A Tale of Two Meals

 

 

 

Note: Posts on this blog originally appeared as the column Amuse-bouche in the Napa Valley Register. This one is from May 2007

 

It was the best of meals, it was the worst of meals …

I was in Chicago last week at the annual conference of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. It was stimulating and exhausting – four intense days of talking and thinking about food from every perspective, with 1400 fellow foodies from around the globe.

Both breakfast and lunch each day were part of the conference, with keynote speakers and panels of distinguished experts to lure us into the dining room. Food for thought AND food to eat. What could be better? You’d think that the sponsors and the kitchen would have knocked themselves out hoping to impress us, wouldn’t you?

Oh come on. It was a convention. At a hotel, The very words are synonymous with “rubber chicken.” This was food reduced to the lowest common denominator.

The oddest meal was the lunch sponsored by Kraft to showcase their commitment to healthy organic foods. Seriously misjudging their audience, they started us off with chicken and pasta in a gloppy white sauce from their South Beach line. It truly was a diet food – it caused me to lose my appetite immediately. The learned and slightly snooty discourse from my neighbor to the left, about how Italians never, ever mix pasta and chicken in the same dish, didn’t help.

Fortunately, there was a second course. A fairly ordinary salad topped with … very dry chicken. (A serious lack of imagination was at play here.) The handy green plastic cheese grater filled with Kraft’s version of a Parmesan-like cheese added a festive note to the table. I spent my time playing with it, excavating the lettuce from the salad and nibbling the tasty parmesan-pepper Triscuits in the bread basket.

As hundreds of lightly touched plates went back into the kitchen, we eaerly anticipated dessert.

It wasn’t enough to salvage the meal, though the cheesecake square on a graham cracker crust was almost credible. The kicker was the shot glass filled with cherry coke Jell-O topped with CoolWhip.

I checked the menu twice, but could find no telltale tongue in cheek. This was Kraft Foods serious effort to impress the food world with its finest offerings.

The day’s irony grew. Later that night, a group of us had reservations for dinner at Alinea, one of the finest restaurants in Chicago, offering a prix fixe, many-course tasting menu of exquisite, experimental morsels. Its chef, Grant Achatz, is up for a James Beard award – and deserves it.

Dinner – which, by the way, cost an arm and two legs – lasted four hours. I can’t begin to describe the dishes, in part because I have misplaced the souvenir menu, but also because there were so many amazing things going on in each bite that they are almost indescribable.

The first course arrived on a miniature pedestal, the second came with a hatpin kabob of ingredients that fell into a spoonful of soup that you then ate in one intense mouthful. Another arrived on a fabric pillow filled with herb-scented air that gently deflated, adding its perfume to the dish. Something came speared on a little trapeze. One offering needed chopsticks. One was a hollow ball filled with a delectable liquid. There were creams and foams and gels and essences and sprinkles of microgreens. By the time we hit the fourteenth and final course – a bizarre, grayish, fuzzy, licorice-flavored blob on a stick that was a cross between a lollipop and a hairball – my mind was completely blown.

It was pure theater. A show in which, I have to say, we were merely bit players. Almost every dish came with stage instructions on how to approach it. The omnipresent waiters – there seemed to be about 50 of them – were a less-than-perfect note, as they told us how to eat and chided us about bathroom breaks. They wanted us in our seats, so that Chef would agree to send out the next course. (Watching my Type-AAA sister try to sit still for four hours was quite entertaining, actually.)

It wasn’t a relaxed meal, but it was extraordinary and delicious, pushing the limits of food even beyond anything we discussed in the conference. There wasn’t one thing on the menu I could begin to attempt at home – but I wanted to.

Once you taste food like that, there’s no going back.

Well maybe not. I could happily live the rest of my life without another fuzzcicle. But for some reason, ever since I got home, I’ve been craving Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

 

*****

 

Well sure, I could make it from the package, but homemade is easy, and tastes so much better. My version changes every time I make it, but the latest batch came out so good that I plan to repeat this recipe.

 

Truffle-scented Grown-up Mac and Cheese

 

10 ounces whole wheat rotelle or other pasta

1 shallot, very finely minced

3 Tbsp. butter

3 Tbsp. flour

3 cups milk

1 cup grated extra sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup grated smoked gouda (or substitute cheeses of your choice)

1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1 cup frozen peas, thawed

1 Tbsp. white truffle oil

1/2 tsp. smoked paprika

1/8 tsp cayenne

1/4 tsp. fresh grated nutmeg

1/2 tsp. salt, plus salt for boiling the pasta

1/4 cup panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)

 

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 2 1/2 quart casserole.

Cook pasta in heavily salted water about one minute less than the package directions call for. Drain and put it in the casserole. Add the peas and the truffle oil and toss well to distribute the peas and coat the pasta with the oil.

Warm the milk in a microwave or saucepan. Melt the butter in a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add minced shallots and cook for about 2 minutes, stirring. Then add the flour slowly, while stirring to completely incorporate. The only lumps should be from the shallots. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, about 4 minutes, until the flour loses its raw taste. As you do this, the shallots will continue to cook, and will turn brown. Add the milk, and bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring. It should start to thicken a bit. When it is hot, add in the paprika, cayenne, nutmeg and salt, then the grated cheeses, reserving two tablespoons of Parmesan. Continue to heat until the cheeses are completely melted into the sauce.

Pour the sauce over the pasta in the casserole dish, mixing well to distribute evenly.

Mix together the bread crumbs and the reserved Parmesan, and sprinkle on top.

Bake for 30 minutes, until bubbling hot and brown on top.

Serves 6-8.

 

Alinea version: Take one piece of cheese-coated pasta out of the pan. Thread it onto a piece of detonator fuse, along with a slice of shaved truffle and one perfect 1/4 inch cube each of roasted rutabaga, beet, carrot and artichoke heart. Suspend over a miniature bowl in which you have placed a teaspoon of pea puree drizzled with 3 drops of lime-infused crème fraîche. To eat, light the fuse. As it burns, the pasta and other ingredients will drop onto the puree. Once the fuse is fully burned, blow away the ash, upend the bowl into your mouth and enjoy.