Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Ellen Whitaker is author, with Colleen Mahoney and Wendy A. Jordan, of a
gorgeous new book called Great Kitchens: At Home with America's Top Chefs.
Photographs by Grey Crawford, and published by Taunton Press. It covers more
than two dozen chefs and their kitchens, including such familiar Bay Area
names as Alice Waters, Paul Bertolli, Nancy Oakes and Bruce Aidells, Hubert
Keller, and the no-longer-in-Berkeley-but-very-influential-on-the-scene Mark
Miller. It also includes the chefs at some of my favorite restaurants in the
country - Nora Pouillon of Restaurant Nora in DC and Rick Bayless of
Frontera Grill in Chicago, among others.

Ellen is a professional researcher and a Berkeley foodie, both of which I
can identify with, which I suppose is why I'm doing the interviewing.
Disclosure: I know for a fact that she throws great parties, with incredible
food, and that her own kitchen is to die for.
  

    
Ellen, welcome to the InkWELL! I thought, as I was typing "gorgeous" up
there, that I was setting this up as another one of those dream-lifestyle
coffee table books. It's a lot more than that. Did you have a clear goal in
mind when you first conceived it? A mission statement for the book, or
whatever? What were you hoping to accomplish, besides creating a runaway
best-seller, of course.
  

    
 Thanks for inviting me. I certainly don't mind the book being called
"gorgeous," but you're right that we had more than gloss in mind while
putting it together.  We wanted to create an engaging, informative
kitchen design resource, from an expert point of view. As much as I'd
like to take credit for the idea of the chef tie-in, my co-author,
Colleen Mahoney, came up with it after her architectural practice won
several awards for their residential kitchens. She began to
second-guess the extent of architects' gut-level expertise on the
subject and decided that the nation's top chefs might be the ultimate
kitchen design authority, given their passion for cooking and
entertaining and the amount of time they've spent thinking about their
workspaces.
  

    
Is Colleen the person who designed your kitchen remodel?

One of the things I find most intriguing about the book is that the chefs
aren't at all reticent about telling what =doesn't= work, what they would've
done differently. Things like making the sinks deeper, or =not= making the
sinks deeper because they then couldn't use standard disposals and so on
underneath. A lot of them are working with off-the-shelf residential
components, not the larger-than-life equipment they use in their restaurant
kitchens, so they faced the same concerns as people looking to remodel or
build their regular ol' home kitchens.

I'm curious about how the idea for the book developed. Was it an outgrowth
of having lived through a kitchen remodel yourself? And how did it come
together? Did Colleen contact most of the chefs at the outset? Did all of
you travel to all the sites you cover in the book? I mean, did you get to go
to France?
  

    
Yes, Colleen designed my "new" kitchen (yikes, it's now about nine
years old!) and we've been friends ever since.

We specifically dug for information about what the chefs thought
hadn't worked out well, or what they might do differently, if they were
to remodel or build again.  Most were very forthcoming about their
design mistakes and conceptual errors, which made for a solid list of
"don'ts," and also produced some amusing stories.  I love the image of
Alice Waters rolling up her sleeves in front of her brand new baking
center, complete with built-in bins for flours, racks for pans and
rolling pins, view of the garden, etc. and then turning around and
heading for her near-by artisanal bread bakery.  She says she never
really used the baking center because the local bakery is so good and
so close. One chef who couldn't come up with any changes at all was
Michael McCarty, whose remodeled house burned down in the 1994 Malibu
fire. As he points out, they "got to build the same kitchen twice,"
refining the design the second time around.  Not the recommended way to
make changes, but...

Yes, it's important to realize that these are not scaled-down
restaurant kitchens with 12-burner commercial ranges, huge stock pots
and glaring fluorescent light, though many of the chefs have used
commercial elements here and there for practicality's sake.  It was
nice to see so many "homey," individualistic, evocative kitchens - just
like yours and mine.  

The idea, as I mentioned earlier, was Colleen's (she says it evolved
during an annoying bout of insomnia.) She came to me because she knew I
was interested in design and because I have contacts in the food world
through Jenny (my daughter who cooked at Chez Panisse for 6 years.) I
did some intensive research and then Jenny and I ran up a list of about
100 influential chefs,looking for a good mix of cuisines, geographies,
ethnicities, etc.  We then contacted the chefs, got an expression of
interest and a description of their kitchen, and sent those who were
still in the pool a disposable camera to take some snaps of their
kitchen.  We found out a lot that way - including the fact that chefs
seem to be comically bad at picture-taking!

Colleen, Wendy and I broke up the work based on our available time and
skills, but Colleen and I went to most of the interviews and photo
shoots (I went to 21 of them, Colleen made 19.)  No, we didn't get to
go to France.  We interviewed both Jean-Pierre and Ken here and then
Grey Crawford, our photographer, got the dream trip.  It's the only
thing I hold against him (well, that and the fact that he's way too
fond of saying "A picture's worth 1,000 words.)    
  

    
I'll bet!

I wanted to point out -- someone asked me about this privately -- that Great
Kitchens is the book featured on the first page of the Real Estate section
in last Sunday's SF Chronicle-Examiner (Nov. 21). If you still have that
one lying around for some reason, take a look; it'll give you a good taste
(no pun intended) of what the book is like.

So you did do the bulk of the interviews on site? How did that work? Did you
give the chefs a list of questions in advance? Did you tape the entire
interview? Was the photographer shooting around you as you worked, or was
the photo shoot a separate dealie? How long did one of these sessions take,
typically?

And was anyone miffed -- you said you worked up a list of 100 possible
candidates -- at NOT making the final cut?
  

    
Just a reminder, to anyone who's reading this from the Web: You can submit
questions to Ellen by emailing them to inkwell-hosts@well.com
  

    
Ellen, I love everything about the book other than the fact that I
didn' think of doing it myself. Very impressed with your sending
disposable cameras to far-away chefs. I've raved about the book on a
web cooking list I belong to. Are you doing any concentrated Web
publicity?
  

    
Thanks for mentioning the SF Examiner Sunday excerpts that ran on Nov.
21st.  It was great that they published the piece, except you really
miss something not seeing the photographs in color.

About the interview/photo shoot process:  Mostly, the interviews and
photography were done at the same time (we allowed a full day for each
photo shoot, and a few of the kitchens even took some extra follow-up
time.) We'd typically arrive at the chef's home around 9 am (chefs are
not generally morning people, so this was pushing it in some instances)
and Grey would set up his gear while we conducted the interview.  Even
though we'd seen the "scouting" snapshots in advance, we thought it
essential that we actually sit in the kitchen while we talked about it
(a rule we stuck to, except for the French kitchens - sniff, sniff.)
That way we could really get at the essence of each space, and see the
chef's face light up when he or she started warming to the subject.  We
tried to limit the interviews to one hour, although some actually went
on all day, in and around the photo shoot, when the chef stayed home
for the duration.  Yes, we taped all the interviews.

The book worked out perfectly, in terms of the number of chefs
included, and I don't think anyone was in the position of being
"miffed" at not being included (at least, I hope not).  Although we
started with a list of 100, a number took themselves out of the running
right away because they felt their home kitchen wasn't up to par
(chefs =do= tend to be hyper-busy people and owning a restaurant can be
both all-encompassing - leaving no time or energy to remodel at home -
and not very lucrative - leaving no money for anything other than the
restaurant itself.)  We had special problems finding chefs with good
kitchens in Manhattan (are there any home kitchens in Manhattan?) and
our dream of a young, handsome, photogenic, top-of-his-game chef with a
fabulous penthouse apartment (read, "kitchen") went unfulfilled.  One
ultra famous NYC chef called us up laughing after he got our letter and
said, in essence, "Neat idea, but all I ever do in my home kitchen is
open a bottle of beer - that's the only thing there's room to do!"

We also had a bit of attrition from "life."  Some chefs planned to be
traveling or involved in other projects when we were scheduled to be in
their city.  A few moved from one house to another just at the crucial
time, one had her house burn down while she was away on vacation!,
there were some divorces, and several who were interested initially
didn't finish their building projects soon enough to be included.  

But when we got down to the chefs who could actually participate and
who had kitchens we thought should be in the book, the number was, just
magically, "right." (Thank you, someone.)

Casey, I appreciate your kind words and am glad you're enjoying the
book. Our publisher, Taunton Press, is handling all the publicity so
I'm not sure how to answer your question about the web.  Taunton does
have their own website (www.taunton.com, of course) and the book is
available on amazon.com, bn.com and borders.com, all with some nice
reviews, reader comments, etc.
  

    
well, it might be good to look into this---I know there are ways to
get the info to various online food interest groups. I'm not sure
Taunton is as aggressive as they might be--send me a private e-mail and
I'll discuss further with you caseyellis@aol.com You have an exciting
book here and I think you should be as creative about marketing it as
you were about creating it. Just my nosy opinion.
  

    
Ellen, in Reva's introduction, she said you included Alice Waters' kitchen
in your book. As a long-time and, sadly, a relatively long-distance fan of
Chez Panisse, I'm particularly interested in what she has done in her home
kitchen. Can you talk about that a little bit?
  

    

And for some reason I am really curious about how many chefs have those
pot-filler spigots on their stoves.

This is a great idea for a book, BTW.  It sounds like a really fun
project.
  

    
Cynthia, glad you asked about Alice Waters' kitchen.  It's actually
one of my favorites in the book - a very old-fashioned, inviting,
homey, quiet space.  Alice wanted plenty of room for hand-preparing
food, so she included an oversized butcher-block-topped table in the
"business" end of the kitchen.  She says she's a "non-electric" cook
and doesn't have many (any?) gadgets or powered hand appliances at
home, relying instead on her knives, mortar and pestle, and other basic
tools.  She has only one sink, but it's a big, custom-made, copper
trough sink that's really beautiful and , she says, pleasant to work
in.  She has also used copper for a front panel on her refrigerator.
(Alice hates the commercial-kitchen look of stainless steel. Next time
you go to Chez Panisse, check out the kitchen and you'll see that, even
there, there's very little that looks industrial.) Her range is an
eye-popping (and, again, really beautiful) lemon yellow La Cornue that
has two burners and a "plaque coupe de feu.") What could be more
French? Alice remodeled her kitchen when she bought the house, adding a
brick chimney with a waist-level, cook-in fireplace and wood-burning
bread/pizza oven. She has always loved roasting in the fireplace (see
the New York Times article about her that ran just before Thanksgiving,
I'll get the date for you next time I post), but the look of the brick
that was used to build it didn't always please her; she eventually
found a way to get the antique-looking fireplace she always wanted.

Linda, I count four chefs with a water source right behind their range
or cooktop; Ken Hom (although, we didn't mention it in the text), Mark
Miller, Frank McClelland, and Paul Bertolli.  It seems like a
practical, step-saving idea to me (we eat a lot of pasta at my house!)
- it's one feature that has been imported from commercial kitchens. 
Thanks for your comment.   
  

    
I was going to mention that stovetop-area water faucet, too. What a great
idea -- not only for pasta, but for making stock and so on.

I love the story of how Alice got the antiqued-brick look on her fireplace.
After living with the raw finish, which she really didn't like, for ages,
the friend who was painting her kitchen walls suggested that they just rub
paint on it. So they thinned the paint and rubbed it in -- et voila.

The logistics of making this book sound formidable. I remember your talking
about the idea years and years ago. How long did it actually take from
conception to publication?

And have you gotten a discernable boost in sales from Oprah's glowing
mention? Man, what a PR coup that must've been.
  

    
The book took about two years, start to finish.  The first year
included our initial (lengthy!) discussions about the project,
contacting chefs and lining them up to be part of it, writing the
proposal and producing a mocked-up sample, finding an agent, and
getting the book accepted by a publisher.  We signed with Taunton in
April of 1998, finished the photo shoots in early January of 1999 and
turned in the last bit of text towards the end of March this year. 
And, yes, it =was= something of a logistical nightmare; mostly,
scheduling the photo shoots and interviews. Some of the chefs who were
involved have schedules that are set for six months or more! And I'm
talking every day booked, not just a few commitments here and there. It
was wild at times.  I think we made three separate trips to LA to
shoot four chapters (good thing both Colleen and I live in California.)
Our most ambitious trip was Santa-Fe-Aspen-New Orleans, right before
Christmas last year, but we had a great time and lots of wonderful food
along the way (standouts were lamb tikka and a Puligny-Montrachet with
Mark Miller and venison jambalaya for lunch at John Folse's house).   


Yes, the Oprah thing was very good for the book.

BTW, the New York Times article I mentioned earlier about Thanksgiving
food/Alice Waters/Alice's kitchen ran on November 17th.  Jean-Pierre
Moulle, who is in the book, is also mentioned several times.     
  

    

How did the Oprah thing come about?  Did she find the book on her own or
did your publisher/publicist bring it to her attention?

The food sounds wonderful!  That must have been an interesting bonus to
doing the book.  Did many of the interviewees cook for you?
  

    
I think the publicity manager at Taunton sent Oprah a copy and it went
from there.  I'm told that Oprah "loved" the book.

Yeah, I blame that pesky extra 15 pounds on Great Kitchens. Guess I
can't keep =that= up much longer. We had some memorable meals at chefs'
homes and in their restaurants.  Lidia Bastianich (James Beard Best
Chef in Manhattan this year) made us a lunch of home-cured prosciutto,
rigatoni with broccoli rabe, garlic and red pepper, green salad fresh
from her garden, 3 different homemade wines, chocolates from Perugia,
and espresso. We capped off lunch with an amazing grappa tasting that
put a big dent in the afternoon's photo shoot. (N.B. they serve her
homemade grappa at her restaurant, Felidia, in NYC) Cecilia Chiang made
us a huge, wonderful lunch; basically everything you see pictures of
in her chapter. And we sat at that beautiful carved rosewood table to
eat it. I especially liked the whole steamed rock cod with scallions,
cilantro and fresh ginger. The restaurant meals were fabulous, too.
Grey Crawford, our photographer, (a real foodie, too) told me that
lunch at Patrick O'Connell's Inn at Little Washington in Virginia was
probably the best meal he's ever eaten (and, boy, has he eaten around)!
One of my favorite memories is of the cheese course at Picholine in
Manhattan.  We were absolutely stuffed and told Terrance Brennan that
we couldn't eat any more, but he sent us 12 different cheeses anyway;
we ate every bite. And I agree with Reva that Frontera Grill in Chicago
(a spicy shrimp dish) and Restaurant Nora in DC (organic rabbit with
polenta and bitter greens)are among the premiere restaurants in this
country. In Bordeaux, on two successive nights, Grey ate at home with
both Jean-Pierre Moulle and Ken Hom - they cooked the same dinner:
boudin (blood sausage)! He said it was delicious, though.  As you can
see, it's probably not wise to get me started on Food.      
  

    

I'm swooning just reading about your experiences with food!

What about Asia Nora in DC?  Not on a par with her other restaurant?
Eating there has set me on a frenzied search for other fusion restaurants,
the latest being Oritalia in San Francisco.  Asian-Mediterrean.

I want to know more about the kitchens.  What stands out in your mind as
the most...what?  Extreme? Unusual? Practical?  Inspirational?  Odd?
  

    
Thanks for the description of Alice Waters' kitchen, Ellen. Yum!
  

    
I ate at Asia Nora this last summer and thought it was fantastic
(actually, 6 of us thought it was fantastic).  Different from, but
definitely on a par with, Restaurant Nora. Some of the freshest, most
flavorful scallops I've ever encountered.

Let's see, kitchen "standouts."  This is hard, because =all= the
kitchens in the book were included for their interesting, unique,
practical, or inspirational features.  On a fundamental level, I think
we respond to spaces based primarily on our own aesthetic scheme, which
in turn comes from our background, experience, etc.  For instance, I
grew up back east in a 200-year-old house, and so the kitchens that
"speak" to me tend to be the more old-fashioned or traditional ones -
Alice Waters', Frank McClelland's, Jean-Pierre Moulle's and Nancy
Oakes'/Bruce Aidells'. But that doesn't mean that I don't also
appreciate the cool modern sleekness of Michael McCarty's, the
drop-dead gorgeousness of Lydia Shire's, the perfect,
rustic-yet-sophisticated simplicity of Paul Bertolli's, or the lively
Tex-Mex-European mix of Robert Del Grande's.  That said, my =personal=
votes in the categories you mentioned follow. Extreme: the size of John
Folse's kitchen, a 21' x 65' great room (and that doesn't count the
bulter's pantry, dining and breakfast areas, which are really also part
of the great room, accessible through large, open archways. Who knows
what the total size is?)  Unusual: Lydia Shire's pantry in one corner
of her kitchen.  Its walls are constructed of a shimmering metallic
grid sandwiched between two plates of glass, so a separate space is
created, but you can see right into it and enjoy her fabulous
collection of antique and modern serving pieces, Venetian glass,
Magnalite roasters, copper pots, etc.  Practical: the counter-top waste
cut-outs in Paul Bertolli's and Tom Douglas' kitchens.  Vegetable
leavings and other garbage gets swept off the chopping area right into
the garbage can located under the counter.  No running around the
kitchen with a handful of carrot tops.  Inspirational: Tom Douglas',
Lidia Bastianich's, and Michael McCarty's water views (although, if you
prefer the mountains, check out Charles Dale's Aspen abode. And, as
mentioned above, Mark Miller's prairie view is wonderful.) Odd: Can't
think of anything that struck me as "odd." Though, Mary Sue Milliken's
kitchen (and entire house) was a west-side L.A. swim club before she
and her architect husband remodeled it and made it their home.
Apparently the kitchen used to be the men's locker room.   

I suspect that most people looking at the book for the first time will
be bowled over by a few blockbuster kitchens: Mark Miller's (with
those warm rosy-colored walls, massive cook-in fireplace, twin pantries
- one for dishes, one for ingredients - high prairie/mountain view to
die for, and, of course, the Moorish dome with insets of colored glass)
or John Folse's (plantation-pine floors, a custom-made center island
table of antique cypress with English cast-iron drawer pulls, a
collection of fascinating antique fireplace cooking utensils that he
uses all the time, barn-like ceiling with massive mortise-and-tenon
trusses.) But, I really think that there's something in Great Kitchens
for every taste and inclination.   
  

    
(which can be purchased at http://www.well.com/bookstore by clicking on the
cover of Ellen's book at the above URL)
  

    
Before I got my copy of Great Kitchens, I thought "I really hope this
doesn't turn out to be a clone of that Conran's Kitchen Book that came out,
what, 15 or 20 years ago now? In my mind, that book marked the beginning of
the whole "foodie" thing.

Well, obviously it's not. And I think it's important to realize that, while
the "top chefs" element adds interest and, I'm sure, helps drive sales a
lot, it IS a book about kitchens that work, with a whole lot of practical
detail and good advice. I really appreciate the layout sketches for each
one, and the list of equipment sources for each one. Oh yeah, and have we
mentioned the favorite home recipes your chefs contributed to the book?

So, how do YOU cook when you're at home? What's your most-used kitchen
implement?
  

    
Thanks for pointing out the practical nature of Great Kitchens. Our
first priority was to create a helpful, almost encyclopedic work on
kitchen design, but to make it fun, too.  One reviewer called the book
"thinking outside the triangle" (referring to that old saw about the
kitchen "work triangle.") I liked that comment. We wanted to show that
there are many different ways to create a great kitchen.

Wow, how do =I= cook? Quite honestly, I tend to vascillate between a
quick/easy dinner one night and then a more elaborate menu the next. I
can rarely sustain a streak of intensive cooking for very long, unless
there's something that's in high season that I love (like tomatoes), or
if the weather is really rotten and I'm stuck in the house - it's such
fun to cook nonstop during a three-day rain, for instance. But, even
though I go for quick and easy about half the time, I rarely (except
for cake mixes, dried pasta, and canned tomato sauce) use prepared
foods.  Simple meals, around my house, are a mushroom omelette, or
pasta with olive oil and garlic or a Caesar salad (I keep anchovy paste
on hand at all times). I love to make a meal of polenta covered with
homemade tomato and mushroom sauce and topped with lots of
freshly-ground black pepper. For more complicated menus, I like to make
dishes like dry-braised short ribs with shelling beans and homemade
egg noodles, or garlicky, buttery, lemony shrimp scampi and rice loaded
with bell peppers and onions, or marinated pork tenderloin (port and
sliced onions) then you saute the port-saturated onions with tart
apples to make a killer side dish.  Are my German roots showing yet? 

In short, I guess I believe that life is too short and food is too
wonderful to waste even one meal on frozen pizza (sorry, Wolfgang) or
packaged macaroni and cheese.     

Aside from knives, most-used kitchen implements are a 9" AllClad saute
pan and a couple of incredibly heavy-duty cheese graters (one fine and
one coarse) from Kuchenprofi.  I had a flimsy cheese grater for years,
until a friend gave me these - they changed my life (and my Parmigiano
Reggiano consumption)!
  

    
I need one of those heavy-duty graters. I hate the drum kind where you end
up grating metal shavings onto your pasta.

So, any thought of a sequel, another couple of dozen top chefs and THEIR
kitchens? Or does the mere thought of that make your blood run cold?
  

    
Yeah, or my favorite, grated knuckles in the soup.

"Sequel" is a very hard concept for me right now.  Although we have
lots of leads and information for one, it doesn't exactly appeal, if
you know what I mean. I =am= thinking about another book, but one that
is more food-oriented and less focused on design. I hope to write it
with my daughter.  The proposal's being floated, but I don't know
anything yet.   
  

    
As far as kitchen essentials, did you notice that almost all of the chefs
you included in you book had certain items in their home kitchens, Ellen? Do
they all have mandolines? Ginger graters? Those rubber garlic peelers? Pot
holders that go all the way up to their elbows?