Kim Severson on Spoon Fed, food and storytelling

Kim Severson of the New York Times

The first time I saw Kim Severson, she held an audience of food bloggers and photographers in the palm of her hand, critiquing story ideas and acting like the editor we all needed. She even told one brave writer, after dismissing her story idea, “I’m tearing you down to build you up.”

That was in January at the FoodBlog South conference at Woodrow Hall in Birmingham, where she was the featured speaker, the big draw in a weekend program that included noted cookbook authors, food stylists and photographers. Severson was the author we waited all day to hear. Some, like me, had read her memoir, “Spoon Fed: How Eight Cooks Saved My Life” (Riverhead, 2010) and were looking forward to tales of her food writing career in San Francisco, where she worked at the Chronicle, and New York, at the Times. I think we were all a little surprised, and happily, when she gave a perfectly nice speech about her book, then removed the microphone from the stand and, pacing across the stage and walking into the audience, she questioned us and presided over an impromptu editorial meeting.

“Spoon Fed” is a collection of profiles of eight female cooks, some of them writers, whom Severson has known throughout her life and career. She begins with Marion Cunningham, best known as the writer behind the revised Fanny Farmer Cookbook, (she was also James Beard’s assistant). Other chapters are devoted to Alice Waters of Chez Panisse, former Gourmet magazine editor Ruth Reichl, Italian cookbook author (and authority) Marcella Hazan, Southern cooking legend (and late-in-life Georgian) Edna Lewis, New Orleans restaurateur Leah Chase, Food Network’s Rachael Ray and Severson’s mother, Anne-Marie Zappa Severson. As Severson tells their stories, her own life is revealed - struggles with alcohol, teenage experimentation with drugs, failed relationships, coming out to her family, career insecurities, spiritual questioning, and ultimately acceptance and a successful relationship with her partner, with whom she has a young daughter.

Severson is out of the daily food writing game – since November, she’s worked as the New York Times bureau chief in Atlanta, on the national desk. During this time, she’s written about the lack of internet access in rural Alabama, abandoned civil rights buses, and, memorably for Atlantans, the recent controversy over Chick-fil-A’s contribution to a conservative marriage workshop. Yes, the Jesus chicken story. I spoke with Severson by phone a few weeks ago and we talked about her switch from food writing to hard news and telling the story of her life so far.

A Cook’s Question: Do you miss writing about food? How do you like working the national desk?


Severson: Even though I’m writing straight news, I’m putting food in my stories. I include food because it is part of our lives. And I do see straight food writing in my future.

A Cook’s Question: Before you worked at the New York Times, you were a food writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. This seems like a foodie’s dream job. Was it intimidating to taste and give your opinion?

Severson: I keep wondering why I leave these great jobs! We had these smart young interns from the culinary school cooking great food that we got to taste.

[In the tasting] You would hold back at first; it takes a rare and brave person to step up and speak first. After awhile, you start speaking up and find your voice. It’s a freeing thing. It is just food, after all.

A Cook’s Question: I noticed in your stories from “Spoon Fed” and also in your work for the New York Times, an affinity for old people. For example, the Spoon Fed stories about Edna Lewis and Marion Cunningham, and the NYT piece you wrote about Chef Thomas Keller and his aging father.

Severson: You know, I see my own parents aging. You think they don’t know anything and then you realize that they know everything, and that ok, life is complex. As a writer, I have an obligation to capture stories before they pass on. For the Thomas Keller story, it was writing about someone at the top of his game and seeing another chapter in his life. (The piece tracks the reunion of Keller with the father who abandoned his family when the chef was a child, and their relationship until the end of his father's life.)

A Cook’s Question: "Spoon Fed” traces your relationship with eight cooks, one of them family, the others famous women in food. Along the way, you tell your story. Did you intend to tell your life story, too?


Severson: The book I started out to write was to make a record of these women who influenced me. They have a big role in how we eat today. But I learned lessons along the way - people come into your life when you need to learn something.

A Cook’s Question: Were you uncomfortable about telling so much about your personal life?


Severson: My editor told me that to tell a good story, you have to tell the truth. For about two weeks (after she’d sent in the manuscript), I was in agony. It was much more personal than I intended. I thought “Oh my God, what have I done?” Then my friend Frank Bruni (current NYT reporter, former Times restaurant critic), who had just written his memoir of growing up fat, “Born Round,” told me, “You took the check, you wrote good work, now put on your big girl panties. And so I did.”

A Cook’s Question: How did you like the transition from straightforward journalism to memoir? Can we expect more books from you?

Severson: I realized that I was my own resource and it was freeing. I liked it after awhile. I may write fiction in the future. And right now I’m working on a cookbook with my friend Julia Moskin.

Further reading: Each chapter in "Spoon Fed" includes a recipe - I attempted Gumbo Z'herbes from the essay on New Orleans' Leah Chase.

Atlantans, note: Severson will be the guest author at Restaurant Eugene’s seventh author dinner on Tuesday, May 3. The evening will begin at 6:30 p.m. with a cocktail and hors d’oeuvres reception. Chef Linton Hopkins will prepare a four-course menu, with pairings, inspired by the cooks in “Spoon Fed.” Severson will attend to read from her book and sign and answer questions. $100 per person, includes a copy of Spoon Fed. Reservations are required, call 404-355-0321.

Text copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.
Images are from KimSeverson.com.

Chef Linton Hopkins talks shrimp & grits

Chef Linton Hopkins of Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta.

Make no mistake about it, Chef Linton Hopkins is a natural and unflappable teacher. Put him in a room of culinary students and fellow chefs, and Chef will talk continually and calmly throughout a detailed demonstration, keeping his cool through equipment failures and missing ingredients, and remaining for three quarters of an hour after the seminar to encourage the students and talk shop with the pros.

The chef/owner of Atlanta’s Restaurant Eugene and Holeman and Finch Public House brought his unique approach to Southern cuisine to the American Culinary Federation’s Southeastern conference at the Hilton Atlanta last month. This unique approach involved a Dewar of liquid nitrogen and a classic Southeastern coast favorite: shrimp and grits. “You know, I resisted using the liquid nitrogen for many years, until I discovered ways that it improves the flavor of the food,” Hopkins told the audience. Hopkins, by the way, is a James Beard nominee for Best Chef in the Southeast. The winner will be announced in May.

Hopkins encouraged the chefs to remain open to new ideas, with the goal of improving the final dish. “I’m not a big proponent of any one kind of cooking,” he said, hoisting the Dewar flask and pouring liquid nitrogen over dried hominy in the Vitaprep. “Rustic, one-pot, or molecular gastronomy, it’s all cooking.” Regarding the liquid nitrogen, he had a few pointers for newbies to the favored device of Boys with Toys cuisine: be sure to use food grade liquid nitrogen, choose a well-ventilated area, and don’t worry about burns. The veteran of New Orleans’ Mr. B's Bistro assured the students that “a roux burn is worse.”

Hopkins' take on shrimp and grits involved dried hominy, made from heirloom corn grown in North Georgia, pulverized with liquid nitrogen to create a fresh corn flour, cooked with water and finished with cream and a swirl of shrimp butter (inspired by an Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock recipe from "Gift of Southern Cooking"). The liquid nitrogen was also employed to puree frozen Benton's bacon, creating a "bacon salt" garnish. The shrimp and grits were served with a Sea Island Red Pea fritter. Using liquid nitrogen "allows me to stay true to the ingredients that define Southern cooking, but at the same time lets me play with the textures,” Hopkins said.

Hopkins told the audience that a significant amount of his time is devoted to sourcing ingredients to serve at his restaurants. Quoting famed chef Joel Robuchon, Hopkins said that timing is more than getting perfectly prepared food to the customer, it's also getting the freshest taste from the field to the customer. "Using fresh, local ingredients is about making sure this money is staying in Georgia and supporting people I know. It’s about the memory of sitting with your family on the seashore and eating shrimp."

On my next visit to Restaurant Eugene, I'll order the super-dee-duper shrimp and grits. When I want to fulfill that craving at home, I make my version, breakfast-style. This is just like coastal shrimpers would make it, with the little guys caught the day before, served over creamy grits. I used a new technique for creamy grits, which is to cook the grits in water and stock, then stir in butter and cream before serving (a tip from Chef Hopkins). The taste is rich and the texture is velvet.

Shrimp and grits by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Shrimp and Grits, Breakfast Style

Serves 4

Grits

2 cups chicken broth

2 cups water

1 cup stone-ground or quick (not instant) grits
2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup cream

¼ cup Parmesan cheese, shredded

Salt and pepper to taste

Shrimp

1/2 stick butter

1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined (save the peels for future shrimp broths)

Juice of one lemon (you won’t use it all)

Salt and pepper to taste

1. In a nonstick saucepan, pour in chicken broth and water and heat over a medium flame until bubbles appear at perimeter. Add grits in a slow, steady stream, stirring with a whisk all the while. Stone-ground grits take about 30 minutes of patient and frequent stirring, quick grits take between 5 and 10 minutes of steady whisking action. When grits are just shy of done (depends on your personal taste - loose or leaden), stir in Parmesan and butter and cream and season to taste.

2. For the shrimp, pull out your favorite skillet and melt the butter over medium heat. When butter is foamy, add the shrimp and let cook until pink, just a couple of minutes. Stir to ensure even pinkiness. Freshen with lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

3. Serve bowls of creamy grits garnished with shrimp.

Creamy grits by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer, with the exception of the photo of Linton Hopkins from the Restaurant Eugene website.

Molasses Pecan Squares: Or the Cookbook, the Chef and Me

Molasses Pecan Squares/Heart of the Artichoke (Artisan/2010).



Sorghum Pecan Squares by Chef Linton Hopkins, Holeman and Finch (photo by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books)


When I was a little girl, just starting to bake, I would become very upset when my creations didn't look like the pictures in the cookbooks. The cakes would be lopsided, or cracked, too dark, sometimes too light. I remember my mom telling me that my creations were homemade and that's better than what's pictured in the book. Her advice has reassured me all these years in the kitchen because, while my food looks and tastes great, it still doesn't look like the picture.

I thought about this recently as I tried the recipe for Molasses Pecan Squares from David Tanis' wonderful cookbook "Heart of the Artichoke and Other Culinary Journeys." Tanis is part-time chef at the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., the remainder of the year he writes and cooks from his home in France. I had the opportunity to meet Chef Tanis in December for lunch at Holeman & Finch Public House. Chef Linton Hopkins prepared a splendid meal for about a dozen Atlanta writers, bloggers and photographers, using recipes from Tanis' book.

The meal consisted of roasted chicken, Sea Island peas with ham hocks and bacon, cabbage with apples, and many more delightful items. The dessert was a very homey kind of sweet, typically Tanis, who has a gift for simple, elegant, seasonal food - Molasses Pecan Squares, the texture of a blondie and that molasses taste reminiscent of gingerbread (without the ginger). (The top photograph is from "Heart of the Artichoke" and shows Tanis' mouth-watering version of the recipe.) Chef Hopkins' version went all-out Southern, using sorghum instead molasses. The Holeman & Finch serving was flatter and larger and absolutely choked with pecans, as you can see in the second photograph, and was absolutely yummy. I intend to find some sorghum and give his version a try.

And here's my version, darker, flatter, with fewer pecans because I couldn't find that extra bag that I swore was in the freezer. Still, they were tasty and chewy and my Mom loved them. Thanks, Mom.



Homemade Molasses Pecan Squares by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Molasses Pecan Squares



Molasses is a classic American ingredient, and so are pecans. Here they make a dessert that is a little like gingerbread.

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened, plus more for buttering the dish

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 eggs, separated

2 tablespoons molasses

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped pecans, plus a handful of whole pecans for topping

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Butter and flour a 9-inch-square baking dish. Cream the 8 tablespoons butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. (An electric mixer is helpful.) Add the egg yolks, molasses, and vanilla and beat well.

2. Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, and add to the mixing bowl, stirring well. Stir in the chopped pecans.

3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Gently fold them into the batter.

4. Spread the batter in the dish, and sprinkle the whole pecans over the top. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Check for doneness with a kitchen knife; when it comes out dry, the dessert is done. Cool in the pan and cut into 3-inch squares.

Excerpted from "Heart of the Artichoke and Other Culinary Journeys" by David Tanis (Artisan Books, 2010)

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer, unless stated otherwise.



For more stories and recipes from David Tanis, see:

Grapefruit Drinks

Black-eyed Peas with Ham Hocks and Bacon

Flat-Roasted Chicken with Rosemary

Snow Day Part Duh

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

When I last wrote, I was in the first day of what became known as either Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon, catchy words the Atlanta weather gurus came up with to describe the week. The snow fell for just a day, but the subsequent low temps ensured that the ice remains. The sheets of black ice are what kept schools closed and families snowbound this week. No school, no mail delivery, treacherous roads, empty grocery store shelves. We were thankful for uninterrupted electricity, plenty of firewood, a full pantry and no particular need to leave the house.




Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



I began this week with a simple tomato soup and I'm ending the week with its equally simple accompaniment: grilled cheese. I could go all fancy-pants here and employ air finger quotes for a "take" on grilled cheese. Maybe 87-grain bread made from my own 87-grain home-milled flour, and cheese made from the milk of my herd of goats. Or not.

The only grilled cheese that matters is the one that Mama makes. My girls will someday have children of their own and when they call me up and ask Mom, how do you make grilled cheese? I will tell them this: Pepperidge Farm thin sliced bread (white or wheat), Kraft white American cheese and butter. The Pepperidge Farm thin sliced yields a crispy exterior; the white American, I swear it tastes different than the orange regular American; and for the butter, we use the Land O'Lakes light butter with canola oil because it doesn't tear the bread. Don't turn up your nose at the Kraft slices, each encased in its thin plastic Snuggi. Chef Linton Hopkins of Atlanta's Holeman and Finch Public House uses only American cheese on his famous 10 o'clock cheeseburgers.

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Writing a recipe for grilled cheese seems a little like telling someone how to wear flip-flops. It's just one of those things that you DO, but here are a few tips to make the process easier. A griddle is a useful thing, mine is able to hold up to six pieces of griddling bread.

Have ready enough bread and cheese for the number of sandwiches you intend to make. Have butter handy. Heat griddle. Butter one side of each slice of bread and place butter side down on griddle. Unwrap cheese slices and place on toasting bread. The secret to successful grilled sandwich making is flipping the sandwich often enough to prevent scorching the exterior but allowing the interior to come to full melting perfection. When it's time to serve, we're a triangle family, but exceptions will be made for those who insist on rectangles or even squares. Occasionally, biscuit cutters are employed to create circles, with the trimmings becoming the cook's treat.

For dessert on this snowbound week - Bellwether Vance's Kumquat Pie. Creamy, tart and refreshing. I have a family of kumquat fans now - thanks, Bell!

Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

What is your favorite grilled cheese sandwich? What do you eat at home when you're snowed in or the weather's too bad to venture out?  Let me know in the comments below.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

A grapefruit drink from Chef David Tanis

Grapefruit. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I’ve come to believe that home food is best, but it’s not often an opinion that you will hear expressed by a world-class chef, in this case David Tanis, chef of Chez Panisse.

Tanis is living a foodie dream – working six months of the year at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California, and living and cooking and writing in Paris the remainder of the year. That's France, friends, not Texas. Tanis' first cookbook, “A Platter of Figs” was a selection of the Gourmet Cookbook Club and focused on entertaining at home. In his newest cookbook, “Heart of the Artichoke and Other Culinary Journeys,” Tanis writes about cooking for small gatherings at home. The menus are for small groups of  2 or 3 people, medium-size groups of 3 to 6, and seasonal feasts for large crowds.

One of the most charming aspects of “Heart of the Artichoke” is the first section, “Kitchen Rituals,” short essays about food in his everyday life – chopped jalapenos in pancakes, a foodie travel kit with chilies and a tube of harissa, easy apricot jam, a quintessentially French sandwich – baguette, butter, ham. His essay on eating oatmeal will make every mother of a quirky eater smile. 

Chef Tanis talked about his new book and his culinary life over lunch this week at Atlanta’s Holeman & Finch Public House. Chef Linton Hopkins prepared the meal with recipes from the book – a crab-stuffed deviled egg to start, followed by a terrine of pork and duck liver, vegetables a la Grecque, a flat-roasted chicken with lemon and rosemary, cabbage with potatoes, Sea Island red peas cooked with bacon,. And for dessert, molasses pecan squares. 




photo of David Tanis by Joe Vaughn

 

David Tanis is a low-key guy with gray, wavy hair and cream-colored glasses who looks very much like the artist he says he intended to be. He didn't learn to cook at home. Growing up in Ohio, he was only allowed to set the table each night. He learned to cook in college and taught himself to bake. Eventually, he found his way to Berkeley and Chez Panisse. After working as a dishwasher and baker, he rose through the ranks to chef. At first, he and fellow Chez Panisse chef Jean-Pierre Moulle split the work week. When Tanis decided to take a Paris apartment, Alice Waters offered to let he and Moulle split the year, a genius moment in job-sharing. (Moulle spends his half-year in France, aussi).

Unlike many in the restaurant trade, Tanis cooks at home every night after work, eating pasta at midnight. “Eating at home cements the culture,” he said. He laments that children who know only restaurants are missing out, both in the preparation of food and conversation at the family dinner table.

The recipes in “Heart of the Artichoke” cover the culinary globe, but the American and European influences are prevalent. “I’m a cultural chameleon,” Tanis said, “Everywhere I travel to becomes something else in my culinary bag of tricks.” When traveling, Tanis doesn't visit many restaurants, instead, he books accommodations with a small kitchen and seeks out local markets. 

Tanis claims no direct Southern connection to his cooking. “Any Southern influence comes from Southerners I’ve known or Southerners I’ve imagined,” he said. With ingredients like pecans and pork and field peas in his book, I think he's a Southerner at heart.

I especially like his use of grapefruit in the winter menu. Go into any local market this time of year and you will find the fruit, mellow yellow on the outside, ruby red on the inside. The taste is tart and refreshing, a counterpoint to heavy and creamy winter meals. Tanis employs grapefruit juice in his winter feast titled “Auspicious and Delicious” - a menu that includes black-eyed peas and ham, those crab-stuffed deviled eggs, bread and butter pickles, a relish plate and corn sticks. 

Champagne Mimosa. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Hair of the Dog, Salty Dog, and Other Grapefruit Drinks

There you are in the middle of winter, in a cold, harsh season, and a little sunshine is only too welcome. Citrus is the true gift of winter and there’s something wonderful about freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, mixed with Champagne for a Grapefruit Mimosa, or mixed with vodka for a Salty Dog.

Count on 1 grapefruit per serving; 1 large grapefruit will yield about a cup of juice. There is a world of difference between fresh juice and flash-pasteurized store-bought juice. This is a drink that’s all about the freshness, and no, you can’t squeeze the fruit the day before. And if your New Year’s resolution is a month without alcohol, enjoy a delicious glass of fresh grapefruit juice. You’ll feel virtuous and satisfied.

The proportions for a Grapefruit Mimosa are 1/3 grapefruit juice to 2/3 Champagne. Pour the juice into a Champagne glass, then slowly add the Champagne.

To make a Salty Dog, pour 5 ounces grapefruit juice and 1and 1/2 ounces vodka, both well chilled, into a glass with a salted rim. Without the salt, the drink is called a Greyhound. To make a Pamplemousse, add the same amount of Pernod to the juice instead of vodka and don't salt the rim.

 

(Excerpted from HEART OF THE ARTICHOKE by DAVID TANIS (Artisan Books)

Copyright 2010.)

I will add that while you’re serving grapefruit mimosas to your grown-up friends, pour grapefruit juice with lemon-lime soda for the children, they will love it.

Corn madeleines. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

To accompany: In what I consider a forehead-slapping, bloody brilliant idea, Chef Tanis suggests baking corn stick batter in a Madeleine pan. I just happened to have Madeleine tins and made these beautiful little cakes. And I have to call them cakes because they have sugar in them – true Southerners do not put sugar in their cornbread. They will sugar everything else, including the greens beans (a practice I find unpalatable), but never cornbread.

Corn madeleines and grapefruit mimosa. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Just a note on the china in the pictures: this is my wedding china, Orleans Blue by Lenox, and crystal, Classic Laurel, also by Lenox. My 20^th wedding anniversary is this month, so I’ve had this china for two decades. It’s true what I was told – I really don’t use it very often. But it makes my heart happy to pull out the bone china and the gold-rimmed crystal for company and special occasions, such as an Auspicious and Delicious holiday feast for family.

Text and images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer, with the exception of the recipe, excerpted with permission from Artisan Books. The jacket cover and author photo by Joe Vaughan were also provided by Artisan Books.