October 9, 2009 By cheryl

Fifty Three: The Young And The Creative

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Singapore can be such a by-the-book place that when you come across something truly creative, you can’t help but stop for a moment to marvel and think: This must be applauded.

Dinner at Fifty Three, a fairly new addition to the Singapore dining scene, is filled with moments such as these. From the amuse bouche of a crispy potato chip dusted with sour yogurt powder to the inventive finale of a melt-in-your-mouth gin and tonic gummy candy, the restaurant had me enthralled through and through.

Chef Michael Han, a former lawyer turned chef who’s an alum of the Fat Duck in the U.K. and Noma in Denmark, may only be in his early 30s but his hand is sure, his vision is appealingly playful and his dishes will remain with you long after you’ve left.

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October 6, 2009 By cheryl

Gourmet: A Letter to Si Newhouse

Dear Si,

By now, you may have heard from others like me–the heartsick and the grieving, all mourning the demise of Gourmet magazine, a formidable kitchen companion to many for almost 70 years.

By now, you may have seen the words “iconic” and “institution” bandied about. You may have heard the sepia-toned reminiscing of armchair travelers and culinary voyeurs whose lives have been the better, even for just moments, because of Gourmet.

And you’ve probably heard the words: Save Gourmet.

Gourmet has been a victim of the economic downturn, to be sure. The financial reasons for the close are clear — its advertising revenue had plummeted 43% in the first half of 2009, a bigger drop than the industry average, and newsstand sales have suffered as well.

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Condé Nast chief executive Chuck Townsend said of Gourmet: “It is the epitome of Condé Nast photography and journalism, but it’s a poor business.” On the flip side, Bon Appetit, with its more accessible, recipe-heavy emphasis that hews more toward Rachael Ray than Anna Wintour, has fared better in this economy.

I get that. I do.

But I also mourn the broader cultural shift that this shuttering reflects — the move toward the practical instead of the aspirational. The embracing of the everyday and the 30-minute meals that populate it at the expense of the fantastical and the imaginative — the meals, the experiences, that many only dream of one day having.

Through Gourmet, I’ve been able to get an intimate glimpse of Paris through the young and newly infatuated Aleksandra Crapanzano’s eyes in the award-winning piece “Benedictions.” I’ve also been transported to little Ragusa in Sicily, where I got to know the Modicana cow, which produces some of the richest milk in the world.

Many magazines tell stories such as this — Gourmet always did so memorably.

Yes, the practical is essential — and right now, that’s what sells. But it must exist alongside the other side of food journalism — the one that enriches lives beyond just one meal.

Without the lush pictures and the glorious tales of meals made and eaten in far-flung locales, cooking and eating becomes reduced to just pots, pans, recipes and the mere act of putting food on the table.

And with the closing of Gourmet, we’re a big step closer to that.

Sincerely,

A Fan

October 2, 2009 By cheryl

Broccoli-Slaw Salad: One Tasty Memento

Every relationship has its souvenirs — a card, a necklace, letters from afar.

I’ve discarded more than I can recall over the years but there’s one that I hold so precious and pull out so often that it’s riddled with the marks of a well-worn life: oil splatters, vinegar stains, bits of grainy powder now glued to its surface for all eternity.

It’s a recipe for broccoli slaw salad — lovingly shared by the very sweet mother of an old boyfriend. I first received it in the 1990s when I was just starting to cook and this was one of just three things I knew how to make.

Years later, my culinary repertoire has expanded, yet I still return to this recipe time and again. It’s incredibly easy to assemble for weeknight dinners and last-minute summer cookouts — and tasty, to boot. And because its ingredients include nuts and seeds, it also makes for an especially lovely fall salad. (Yes, it goes well with turkey, too.)

So, when my Let’s Lunch group, a gang of intrepid cooks spread out from San Diego to Paris who have a virtual lunchdate once a month, decided to do fall salads for October, once again, out came Mrs. Nak’s recipe.

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September 30, 2009 By cheryl

Mooncakes: The Taste of Sweet Rebellion

You know you’re walking into a hardcore kitchen when the first thing you see is stacks upon stacks of boxes filled with gorgeous home-made mooncakes.

The women on my Dad’s side of the family in Singapore — they’re fearless cooks.

Pineapple tarts, bak-zhang (glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves), black vinegar-braised pig’s trotters? They could whip those together with their eyes closed.

Recently, however, the task at hand was Chinese mooncakes, eaten to mark the Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls this Saturday.

Now, there are a few old stories that explain the reason for eating these little cakes, which usually are filled with sweet lotus-seed paste and come either with a thin, baked crust or a soft, pliant dough skin that’s scented with pandan, a vanilla-like flavoring used in many Southeast Asian desserts. My favorite is the one of Ming revolutionaries planning to overthrow the Mongolian rulers of China during the Yuan dynasty and spreading word via letters baked into mooncakes. (Julia Child would’ve been so proud!)

During my Singaporean girlhood, I’d known the stories, I’d eaten the cakes. As for making them? That seemed so laughably difficult it never once crossed my mind.

It turns out, however, they’re incredibly easy to make — you just need the right teachers.

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September 29, 2009 By cheryl

Daniel Boulud on Beijing, Lotus Leaves & Duck A La Presse

Daniel Boulud may like the potential of doing business in Beijing, but that doesn’t mean he likes Beijing.

Speaking via Skype to a small audience in Singapore Tuesday night from his home in New York City, where he was just getting his day started, Boulud was surprisingly candid about his thoughts on Beijing for a man who’d recently opened a restaurant in China’s capital. (Maison Boulud à Pékin opened in July, 2008.)

Boulud, who was dialling in to kick off the premiere of a reality TV-style show he’d done for the Asian Food Channel, recalled how he had flown to Singapore from Beijing during his trip last year.

“Coming from Beijing, I tell you, Singapore felt good — Singapore was a little more civilized,” he said, noting that one of the first things he did after getting off the plane was get a haircut. “I didn’t trust anyone in Beijing to cut my hair.”

Boulud, dressed in his chef’s whites and flanked with a portrait of himself hoisting a glass, then breezed on to close with a nugget, noting that he hoped to open a restaurant in Singapore. (A public relations person for Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Resort & Casino was perched in the audience. Singapore’s first casinos, which are still under construction, have been courting high-end chefs to open in their establishments.)

Such frankness, unfortunately, was a little less apparent in the reality show, “One Night in Singapore — Daniel Boulud,” which chronicled the chef’s first trip to Singapore and his process of putting together a seven-course meal for a group of 50 diners.

The intention to showcase tension is there, of course — the show kicks off with a dramatic voiceover heavy with Discovery Channel gravitas that notes the obstacles Boulud has to overcome to make his dinner a success: “high humidity … a kitchen that is too far removed from the main dining area.” But Boulud is too skilled a chef for much of that to be believable.

Let’s face it, the man could probably toss together a seven-course meal with little problem if he were air-dropped into the middle of a desert and had one hand tied behind his back.

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