Category Archives: Chefs

Meet Moroccan Cooking Expert Kitty Morse

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Kitty Morse, the woman who taught me how to make preserved lemons

Want to learn how to make the perfect tagine? Then, stop in at a Bay Area Le Creuset store on Sept. 20 and 21, when veteran cookbook author and Moroccan cuisine expert, Kitty Morse, visits to do a book-signing and cooking demo.

The events are free, too.

I always will be indebted to Morse because she turned me on to making my own preserved lemons. I almost always have some in the fridge now, made with Meyer lemons that have been partially cut, stuffed with Kosher salt, then packed tightly into a sterilized glass jar. After the jar sits on the counter for a couple of days, the lemons will exude their juices and combine with the salt to create a thick preserving brine.

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The Dawn of Celebrity Chefs

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(left to right) Clark Wolf, Jonathan Gold, Zoi Antonitsis, Joey Altman, and Scott Hocker

Restaurant consultant Clark Wolf remembers the pivotal moment when chefs were first transformed into celebrities in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was in the 1980s, when the visage of larger-than-life Chef Jeremiah Tower, of fabled Stars restaurant, graced a billboard advertisement for Dewar’s Scotch.

“That’s what started it in the Bay Area,” Wolf recalled. “Everyone thought, ‘How will Tower ever be taken seriously again?’ ”

He was. And the fame he garnered became the touchstone for stardom that legions of chefs after him coveted mercilessly. Nowadays, chefs are the new rock stars, the new reality TV idols, the ones groupies snap photos of, and seek autographs from. What has this era of celebrity chefs really resulted in? That was the intriguing topic earlier this week at a San Francisco Professional Food Society panel discussion at the new Miss Pearl’s Jam House in Oakland.

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Take Five With Joey Altman, On Life After TV’s “Bay Cafe”

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Joey Altman's first cookbook

For the past nine years, Joey Altman has been a familiar face on TV as the host of KRON’s “Bay Cafe,” where he’s welcomed us into his home and into the kitchens of some of the region’s best restaurants.

Nine months ago, the award-winning show sadly went off the air, the victim of the dismal economy and the unfortunate lack of a major sponsor, Altman says.

Altman fans shouldn’t despair. The 44-year-old, long-time Bay Area chef has been busy for the past year, working as a consulting chef for the new incarnation of Miss Pearl’s Jam House in Oakland, which just opened in late August. Altman was the opening chef for the original Miss Pearl’s Jam House in San Francisco in 1989.

His first cookbook also was published this year: “Without Reservations” (John Wiley & Sons), which is filled with tips and recipes for cooking boldly flavored dishes at home.

I caught up with him recently to talk about life after TV, his disdain for TV dinners, and his favorite TV and music idols.

Q: I remember when “Bay Cafe” first aired. Would it be fair to say that you weren’t nearly as ease on TV as you are now?

A: I was horrid the first 200 shows. They’re unwatchable for me. I was just ‘on’ as opposed to ‘being.’ I’ll go on a show now, and I’ll see other people practice bullet points in front of a mirror. I can’t imagine doing that today. I don’t think about it anymore. I just ‘do.’

Q: Was it sad for you when “Bay Cafe” ended?

A: I was very sad. All of my life has been a series of 90-degree turns. It requires one door to close for another to open. I’m confident I’ll find something. I won’t sit at home and pick lint out of my belly button.

I love the diversity of my career. I’d like to do another cookbook, more consulting on restaurants, and to play with my band (the Back Burner Blues Band, made up of fellow Bay Area chefs), and to a business project that would give me some sort of equity.

Q: Would you like to open another restaurant of your own?

A: God forbid. Not with three young children at home. Knowing what it takes to really make a restaurant work, I don’t want to sacrifice that much in my life right now. As it is, I’m doing 16-hour days at Miss Pearl’s. I’ll be there a couple more months.

Caribbean grilled lamb skewers with long beans. Recipe follows at the end. (Photo by Frankie Frankeny)

Q: Is the new Miss Pearl’s similar to the original one?

A: The sensibilities of both are the same, but it’s really the evolution of the original as if it had continued to grow. The signature dishes are there and the funky drinks. We’re also embracing things that have come on the scene since then — sustainable and local. The cooking there isn’t trendy; there’s not a lot of sous vide or foams happening there. It’s just more sophisticated because the environment is more so than it was before. There are elements of whimsy there. It’s bold flavors that are really dynamic and evocative of island cooking with lots of chilies, ginger, and lime juice.

Q: If you could trade places with anyone on TV, who would it be?

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Slow Food Nation’s Cooking Demos Coming to YouTube

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An assistant helps New York chef David Chang prepare for his cooking demo.

If you missed this weekend’s Slow Food Nation event in San Francisco, you’ll still be able to enjoy a part of it on the Web in the near future.

Cooking demos in the “Green Kitchen” were filmed and will be posted on YouTube at a future date. I got a chance to sit in on two of the demos, the first featured Alice Waters of Berkeley’s Chez Panisse making vinaigrette with her 25-year-old daughter, Fanny Singer, who was on break from grad school. The second featured maverick New York chef David Chang, who created his take on caprese salad, in which he substituted tofu for mozzarella, and shiso for basil.

Alice Waters has long been associated with salad, having almost single-handedly popularized mesclun mix in the United States. Fanny said her mother’s salad was probably the first food she ate in puree form when she was a baby.

“Salad is my favorite thing to cook,” Fanny said. “When I say that, my friends all say that there’s not much cooking to that. But there is a lot involved in making a good salad.” It starts with carefully washed leaves that have been dried completely so that the dressing will adhere to it better and the greens will be crisper. Then, there’s the vinaigrette, which Waters says, should not shock you with its tartness, but give you a pleasant brightness.

Such care is taken with her salads that Waters said it used to take one person eight hours to wash and dry all the salad leaves when Chez Panisse first opened.

Decades ago, when Playboy magazine named Chez Panisse the seventh best restaurant in the country, Waters flew to New York for the big gala event. She decided to make salad as her dish. She picked all the lettuces from the garden at the last possible moment, carrying them on the plane still covered in dirt (imagine getting that through security today).

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Duck, Duck, and No Goose

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Chef Josiah Slone putting on the finishing touchesPlenty of duck will be on the menu on Aug. 28 at Sent Sovi in Saratoga when Executive Chef Josiah Slone and Jim Reichardt, founder of Liberty Ducks farm in Sonoma County, team up to host their annual “Duck Man Dinner.”

The four-course menu with paired wines will spotlight Liberty ducks, a variety of Pekin duck that was developed in Denmark. The Sonoma County farm raises them without antibiotics or hormones, and on a diet of mostly corn and other grains.

Price of the dinner is $125. If you can’t make the Aug. 28 dinner when Reichardt is the special guest, you’ll still have an opportunity to enjoy duck when Sent Sovi replaces its regular tasting menu with the duck one, Aug. 29-Aug. 31.

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