I rarely order dessert when I eat out. Partly because I just don’t have that strong of a sweet tooth (maybe being elbow deep into sugar, chocolate, and cream all day more than satisfies my dessert cravings). But the other reason, is that outside of 4-star restaurants or spots that push the boundaries of cooking, I’m convinced the dessert menu won’t have anything that I haven’t seen before, and I just don’t crave sugar enough to try another ubiquitous molten chocolate cake, mediocre apple cake or too-sweet tart. The exception to this rule is ethnic restaurants, and the more foreign to me, the better, where the element of surprise alone is enough to get me excited about that final course, along with everything that precedes it.

So, the other day, when  a chef-friend and I decided to go to dinner after listening to legends Daniel Boulud, Pierre Gagnaire, and Grant Achetz talk about the restaurant industry at the Star Chefs Congress, we opted for a kind of food that neither of us gets to eat that often: Persian, and settled on the blandly decorated Ravagh Persian Grill. One look at the menu and we knew we wouldn’t be disappointed–not only was the large folder of options jam-packed, it was jam packed with all kinds of things I’d never heard of, a sure precursor to an invigorating meal. The sambuseh, fried dumplings, were crisp and hot with a rich, earthy filling of mashed chickpea, but it was the spicy/sour herbed chutney that came with them that I couldn’t get enough of. Ditto for the torshi, a small side dish of mixed, chopped pickles that I could have easily eaten all on its own. Neither my food-genius friend nor I could figure out the delicious, predominant spice that made it so distinctive. Add in the lamb kebobs, kashk badamjoon, and barberry and saffron rice that we ordered and we could barely fathom dessert.  We’ll at least look at the menu, we told our waiter. Surely there’d be something on it I’d never tried.

Which only made our disappointment that much greater. Our waiter handed us a small, postcard-sized, full-color, glossy booklet filled with industrially produced fancy “French” desserts: chocolate mousse encased with a striped sponge cake, hollowed out citrus halves filled with sorbet, all things that were manufactured in a factory somewhere, with lots of stabilizers and little love, which were then packaged up and sent who knows how far. This was it?

You don’t have any Persian desserts? we asked incredulously, trying not-so-hard to disguise our disappointment. It just didn’t make sense.

Well…, our waiter offered. We do have a few Persian desserts but we don’t put them on the menu because usually it’s only Persian people who want them.

Turns out they had three desserts and we decided on the one that sounded the “weirdest”: faloodeh, which our waiter described as rose water ice cream with rice noodles, fresh limes, and cherries.  How do you not order that? The ice cream was actually closer to finely shaved ice flavored with so much rose water that eaten alone, it was like a mouth full of frozen perfume. But we’d neglected its condiments: fresh lime wedges and soupy sour cherries. Once we tempered the rose water ice with the sour fresh juices from both the limes and the cherries it was another experience entirely: refreshing, complex, acidic, addictive. And as promised, thin, opaque rice noodles had been folded into the rose water ice, giving the dessert a pleasant, slightly chewy bite. But then, I’m a sucker for the texture of all rice products.  We finished it, and must have been so visibly happy to have “discovered” this gastronomic find, that our waiter then told us about another item that wasn’t on the menu either but that had us both drooling. And before we knew it, he set down yet another bowl of food in front of us, a gift. This time we were back to savory: a sheet of rice (the rice that gets stuck to the bottom of the pot during cooking, turning it sticky, crisp, and chewy all at the same time) smothered with a tangy lamb stew. It ended up being our favorite dish of the night (after the faloodeh). Turns out that sometimes it does pay to ask about dessert.

This Sunday, June 28th, from 3pm-5pm, I’ll be signing copies of my recently published memoir, SPICED: A Pastry Chef’s True Stories of Trials By Fire, After-Hours Exploits, and What Really Goes On In the Kitchen, at Whisk, a fantastic new kitchen store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It would be great to see you there!

1. I don’t have to worry about having manicured fingernails. To be honest, I’ve never had pretty hands or nails. But working in kitchens and with my hands, gives me the perfect excuse for having less than beautiful nails. My hands and nails are important tools–not pretty things to be adorned.
2. I never, ever have to wear panty hose. Or any other useless, uncomfortable clothes or shoes. In other words, I don’t have to look “pretty” or “made up” to do a good job.
3. I can talk in a funny voice all day if I want to. Or swear. Or say next to nothing. The only rule in the kitchen is to do what the chef says, outside of that, conversation is a free for all.
4. I work with my hands. See #1. Whether I’m rolling out dough, peeling apples or beating egg whites, I have a close, tangible relationship with my work. When a dessert goes to a table I can say I made that, every part of it, from scratch.
5. My work makes people happy (hopefully). There are few better feelings in the world than watching a diner’s face light up with delight after biting into one of my desserts, and then seeing the plate return to the kitchen, licked clean.
6. I can write off cookbooks and restaurant meals. Yes, it’s all research to further my talent and career as a pastry chef and therefore, tax deductable.
7. Learning about new ingredients/flavors is part of my job. Whenever I travel, I’m always on the lookout for a new fruit, or spice or flavor that I can incorporate into my menu. Maybe it’s kalamansi, a citrus fruit I’d never heard of until I visited the Philippines, or maybe it’s something more familiar like Thai iced coffee, that I suddenly realized would make an incredible ice cream flavor.
8. I get to overhear all the crazy/sick/funny things boys talk about. See my previous “what goes on” and “overheard in the kitchen” posts as evidence. Being surrounded by young men has been an eye-opening experience and the things they say when they think no one is listening is truly astonishing–and often hilarious.
9. I don’t have to sit at a desk all day. Okay, sometimes my feet do start to hurt (in spite of my comfortable shoes) but I never have that trapped feeling that I used to have when I had an office job and felt like what I did (or didn’t do) had little impact on the success of the company. Plus, I never was very good at small talk or office politics, two things I don’t have to worry about these days.
10. I get to support local farmers. The Union Square Farmers Market was on my way to work for my last job and I relished passing through it 4 days a week. Not only did the changing produce on offer inspire ideas, it was almost always superior to anything I could have delivered from purveyors who often sourced things from thousands of miles away. I’m no slave to local produce but it sure makes sense to support the locals who travel fewer miles and sell a better product. And I loved getting to know the farmers who were equally glad to know that their product was ending up in some of New York City’s best restaurants.

–continued from previous post

“Sit down, mes petits,” he motioned toward a kitchen table at the far corner of the otherwise empty living room while he disappeared into his kitchen.

He returned with three flutes and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, which he opened with an adult sounding pop. He filled our glasses and I reveled in the moment. Was it his French? His etiquette from another generation? The expensive wine and lavish treatment? Before long the champagne bubbles were rippling in my eyes and I couldn’t help giving into them. It was all so French. Half a bottle of Veuve later, we were all smoking cigarettes, crunching biscotti and caressing our flutes, laughing and flirting. It was all such an easy-spirited, good time, until Joe walked queasily away toward the bathroom.

Read more »

“You don’t like chicken?” he asked me.

I looked at the famed  French chef and owner of the three-star French landmark restaurant who was grinning across the table from me, then at Joe, a young line cook from the restaurant, and finally at the plaque of chicken sashimi on the table in front of me. Raw chicken. Chef easily trapped a piece of yuzu-sauced meat between his chopsticks and lands it into his greedy, grinning mouth.

Well…wasn’t this the reason I became a cook in the first place, to try new and unusual foods, to experience the new, readily and with gusto? Salmonella? I looked at Chef. If he, in his 60’s, could swallow the most feared raw meat without reserve, so could I. I grabbed a slice of the pale meat, soused it with more sauce, popped it into my mouth and chewed. It went down easily, and as I swallowed, Chef pulled a bottle of Burgundy from under the table to refill my glass. We had only been at Onigashima, a Japanese restaurant across the street from where we worked, for twenty minutes, but already I could feel the deep red wine in each of my toes.

Read more »

I arrived late for the mid-afternoon meal. Needing a bit more time to breathe alone, I’d taken a drive that morning. Soothed by the feel of the car moving under my direction as I coasted through the shining winter sun, hugging the wooded and curved residential roads, I thought about the changing relationship I had with my father. Over the years it seemed like I spent far more time thinking about the relationship than actually having one, and once again, on Christmas day, too much time had passed, and I was late.

What had always been a strange and untraditional connection had only grown more difficult with each passing year. Dad had been a sea captain, and even before my parents divorced I saw him only when he happened to be back in port, and with little regularity. Typical of a long distance relationship, it was easy to ignore all the negatives between us, shipping them out to sea along with him each time he sailed off again. As a child, I focused on his adventures around the globe, dreaming of his worldly command, his international know-how, and how lucky I was to have his mythic genes, to have inherited the importance of adventure. But at 30, I was no longer a dreamer, and Dad wasn’t sailing anymore. Pinned down by Parkinson’s disease, he had instead become absolutely stationary. At 78, he was unable to walk more than a few shaky steps, and suffered from random moments of confusion, sometimes forgetting the most obvious of details.

“I know that I know you,” he’d said to me calmly the night before, after we’d already spent nearly three hours together. His eyes squinted at me, their lids sagging heavily down. “I just can’t remember how.”

I’d stood for a moment in front of him, wondering if maybe I’d been hiding out at home in New York City too long.

“Far…” I said to him in Danish. Daddy.

I walked around to the back of his chair to massage his slumping shoulders.

“Far,” I repeated, as much for his benefit as my own, hoping his native language would encourage the connection. I rubbed the word into his bony shoulders.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, as if finally remembering where he’d misplaced his glasses. “Dalia,” he finally said, slowly remembering the name he’d chosen for me.

I couldn’t shake that image of him, stuck and vacant in his chair, no matter how long I drove. Things would not change no matter how long I sat waiting in the car, parked in the driveway. I was selfish. I knew that Dad was happy to see me, if even just for a while, even if he couldn’t exactly remember me sometimes. It was Christmas Day, and I was late.

Read more »

  I awoke early with the streets of Bangkok, watching the vendors line up and ready themselves until they crowded the sidewalks. As the rest of the city awoke, the sidewalks and walking streets filled with people shopping, or on their way to school or work, or like me, just visiting from somewhere else. As the streets came alive, the passers-by kept it moving with their bustle, while the vendors kept their own movements steady and practiced, making only small ripples in the flow of the sidewalk traffic.

It was the food vendors that excited me the most, partly because I was a pastry chef back home in New York City, and they easily took up half of the streets, leaving the other half for fine imitation watches, t-shirts and jewelry. High quality imitations of anything could be found in those streets, but the foods were always genuine. After just one morning of exploring the streets surrounding my small budget hotel on Petchburi 19, I gave up plans of leaving Bangkok for Thailand’s beaches and decided to spend the full week soaking up the air of my temporary neighborhood before returning to Manila where roaming on foot was next to impossible, and where the closest thing to street life existed only inside one of the endless number of over-stuffed, modern shopping malls.

I began my days with a short, dark woman whose hair was pulled back neatly beneath a kerchief. She was one of many of the early morning vendors who sold made-to-order iced coffees and teas, but I had been drawn to her calm face and efficient ways. Holding up my single index finger “one, please,” and pointing with my other hand to the can of coffee powder, I placed my order without a sound. She deftly blended the coffee, water and thick, beige condensed milk in perfect proportions before pouring them over a small, clear plastic bag of crushed ice, and topping it off with evaporated milk. Within seconds she secured the bag and straw with a rubber band and pointed to a small cardboard sign that read “10 baht.”

“Khop khun kha,” I said, after handing her the single coin, the equivalent of just twenty-five American cents, and holding my palms together beneath my chin in thanks. But she was already on to the next order as I slowly stepped aside, making room for the locals lining up behind me.
Read more »