Author: John Klyce Minervini

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

A New Year, A New Look for Humphrey’s Prime Cut Shoppe

For years, Humphrey’s Prime Cut Shoppe—the Folk’s Folly butcher shop—was a well-kept secret. So well-kept, in fact, that many of the steakhouse’s best customers didn’t know it was there. It all started in 1977, when founder Humphrey Folk started selling prime steaks to friends from the back door of his restaurant.

Well, now they can come to the front door.

Humphrey’s (formerly the Prime Cut Shoppe) recently got a makeover: a total rebranding that includes a new website, new logo, and new marketing materials, plus an interior and exterior facelift. These days, the butcher shop is executed in crisp black and white, with clean lines that highlight the bright-red freshness of the meat. 

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The website is similarly sharp, with an intuitive layout and tasty images. Just a few clicks, and you can have an Australian lamb rack—or a cowboy ribeye, or a veal chop—shipped overnight to most anywhere in the United States.

Maybe the best part is that the meat is never frozen, so when it shows up at your door, it’s practically still mooing.

“You can take the restaurant experience with you,” says Humphreys manager Terry Martin. “Selecting a hand-cut prime steak and fixings for your home is the next best thing to enjoying them in our Folk’s Folly dining room.”

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Culinary creativity and craft butchery at Porcellino’s.

CREDIT: John Klyce Minervini

With its black-and-white honeycomb tile and quaint vintage tableware, Porcellino’s — the new restaurant from chefs Michael Hudman and Andy Ticer — strikes an appealingly casual note, one that is matched by its affordable menu.

Porcellino’s is essentially two shops. In the front, there’s an espresso-centric, European-style café where you can order pastries for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and small plates for supper. In the back, there’s a craft butcher shop that features traditional steaks, sausages, and cured meats — plus some truly exotic cuts.

I began with a double shot of espresso — which, for me, is kind of a big deal. I’m pathologically sensitive to caffeine, so I usually draw the line at a single cup of green tea in the morning.

It was worth making the exception. The espresso — a Metropolis Redline blend — was like an awakening. It had a thick, creamy body and a beautiful crema, with notes of honey and lavender in the finish. Pair it with a couple of Bomboloni ($2) — fluffy Italian donuts — and you’re ready to take on the world.

“I want our coffee to be a craft experience,” says head barista Destiny Naccarato. “And that means eliminating guesswork. It means timing everything out, measuring it, weighing it.

“I actually think the first sip should be a little shocking,” she adds.

John Klyce Minervini

Apple Cider

On to small plates. When building their menu, chefs Hudman and Ticer say they were inspired by their friend the late Mark Newman of Newman Farm. The word “porcellino” means “baby pig” in Italian, and many dishes were created to showcase the farm’s heritage pork and lamb.

“We kept asking ourselves,” says Ticer, “why do we have to go to New Orleans to get boudin? Why do we have to go to St. Louis to get decent cured meat? We can do those things at least as well as anybody else. Hell, we can do them better.”

One of my favorite dishes was the Collard Green Dumplings ($9). Loaded with collards from Woodson Ridge Farms, spicy nduya sausage, Calabrian chili oil, and Newman Farm pork belly, these demure little rice paper packets pack a punch. But if you can stand the heat, they’ll reward you. Drizzled with benne oil — an aromatic, nutty oil derived from an heirloom ancestor of the sesame seed — they are interestingly tangy and peppery.

John Klyce Minervini

Ash Flour Pita

For those seeking something less spicy, I recommend the Ash Flour Pita — stippled with melted cheese and marinated olives — or the New Orleans-style boudin, served with pickled onions over corn bread porridge.

But Porcellino’s is first and foremost a butcher shop, so I decided to take a tour with head butcher Aaron Winters.

“You remember how, in The Brady Bunch, they had Sam the Butcher?” asks Winters. “That’s what I want. I want people to say, ‘Aaron’s my butcher.’ I want to start the conversation again.”

Naturally, the conversation will include things like tenderloin and pork chops. But part of Winters’ mission at Porcellino’s is to introduce Memphians to more uncommon cuts of meat. Things like bavette — a strip of beef loin that runs along the ribcage — and spider steak — named for its web-like pattern of marbling.

“In America,” Winters says, “most of these cuts get ground up for hamburger, so we never even see them. Which is a shame, because they are some of the tastiest parts of the whole animal.”

To learn about bavette and spider steak, Winters spent the summer in Italy. There he studied with Dario Cecchini, the world’s foremost master butcher, and Filippo Gambassi, scion of an ancient Italian salumi dynasty.

It probably goes without saying, but Winters is the only person within 300 miles of Memphis with that kind of training. Why don’t you pay him a visit and let him recommend something?

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

RECIPE: Mike Patrick’s Grilled Bratwurst Sandwich with Green Tomato Chutney

CREDIT: John Klyce Minervini

John Klyce Minervini

Chef Mike Patrick

Sometimes the planets align and the sandwich gods smile down on us.

That’s what happened the other day, when I went with Mike Patrick of Rizzo’s Diner for a Farmers Market Challenge. (Read all about it in this week’s Flyer!)

To fight the encroaching darkness, Mike made one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth: a grilled bratwurst sandwich with green tomato chutney.

Something that good deserves to be shared. So happy holidays! Here’s the recipe. And if you’re interested in sourcing your ingredients locally (hell yes!), just scroll to the bottom of the page.

John Klyce Minervini

Mike Patrick’s Grilled Bratwurst Sandwich with Green Tomato Chutney

Mike Patrick’s Grilled Bratwurst Sandwich with Green Tomato Chutney
45 minutes
2 sandwiches

Ingredients:

2 pears
2 semi-tart red apples
2 green tomatoes
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup white wine vinegar
1 tbsp honey
salt and pepper
4 brats or mild Italian pork sausages
1 loaf ciabatta bread
olive oil
4 oz. fresh, herbed goat cheese
handful of kale
2 tbsp chow chow or pickled relish

Light grill, preheat to 350 degrees. Meanwhile, seed apples and pears. Dice apples, pears, and green tomatoes. In a medium pot, combine apples, pears, green tomatoes, sugar, vinegar, honey, and 2 tbsp pickle juice from the chow chow. Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer. Simmer for 20 minutes, or until fruit (chutney) is soft. Salt and pepper to taste.

While chutney is simmering, grill brats on one side for 3-4 minutes. Rotate brats and cover. Grill for an additional 4 minutes. Remove brats and set aside. Divide ciabatta loaf into two sandwiches. Brush inside of each sandwich with olive oil and lightly toast for 1-2 minutes. Slice goat cheese into ½-inch medallions.

To assemble sandwiches, begin with bread. Add kale (don’t overdo it). Add brats (2 per sandwich). Add chutney (2 tbsp per sandwich). Add goat cheese (2 medallions per sandwich). Top with chow chow (1 tbsp per sandwich). Serve immediately.

Local tastes better! We recommend buying ciabatta from Cucina Bread, brats from Lazy Dog Farms, green tomatoes from Jones Orchard, goat cheese from Bonnie Blue Farm, and your chow chow from Old Apple Hill Brine. Cheers!

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Chef Mike Patrick takes the Farmers Market Challenge

CREDIT: John Klyce Minervini

Going to the Memphis Farmers Market with Mike Patrick is a bit like walking around with the mayor. Everybody knows him, and we end up stopping every few feet to talk feed with pig farmers and chanterelles with mushroom hunters. And, you know, kiss babies.

“I’ve been coming here since day one,” admits Patrick. “I used to have a piece of ribbon from the ribbon cutting on my refrigerator.”

Patrick is the owner and chef at Rizzo’s Diner, which will open at its new location on South Main in the next week or so. Today he’s taking the Flyer‘s Farmers Market Challenge, where I team up with a local chef, we go shopping at the farmers market. Then we make something delicious with what we buy.

John Klyce Minervini

Michael Patrick

Patrick is a good-natured guy and built like a house. This is a good thing, because today the temperature is 49 degrees, and the wind is howling. Here and there, shoppers in heavy overcoats pick through the last of the year’s harvest, while at one end of the market, a valiant guitarist plucks out the chords to the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week.” Searching through a crate of winter apples, Patrick sings along.

“Ooh, I need your love, babe,” he croons, “guess you know it’s true.”

Patrick’s road to the kitchen has been an interesting one. He says it all started at age 15 when he got kicked out of high school for fighting. Never one to sit and sulk, he went out and found a job as a dishwasher, simultaneously enrolling in a culinary arts class at a vocational school.

“What made up my mind was the teacher,” he confesses. “She was 32 and super hot.”

From there, he went on to work with chefs Mac Edwards and Erling Jensen, before opening Rizzo’s in late 2011. At the time, he described his menu as “comfort food, uncommonly comfortable,” and it wasn’t long before people started taking notice. To cite just one example, Food Network’s Guy Fieri, for his show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, stopped by in 2012 for a taste of Patrick’s Chorizo Meatloaf with Green Tomato Gravy ($18).

“You get a completely blindside shot from that green tomato gravy,” raved Fieri, through a mouthful of meatloaf. “That green tomato gravy is nuts.”

To warm us up on this chilly Saturday, Patrick is planning to make a grilled bratwurst sandwich with green tomato chutney. I’m all for it. We get the brats from Lazy Dog Farms and the tomatoes from Jones Orchard — then round out our shopping bag with a loaf of ciabatta from Cucina Bread, barbecue pickles from Old Apple Hill Brine, and some herbed goat cheese from Bonnie Blue Farm. Then, it’s time for lunch.

Patrick lives in a cozy, one-bedroom apartment in a converted hotel on North Main. It’s a grand old building with crown molding and a marble lobby, but the best part is definitely the view. When we head up to the roof to grill the brats, it’s all there: City Hall, the M Bridge, and the Pyramid.

“I like to come up here in the summer and watch the fireworks,” says Patrick, while the brats sizzle on the grate. “I’ll grill up some steaks and make margaritas.”

Back in Patrick’s kitchen, we start slicing the tomatoes. And if you’ve never seen the inside of a green heirloom tomato, let me recommend it to you. They’re like little works of art in there — little paintings by William Turner, grading in color from pale green to peach to gold to pink.

We sauté the tomatoes with apples and pears, then add a mixture of vinegar, sugar, and pickle juice. While the chutney reduces, we slice the pickles, goat cheese, and some kale. Then it’s go time.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are moments in life when the planets align, the clouds open up, and the sandwich gods smile down on us. This was one of those moments. The green tomato chutney was sweet and tart, beautifully cutting against the heartiness of the brats. And the goat cheese added just the right note of herbed creaminess to the blend.

To make a sandwich that good, you have to believe in what you’re doing. You have to mean it. Fortunately, that’s not a problem for Patrick. As we finish our sandwiches, scraping the leftover goat cheese off our plates, he confesses that for him, cooking isn’t just a job — it’s a calling.

“I’m not gonna be a doctor,” he says. “I’m not gonna find a cure for cancer. But I can cook. And by being able to serve somebody a dish that came from my heart, I’m doing my part to make Memphis a little better.”
Editor’s note: The print version of the story had the opening date as Saturday, December 20th. Unforeseen delays have pushed the opening for another week or so. 

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Two Memphis catering companies, Smokd and Memphis Pig and Pasta, set to open restaurants.

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

When it comes to making smoked meat, Shane Boling has all the right credentials. He’s worked at Erling Jensen and La Tourelle, and he’s currently a research-and-development chef for Kraft Foods. But he says that everything he really needed to know about cooking, he learned from his grandmother, growing up in Pelahatchie, Mississippi.

“My grandma always said that you could stand beside her and make the same recipe, using the same ingredients. Only hers would turn out better, because she was making it with more love,” Boling says.

“And by love,” he adds, “she meant lard.”

Along with Mike King, Boling is the co-owner of the catering company Smōk’d. The pair is currently working on opening a restaurant in Minglewood Hall. It’s an audacious undertaking — but if you taste their pastrami, you just might become a believer.

Double-smoked and expertly seasoned, the pastrami is punchy without being over the top. Right now you have to order it by the pound, but if the guys at Smōk’d get their restaurant, you’ll be able to try it on the kimchi reuben ($9).

What’s a kimchi reuben? I’m glad you asked! This sandwich lover’s sandwich is made with pastrami, Japanese kewpie mayonnaise, kosher dill pickles, and — in place of sauerkraut — spicy Korean kimchi. It’s got just the right amount of zing to balance out the salt and spiciness of the meat. (In addition to pastrami, Smōk’d also makes smoked cheddar, bratwurst, and holiday hams.)

The space in Minglewood that King and Boling have leased is a large room formerly occupied by Christ City Church. In this appealingly rustic, high-ceilinged space, they envision a sandwich shop and meat market, plus some futuristic amenities: USB ports for charging cell phones at the bar, as well as a system of self-serve beer taps monitored by microchips in customer wristbands. They hope to have the restaurant open in February.

To help defray the costs of renovating, Smōk’d has launched a campaign on Kickstarter. In order to hit its target, Smōk’d will have to raise about $30,000 over the next month.

If they can get enough people to try that pastrami, they just might pull it off.

Smōk’d Meats, 1555 Madison Avenue, 246-3961

When cultures collide, one result is good food. Take the cronut — built like a croissant, deep-fried like a donut, or the bánh mì sandwich — a French baguette stuffed with Vietnamese cold cuts and veggies. And let’s not forget that tomatoes were first brought to Italy from Mexico by Spanish conquistadors.

Justin Fox Burks

Tony Falasca of Memphis Pig and Pasta

Where and when these culinary collisions will take place is impossible to predict. But one may be going on now in a nondescript strip mall on Raleigh Lagrange. That’s where Tony Falasca of Memphis Pig and Pasta is ruthlessly combining Italian food with Memphis-style soul.

Falasca is an interesting guy. At 6’4″, with wavy white hair and piercing blue eyes, he might be taken for a culinary mad scientist. He learned to cook in the Navy, followed by a short stint at Johnson & Wales College of Culinary Arts. But, like Boling from Smōk’d, he says his passion for food started much earlier, at the elbow of his Italian grandmother.

“My great-grandma Falasca came over from Italy with eight kids,” Falasca says. “I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, but I watched what she was doing.”

For the past two years, Falasca has worked alongside his wife, Laura Lee Falasca, at her catering company, Laura Lee’s Lunchables. About a year ago, he opened Pig and Pasta out of the same location. Now he’s opened up a takeout counter, where customers can pick up both catering trays and single servings for lunch and dinner.

By far the best among their dishes involves the fettuccini noodles, which Falasca makes by hand, in-house. I was particularly fond of the barbecue pulled-pork pasta ($6.95), sweet and savory in just the right balance. Also good is the chocolate dessert pasta ($2.50), served with whipped cream and fruit compote, where the cocoa is cooked right into the noodle.

Barbecue pasta and chocolate noodles? They might sound far-fetched today. But then again, so did tomatoes in Italy, 600 years ago.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

A Sneak Peek at Belly Acres

You’ve probably heard that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. True enough. But there may be such thing as a free dinner.

Case in point: Belly Acres. Late yesterday afternoon, The Flyer got a hot tip that the much-anticipated Overton Square restaurant would be giving away free burgers in advance of its grand opening on Saturday.

Ever the committed journalist, I decided to investigate.

Full coverage coming soon. In the meantime, suffice it to say that the burgers I tried were finger-lickin’ good. In particular, I enjoyed the Early Riser ($10.75, pictured above), a breakfast-inspired bricolage of bacon, cheddar, beef patty, fried egg, bibb lettuce, and black pepper aioli.

And get this. The whole thing is sandwiched between a pair of home-made waffles.

“I’m serving better beef than most steak houses in this city,” says executive chef Rob Ray. “And I’m competitive on price. So I say, bring it.”

Ray adds that all his beef is grass-fed, from Joyce Farms in Winston-Salem, NC. The bibb lettuce is from Tanimura & Antle Farm in Livingston, TN. And the fried egg was sourced by Bring It Food Hub.

I’ve got to admit, I was impressed by the provenance of the burger. Most of the ingredients seem to have come from within a day’s drive of Memphis. To cook and serve something like that for $10.75?

Not bad, Belly Acres. Stay tuned for The Flyer’s full coverage.

Belly Acres, 2102 Trimble Place, 529-7017
http://bellyacres901.com

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

A Taste of the New Menu at Ciao Bella

CREDIT: John Klyce Minervini

John Klyce Minervini

Ciao Bella’s Piccolo Sara ($10)

We’ve been itching to try the new menu at Ciao Bella for a while now. So when The Flyer got a chance to grab lunch with I Love Memphis’s Holly Whitfield, we jumped at it. I mean, come on. Wouldn’t you like to have lunch with this charming person?
John Klyce Minervini

I Love Memphis’s Holly Whitfield

We started with the Tuscan White Bean & Kale Soup ($4 cup). And you know what? There’s something special about that soup. Here’s Ciao Bella executive chef Branon Mason:

“I grew up eating soul food,” says Mason, “so I try to incorporate that into some of my recipes.”

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In the white bean soup, that meant eschewing vinegar in favor of a top-secret pepper juice. Which pepper juice, precisely? Mason wouldn’t say. But the soup was pretty tasty: warm and full-bodied, with a playful kick from its secret ingredient.

Next it was time for the BLTA&E($9). Piled high with avocado (A) and fried egg (E), this hefty sandwich also features roasted garlic aioli on wheatberry bread. This ain’t your mama’s BLT, and I predict it will be a big hit.
John Klyce Minervini

Ciao Bella’s BLTA&E Sandwich ($9)

My favorite dish of the day was definitely the Piccolo Sara ($10, pictured at top of page). It’s a simple variation on the classic Italian flavor combination: spinach + cherry tomatoes + parmesan. But at Ciao Bella, they swap out the fresh tomatoes for sun-dried, and ditch the parmesan in favor of goat cheese.

It’s an inspired combination: wonderfully light, with lots of room for the fresh flavors to shine through. Also, as Holly points out in her recent post for I Love Memphis, it’s great for carb-loading, whether you happen to be training for this Saturday’s St. Jude Marathon—or you’re just a person who likes carbs (:

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Now open: LBOE and Memphis Made Taproom

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

At Last Burger on Earth (LBOE), you can’t order dessert. The reason is simple: They don’t have any. And if you want a vegetable — fugheddaboudit. There’s a lonely looking salad at the bottom of the menu, a spinach-and-tomato affair that might as well be called “The Afterthought.”

But let’s be honest. You didn’t come here to eat a vegetable.

What LBOE has is burgers. Ten of them. They aren’t healthy, and apart from the Classic ($7.95), you can’t really pick them up with your hands. But if you can come to grips with using a knife and fork, then you’ll find out why LBOE is worth a trip. These burgers — they’re fiendishly tasty.

Justin Fox Burks

Take their signature, the LBOE (pronounced “elbow,” $9.95). Just the ingredient list is enough to inspire a mild heart attack in your faithful food columnist: Havarti cheese, roasted garlic cream cheese, hardwood-smoked bacon, green chilies, and corn chips.

Um, excuse me? Green chilies? Corn chips? But take the plunge, dear reader, and soon you’ll be asking yourself why you haven’t been putting chips on your burgers all along. The chips lend a salty crunch to the meat, one that is beautifully balanced by the citrusy acidity of the peppers. Try all you want: you won’t take home any leftovers.

“The name is like a last meal kind of thing,” says co-founder Tyler Adams. “Like if you’re gonna have your last burger, we hope you do it here.”

Of course, toppings are important, but they’re no good without quality meat. For that reason, LBOE sources all its ground beef at Charlie’s Meat Market on Summer, which grinds its meat fresh five days a week. From there, they add a top-secret mix of seasonings (I thought I detected smoked paprika) and cook the burgers on a flat-top griddle.

“The reason is they get to simmer in their own juices,” says Adams, “so it makes the burgers juicier.”

He ain’t just whistling Dixie.

There are a few conservative choices on the menu. Think bacon, cheese, pickles. But I recommend an adventure. Try the Walking in Memphis (kielbasa, pulled pork) or the Lava Me (sriracha cream cheese, Nikki’s Hot Ass Chips). And remember the words of Machiavelli: “Never was anything great achieved without danger.”

Take a stroll around the new Memphis Made Tap Room, and you might suspect that the place wasn’t built for beer. Well, you’d be right. The cavernous space — big enough to house a couple of movie theaters — was formerly a drive-in freezer for the now-defunct Keathley Pie Company, piled high with hundreds of thousands of single-serve pecan pies.

These days, the space is home to the sudsy ambitions of Memphis Made Brewing Co., whose tap room opened to the public on Friday, November 21st. And you know what? For a former drive-in freezer, they’ve made it pretty homey, complete with expanded bathrooms, custom metal furniture, and a gracious wood bar by craftsman Galen Woods.

“It’s like the Death Star in Return of the Jedi,” muses Memphis Made co-founder Andy Ashby. “We’re not quite completed yet, but we’re getting there.”

Memphis Made is known for its Lucid Kolsch ($6): a crisp, golden ale that is produced year-round. But in colder weather, it’s their seasonal offerings that really shine. Case in point: Fireside Ninja ($6). An American amber ale, it is deliciously malty, with notes of caramel and chocolate — just the thing to warm up with on a chilly fall night.

“I envision a ninja in a silk smoking jacket,” says co-founder Drew Barton, “lounging on a bearskin rug with a glass of cognac — in front of a roaring fire.

“We were definitely drinking when we came up with that,” he adds.

At first, the tap room will be open just one night per week: Fridays from 4 to 9 p.m. Ashby and Barton say they will expand as business allows. Food will be provided by Hot Mess Burritos food truck, as well as Aldo’s Pizza Pies, which will open a new location across the street in early 2015.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

Thanksgiving Upgrade: Try this Delicious Recipe from Chef Armando Gagliano

CREDIT: John Klyce Minervini

John Klyce Minervini

Ecco chef Armando Gagliano

Johnny Carson once said, “Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. We travel thousands of miles to be with people we only see once a year—and then discover that once a year is way too often.”

But hey, at least the food is good—right?

This year, upgrade your Thanksgiving dinner with a recipe from Ecco chef Armando Gagliano. On its face, it’s a creamy soup of butternut squash. But what sets this dish apart is the inclusion of Bartlett pears.

“I’ll admit, the combination is unusual,” says Gagliano. “But I think it works well together. You get the creamy, savory flavor of the squash and the sweetness of the pears. Garnish with a few toasted walnuts for an earthy crunch, and some micro-greens for a green, citrusy taste.”

Maybe you’re digging the soup, but don’t want to make it yourself? Starting next week, you can order it off the menu at Ecco ($7). Chef Gagliano recommends serving it with a whole roasted chicken and a glass of viognier. Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Armando Gagliano’s Butternut Squash Bisque
90 minutes
5 servings

Ingredients

3 medium butternut squashes, halved and seeded
1 bartlett pear, slightly underripe, peeled and seeded
1 cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 cup toasted walnuts
micro greens or parsley

Preheat oven to 450. Fill the bottom of a baking dish with a small amount (½ inch) of water. Roast squashes in baking dish for 45 minutes – 1 hour, until tender when poked with a fork. Meanwhile, in a pot, combine sugar with 8 cups water and bring to boil. Poach pear for 20 minutes in boiling water.

Allow squashes to cool slightly, then scoop out the flesh, discarding the skins. In a large pot, combine squashes, pear, and cream. Add spices and stir to combine. Puree in a blender. Return to pot and heat through. Add salt and pepper to taste. Garnish with toasted walnuts and micro greens. Serve immediately.

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Food & Drink Hungry Memphis

In Memphis this Weekend: Acclaimed Cookbook Author Eugenia Bone

Bone will sign copies of her new book tonight at The Booksellers.

Eugenia Bone grew up around food—and we’re not talking Kraft Mac and Cheese. Her father, Edward Giobbi, is a renowned artist and cookbook author in New York who kept company with the likes of Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey, and Jacques Pépins.

(How’s that for an intimidating potluck? I’ll bring the wine, thanks.)

Bone herself is no slouch. The author of five critically-acclaimed cookbooks, she has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Saveur, Food & Wine, Gourmet, and Martha Stewart Living. She says her early exposure to haute cuisine helped her develop a discerning palate and an inquenchable curiosity in the kitchen.

Not to mention, she’s goshdarn funny.

Bone’s new book is called The Kitchen Ecosystem. It’s full of recipes that play well together while making the most of what’s in the cupboard. Take carrots: no longer just for dipping in hummus! In Bone’s world, carrots appear in dishes as diverse as veal stew and pasta genovese. Heck, you can even make a delicious green pesto with the carrot tops!

Wanna see for yourself? Over the weekend, Bone has three events in Memphis:


The Flyer recently caught up with Bone to talk about little white lies, beet water, and the wrong way to cook mussels.


Flyer: What was it like growing up around chefs?

Bone: Being someone who loves to eat, it was fabulous. I would get these wonderful jobs like, go and get Pierre some parsley out of the garden, or keep an eye on the fried white bait for Jacques. I was like a little kitchen maid for these guys.

Do you remember the first time you cooked something?

I do actually. I was maybe 8 years old, and we used to summer in Provincetown. And when the tide would go out, there were a bunch of rocks that had mussels growing on them. So I hatched this plan that I was gonna dig a hole and build a fire in it, and that way I was gonna cook the mussels. But I had a problem getting matches.

Surely that didn’t stop you.

(Laughs) No. What I did was, I went to the hotel on the beach. I told them my mother smoked cigarettes—which she didn’t—and that she needed matches. And it worked! So my first cooking experience was aligned with an early lie.

How did it turn out?

OK, so I got the matches, lit the fire, threw the mussels in. And it was tough, because my sister and brother kept trying to kick sand on the fire. But the mussels did eventually cook, and as I recall, they were very, very sandy. It taught me an important lesson about always washing shellfish before you cook it.

Where did you get the idea for this new book?

Many years ago, I wrote a book called At Mesa’s Edge. And my friend threw a party where she invited all these people to try making my recipes. Kind of a potluck. And the dishes were good—but secretly I was a little disappointed, because their versions weren’t as flavorful as what I was making at home. They just weren’t as punchy.

What was going on?

A couple of phone calls later, I figured it out. Whereas I was using home-made chicken stock in a recipe, they were using store-bought. Whereas I was using home-made mayonnaise, they were using Hellman’s. And that’s where I got the idea of a kitchen as an ecosystem.

An ecosystem? What do you mean?

Just like in nature, the health of any ecosystem is dependent on the health of its individual components. In the kitchen, that means your ingredients. The better each ingredient is—the more home-made, the more regional and fresh—the more delicious these recipes are going to turn out. The book is mainly about helping people make better ingredients, and doing it in a way that fits with their lives.

What is one way you can improve the health of your kitchen ecosystem today?

Look at what you buy the most often. If you frequently buy chicken broth, that means you use a lot of chicken broth. If you replace something that you frequently buy with a version that’s fresher or home-made, then your food will taste better. That’s really it.

What if I told you I don’t have time to make chicken stock?

I’d say, just make it while you’re making dinner! Turn on one more burner on the stove. Chuck some chicken bones in a pot with a little of this and a little of that—a carrot, a piece of celery. It could even be just water and half a lemon. And let it simmer while you finish cooking and eating. Done. Two pints of chicken stock.

I’ve heard you’re supposed to roast the chicken bones a second time before you use them to make stock. Supposedly it bumps up the flavor. What do you think?

Why would you make it more complicated than it has to be? I figure, no matter what you do, it’s still gonna be better than what you buy in the grocery. To me, it is more important to go ahead and do it, rather following a bunch of complicated rules that are going to keep you from ever getting started in the first place.

What’s one creative reuse for a food scrap that you’re particularly proud of?

You know when you boil beets? And the water gets all ruby-red and aromatic? So I’m staring down at this beet water, and I’m thinking, you know, this stuff has got a ton of flavor in it. So what the hell can I do with it?

Ha! Got me. What on earth do you do with beet water?

Well, first I tried it as a warm drink. And it was OK, but it was a little too health-foody for me. Then I tried it with vodka, which was really vile. But then I made granita with it. That’s like an Italian ice that you would serve after dinner. And it was delicious! And this is beet water that otherwise would have been poured down the drain.