Courtesy of Escobar Highland Farm

A Ahhh: the A – Z of The Year in Food in Review!

B The buzzwords this year were “bacon, bacon, bacon,” butchers, back-to-basics cooking, Balloon Boy Batali, Barefoot C. D. Bouley, D. Boulud and db Bistro Moderne. The Beer summit with O_bama sent bloggers a-blogging. Blight (as in tomato) and the Big Bee Buzz Off also made news. Bottled water fell in trickle down economy.

C New cheese course in restaurants resulted in food jobs for cave men. Terrance Brennan, Chef-Proprietor of Picholine Restaurant and Artisanal Bistro and Wine Bar was nominated as Le Grand Fromage. Cup cake sales surpassed Pop Tarts. Copia, Napa’s bankrupt center for wine, food and the arts, was in the soup after amassing $78 million in debt.

D Doughnut claims proved to be full of holes.

E Epstein (Jason) wrote Eating: A Memoir.

F What began as “sugar-free” morphed into “salt-free,” “calorie-free” and “cholesterol free.” ‘FREE for All’ became the brand new and improved marketing concept. Let Freedom Ring! “Farm to table” was considered a brand new concept though, admittedly, this is the way people have eaten since the beginning of time. (The cost of a home-grown tomato was estimated to be in the range of $100. Gardening also took up heaps of free time.)

G Gordon Ramsay swore innocence in alleged sex affair. Government legalized marijuana. Rumors suggested that the appointed leader of a new agency would be known as Mr. Pot Head. ‘Green’ was declared the only way to go for those who wanted to get in the pink.

H Hospitals began replacing the rules of hospitality; some treated themselves like ‘out patients.’ They opted for a diet of denial. Dem(ocrat)s preferred smoothies. Healthy cocktails became all the rage.

I I will launch my web version of the Great Food Almanac in the new year.

J In the movie, Julie (Powell) blogged but Julia (Child) mastered our hearts.

K Kellogg dropped immune-boosting claims for sugary cereal — sweet gesture. Kraft’s courtship of Cadbury was rejected. Chocolate lovers turned dark and bitter.

L Happy No ‘L’ to All!

M Michelle (Obama) planted a vegetable garden. Martha (Stewart) tried to dig out from a 3rd quarter $11.7 million debt. Mobile foods kept on trucking.

N NASA located ice on the moon; still searching for scotch on the rocks.

O Organic lost its charisma; “sustainable” was the newfound concept. Obits for Sheila Lukins (of the Silver Palate) and Café des Artistes were written. Gourmet (magazine) bit the dust. Tavern on the Green is now on life support, but soon will be resurrected.

P Po’ Boys were getting poorer. Petite sweets were big and getting bigger.

Q Q’s were forecast for health care reformers by grim death panels. Q’s were eliminated by self-serve check outs in supermarkets. Barbeques remained popular with Dads, who prowled their backyards with a beer and a spear.

R NRA (National Restaurant Association) pegged future profits to rising Tide. Many restaurants washed up, leaving line cooks out to dry. French Laundry Executive chef Thomas Keller ironed out his issues and revealed a softer side.

S This year we appointed two supreme judges: Sonia S(otomayor) and Sam S(ifton). One is a fed, the other is a foodie. Both were well grilled before taking their hot seats — one on the bench, the other on the banquette. Both thanked their lucky stars.

T T-baggers made a big splash. Tweeters’ ‘Rec.A.P’s got even shorter.

U U still here?

V tV Food Network cooked up only contests and conflicts that generate a stampede of students into culinary schools.

W Increased cooking school enrollment led to more cooks, less home cooking. WOW!

X XXX and XXXX designates grades of confectioners’ sugar that is dusted on Xmas cookies.

Y Yellow fins were sinking. Yellow tails are rising.

Z SEASONings EATings to all and to all a white knight! Zzzzzzz.. Tweet Tweet… The  Nd

Cordially,

Executive Chef Alfred Portale, Gotham Bar & Grill

There are those who invent clocks and others who tell the time. There are architects who design buildings and folks who paint them. There are artisans who make violins and artists who composers of concertos.

We tend to think of artistic creativity as springing from the minds of dancers and painters and musicians, but plumbers, electricians and vacuum cleaner engineers also invent novel solutions to problems. They are creative geniuses too.

We all know chefs who acquire or are endowed with exceptional ability. Some are intellectual giants. Some are blessed with intuitive talent.

If we tried to make a list of influential chefs, it would reach from Lucullus who drew his last breath in 56 B.C. and trace a glorious gastronomic path through the prism of Apicius who took his first breath in 25 B.C. We’d mention Taillevent 1310 – 1395, and Rabelais who tirelessly described sixty ways to cook an egg.

In his treatise Gargantua, Rabelais wrote, “Drink always and you shall never die,” though unfortunately he did — in 1553.

We’d add to our list, Catherine de’ Medici, who arrived from Italy as a tiny betrothed 14 year-old and became the Queen of France. She changed the culinary landscape by introducing the French court to truffles, Parmesan cheese, artichokes, quenelles, roast duckling with orange sauce and pasta — lots and lots of pasta.

It has been observed there wouldn’t have been a Renaissance without pasta, because hungry men growl, and with rumbling tummies, foment revolutions whereas the well-fed sing happy songs and bequeath everlasting beauty. With a bellyful of spaghetti, a person can contemplate creation itself.

It was Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher who lived from 341 B.C. to 270 B.C. who wisely declared, “The beginning and root of all good is to make the stomach happy; wisdom and learning are founded on that.”

By Gum! If only those old Greeks still ruled the world we would all be living in Paradise instead of dwelling in perpetual poverty.

Do you remember the dictum of King Henri IV, patron of that venerable inn, La Tour d’Argent? He pronounced his monarchy philosophy thusly, “If God allows me to live, and I will see that there is not a single laborer in my kingdom who does not have a chicken in his pot every Sunday.” And that pronouncement was made in the mid-1500s before the Colonel fried his very first KFC.

As we march through the menus of time we stumble across Colbert, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Minister of Finance who served the Sun King, Louis, 14th. He approved France’s purchase of Quebec and Louisiana even though according to writer Daniel Rogov, author of Rogues, Writers & Whores, Dining with the Rich & Famous, “he could see no way to convince the savages that inhabit those lands to buy our fashionable frocks.” However, Colbert did see the colonies as a source for enriching the French larder, (though the future presence of McDonald’s in the Musée du Louvre was surely not what he had in mind).

Parmentier was the person who persuaded Parisians to set aside their fear of potatoes. This feat of conversion from fear of crisp spuds prompted Chef Curnonsky’s description of French fries as being among “the most spiritual creations of Parisian genius.” The original French fries are thought to have been first consumed beneath the bridges of Paris during the French Revolution and were known as Pommes Pont-Neuf.

Thus we stride through the first stirrings of culinary creationism and evolve from Sauce Béarnaise to Green Goddess Dressing, from Poulet Demi Deuil with a fine Bordeaux to Chicken Nuggets with Diet Coke. We have traveled far and with increasing width from Sachertorte to Twinkies.

Each stage in the devolution of our culinary journey takes us to new heights: from the 17th century’s influence of La Varenne, we stride through gastronomy to honor: Brillat-Savarin, Marcel Boulestin, Antonin Carême, Choron, Dugléré, Nicolas Appert, (who invented canning), to Auguste Escoffier; Alain Chapel; Alain Ducasse and Alain Senderens to  Ferdinand Point; Guy Savoy and Gordon Ramsay; Chef Boyardee and Rachael Ray’s discovery of 365 ways to use leftover hot dogs.

We can all agree that Alfred Portale, a former jewelry designer and top of his class graduate of the CIA, is among the most inventive and highly acclaimed chefs of our time. As too are Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz, Heston Blumenthal, Thomas Keller and a host of others who have ascended into the exalted pantheon of kitchen deities.

What distinguishes these creamers of crops is their ability to think creatively: so not salt and predictable pepper but salt on caramel. Not those four seasons but twelve seasons in a year.

It is said: “No one is born with taste. Taste must be acquired not only by tasting but by learning and reading in dozens of disciplines and by experimenting and perfecting and making choices; choices about the right ingredients are of no greater or less importance than choosing the right words to describe your purpose.”

It is one thing to name an item on the menu fish eggs and astonishingly more profitable to whisper the word caviar. To say liver of a fat duck is less enticing than Fat Duck’s Foie (gras).  Or pâté rather than cold  meat loaf. Pommes frites go better with steak than Freedom Fries, a dish of revenge best served cold.

Robert F. Kennedy wrote, “Some dream of things that are and ask, Why? Others dream of things that never were and ask, Why not?” Nonconformists and risk takers possess the ability to paint toothache in fondant or describe the seductive smell of sizzling onions.

Creativity is a skill that can be developed. It is based on the fundamentals of technical knowledge and soaring imagination. Leonardo da Vinci had to understand the elements of anatomy in order to paint the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper; Picasso had to understand the fundamentals of art before creating his own cubistic artistry.

Every great chef starts to climb the ladder of stardom only after fully understanding the pure ecstasy of a well-constructed consommé. It is this grasp of complex simplicity that separates the sous from the celeb.

It takes a certain kind of intellect to think of serving a beefsteak tomato with a steak knife. To say “I love!” in a different way.

To invent a new dish is to pay homage to all who cooked before us and all the consumers who declared the chef to be an artist.

Money is tight these days. Yet scholarships for culinary school can be found. It takes digging and perseverance. A scholarship or grant may be waiting for you right now. But no one is going to hand it to you. Unless you ask for it, you have virtually no hope of grabbing it.

“Concentrate on researching the organization that offers or administers the kind of scholarship you want,” advises Dan Traster, former academic director of culinary arts at The Art Institute of Washington in Arlington, VA. “For instance, the National Restaurant Association promotes the entire restaurant industry, and does so by considering applicants who want to be managers, dieticians and marketers as well as cooks and pastry chefs.”

I know this is true as I’ve written many, many reference letters for students seeking additional scholarships and grants while they were still in school. It may seem obvious but it bears repeating: when you apply for scholarships:

• Read the fine print. It is important to show you are really serious about continuing to stay or switching to the culinary field, won’t change your mind and drop out if you find the work too hard or if it fails to live up to your expectations. Don’t waste your time applying for a scholarship for high school grads when you already have a bachelor’s degree.
• Check the scholarship deadlines for applications and allow plenty of time to meet them.
• Look at more than one school and study their scholarships and grant programs carefully. Ask what kinds of scholarships they offer; how many are available, and what you have to do to get one.
• Follow the instructions on the application form carefully, and answer every question. Reviewers say many applicants are refused simply because the applicants left some questions blank.
• Be realistic. If you are asked to write an essay  describing your goals, it is best to say that you are starting out and hope to find a job as a line cook in a restaurant rather than suggest that you want to start your career as a consultant Chef Thomas Keller or Emeril Lagasse.

“In other words,” says Traster, “focus on an achievable goal and explain how the scholarship will help you to meet the goal.”

You may want to go to Italy to study food of a specific region.  That is a reasonable and understandable purpose and there are organizations that offer scholarships for just such a purpose. You may receive a grant that will give you enough funds to stay alive while working as an unpaid intern in a food television show or segment.

Scholarships are available but you have to work hard to get your hands on the big prize money. Grants and scholarships have recently been offered by these culinary organizations:

• Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) is a national school-to-career program with eight locations that links public high schools to the foodservice industry. Through its Cooking Competitions for Scholarships program, C-CAP has awarded $13 million in post-secondary school scholarships.
• The Culinary Institute of America (CIA) awards more than $1.1 million through 769 scholarships at its main campus in Hyde Park, NY and its two campuses in St. Helena, CA and San Antonio, TX. Recipients of the “Cream of the Crop” scholarships are selected based upon their leadership skills and academic record; earning $5,000 renewable for each year of study at the CIA, provided they maintain at least a 3.2 GPA.
• National Restaurant Association (NRA) awards scholarships totaling $5 million.
• Culinary School of the Rockies in Boulder, CO offers one $5,000 tuition-credit scholarship for a pre-enrolled student or career professional toward its 6-months Diploma of Culinary Arts in addition to suggesting scholarship information from a number of culinary associations.
• The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) in New York City
• International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) awards 21 scholarships ranging from $4,000 in tuition credit to full tuition at culinary schools worldwide. The IACP Culinary Trust also assists food writers who need help covering travel and research expenses.
• Le Cordon Bleu offers scholarships at its 29 international locations across five continents.
• The French Culinary Institute in New York City.
• L’Academie de Cusine offers scholarships in its Gaithersburg, MD location.
• New England Culinary Institute in Montpelier, VT.
• Kendall College offers scholarships in its Chicago, IL location.
• American Culinary Federation’s American Academy of Chefs.
• Johnson & Wales University (JWU) offers a variety of scholarships at its four campuses in Providence, RI, North Miami, FL, Denver, CO and Charlotte, NC.
• American Dietetic Association offers scholarships.
• American Institute of Wine & Food.
• International Foodservice Editorial Council (IFEC) provides funds to students interested in culinary marketing, public relations and food writing.
• Sullivan University offers scholarships at its Louisville, KY location.
• International Food Service Executives Association.
• Women Chefs & Restaurateurs.
• Culinary Trusts’s Julia Child Endowment Scholarship.
• The eGullet Society for Culinary Arts & Letters offers scholarships.
• The Charlie Trotter Culinary Education Foundation awards scholarships to individuals seeking careers in the culinary arts who otherwise would not have the means to pursue their dreams. Through his foundation, Chef Trotter (http://www.charlietrotters.com/about) has donated over 30 Guest Chef-for-a-Day certificates each month for the past 10 years and awarded over $150,000 in scholarships.