Tag: chef

Categories
Features Food Recipes

Iron Chef Geoffrey Zakarian Makes Food a Family Affair

Chef Geoffrey Zakarian runs restaurants, frequently appears on TV, and has his own line of food and kitchen products. (Aaron Lockwood)

These days, place settings at your dinner table might look like this: a knife, fork, spoon—and cell phone. You might watch television as you eat.

You’re missing the key to a good meal, says renowned chef Geoffrey Zakarian: family.

Mr. Zakarian learned this lesson at a young age. He grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a Polish American mother and Armenian American father.

“Being Middle Eastern, all we did was cook,” he said. “At breakfast, we’re talking about lunch with our mouths full. At lunch, we’re talking about dinner with our mouths full. It was a never-ending circle.”

Mr. Zakarian saw that a meal was about more than just good food. It was the glue that bonded his family.

“It created a shared devotion around the table,” he said. His love of food and its effect on family eventually led to his calling as a chef.

(Aaron Lockwood)

Fighting Hunger in the City

Mr. Zakarian is not only a prolific chef and restaurateur—whose ventures have included restaurants in New York, Connecticut, Los Angeles, and Florida, where he now lives—but also a long-standing television personality, known for his appearances on the Food Network as an Iron Chef, a recurring judge on “Chopped,” and a co-host on “The Kitchen.”

He’s also worked for years with City Harvest, a New York food rescue organization that has distributed an incredible 80 million pounds of food this year to New Yorkers in need. He’s served as chairman of the NGO’s Food Council since 2014.

City Harvest rescues much of its food because of something that might surprise you: expiration dates. “This would not be possible unless a terrible legislation for expiration dates was created. That created a false foundation where we have to throw food out [after its sell-by date] and can’t sell it,” Mr. Zakarian said. “City Harvest came along and said, ‘We’ll take it, and, in less than 24 hours, we can distribute it.’”

When asked how much of the “expired” food the charity gets is still edible, the chef has a stunning answer: “One hundred percent.”

City Harvest receives donations of surplus food from nearly 2,000 businesses, including farms, grocers, restaurants, wholesalers,  and manufacturers. But Mr. Zakarian makes sure to distribute healthy food, shopping as carefully as he would for his own family.

Mr.Zakarian attends a City Harvest event in New York City, June 19, 2018. (Getty Images for City Harvest)

“Nothing with high fructose corn syrup. We’re very picky [about] what we take. Fifty percent of what we give away are fresh vegetables,” he said.

City Harvest trucks then deliver the food free of charge to more than 400 food pantries, soup kitchens, and other community food programs across the city. “It’s a very fulfilling process for everyone,” he said. “If you talk to any of the drivers, they’re so happy with what they do. They get paid to make people happy and live better; they give away food all day. What a great way to live.”

The organization holds several fundraisers throughout the year, including an annual fall food tasting that will be held on October 29 this year, at The Glasshouse in New York. Last year’s event raised enough to feed 4 million people.

The Next Generation

As a father of three, Mr. Zakarian has taken his own childhood experience of sharing a meal at the table and passed down the tradition. On any day he’s home, he makes it a point to cook breakfast for daughters Anna and Madeline and son George.

They’ve picked up Dad’s love of cooking. Anna and Madeline published a cookbook called “The Family That Cooks Together” in 2020, when they were 12 and 14, respectively. They also helped start a Junior Food Council for City Harvest that year.

Want to teach your kids to cook? Mr. Zakarian says it only takes one thing.

“Smells. This is why there’s a failure in modern cuisine, that minimalist cuisine: If nothing has a smell, it’s not memorable. Every memory you have of food is the smell.”

Chef Geoffrey Zakarian with his family. (Courtesy of Geoffrey Zakarian)

Mr. Zakarian says nothing draws a kid into the kitchen more than the aroma of something delicious. “You don’t have to ask kids to do anything. They’ll smell something, come by, and say, ‘What’s that, Mom?’ And she’ll say, ‘Well here, try it.’ I’ll say, ‘Do you want to help?’ ‘Sure.’ It’s not forcing them to do anything. It’s the memory of the smells and the clanging of pots and pans.”

Spreading the Joy

He’s also passionate about bringing those memories to other families. His cookware line, launched under Zakarian Hospitality, is designed to “make life better for the average person at home,” he said. He doesn’t focus on obscure items you might use once every 10 years, but basic, good-quality cooking tools you’ll need every day.

His television appearances aim to do the same. “I love these shows because they show people how to nourish their families,” he said. “When people watch a competition show, they love the competition, but at the end of the day, it is captivating their memory with things they want to try.” He calls it “nourishment of the stomach, but also nourishment of the soul.”

As a chef, Mr. Zakarian focuses on what he calls the Mediterranean basket, the diet from Greece and Italy. At his restaurants, “I make menus for food that I enjoy,” he said. “I just try to make food yummy for myself, and if I like it, I would say that 99 percent of my customers will like it.”

But whether he’s cooking for customers or his kids at home, his philosophy is the same.

“If you have everyone sitting around the table, that’s the real joy, that’s where everything happens—all the glances, the looks, the nuanced conversation that comes out,” he said. “If you can get them to the table, that’s the real reward.”

9 Questions for Geoffrey Zakarian

Comfort food? Steak frites.

Most beloved kitchen tool? Paring knife.

3 ingredients you can’t live without? Sea salt, chardonnay vinegar, anchovies.

Underrated ingredient? Miso.

Go-to easy but impressive dish to cook for someone? Spaghetti with lemon.

Daily wellness rituals? Work out five times a week. Don’t skip breakfast. Eat grass-fed beef, full-fat yogurt, fruits, berries. Big fan of honey and dates instead of sugar.

Favorite hobby when you’re not cooking? Golf.

Best advice for home cooks? Start learning to cook with breakfast. Eat your mistakes.

Best advice you’ve ever received? Fail up.

RECIPE: Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

RECIPE: Game Day Pork Chili

RECIPE: Middle Eastern Eggs

From Sept. Issue, Volume IV

Categories
Food Recipes

Geoffrey Zakarian’s Recipe for Butternut Squash and Apple Soup

(KC and Gale Kratt)

We enjoy this cold-weather soup every year, often by the fire. For parties, we prepare the soup ahead of time, and then we put on a big pot for guests to help themselves. This keeps the mess in the kitchen low and gives us something yummy to sneak off with and eat.

Serves 4

  • 4 tablespoons unmelted butter
  • 1 large butternut squash, peeled and cubed (about 4 cups)
  • 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
  • 2 tart apples, peeled, cored, and cubed
  • 1 tablespoon Madras curry powder
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3 cups chicken broth
  • 1/2 cup half-and-half
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts, for garnish

Recommended Tools

  • Immersion blender or regular blender

Melt the butter in a large soup or stockpot over medium heat. Add the squash, onion, apples, and curry powder and sauté for 5 minutes.

Add the flour, stirring well to combine. Add the broth, bring to a simmer, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the squash is very tender. Let cool for a few minutes.

With an immersion blender, puree the soup in the pot until smooth. Alternatively, carefully puree in batches in a regular blender. Stir in the half-and-half.

Reheat soup gently if necessary, and season with salt and pepper. Garnish with toasted pine nuts and serve.

Recipe Notes

Pine nuts can be toasted in a pan on the stovetop or roasted on a sheet pan in a 325-degree-F oven for 12 minutes. Give a little shake as they cook. Watch them carefully, because they can burn quickly!

If using a regular blender, be careful with hot liquids.

Categories
Food Recipes

Geoffrey Zakarian’s Recipe for Game Day Pork Chili

(KC and Gale Kratt)

This is the Zakarian TV dinner! Whenever there’s something fun to watch, we make a batch of chili and all gather in the living room. This is the absolute only time we’re allowed to eat dinner in front of the TV, so chili holds an extra special place in our hearts.

Serves 8

For Chili

  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 3 pounds ground pork
  • 2 to 3 tablespoons pancetta or bacon, cut into small pieces
  • Kosher salt
  • Freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 large onions, chopped (about 3 cups)
  • 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 2 bunches scallions (white and green parts), chopped (about 2 cups)
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 1/4 cup chili powder
  • 1/4 cup ground cumin
  • 1 1/2 cups apple cider
  • 2 (28-ounce) cans whole tomatoes with juice (fire-roasted, preferably), crushed by hand
  • 2 (15.5-ounce) cans small black or white beans, drained and rinsed
  • 2 cups chicken stock
  • 2 tablespoons green Tabasco

For Garnish

  • 1 avocado, pitted, peeled, and chopped, for garnish
  • 1/2 cup chopped cilantro, for garnish
  • 4 radishes, sliced thin, for garnish
  • Shredded Mexican cheese, for garnish
  • Lime wedges, for garnish

Recommended Tools

  • Wide-bottomed Dutch oven or large pot
  • Wooden or silicon spurtle, or a wooden spoon
  • Ladle

Heat the olive oil in a wide-bottomed Dutch oven or large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the pork and cook, stirring and scraping the pan bottom with a spurtle, until browned and cooked through, letting the liquid cook out. This will take 10 to 15 minutes. Caution: Do not rush through this step; it’s crucial. Add the pancetta or bacon and cook with the pork for 1 to 2 minutes. Season with pepper, about 1 teaspoon.

Reduce the heat to medium. Add the onions, garlic, and scallions and cook until wilted, about 5 minutes. Make a space in the pan and drop in the tomato paste. Let the paste toast for 1 minute and then stir it into the pork mixture. Sprinkle in the chili powder and cumin and cook and stir until fragrant, about 2 minutes.

Pour in the cider, rigorously scraping the bottom of the pan with the spurtle to get the brown bits released and incorporated. Cook until the liquid is almost reduced away, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, beans, and stock, then season with the Tabasco as well as about 2 tablespoons salt and 1 tablespoon pepper. Adjust the heat so the chili is gently simmering and cook, uncovered, until the chili is thick and full of character, about 1 1/2 hours.

Ladle the chili into bowls and serve garnished with avocado, cilantro, radishes, Mexican cheese, and lime wedges.

Categories
Food Recipes

Geoffrey Zakarian’s Recipe: Middle Eastern Eggs

(KC and Gale Kratt)

During the holidays, our grandmother Marie cooks traditional Middle Eastern dishes for our large extended Lebanese family, much to everyone’s delight. There are always leftover pieces of raw lamb she doesn’t need, so over the years, she started frying them with pine nuts and onions that she’d then scramble together with eggs for breakfast the next morning. As soon as the dish hits the table, we jump to get it on our plates. Because we enjoy this meal so much, we now shop for lamb at all times of the year just to make the breakfast “leftover dish” for ourselves!

The picture shows traditional Syrian bread, which can be hard to find, but regular pita works just as well to scoop up those delicious eggs.

Serves 4 to 6

  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 medium yellow onion, diced
  • 3/4 pound ground lamb
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more for seasoning
  • 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 cup pine nuts, toasted
  • 6 large eggs
  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 1/4 cup coarsely chopped Italian parsley
  • Warm pita bread, for serving

Recommended Tools

  • Cast iron skillet
  • silicone spatula or wooden spoon

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium heat. Add the onions and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the lamb, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the lamb is browned and cooked through, about 10 minutes. Add the pine nuts.

Meanwhile, in a small mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and season with salt and pepper. When lamb is fully cooked, push the mixture to the edge of the pan. Add the butter to the center of the pan and allow to melt. Pour in the eggs. Using a silicone spatula or wooden spoon, stir the eggs in large circles, allowing large curds to form. Once the eggs are almost cooked, incorporate the lamb mixture into the eggs and remove from the heat.

Divide the eggs among plates, garnish with parsley, and serve with warm pita bread.

Categories
Food Features Lifestyle

Kimbal Musk Is Cooking Up Innovation

Kimbal Musk is passionate about sustainable farming and widening Americans' access to local fresh produce. (Laurie Smith)

Imagine spending 18 months at one of the most prestigious culinary schools in the world, and the first assignment you get after graduating is peeling potatoes in a volunteer kitchen.

But that’s only part of an unusual story that includes a near-death experience, a message from God, and a terrorist attack that led one man to a career dedicated to bringing local, sustainable food to Americans.

Then again, you wouldn’t expect anything less from someone with the last name of Musk. In this case, the tale belongs to Elon’s brother, Kimbal. While the more famous sibling is launching rockets and electric cars, Kimbal Musk is cooking up innovations in the kitchen. The former tech entrepreneur has dedicated his life to his nonprofit, Big Green, which supports sustainable farming, educating children about growing food, and expanding home, school, and community gardens.

He also owns several farm-to-table restaurants in Colorado and Chicago, with a forthcoming location in Austin, Texas. “The kitchen is truly where I have so much passion,” he said. “I love … walking into my restaurant and feeling the energy of the community.” He recently wrote a cookbook, “The Kitchen Cookbook: Cooking for Your Community,” in the hopes that everyone can experience the joy of sharing the fruits (and vegetables) of their labor; he feels that cooking a meal for someone is the ultimate act of sharing.

How he came to this point in his life is a story in itself.

Mr. Kimbal Musk with a copy of his cookbook, “The Kitchen Cookbook.” (Samira Bouaou for American Essence)

From Tech to Social Entrepreneurship

Already successful and financially secure at age 27 when he and his brother sold Zip2, the tech company they founded together, Mr. Musk decided to pursue cooking. He enrolled in the French Culinary Institute in New York, thinking that the experience would be an exotic endeavor. Instead, it was a lot like the high-stress cooking shows on television.

“I thought of going in and it being somewhat romantic. And it was like the movie ‘Full Metal Jacket.’ It was screaming at you, all the time, breaking you down, in a boot camp kind of mentality.” Of the 25 students who enrolled in that class, only six made it through the year-and-a-half course, he recalled.

Mr. Musk bakes a cake in New York, in 2000. (Maye Musk)

Timing is often everything in life, and this case was no different. Shortly after Mr. Musk completed his training, the 9/11 terrorist attack devastated New York. The city needed its firefighters, police, and first responders more than ever; it also needed people to cook for them as they worked around the clock in rescue and relief efforts. “It started out with me peeling potatoes, and I was there for six weeks, through the end of October.” Top chefs from around the world gathered to cook meals for the rescue workers. Eventually, Mr. Musk worked his way up to the point where he was preparing the dishes.

He enjoyed serving firefighters dishes they probably didn’t get on a regular basis, like sautéed salmon in a creamy dill sauce. During this time, he saw the effect good food had on people as he watched the exhausted, emotionally spent rescue workers renew their spirits as they ate. “We would feed them some of the best foods I think they’d ever eaten in their lives. … We were putting so much love into the food. And the color was circling back to their faces. They never stopped talking to each other. And by the end of that 45-minute break, the room would be full of energy and joy.” His immediate thought: “Wow. I can’t imagine a life without this. I have to do a restaurant.”

Mr. Musk knew that the best quality ingredients come from local growers, so around 2004, he started working with farmers to supply his first restaurant, The Kitchen in Boulder, Colorado. At about the same time, he wanted to do something to change the trend in America whereby “your average 10-year-old wouldn’t be able to tell you what a tomato looks like.” He provided financial support for school gardens, so children could learn the value and science of growing food. But he was a “checkbook philanthropist,” he said, basically letting others do the work.

Mr. Musk opened his first restaurant in Boulder, Colo., in March 2004. For the first year, he was sous-chef in the kitchen, working the line 5 to 7 days a week. (Maye Musk)

A ski slope changed all that. Along with a voice.

In 2010, Mr. Musk slid down a ski hill on an inner tube and landed on his head. He ended up with a ruptured spinal column that paralyzed the left side of his body. He thought he was going to die. While waiting for surgery, he heard a voice that led him to his current calling.

“I really had this profound voice in my head that I can only describe as God. … And it told me that I would go work on kids and food. It wasn’t specific instructions. It wasn’t like, you’re going to do school gardens, you’re going to do restaurants. It’s just kids—you’re going to help kids connect to food. And I was going to be fine.”

Surgery was successful. “I also got my movement back in my body. And the voice didn’t go away. It wasn’t like a flash of light or anything like that. It was a beautiful, clear voice.”

That experience led to the creation of more than 650 “learning gardens” in schools around the country through Big Green. Teachers can incorporate gardening into the science and math lessons that are part of their curriculum, allowing students to learn outdoors. Mr. Musk hopes that every American will eventually learn to grow food. “You’re going to get a whole new appreciation for the flavor of things, the seasons of things,” he said.

Mr. Musk teaches students at Eucalyptus Elementary School to plant a vegetable garden in preparation for Plant a Seed Day in Hawthorne, Calif., March 13, 2019. (David Mcnew/AFP/Getty Images)

The Future of Food

Mr. Musk is already seeing the trend of American farming changing toward becoming more sustainable. More farmers are embracing regenerative farming, which is designed to improve the quality and health of the soil. It’s not a new concept, as Native Americans have applied regenerative farming principles for centuries.

A farmer might plant corn and beans together: The corn provides a natural trellis for the beans, while the beans put nitrogen into the soil, which helps the corn grow. A rancher might move cattle around and let grazed land “rest” for a while. Periodically rotating the land on which crops are grown can reduce or eliminate the need for pesticides and fertilizer, on which many farms have become reliant.

While many farmers still need time to learn and adapt to these concepts—“it’s a very risk-averse community,” he said—it is catching on around the country. “It grows food better and more nutritionally. And then the farmer can also charge more for their product. So that’s a win for them, too.”

Looking toward the distant future, his vision lies with his Square Roots company, which has nothing to do with math, but focuses on growing food indoors with less energy, such as through hydroponic systems inside upcycled shipping containers. That will become useful if, say, humanity starts living on Mars. The red planet will have less sunlight and fertile ground than Earth. Technology to grow food with fewer resources “will be critical for our expansion on Mars,” he said.

Mr. Musk has ambitious plans to develop hydroponic farming for future food production on Mars. (Phynart Studio/Getty Images)

A Family Legacy

The creative spirit within the Musk family traces back to his grandfather, who moved the family from Canada to Africa in 1948. “My grandfather was a cartographer mapping Southern Africa. He mapped the Kalahari Desert, and pioneered understanding geography down there.” He tells of a unique family trip in family lore: On a single engine plane, his grandfather, his wife, and their daughter, Mr. Musk’s mother, went from South Africa to India, Indonesia, and down to Australia. Mr. Musk describes his grandfather as a real adventurer, and that the innovative spirit of the family is “in our bones. In America, that translates into being an entrepreneur, but whatever it is, it’s some sort of a pioneer breaking new ground.”

Maye Musk, mother of Mr. Musk, cooking in the Kalahari Desert, 1956. (Maye Musk)

Mr. Musk, who became an American citizen in 2004, talks about how grateful he is for this country, having lived through the apartheid era in South Africa. “My kids, I love them to death. They’ll critique America if we let them,” he said, but he often tells them, “Maybe you should try somewhere else first, before you dive in on the criticisms.”

Mr. Musk with his sister Tosca and mom Maye. (Laurie Smith)

Mr. Musk feels a need to give back to the country that has given him so much. It hit him five years ago during a family trip to the Rocky Mountains. “We were just going for a hike and spending a day in the mountains. And I just had this epiphany—that I have the American dream. I have my wife, I have a beautiful home. I’ve got wonderful kids, and built beautiful businesses that make a difference in this community.”

With reporting by Chris Lawson.

From July Issue, Volume IV

Categories
Features Food Lifestyle

Jacques Pépin Didn’t Mean to Stay in America—But He’s Become the ‘Quintessential American Chef’

Jacques Pépin, 86, calls himself a “quintessential American chef.” (Courtesy of Jacques Pépin)

If you’re inviting Jacques Pépin to Thanksgiving dinner, you’d better have turkey on the table.

How about something else this year, you might venture—a nice roast chicken, or a glazed ham?

“I don’t want to do something else,” the chef would kindly, but firmly, inform you. “I want to have a turkey for Thanksgiving; I want to do Brussels sprouts and sweet potato and an apple tart.” The bird has been a non-negotiable since Pépin’s first Thanksgiving in 1959, two months after he arrived in America as an eager young chef with experience working in Paris’s most prestigious kitchens. He fell in love with the spirit of the holiday—“There is no political affiliation, no religious affiliation; it’s just people getting together, enjoying food, wine, and company,” he said—and with America itself.

“I only came to stay a year, maybe two years, to learn the language, and go back to France. I loved it and never went back—except for vacation.” Since then, the transplanted Frenchman has taught millions of Americans how to cook.

He’s the author of 32 cookbooks, the most recent being “Art of the Chicken,” published in September 2022, and a longtime host of PBS cooking shows—including one with his dear friend and fellow pioneering TV chef, Julia Child. Since the beginning of the pandemic, he’s continued to offer confidence and comfort to anxious, sheltering-at-home viewers with the award-winning “Jacques Pépin: Cooking at Home” web series, in 280-and-counting 2- to 6-minute videos posted to Instagram and Facebook with the help of his daughter, Claudine.

Pépin with his daughter, Claudine, who often appeared in his cooking shows and now works with him on various projects for the Jacques Pépin Foundation. (Courtesy of Jacques Pépin)

At nearly 87, Pépin still chops and sautés ​​with an efficient, effortless fluency honed over decades of experience. His narration is just as easy and precise, deftly doling out instruction as he breaks down a whole chicken or shimmies a perfectly fluffed French omelet onto a plate.

And after all these years, he still cooks with an unmistakable French accent—though he’d argue that it doesn’t extend so much to the food. “Very often, people consider me the quintessential French chef,” Pépin said from his home in Madison, Connecticut, where he’s lived since 1975.

“And then you open one of my books, and there on page 32, you have a black bean soup with banana and cilantro on top.” Pépin’s late wife, Gloria, was half Puerto Rican and half Cuban. “Then you have a Kentucky fried chicken from Howard Johnson. Then you have a lobster roll from Connecticut. So I mean,” he said, smiling, “I’m probably the quintessential American chef now, after all these years.”

Dreaming of America

Born in Bourg-en-Bresse, France, a small town northwest of Lyon, Pépin grew up helping out in his parents’ restaurant, Le Pélican. At age 13, he left school to begin a culinary apprenticeship at the Grand Hôtel de L’Europe. By his early 20s, he’d worked his way up Paris’s culinary ladder, and, during his military service, he served as personal chef to three French heads of state, including Charles de Gaulle.

But he set his sights on farther shores.

“America was always kind of the Golden Fleece for me,” Pépin said. “Most people who come to America come here for economic reasons, to have a better life maybe, or political reasons, or religious reasons. I didn’t really have any of that. I had a very good job in Paris. My parents had a restaurant. I was fine. But I wanted to come to America.”

At the age of 23, he made good on his wish. He arrived in New York in September 1959. He didn’t mean to stay for long, but life changed his plans.

Within 48 hours of arrival, he landed a job cooking under Pierre Franey at Le Pavillon, the pinnacle of haute cuisine in America at the time, and he soon befriended the “who’s who” of the burgeoning food world—chef James Beard, New York Times food editor Craig Claiborne, and, of course, Julia Child.

“People were extremely welcoming,” Pépin recalled, and he saw “the possibility of doing basically anything” in his adopted country.

Pépin teaches a cooking class at the Billings Forge Community Works in Hartford, Conn., in 2019, as part of the Jacques Pépin Foundation’s work with culinary training programs across the country. (Courtesy of Jacques Pépin)

Spreading His Wings

Pépin took that possibility and ran with it. After less than a year of cooking at Le Pavillon, he was courted by the Kennedy family—regulars at the restaurant—to become the White House chef. He turned down the offer—he’d already cooked for presidents, after all—to instead take a job in a wholly new world: as director of research and development at Howard Johnson, then the country’s most successful restaurant chain, developing new recipes and pioneering high-quality frozen foods.

“That was a totally American environment, working only with American chefs and American eating habits,” he said. “I learned about marketing, mass production, the chemistry of food, all kinds of things I didn’t really know as a French chef.” When he wasn’t in the kitchen, ever the eager student, he continued his studies at Columbia University—eventually earning a master’s degree in French literature.

It was during his time at Howard Johnson that Pépin started writing down recipes, unwittingly setting a foundation for his future ventures. “At a regular restaurant, you learn by osmosis … and you duplicate what you do,” he said. “That was the way I worked in France for over 10 years; I never wrote a recipe, I didn’t have a cookbook. At Howard Johnson, of course, it had to be organized.”

Developing a chicken pot pie, for instance, started with a recipe using 3 chickens in the test kitchen, then scaled up to 20 chickens. “​​Eventually, we did 3,000 pounds of chicken in a thousand-gallon kettle pot. All of that has to be organized exactly in a recipe.” That experience with high-volume production proved crucial, he said, when he left Howard Johnson in 1970 and opened his own restaurant, La Potagerie, serving soups to the busy Manhattan working crowd, and later managed ​​food operations for the newly opened World Trade Center.

Sharing His Knowledge

In 1974, Pépin suffered a serious car accident. After a long recovery, he left the restaurant kitchen world to turn his focus to writing and teaching. He taught at Boston University, where he and Child founded the culinary arts certificate program, and he later became Dean of Special Programs at the French Culinary Institute in New York (since renamed the International Culinary Center).

Pépin further extended his teaching legacy through the Jacques Pépin Foundation (JPF), the nonprofit he launched with his daughter, Claudine, and her husband, Rollie Wesen, in 2016.

As Wesen was assembling Pépin’s lifetime of books, videos, and other materials, Wesen asked, “‘Who do you think we should teach with these things now?’” Pépin recalled. “And I thought, maybe we should teach people who have been a bit disenfranchised by life—people who’ve come out of jail or former drug addicts or homeless people or veterans.”

(Courtesy of Jacques Pépin)

Now, the foundation supports culinary training programs for adults with high barriers to employment across the country, through offering books, videos, and grants. In 2021, its grant awards totaled $167,500.

These programs take students who might be 40, 50 years old, Pépin said, “and we want to teach them the basics of cooking.” With that foundation set, “you can join a kitchen, start doing basic work, start going up by yourself, and get to redo your life and be proud of what you do and make a living out of it.”

When JPF’s fundraising decreased during the pandemic, Wesen asked acclaimed chefs from across the country to film cooking videos in their own homes, as Pépin was doing. “He asked like 50 chefs, from Daniel Boulud, to Jose Andrés, to Martha Stewart—no one said no,” Pépin said. “Then he asked 50 more, and then he asked 50 more.” The resulting video recipe series, ​​“Cook With Jacques Pépin and Friends,” is available to JPF donors. “Chefs are very generous,” Pépin said. “It’s part of who we are, to give away.”

Just the Essentials

Despite his age—“I am not a young man anymore,” he said with a laugh—the chef has hardly slowed down. “The secret is to keep busy and do things,” Pépin said. “If I don’t have anything to do, I kind of feel depressed.”

Of course, some things have changed with age. “I certainly don’t cook the way now as I did when I was 25 years old. When you’re younger, you tend to add to the dish, add more, make it fancier. At my age, you kind of take away, take away, take away from the plate, to be left with something more essential, something without too much embellishment.

“If I have a great tomato from the garden, have great olive oil and a bit of salt over the top, I don’t want more embellishment. This is it.”

What else has remained essential? The techniques, Pépin said, the foundational skills behind everything he cooks and teaches—and, certainly, the Thanksgiving turkey. He still insists on it every year, whether he cooks it himself or with his daughter at her Rhode Island home where he often goes for the holiday dinner. And then, more importantly, there are the people—the heart of every meal, the reason for cooking. “Being with your family and your friends together, you remember that more than the food itself,” Pépin said.

As a chef, he said, “What you do is, you feed people. You give pleasure to people by doing what you do. Even if you don’t become famous and all that, it’s a great way of spending your life.”

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine. 

Categories
Features Lifestyle

James Beard Award-Winning Chef Chris Hastings on the Loving Family That’s Got His Back

Braised short rib with root vegetables, brussels sprouts, and jus. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)

Chris Hastings is comfortable in his own skin. Trim with short hair and glasses, he tucks his shirt in and speaks with the authority of someone on a mission—one of providing mouth-watering cuisine to his customers and fans.

Hastings has been around the culinary block a few times. In 2012, he beat Food Network star-chef Bobby Flay on Iron Chef, and in 2013, Hastings received the top culinary prize in America: a James Beard Award. His Hot & Hot Fish Club has dazzled Birmingham’s sophisticated clientele using a modern approach to blend Southern food with French and Californian styles and techniques.

Hastings works with his family. His wife Idie runs the business side of the restaurant, and his son Zeb is a sous-chef. Their daughter-in-law Molly helps Idie with marketing and public relations.

Chef Chris Hastings in the kitchen of the Hot & Hot Fish Club in Birmingham, Ala. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)

“We opened the original location of the Hot & Hot Fish Club in 1995. When we opened, everyone thought we were crazy because the location was questionable,” Chris said. Then, with a mischievous smirk, he continued, “We have made it work, though. And now, in this new location at Pepper Place, we are really cooking.”

The new Hot & Hot Fish Club is in the Pepper Place district of Birmingham, filled with artisans, galleries, and other creative ventures. The Hastings family opened the restaurant six weeks before the pandemic hit.

“When we opened here in Pepper Place, everyone was so excited, the staff, our loyal guests. Then, the pandemic hit,” Idie said. “We had no idea how long we would be closed, but it dragged on. We finally opened in October of 2020, and it’s been terrific.”

Chris and Idie have been married for 34 years and have worked together for 27 years. The couple enjoys being with each other despite having different management styles.

Bone marrow with short rib and mushroom risotto. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)
Roasted beet salad with pecan granola, sheep’s milk cheese mousse, arugula, and blood orange gastrique. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)

“The two of us working together is like the yin and yang. I may not agree with everything Chris does, but at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself if it’s worth it,” Idie said. Chris laughed, winking at his wife, “Exactly. But believe me, everyone knows who the real boss is.”

Chris studied as a chef at Johnson & Wales Culinary School in Providence, Rhode Island. He then moved to Birmingham and worked for legendary chef Frank Stitt as chef de cuisine of Highlands Bar & Grill. After a stint in California, the Hastings family returned to Birmingham and opened the Hot & Hot Fish Club, followed by Ovenbird, another restaurant in the same district.

The Hastings family loves the farm-to-table process. “We have the best food artisans and purveyors here in Alabama,” Chris said. “I truly love what I do; it’s what wakes me up in the morning. And I adore working with my wife and my family. I can’t do much of anything else, but I love being a chef. I love the tasting and handling of food and the creation of the dishes. To this day, it’s exciting every day. I live for that feeling I get when I know the dish is right.”

Hastings’s son Zeb, who is also the sous chef at the restaurant. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)
Prime New York strip with roasted potatoes and grilled rapin. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)

Chris has had his share of high-profile accomplishments. He has appeared on the Martha Stewart Show and the Today Show. He has impacted the culinary scene in Birmingham and the South at large. His two restaurants, Hot & Hot Fish Club and Ovenbird, continue to receive rave reviews. But one honor rises to the top.

“Beating Bobby Flay on Iron Chef was just … sweet!” Chris said. “We practiced for two months. Then we competed and created five dishes around sausage. When they announced that we won, it was surreal. That moment will probably live forever.”

Idie peered at her husband, nodding. “When they said, ‘And the Iron Chef winner by one point is—’ there was this silence for what seemed like forever. Then they said Chris’s name. I let out a scream so loud you could hear it on television. I was going crazy. I couldn’t believe it, and then, I could believe it. I definitely could believe it. Chris is extremely talented.”

Chef Hastings takes orders on a busy day at the restaurant. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)
The Hastings family (L to R): Zeb and his wife, Molly, with baby Fraser, Chris, young Hubbell, and Idie. (Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence)

Zeb and Molly joined in the conversation while carrying their two little ones, Fraser and Hubbell. “We loved it that my dad won. Working together can be challenging, but for the most part, it works. Sometimes we have really tense moments; other times it’s a lot of fun,” Zeb added. “We cover a wide range of emotions, believe me.”

Molly nodded at her husband while squeezing little Fraser in her arms. “I love the fact all of us work here, and even though it’s not that easy sometimes, we know we’re very fortunate.”

Summing up the Hastings family’s journey to success, Idie took a long breath, then peered at her husband, her children, and the two little ones. “When I look at my family, the restaurant, and all that we have accomplished, I am seriously blown away. … I never set out to accomplish all of this. Our journey has evolved,” she said. Her dream was to be happily married, work with her husband, and raise a family—and it came true, in a way she didn’t expect. “I am very grateful and proud.” Idie was silent for a few seconds. She closed her eyes and made a tiny and content grin, one of assurance that all was good in the world. “I couldn’t ask for anything more in my entire life.”

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.