When dining is both vocation and avocation, life can be very good. When your spouse would rather – well, most of the time — visit a farmers’ market than a shoe store, it’s a start on an excellent relationship. There are many kindred spirits out there, and they tend to congregate. It can be an excellent way to spend time.
For example, it can provide a dinner laughingly called "duck, duck, goose," that included an array of appetizers that boggled the taste buds, duck soup, foie gras in chunks as large as a "short stack" from your favorite 24-hour diner, duck cassoulet with white beans and duck sausage, roasted goose with braised chestnuts and celery root puree, and profiterolles with ice cream and dark chocolate sauce. A large handful of fine French and California wines came alongside.
We have been fortunate enough to hang with a group of friendly people who truly enjoy eating good food and drinking good wine – and talking about it. A group of us gets together every couple of months. We plan a menu, usually with a seasonal or historical or gastronomical theme, bring appropriate wines, find a date that satisfies most of us. We usually have 10-14 people, and we have had the benefit of one of the city’s best chefs, Mark Felix, to help plan the meal, do the cooking and talk about it. Not a lecture, mind you, but just hanging near the stove, asking him why he used this or that ingredient, what its purpose is. Things like that.
Ann and I have followed Marc Felix practically since he became the chef at Faust’s, in the Adam’s Mark Hotel. We ate his meals, worked with him on a couple of dinners. When he opened Red Moon, a downtown beacon, we wrote about it and thought that his feat of combining his French skills with Asian philosophy, ingredients and styling was absolutely brilliant. We mourned when he left, but chefs have a streak of gypsy in their souls and they soar with the wind or the whim, spreading magic dust at new kitchens and leaving some behind when they move on. We knew we’d find him again.
Marc surfaced at Whole Foods, teaching and cooking , preparing magical dinners for small parties. We enjoyed a few of them, then found the informal group that we discussed above. I’m shy about joining groups, having lived for many years by the Groucho Marx maxim that any organization that would want me is obviously not an organization I’d like to join. Generations ago, in another life, I belonged to the Chaine des Rotisseurs along with Howard Nason, Millard Cohen and others, but that lapsed.
One of the group keeps the mailing list, and there are several dozen persons on it. A few dedicated souls rarely miss a meal. We attend about half of them; other obligations get in the way, and there are some months when the budget is not quite stretchable enough.
Felix is brilliant at the stove. Trained in France in some of the most rigorous kitchen disciplines, he also spent time in Asia, learning the specific skills and the peaceful philosophies of Eastern cuisine. Now, he combines American, European and Asian raw materials and cooking techniques in exciting ways.
With assistance from sous chef Elizabeth Ottolini, he created a half-dozen appetizers that could have been a meal in themselves, especially in combination with several splendid French Champagnes and sparking wines (by French law, only sparklers from the Champagne district can use the ‘C’ word; others, often as good, are restricted to the words, ‘sparkling wine’).
There were chunks of sauteed duck liver, brown on the outside, pink in the middle, and slices of duck breast, slightly more rare, cooked with some roasted brussels sprouts, delicate and delicious. Leeks had been cooked in duck consomme to heighten their flavor and richness, and shiitake mushrooms were sauteed. Poached pears offered a sweet contrast, and perfectly ripe blue cheese brought sharp, tangy flavor.
Duck soup might not have been as funny as the Marx Brothers movie, but we think it had even more flavor than Groucho’s jokes, which is no mean feat. The rich consomme bathed had morsels of fois gras and an array of finely diced vegetables, and a delicious puff pastry accompanied it.
By this time, an array of wines had been opened, including a 1995 Chateauneuf-de-Pape and a 1998 Hermitage, both perfectly ripe Rhone Valley examples of what lovely tastes come from the Syrah and Grenache grapes in lovely blends. Both were smooth and silky, but still filled with flavor.
Seared foie gras was next, served with tangy cranberry chutney and a potato-apple tart. Sumptous and rich, melting in the mouth, this was a great treat. Sweet wines, like a 1978 Chateau Rieussac Sauternes, are superb matches with foie gras, but some of the Rhone reds, plus a 2000 Cote Rotie, also were fine accompaniments.
The plethora of food and wine helped prove an old theory of ours – give us a fine dish and a fine bottle of wine and we’ll find a way to make them go together.
Duck cassoulet, braised with white beans and duck sausage to complement the confit-style duck legs, was topped with an herb crust. The dish was rich and tasty, and the French wines were joined by a splendid California offering, a 2004 Syrah froom Griffin’s Lair on the Sonoma coast.
And then the goose came out, on a giant platter where it was surrounded by celery root puree and braised chestnuts, a perfect combination. The smooth, white celery root took the place of potatoes, slightly bland, but just right to sop up the juices. The goose was tender and rich, slightly less so than the duck, and a couple of brilliant ‘02 California wines – a Joseph Phelps Insignia and a Raymond Generations – were elegant contributions to the evening, though diners kept sampling all the others, finding many ways to compare and contrast.
Thankfully, Felix did not test everyone’s limits with dessert. Petit choux pastries, light and airy, were filled with cream and drizzled with dark Valrhona chocolate sauce.
It was an elegant way to welcome the holiday season.
-Joe