home cooking – The Inquisitive Eater

People September 12, 2012

A Food Writer’s Recipe for Success

Melissa Clark dishes about how she got to be one of the most successful and prolific food writers in America

by Brian Gresko

Chances are somewhere in your cookbook collection, you own a book by Melissa Clark. She’s co-written over thirty of them, causing one interviewer to dub her “the Joyce Carol Oates of food writing.” Her name also graces the pages of The New York Times Dining Section each week, where she writes the column “A Good Appetite.” The column’s long-standing popularity led to a cookbook of its own in 2010, In the Kitchen with A Good Appetite, in which Clark pairs delicious recipes with personal stories detailing both the dish’s development and her life-long passion for food. Her latest book, Cook This Now, brings readers into her kitchen month by month, with 120 recipes that emphasize fresh, seasonal, and local ingredients.

I had the chance to talk with Clark over a rich, spicy glass of rumtopf – a liquor made by macerating fruit in rum – in a cozy sitting room just outside of her kitchen, which is, for one who spends most of her time there, a modest-sized space, fitting a Brooklyn brownstone. (Clark’s a native Brooklynite.) However, behind those clean cabinet doors teems a spice collection fitting a queen, though Clark prefers to call herself a kitchen pack-rat. The fridge, she told me, has been over-run with condiments of all sorts. This amazingly well-stocked though unassuming room serves as a metaphor for her work at large.

“I am a home cook,” she said. “It’s pretty much just me and another person working in the kitchen, and so I’m always thinking, how can we get this done quickly? When people are in test kitchens, it becomes different. You probably have someone washing your dishes and mopping your floor.”

When writing her column, “I think of myself as the cook down the block who knows a little bit more than you do”—though her years of experience means she knows more than just a little. Her modesty, however, is part of her column’s appeal. Clark’s authoritative and smart, but approachable and chatty. A natural storyteller, the essays that accompany the recipes include details about her husband Daniel and daughter Dahlia, or advice from her mother. “It’s quirky,” Clark admitted.

Often, the recipes develop by association, as she recalls great meals she’s enjoyed and lets their flavors inspire her own cooking. Not surprisingly, before deciding to pursue an MFA in Journalism from Columbia, Clark considered studying history, perhaps even writing historical novels. She ranks the books of Barbara Tuchman among her influences, which may account for the element of cultural anthropology that informs her decisions at the stovetop.

“When I travel I always see what people are doing in the kitchen. Dishes that are a part of a culture are there for a reason. They make sense on a lot of levels. The ingredients are all available or in season at the same time, they all taste good together. That’s why they go on from generation to generation. I like to think about the logic of these dishes and apply it to a spin-off, or simpler version.”

Most nights, Clark will free-style dinner based on what she has in the fridge from the local Greenmarket, or by whipping left-overs into something new. These meals are less masterpieces, and more sketches.

“If I hit upon something that’s really great, then I’ll go back and test it. I’ll have a concept. Like, ‘Remember that time I added the preserved lemons to the scallops? That was really good! So let me come up with a dish that has scallops and preserved lemons, and what could I add to that? Maybe some tomatoes and garlic…’

“With that in my head, I’ll make that dish again for me and Daniel, but I’ll write it down. That will be the beginning of a recipe. Then I’ll take the dish and test it again. It’s a several step process.”

Growing up in a house focused on food – on family vacations to France, her parents made a hobby of visiting as many Michelin starred restaurants as they could – Clark went on to cut her teeth in low-level kitchen positions, then catered her way through grad school. She learned fast that she would rather be writing. “I hated the schlepping of catering. You’re always running around! I’m very sedentary. I like to sit. I like to be at my computer. Like most writers, I don’t like to leave the house. I’m kind of asocial.”

Her dream, early on, was to write for The New York Times, something she worked her way slowly toward. In the beginning, she never turned down a job. “I wrote the boring stuff, the exciting stuff, restaurant reviews, interviews, Q&As, trend pieces. I wrote it all, because I had to.” She once re-wrote a cookbook in two weeks.

She even interviewed for a job she didn’t want, as a news assistant at the Times, just to get her foot in the door. The strategy paid off, as the food editor began offering her freelance assignments. She made the most of the opportunity. “I handed everything in on time. I worked really hard to make those pieces perfect – I showed them to my mother, made my father read them, they all edited them. The fact is, it doesn’t matter how good you are, especially at the beginning. Really, talent is so small a part of the whole success component. It’s more about being likable, and easy to work with, and handing clean copy in on time. The New York Times learned that they could call on me and I’d deliver. Even if they called the night before, I never said no.”

Simultaneously, she cowrote books with celebrity chefs like Daniel Boloud and Peter Burley (of Manhattan’s Angelica Kitchen), to just flat-out celebrities, like Faith Ford. Helping chefs capture their recipes on the page continues to play a role in her career, with a forthcoming book from Brooklyn’s acclaimed pizzeria, Franny’s.

The one thing she’s learned from all of these projects is that there’s no cookie-cutter process to collaboration. “I’ve worked with chefs who’ve basically done nothing and I’ve done the entire book. I live off their fumes – go into their kitchen and talk with their sous chefs and figure out what they cook, then write their book from that. I’ve also worked with chefs, like Claudia Flemming from The Gramercy Tavern, who was at my side every second and it was amazing. The micro-managing control freaks are the best, because you learn so much from them.”

The wonderful side-effect of these projects is that Clark received tutorials from some of the country’s best chefs, learning how their most famous dishes come together, and, over the course of extensive interviews, how they think. It’s this font of knowledge and insight she draws upon in her own recipe developing, at first in her column, and now as a cookbook author in her own right.

Underlying Clark’s delectable dishes and charming stories runs an old-fashioned respect for the hard work involved in putting together a great meal, and in using the best, freshest ingredients. “I want people to eat real food, I don’t want them to eat processed food – nothing in my books is processed. Especially in this last book, Cook This Now, it is all fresh, all real. If people could just eat that way so much good would come of it in a global, environmental way.”

She gets this message across the way any good chef would; by making it impossible to turn down. Her food’s so good, and so straightforward to execute, that anyone interested in cooking just gets it.

“When I’m cooking for me and my husband, Daniel, he’s always like, ‘Just make something simple so we can be together.’” Clark said. “And I know that everybody thinks that, cooking is really about sharing food.”

Brian Gresko’s author interviews and essays on books and culture have appeared on The Huffington Post, The Atlantic.com, Salon, The Daily Beast, and The Paris Review Daily, among other publications. In print, he has published interviews in Glimmer Train Stories, Slice Magazine, and his conversation with author and New School faculty member Helen Schulman appeared in the paperback edition of her novel This Beautiful Life. He graduated from The New School’s MFA program in 2009 with a concentration in fiction.

Non-Fiction April 16, 2012

Bagna Cauda Night at Luca’s

Jennifer-Martine-3 — Photo by Jennifer Martiné

by Julianne Clark

There is no greater pairing than the pungency of garlic and the umami taste of anchovy. Add a few bottles of extra virgin olive oil, and you end up with a local Piemontese dish called bagna cauda.

Bagna cauda is not for someone who plans on an intimate conversation soon thereafter. You will not get the taste of this potent combination of garlic and anchovy out of your mouth for at least a week’s time.

It is traditionally eaten during late fall and early winter months with fresh vegetables like, fennel, bell peppers, celery, potatoes, and carrots. There are some variations depending on which region in Italy, some substituting olive oil as the main component with cream or butter. It is generally served in a small terra cotta pot to keep warm over a small candle or flame. I have eaten it in a local trattoria served on a plate poured over bell peppers, but it is not quite as fun as the fondue family style of a home, which consists of having a huge pot in the center for dipping and a plate of vegetables for everyone to share.

Piemontese people are generally private and hesitant to open up until you show them you are someone they can trust. Luca is different. I met Luca at a party through another friend about a year ago. He was hosting a dinner party for two Spanish students who were helping him on his farm. Luca, naturally athletic, is a builder by day and socialite by night. He is almost always in his work boots, jeans, and a t-shirt. His permanent tan from working outside gives him a healthy glow, complimenting a friendly smile.

Every few months he hosts travelers from around the world to come stay with him in exchange for work . For each guest he will host dinner parties filled with close friends and plenty of Barbera wine from his brother’s winery. I was able to attend paella night with two guests from Madrid, homemade pizza night with some of my friends from the University of Gastronomic Science and bagna cauda night with visitors from The States.

Luca is never too busy to have people over, and makes you feel guilty if you don’t come. People come and go from his house about as often as they check their face in the mirror. His place is there, and you generally know exactly what to expect. What you get at Luca’s is a nice hangover the next morning; nonetheless you also get memories to cherish after the headache subsides. He is the first to greet you and the last to ask you to leave, encouraging one more drink.

Dinners always start late, and end past late. During the winter months there is always a warm stove in the kitchen that acts as a central meeting place for two dogs that are about as mobile as your metabolism after Thanksgiving dinner. The friendly old neighbor Francesco is a permanent fixture at the house and rarely misses a night. Other regulars include old family friends and hunting buddies.

For bagna cauda night, Luca, with a cigarette already in his mouth, came in carrying bags of fennel, bell peppers, anchovies, and extra virgin olive oil. As guests slowly arrived, a new dish or wine was added. While everyone else started peeling and chopping garlic, Luca simmered the olive oil and anchovies in a big pot. After a few fistfuls of garlic were added to the oil, the combination was stirred for a little over an hour. Finally, the garlic and anchovies had melted in the oil, creating a thick sauce with tiny bits and pieces of anchovy sticking to the pot.

I had a pretty good idea of what it would taste like as the aroma was stinging my nose, but what I did not expect was the pungency of the garlic and the slightly hairy texture of the anchovies after you swallow. The first spoonful felt like thousands of tiny knives going down my throat. I was a bit disappointed at my ability to take the pain.

By 2 AM the bagna cauda pot and the wine bottles were empty. The only things left on the table were a few lonely pieces of fennel. We had been sitting around eating garlic and anchovies for 6 hours. Some of the guests, including myself, were either too tired or felt too smelly to go home that night, so we stayed in one of the spare bedrooms.

I will remember the dinner for a long time, not only because of the bagna cauda smell I had on my clothes, but the warmth of Luca’s kitchen and the unexpected friendliness of his Piemontese friends.

The other night I attempted to make bagna cauda on my own with my small, inferior pot and could not duplicate Luca’s version. My kitchen felt cold and sterile in comparison to his. Garlic and anchovies are easy, but friends, a warm fire, and two lazy dogs are not.

Julianne Clark is currently a master’s student at the University of Gastronomic Science in Pollenzo, Italy. She will be graduating this May with a MA in Food Culture and Communications. After graduating, she will be pursuing her interest in Piemonte food and wine.

Non-Fiction April 5, 2012

History Dish

by Diane M. Stillwood

The recipe for Cheese-Stuffed Peppers sat in my small green metal file box, printed in my girlish swirl on a not-yet-stained index card. I had been collecting different cooking ideas since becoming vegetarian several years prior, and had been meaning to try this one. I hadn’t had any kind of stuffed peppers since childhood, and had never prepared them myself. So during a routine trip to the grocery store with M–my tall, dark-haired honey–I picked up the ingredients: six shiny green peppers, slivered almonds, raisins, cheddar cheese; I already had the rice and the tomato paste, along with other assorted staples. We were doing one of those close-to-dinnertime sojourns, both of us fairly famished and thus susceptible to impulse purchases just to get us through to a decent meal.

So it was, while putting together the various parts of this special dinner later on in the kitchen, that we both started snacking on Doritos, coupled with thick chunks of blue cheese–a favorite of his, not mine, but hunger will make exceptions. To my surprise, the recipe took forever to prepare; there were several stages, most of them painstaking. We parboiled, sliced, chopped, simmered, sautéed, covered, spooned, emptied, diced, filled, assembled–all the while munching on the powdery triangular salt licks topped with the rich cheese–and finally, finally, popped the whole thing in the oven to bake.

As we cleaned up the cooking and prep mess, I finally stopped eating to give my stomach a rest before the meal. Alas, once I slid the Pyrex baking dish containing the wonderful, bubbling concoction from the oven an hour or so later–a full three hours after we’d started–I knew I still didn’t have enough room in my tummy to accommodate much more of anything. I ladled one of the peppers onto my plate, marveling in its piping hot aroma, a mixture of spices and sauce, pepper and rice, almonds and raisins. My eyes truly felt “bigger than my stomach,” befitting the legend my parents had bestowed upon me as a child. I savored a couple of bites, then put down my fork in despair.

“I can’t,” I told M.

“Why? What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Damn Doritos,” I muttered. “Your blue cheese didn’t help, either. I’m still full! There’s no way I can eat this–not and enjoy it.”

“So wrap it up and eat it later or tomorrow,” he suggested. “We made enough of them.”

I watched enviously as he polished off his pepper; he was relishing the experience thoroughly, maybe even a bit teasingly. I moaned softly and got up to wrap the leftovers while he cleared the table. The kitchen in our second-floor apartment was even more steamy than usual, with the continued warmth of the stove mixing with the languid summer heat. Once I had the glass dish covered in plastic wrap and aluminum foil, I padded over to the tiny alcove where the refrigerator sat. As I opened the fridge door, the dish shifted in my right hand and crashed to the floor.

“Oh! My peppers!” I yelled, bursting into tears.

M ran over from the kitchen, stopping just short of where I stood surrounded by splintered glass, tomato sauce splattered onto my bare feet and legs. Momentarily oblivious to the danger, all I could think of was the waste–of time, money, effort, food, even the love I’d put into the creation.

“Don’t move!” M said, sounding shaky. “DON’T. MOVE!”

“My peppers!” I wailed.

He looked almost ready to have me committed to a padded room. I thought at first he would admonish me for my seeming foolishness, but his voice softened as he continued to finesse the situation.

“OK, just stand still. There’s glass all around you. Let me get some of it up first.”

“The peppers…..” I whimpered.

“I’ll clean those up, too.”

“Save what you can.”

He looked up at me, pityingly, then went about sweeping and wiping while I stood in the light of the still-opened refrigerator. No matter how M tried to keep the thick red sauce separate from the glass shards, the two smeared together into one gooey mess. When I finally looked over at the peppers, I saw that none of them could be salvaged–food gone, favorite Pyrex baking dish gone, the entire evening a waste, it seemed. And I hated waste.

Years later, I stood in a different second-floor kitchen, several miles away, with my grown son, who was helping me tackle my second go at Cheese-Stuffed Peppers. I hadn’t had the heart in all the intervening years to attempt the unwieldy recipe, keeping the card tucked away in the now-rusting and slightly dented green metal box. I told myself it wasn’t the disaster that had befallen me the first time that had prevented me from making the peppers again, but merely the time and effort involved. No matter now, since I was sure my high-powered microwave would cut the prep time at least in half, and would ultimately streamline the whole endeavor. And I was definitely keeping my stomach “open” for the eating experience, although my tall, dark-haired son thought eating Doritos–one of his major food groups–would be just fine, and he loved blue cheese.

The irony–or was it just poignancy?–of making this dish twice was subsumed for the moment in the whirl of assembling ingredients and prepping everything, with Son and I sidestepping each other in the small space. We used equipment both old and new, but the basics remained the same as they had been in that earlier kitchen adventure–slicing, dicing, chopping, filling–and the one-hour bake in the regular oven was unchanged.

Total time for this second try at the lovely, luscious pepper dish: twenty years, two hours, thirty minutes.

Diane M. Stillwood is a writer and teacher who lives in the Mid-Hudson Valley above New York City. She is a graduate of The New School with an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing (2009), and is currently completing her memoir, Through a Brick Wall, a coming-of-age story with a twist, about the eighteen months she spent as an adolescent in an orthopedic rehabilitation hospital following surgery to correct scoliosis.