Could You Use a Little Joy?

Also, a fantastic meal. A comforting recipe. Great plates. And a little nepotism.

For anyone with a heart it’s been a very dispiriting week. At some point every day I’ve found myself bursting into spontaneous tears.

It made me go back to a piece I wrote at another dispiriting moment, and I thought I would share that with you.

(Incidentally, the article I reference is a screed that was published in the Atlantic Monthly fifteen years ago.)

January 2010
"Given the situation in Haiti," someone wrote me yesterday, "maybe you should stop writing about all the great food you're eating."

I've been thinking about that, a lot. And it strikes me that it's a spurious argument, as dubious as the one that Flanagan woman is using to excoriate Alice Waters for her Edible Schoolyards.

The Flanagan argument is absurd on so many levels it's hard to even know where to begin. But following her logic no one would ever teach children anything but the 3 r's; there would be no art, no music, no physical education. Her idea, that teaching children how to grow food (and in the process allowing them to pick up good eating habits), deprives children of their right to learn literature, mathematics and philosophy is nonsense; learning is not an either/or proposition. It also ignores the reason that Alice decided to set the schools up in the first place: We know that eating is learned behavior, and that allowing young people to experience the joy of fresh produce can change their lives forever. Flanagan likens working in the garden to stoop labor, which is a bit like comparing cooking dinner for your family to working at a fast food stand. Her article denigrates everyone who works with his hands. And although she begins by saying that no Latino would want his child working in a garden, she has the audacity to think she knows what people she has never spoken to are thinking. At the very least, she might have asked.

The man who wants me to stop writing about food until the Haiti crisis is over (and will it ever be over?) is, of course, on much more solid ground. But it reminds me a bit of my grandparents, who stopped celebrating everything when their youngest daughter died at 17. If she couldn't be there to join the fun, there would be no more fun. That's ridiculous. And the opposite of life-affirming.

We all have a moral obligation to do whatever we can to help the Haitians during this terrible time. But talking about it doesn't help; we need to take concrete action. And once again, it's not an either/or situation. There will always be trouble - war, famine, earthquake, illness - somewhere in the world. We should not close our eyes or our minds to them. We should help in whatever ways we can. But in times of trouble- especially in times of trouble - it is important to celebrate life. We need to remind ourselves - and others - that it is good to be alive. If only as a promise that better times are coming.

And while we’re speaking of helping (we’re back to the present here)… on February 27 I’ll be flying out to Los Angeles to join a huge group of chefs (Daniel Boulud, Suzanne Goin, Jonathan Waxman, Curtis Stone, Niki Nakayama, Jordan Kahn, Phil Rosenthal.… the list is long and impressive), to raise money for restaurant workers who’ve been displaced by the fires. Proceeds from Chefs Love LA go to World Central Kitchen and Restaurants Care. Tickets go on sale tomorrow; information here.

And while we’re on the subject of disasters….

I've always loved Blue Willow plates. This is probably because one of my favorite childhood books was Blue Willow, which has been described as “The Grapes of Wrath for children”. (If you don't know the book, it's worth looking up. A classic, and really remarkable for its time.)

That's probably why I was so intrigued when I stumbled upon Calamityware.

The artist, Don Moyer, spoofs Blue Willow plates by adding hilariously incongruous details. This giant robot plate was an early favorite.

I’m back in New York for a while, and being here always makes me think about my father. He and I spent so much time roaming these streets together.

I wrote this piece about Dad almost twenty years ago when Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript library presented a show about his book designs. They also created a wonderful online website about his work. A number of people have written lately to tell me that the link to the archive no longer worked; I’m happy to say it has been fixed. The correct link is here.

July 2013

This is my father, Ernst Reichl, around 1923, when he was still in Germany, working on his doctorate in German literature. He wrote his thesis on some obscure fifteenth century poet, but his real interest was always book design. While he was still at university he worked for the publisher Kurt Wolff, and after immigrating to America in 1926 he went to work at Doubleday as an art director.

A show about Dad’s work opens tomorrow at Columbia University. During the last few years of his life Dad spent weekends going through his library, annotating the thousands of books he had designed in his long career. He put down everything he could remember about the design decisions, the author's reactions... anything that came to mind.

The cards have been digitized now, so you can read about Gertrude Stein's response when he put her photograph right on the cover of the book (not the jacket). I believe that was the first time photo offset printing was used in that way. You can find out Kurt Vonnegut's reaction to Dad's design for Cat's Cradle (Dad loved that book), and how my father took little scraps of notes from Marshall McLuhan to design The Mechanical Bride.

And, of course, there's Ulysses.

Although Dad designed both the book and the jacket early in his career, it continues to be his most famous design.

When Dad died his library, along with the notes, went to Columbia, where it sat pretty much unmolested until a couple of years ago when Martha Scotford, an expert on design history, read Tender at the Bone and became curious about my father’s work. In the talk she gave about the show she called Dad, “a wonderful companion.” She is certainly right about that.

She named the show, Ernst Reichl, Wide Awake Typographer.

The following day I posted this:
There were so many lovely comments yesterday about what I wrote about my father that I thought I'd share a little more. What I remember best is Dad’s excitement when he found a book he thought Mom and I would love. He'd bring the galleys home saying, "You have to read this!"

That's how I first discovered Kurt Vonnegut; when Dad designed Cat's Cradle, he insisted we read the book. I became an instant and lifelong Vonnegut fan.

Then there was I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, a seminal novel about mental illness. By then we knew Mom was bipolar, and the book resonated especially strongly with us. You have to read it!

Dad's career began in the days of letterpress, but he was entranced by the possibilities of the future. In 1975 I gave him a subscription to a magazine called Fine Print. He was very gentle about it, but he said, "I never knew you considered me a Luddite. I don't yearn for the past. I think the computer is going to be the greatest tool a designer ever had."

We had a birthday to celebrate last week, and I tried to think of someplace really special to take the family. I could not have done better than Manhatta, with its spectacular view and deliciously inventive food. The service is also superb: it’s a Danny Meyer restaurant and it really does him proud.

I loved everything we ate. A few highlights:

The Manhatta oyster with uni and Champagne sabayon. I could have eaten a dozen.

Hamachi with grapes, celery and fennel. So many chefs struggle as they try to figure out how to serve raw fish without soy sauce. I thought this was an inspired combination.

Live scallop with seaweed beurre blanc.

Magret of duck with candied olives and kumquats: another wonderful medley of flavors.

That, my friends, is the head of the capon I recently cooked.  (Capons are castrated roosters; they are larger, firmer, fatter and juicier than ordinary chickens. They're less active than your regular rooster, which makes the meat especially tender. And because these capons are older than commercial birds, they have a lot more flavor. )

Simply roasted, with butter rubbed beneath the skin, the capon made a very festive dinner.  I stirred the juices into a bit of roasted lemon juice, which made wonderful gravy.  But six of us failed to finish the entire bird, so the next night I made capon pot pie.

It's the most comforting dish, and I’ll be making it a lot this winter. Probably won't be using capon next time around, but this recipe would work equally well with leftover or rotisserie chicken. 

Capon Pot Pie
2 celery stalks, diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
1 large onion, chopped
4 tablespoons butter
fresh thyme or parsley
salt and pepper
1/4 cup flour 
1 3/4 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup white wine
1 cup heavy cream
1 egg yolk
leftover chicken or capon, shredded (about 2 cups)
small package frozen peas

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Melt the butter in a skillet and saute the celery, carrots and onion for 8-10 minutes until tender. Add a teaspoon of salt, a few grinds of pepper, and a bit of chopped fresh thyme or parsley. Add a quarter cup of flour, and stir for a couple of minutes until it's nicely incorporated.

Add a good splash of white wine and the chicken stock, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.

Break an egg yolk into the cup of cream, mix well, then stir some of the hot gravy mixture into the cream. Now slowly stir the cream mixture into the contents of the pan and stir, over low heat, for about 5 minutes. It should become deliciously saucy. Add the shredded chicken and frozen peas. Taste for seasoning and pour into a casserole or deep-dish pie pan.  

Cover with pastry, cut a few slits to let the steam escape and bake in the preheated oven for about half an hour until the crust is golden.

This will serve 6.

You can top your pot pie with any kind of pastry; frozen puff pastry works very well. Here’s what I used:

Pastry
Put a cup and a half of flour into a bowl, sprinkle in a half teaspoon of salt and cut in a stick of cold butter.

Beat an egg into small bowl; pour out half, reserving to brush on the crust.  To the remaining half add 3 tablespoons of cold water and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar.  Mix into the flour and butter mixture, then pat it into a small disk, wrap in wax paper, and set in the refrigerator for a half hour before rolling out into a disc that will cover your pot pie.