serve dinners every night following the principles of this new book.
The After-Five Gourmet came out in the fall of 1981. While the book did not become a bestseller like the food processor cookbook, I believed it was the best cookbook I had ever written. I still believe it today.
For the next three years, although I continued to write articles about food and do restaurant reviews, I just didn’t think I had another cookbook in me. But one morning, I received a call from a friend. Her daughter was getting married, and to my friend’s dismay, she was marrying into a very orthodox Jewish family. Although my friend was Jewish, her family was secular and disliked traditional Kosher food. Furthermore, most of her daughter’s friends were also nonobservant.
“Colette, you have to help me. You must devise the wedding menu and prepare it in the hall’s Kosher kitchen, where the wedding will take place.”
“Impossible; I can’t. I know nothing about Kosher cuisine.”
“I will give you the name of a rabbi; he will help you and teach you what you can and cannot serve. You will invent new dishes. I know you can do it. Please, Colette, don’t let me down!”
During the next few weeks, I trotted down to the Jewish Seminary to talk to the rabbis there about my menu, and what I could serve and what I could not. The major challenge for me was that I could not use any dairy with the meal. I had never cooked without butter or cream.
For a few weeks, I worked in the kitchen, buying meat and poultry at Kosher butchers. I had discovered in Chinatown a new bean curd, very light, very creamy. So I went back to the Seminary to ask if the rabbis thought I could use bean curd. Was it Kosher? Could I serve it at a meal that included meat? A few days later, I received the answer: Yes, I could replace cream in recipes with this bean curd.
I went back to work, and by the end of the month, I had a menu ready. It was approved by the bride and her mother; I wrote down the recipes for the catering kitchen and waited anxiously for the big day.
The wedding day finally came. After the traditional ceremony, drinks were served, accompanied by cherry tomatoes filled with my own versions of chopped chicken liver and mushrooms stuffed with baked salmon and capers. At this point, though, there was too much excitement for anyone to notice the food. Then we all sat down to dinner. Some eyebrows were raised when the appetizer arrived: stuffed smoked salmon with asparagus puree, followed by a veal pate on a bed of endives.
When the main course came along, a shoulder of lamb with Japanese shiso leaves served with a julienne of young vegetables and fresh noodles in a mushroom sauce or fresh whole red snapper stuffed with fennel, I heard murmurs. Just before the dessert, toasts were made by family and friends; then the rabbi who had officiated got up, and after toasting the bride and the groom, called for a round of applause for the cook: “This was the best wedding dinner I have ever had!” said the rabbi as he raised his glass to me. Everyone relaxed and joined in. I had succeeded. The wedding dinner had been a strictly Kosher meal. It had been elegant, light, and very much “Nouvelle Cuisine.” By the time dessert was served, a tower of tiny baked choux filled with a raspberry puree and enveloped in a net of spun sugar, dozens of wedding guests approached me asking for recipes.
A few days later, I received a call from an editor at Arbor House, a small publishing house in Manhattan. “I was a guest at the wedding you catered,” he said. “I was very taken by your work and would like to talk to you about doing a Kosher cookbook.”
When we met, he told me that there was a tremendous religious revival taking place across the United States. Many young Jews were tracing their roots and yearning for family, tradition, and a sense of belonging, but with added sophistication. The newly observant people knew what good food was; they were au courant when it came to eating. Their knowledge of wines was impressive, their taste in food refined, yet they had an unwavering determination to respect Jewish dietary laws, and this is where I came in. “I want you to write a cookbook expressing the ‘new Jewish cuisine.’ ” We are a small company, and I cannot give you a large advance. I can pay you for the recipes and give a larger than usual share in the profits. This book will be a great success.”
Why did I agree to these terms? I don’t know, probably for the challenge of creating something new. And so I went to work. Every week I sent recipes to the Jewish Seminary, to be sure that there would be no mistakes. The book was published in the spring of 1986, and we all waited to see the miracle of everyone rushing to buy the book, but this failed to happen. My Kosher cookbook was too untraditional, especially facing the new revival of orthodoxy.
The press ignored the book, the public did not buy it, and the publisher went bankrupt. Once again I had lost! I swore I would never again write another cookbook.
However, the future proved me wrong. In the next few years, because of my travels and my adventures, I would write three more cookbooks, two memoirs, and the book you are reading now.
POACHED SALMON WITH SPINACH TARRAGON SAUCE
Heat 6 cups of water in a deep skillet; add 1 sliced carrot, 1 small onion stuck with 2 garlic cloves, 1 bay leaf, and 5 peppercorns. Bring to a boil, lower the heat to medium, and cook for 10 minutes.
Then add 4 salmon steaks. Bring the liquid to a boil again, lower the heat to medium, and cook for 10 more minutes.
Remove the salmon steak on to a platter. Reserve the cooking liquid.
In a blender or food processor, place 1 cup of fresh tarragon leaves; 2 cups of fresh spinach, stems removed; and 1 cup of watercress, stems removed. Add 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and 1 cup of the poached salmon broth. Process until all the ingredients are pureed. Remove to a bowl, add salt and pepper to taste, and serve with the salmon steaks.
Serves 4.
ROAST QUAILS
Preheat oven to 375°.
In a bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of soy sauce with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of grated fresh ginger. Rub 8 quails with the soy mixture. Place 1 kumquat and 1 thyme sprig in the cavity of the quails. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Place the quails side by side in a baking pan. Add 2 cups of chicken bouillon to the pan, and bake the quails for 35 minutes or until quails are golden brown.
Serves 4.
Discovering the delights of Japan
6
The Travels
Travel had become one of my passions. Every winter I would dream of places to go when school was over. I wanted to see the world, and I wanted my children to share in my experiences. In fact, Jimmy and I traveled mostly with the children; but sometimes it would just be Jimmy and I.
One summer we went to Guatemala with our four children, camped in cheap motels, and discovered the great wonders of the Mayan cities. Another trip took us to France. Once there, I convinced my mother and stepfather that a trip to Spain woul
d do wonders for my mother’s rheumatism, so Jimmy and I drove the two of them over the Pyrenees. One summer, Jimmy was invited to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in Brazil, to give a series of lectures. I insisted he take me with him, saying that I spoke the language and that I could translate for him. “What about the children?” he asked. “Lucy,” my faithful housekeeper, was my answer.
Jimmy and I went to Brazil for three weeks, leaving the children with Lucy in East Hampton. The trip was fascinating. I loved the town of Manaus on the Amazon, with its markets and old colonial buildings. I thought that Brasília, the new capital, had fantastic architecture, but was too empty and grandiose. Then we visited Rio de Janeiro, with its lovely beaches, and went on to Sao Paulo. Jimmy was lecturing at the university, while I roamed the markets that were run by Japanese immigrants or strolled on Sao Paulo’s main streets, stopping at small stands selling delicacies that I had not tasted since I had left Cairo. Sao Paulo had a large Arab population, and the city smelled of cumin and garlic. I was in heaven.
I came back enamored of South America. The summer had been a success; Lucy and the children loved East Hampton, so the following year, at Lucy’s urging, we went to Colombia for a visit. We stopped first at Cartagena, a teeming colonial port, then went on to Lucy’s village of Santa Catarina where we became acquainted with her big family, including her son. The village was quite poor. Most of the houses were made of mud, except Lucy’s house, which towered above the others and was made of brick. All the money she earned taking care of us went to her family and the house. We all sat in the garden, told of how wonderful Lucy was, ate mangoes and plantains, and then laden with presents for Lucy and the children, we flew to Bogotá, Villa de Leyva, Popayán, and Medellín.
The World in My Kitchen Page 13