Take Five with Peninsula Chef-Restaurateur Jesse Cool, On Three Decades of Championing Organic Food

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Jesse Cool in her organic garden in Palo Alto. (Photo courtesy of Jesse Cool)

Long before it was popular, Peninsula chef-restaurateur Jesse Cool served organic food. Back then, it wasn’t what most diners wanted to eat. They certainly didn’t want to pay extra for it, either.

How the culinary landscape has changed. And Cool couldn’t be more pleased.

Despite hard times for so many restaurateurs now, Cool is coming off her busiest year ever in 2008. There’s more to come, too.

June 7, she’ll host “Dirt to Dining,” a benefit held at her Palo Alto home for the Ecological Farming Association. Spend an afternoon enjoying appetizers, mingling with organic farmers and vintners, and learning about organic gardening and pest control. There also will be a silent auction.

Price is $25 for the garden tour alone; $75 for the organic food and wine tasting if purchased by May 29 ($100 at the door). For information, call (650) 854-1226.

Additionally, Cool just closed her 10-year-old jZCool Eatery in downtown Menlo Park. She is moving her CoolEatz Catering to a larger site in the Menlo Business Park in East Menlo Park. In June, a new organic lunch cafe will open there, as well.

Pasture-raised chutney chicken salad sandwich at the Cool Cafe.

The business park also happens to be where she held her 60th birthday party earlier this year. I sat down with her over lunch at her Cool Cafe inside the Cantor Arts Center in Palo Alto to dish about how her interest in local and sustainable food came about, what she’s most proud of, and whether 60 is indeed the new 40.

Q: You’re the hippest 60-year-old around. How do you do it?

A: I am who I am. I think it’s more organic to be real about your age. I attribute it to exercise, attitude, and eating real good food. It does make a difference.

Q: This is the chicken-and-egg question: Who was the first organics pioneer in the Bay Area — you or Alice Waters?

A: We both were. In the beginning, I was into organics and chemical-free. That spilled into sourcing locally.

In the beginning, Alice was into small, local, and artisan. We were both ingredient-driven.

Q: Back in the day, organic food was a hard sell, wasn’t it?

A: It was when I started with Late for the Train in Menlo Park in 1976 and Flea St. Cafe in Menlo Park in 1980. Back then, I couldn’t put organic on the menu without people thinking it was hippy-dippy, that it was unwashed and unsanitary, which it wasn’t.

Being in the South Bay made it even harder. Just try getting product down here back then. The trucks stopped at San Francisco and Berkeley. I had to go pick up from Niman Ranch, myself.

The cool thing is it’s mainstream now. Food is finally connected to personal, long-term well-being.

Balsamic beet salad with Pt. Reyes blue cheese.

Q: What’s your business philosophy?

A: That the customer comes last. Always.

Q: Really?

A: I decided to do organics for my staff, so they wouldn’t have to wash this stuff off the produce. I didn’t want my staff or the farmers around chemicals. We figured if we took care of our staff and the farmers, that it would spill over to the customers.

Q: You faced some real challenges early on?

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Bountiful Babbo

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Whole grilled branzino.

Of all the places I wanted to dine during my recent trip to New York — and believe me, there were many — the one I probably wanted to go to most of all was Mario Batali’s Babbo.

I’ve long admired his exacting techniques and his way of paying hommage to old-country traditions while giving them a fresh, modern interpretation. I also love pasta. Moreover, you have to give it to a man who can get away with a red pony-tail and bright orange clogs.

The first clue that you’re walking into an establishment very much molded into the chef’s image is by what hits your ears. Loud, loud music. It was a lively mix of country and blues the night we were there. The New York Times once famously said it would have annointed Babbo with four stars if not for the pounding music. But Batali wouldn’t have it any other way. The soundtrack is what he wants to listen to. You have to admire that.

Plus, the energetic beat adds a convivial feeling to the restaurant. Amid the striking, huge spray of flowers in the center of the first floor, you’ll find tables of families enjoying a night out with their young kids, as well as couples clad in chic little black dresses and jeans with sports jackets.

The service is top-notch. Knowledgeable to a fault. They make a point to tell you that pasta dishes are entree-sized, and that you can have your whole fish filleted by a server or do it yourself if you wish. Servers can expertly recommend wines to go with your dishes, and tell you exactly why they would marry well with the flavors in the particular dishes you’ve ordered. You gotta like that.

Nuggets of fried goat tongue

Batali is known for his love of offal, and you’ll find many dishes featuring organs not often found on many other menus. When we heard there was a special of fried goat tongue salad with arugula ($13), we had to get it. We also had to have the lamb’s brain “francobolli” with lemon and sage ($19). And we couldn’t resist the starter of fresh cured sardines with caramelized fennel and lobster oil ($12).

Fresh sardines done up like modern art.

The fried goats tongue were crispy like fried sweetbreads in texture. The taste was a little gamy, almost duck-like. The sardines were velvety, their robust flavor nicely tempered by the licorice taste of the fennel.

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Marvelous Momofuku

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Worshipping pork buns

You think you’ve had pork buns before.

But I assure you that you’ve never had pork buns like these. Chinese steamed scallop-shaped buns all pillowy soft. Stuffed with Japanese cucumbers, scallions, hoisin sauce, and the juiciest, most meltingly tender pork belly slices you’ve ever sunk your teeth into. It will have you at one bite.

These are one of the most famous creations by Chef David Chang. At his Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam Bar, it’s a given that practically every table will order them. Trust me: They live up to the hype and then some. During our recent trip to New York, my husband and I chowed down on these babies three times in four days.

We would have gladly made a meal of a dozen of them, but that would have set us back a hefty $54. Yes, an order of two buns is $9. My late-father’s jaw would have probably dropped to the floor at the sound of that. But even he would have appreciated how spectacular these are.

A paper bag with Momofuku's insignia.

David Chang and his crew, whom he self-effacingly refers to along with himself as “a bunch of punks,” turn out Korean street food with stellar ingredients and creative, contemporary flair. They’ve built a mini Momofuku (“lucky peach” in Japanese) empire. And Chang’s been richly rewarded for his efforts, winning James Beard awards for “Rising Star Chef of the Year,” and “Best New Restaurant of the Year”  (for Momofuku Ko).

Hamachi with pea leaves, horseradish, and edamame

On our first day in the city, we snagged seats at the counter at Ssam Bar, where we enjoyed tiny “BBQ Rib” pork sandwiches stuffed with red onion slaw ($12); charred squid salad with the spicy flavors of kimchee ($14); hamachi strewn with edamame, horseradish, and pea leaves ($16); and of course, those pork buns.

Pork rib sandwiches

The next night, we squeezed into Noodle Bar. On a drizzly, chilly evening, we dug into bowls of “Momofuku Ramen” (with a mix of pork, and a poached egg; $16); and hand-cut noodles topped with fried garlic and a glistening slab of pork belly, ($15).

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Remember This Awesome Ricotta Pound Cake Recipe From Pastry Chef Gina DePalma?

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The woman behind the best ricotta pound cake ever.

If you’ve ever baked it, you’ll never forget it. It’s that good.

And if you’ve loved eating it as much as I have, then you’ll want to help the wonderful woman who created it, who is now waging a battle against cancer.

Pastry Chef Gina DePalma of Babbo. (Photo courtesy of Gina DePalma)

The ultra talented, James Beard-award-winning Gina DePalma, the pastry chef of New York’s acclaimed Babbo, was diagnosed last year with ovarian cancer that had spread throughout her body. After surviving a nine-hour surgery last year that left her hospitalized for a month, as well as the ravages of six rounds of chemotherapy, her cancer is now in remission. But the 42-year-old is now fighting to regain her strength and health. She’s now only able to work part-time at Babbo.

“I alternate from being hopeful, and grateful that we caught this when we did, to being shocked and stunned that it happened to me,” DePalma says. “I get angry, sad, and truly terrified at what lies ahead. Getting cancer is an isolating experience, even if you are surrounded by as much love as I have been.”

She started a non-profit to help publicize her battle, and to help spread the word about this affliction, which claims so many women each year. Her Cowgirl Cure Foundation will be hosting a cocktail reception on May 18 at Jim Lahey’s New York pizza joint, Co., to benefit ovarian cancer research at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Tickets are $250 per person. Contact David Semanoff at dsemanoff@quinnandco.com for more information.

Beginning today, there also will be a benefit auction to raise funds for the medical center’s research. Among the items you can bid on are dinner for four at Babbo, and a dessert party for four at your house with DePalma. The auction will run for 10 days, so be sure to get your bids in now.

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Free Scoop Day

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(Photo courtesy of Haagen-Dazs)

Drop by any participating Haagen-Dazs store, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 12, for a free scoop of any “bee-built” flavor.

Don’t worry, that’s not ice cream with bees mixed into it. Rather, it’s ice cream flavors made with ingredients that bees help pollinate.

As you may know, one in three bee colonies in the United States has mysteriously vanished over the past few years. Bees are essential to our food supply, as they are responsible for pollinating one-third of it.

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