A Person. A Menu. A Favorite Recipe.

My first encounter with Francis Lam. My first encounter with molecular gastronomy. A recipe I make over and over again. And the best bistro in Paris.

People often tell me that my books feel as if I just sat down and reeled them off. If only that were true! Writing, for me, is basically rewriting, and a lot of material gets left on the cutting room floor.

This is a little snippet that I wrote for Save Me the Plums which ultimately got deleted. I wish I remember why. But I offer it to you because getting Francis Lam to write for Gourmet is one of the things I’m most proud of.

This is how it happened.

“You aren’t going to believe this guy I met at the conference on Asian food!” I told John “Doc” Willoughby, the magazine’s Executive Editor.

Doc rolled his eyes; I was constantly coming back from conferences enthusiastic about some young writer I’d met.

“But this one’s different!” I said.

“You say that every time,” he said.  “Remember the guy from Panama? He wrote one good piece.”

I pulled the manuscript out of my bag and thrust it into his hands.  “Just read this,” I said. “The guy’s got an MFA in writing - and he went to the CIA.  He can cook and he can write and I wish to God there were more like him.”

Doc, unimpressed, put the papers down on the desk.  “How was the conference?” he asked. “Did they like your speech?”

It had, in fact, been gratifying.  I’d studied the way Gourmet covered Asian food over its 65 year history, and the results were fascinating; in the forties the magazine had traveled to Tibet, northern China, and Siam.  In the fifties they’d actually published a recipe for fugu sashimi - the famous poisonous blowfish. (Where on earth did they think their readers were going to be able to get fugu?)

In the sixties they’d spent two years doing an exhaustive series on Chinese food.... it was all interesting (and surprising) stuff.

“But Francis Lam doesn’t really want to write about Chinese food,” I told Doc.  “He wants to write about making a perfect omelet.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

You can find the fantastic omelet article Francis wrote for Gourmet here.

Gourmet closed, but Francis and I went on to work together at Gilt Taste, to judge together on Top Chef Masters and to eat together as often as we can manage it. This is us at Alinea last summer in Chicago.

Speaking of Alinea…. I just came upon this menu from my first total immersion into the molecular gastronomy experience. This meal at The Fat Duck just blew me away.

It all began with that nitro-poached mousse - cooked at the table with nitrogen gas. Nick, then 12, was utterly delighted by the show.

But the next course was the one that signaled where the meal was going. You stuck your spoon into the red aspic expecting the taste of beets and it took a moment for your brain to register that you were eating something else. We really do eat with our eyes. After a while I understood that, despite the color, I was tasting oranges. And so I tasted the orange aspic and of course the flavor was beets. It was a magical mystery tour and I couldn’t wait for the next course, or the next, or the one that followed

I’ve told you about this recipe before, but it’s one of my favorite dishes and now is the perfect moment. Fresh tomatillos, peppers, cilantro and onions are spilling out of farmers’ markets, fall has come, and there has never been a better time to serve this delicious stew.

A note: I like to make this a day ahead to allow the flavors to get to know each other.

Pork and Tomatillo Stew
2 pounds pork shoulder, butt, or loin
vegetable oil
1 pound tomatillos
1 pound Roma tomatoes (coarsely chopped)
1 bottle dark beer
6–8 juice oranges (to make 1½ cups of fresh juice)
2 large onions (chopped)
1 bunch cilantro (chopped)
2 jalapeños (minced)
1 head garlic
salt and pepper
1 can black beans
white rice
1 cup sour cream

Serves 6 - 8

Begin by cutting the pork shoulder, butt, or loin into 2-inch cubes. Sprinkle them with salt.

Remove the husks from the tomatillos, wash the sticky surface off, and quarter them. Put them into a pot with the tomatoes, the dark beer, and 1½ cups of fresh orange juice. Let that stew for half an hour or so, until everything has become tender.

Brown the pork in a casserole, along with 8 to 10 whole cloves of peeled garlic, in a few tablespoons of grapeseed or canola oil. You’ll probably need to do this in batches, removing the pork as it browns.

Put the onions into the now empty casserole, along with the cilantro and jalapeños. Add salt and pepper to taste, and be sure to scrape the bottom, stirring in the delicious brown bits.

When the onions are translucent (about 10 minutes), put the tomatillo mixture along with the pork and garlic back into the casserole, turn the heat to low, partially cover, and cook very slowly for about 3 hours.

Squish the garlic cloves into the stew with the back of a spoon, add a cup or so of cooked black beans (or a can of drained beans), and cook for 10 more minutes.

Serve over white rice.

Stir the juice of a lime into the sour cream and serve as a garnish

I’m in France at the moment, eating spectacular food. Hard to pick just one meal, but since bistro food is having its moment in the United State right now, I think I’ll focus on Cafe des Ministeres in Paris, where I had the most classic French fare I’ve been served in quite a while.

What is particularly amazing? The small bistro is run by Jean Sevegnes and his wife Roxane with the help of a single plongeur. Truly old school.

The reception is warm. The wine list is personal, wonderful and fairly priced. And the food, like the classic tripe above, reminds you of all the reasons we love French food.

We began with foie gras….

and sizzling marrow bones

went on to coquilles St. Jacques with duchesse potatoes

and ended with the most wonderful creme caramel.

ls it any surprise that this might be the most difficult reservation in Paris right now?

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