I woke up this morning feeling bloated – you know – as though I had consumed too much salt, too much wine and too much rich food.  I resolved to avoid eating too much today, because I knew it would feel good.  However, I also knew I had another exciting day ahead of me with seminars from Todd English, David Chang, Laurent Tourondel and Jean Jorge Vongerichten, so I bucked up and made my way to the Conde Nast building.

My morning began with a seminar on Eggs with Todd English.  Eagerly, I arrived early, secured a seat in the first row, took out my camera and – to my horror — realized that I left the memory card back in my hotel room.  Not willing to give up my seat or miss any of his presentation, I resigned myself to miss out on the photo opportunities and enjoy his presentation.

I have always had a strange relationship with eggs.  They are critical for baking (which I enjoy doing).  I love homemade mayonnaise and hollandaise sauces, omelets and many other egg-dishes, yet when planning a menu, eggs are never the first thing that comes to my mind.  

When we got started, Todd had a giant egg frying slowly on the stove, and egg larger than any I had ever seen before.  Quite funny and charming, Todd joked about the earliness of the hour (9:00am), which is not often a time when chefs are awake.  He told us how he grew up in Texas, and when he told his father he wanted to be a chef, his father said, “Boy, ain’t that for sissies?  Barbeque, now that I can understand.”  

Kicking myself for leaving my memory card in the hotel, I gazed at the variety of different eggs on display in front of the demonstration table.  There were chicken eggs, duck eggs, quail eggs, and the monstrous beast that we saw frying away – an Ostrich egg.  

Did you know that one ostrich egg equals 24 chicken eggs?  I didn’t!

We started with traditional omelets – except that he prepared them differently from any method I had ever seen before.  He held clarified butter in a pan on the side and poured some into a non-stick skillet at a medium (not scorching) temperature.   A woman from the audience came up and whipped the eggs (he added a touch of water and had her use a fork).  He added the egg mixture to the semi-cool pan and folded the eggs into the center.  In truth, it looked more like he was making scrambled eggs than an omelet.  Yet, just as the eggs began to set up, he slid them to the edge of the pan, added shredded cheese in the middle, and rolled them onto a plate.  He then took a clean towel and shaped the omelet into an oblong shape, slit them down the middle with a pairing knife and added lobster, crab and topped it with caviar.  It looked decadent and delicious and definitely resembled an omelet.

Next he made hollandaise by melting butter in a sauce pan, adding two duck eggs and a chicken yolk to a blender, orange juice and while running, slowly adding the melted butter into the egg mixture.  It looked beautiful.
For the following course Todd made poached duck eggs – but he slow poached them in 140 degree water for an hour – they were magnificent.  It made my little 8-minute egg poaching contraption seem pedestrian in comparison.  

Todd used this funny gadget to cut perfect circles in the top of the eggs.  It worked beautifully with the duck eggs – but the chicken eggs all smashed each time he tried it.  While funny and completely embarrassing for him, it only confirmed to me that mass produced eggs are not as healthy as fresh, local organic ones.  When I buy eggs from my local farm, the shells are hard to crack.  They take work to break open. The yolks are a brilliant yellow, not pale like the supermarket variety.  It’s different.

Todd told us the story of how his Massachusetts restaurant would get egged every year on Halloween.  Well one year, he decided he wasn’t going to stand for it, so he had his team stock up on eggs by the crate.  When the kids came around and began throwing eggs at his windows, his entire staff went out and pelted these kids.  It was all-on egg warfare!  

He also took those cute little French egg cups and placed the hollowed out egg shells in them, then prepared pastry custard that he combined with a poached duck egg and topped with cream, smoked salmon and caviar – YUM!!!

Before the session was through, he made a giant deviled egg with one of the ostrich eggs and gigantic Eggs Benedict with the other (hence the slow fry).

I quickly ran back to my hotel room when the session ended, grabbed my memory card and came back for my next seminar with David Chang.

Let me first say that David Chang has a true gift.  He can take the simplest things and make magic with them.  He is an incredibly talented chef.  I am in awe of him.  With that said, he is the coolest, most normal, down-to-earth guy.  His entire session focused on Dashi – a subject I am most interested in.

Now, I will apologize in advance for misspelling many of these Japanese words – so bear with me…

David first talked about Katsuabushi, which is a fillet of petrified skipjack tuna that takes two years to cure.  He broke one open and it looked like Amber.  In Japan, people have them at home and shave them into a box to use only what they need.  In the US, we have only the really low-quality fish flakes that are sold in Asian markets to work with.







He prepared a Tade next.  A Tade is a Japanese barbeque sauce made from soy sauce, mirin, sugar, sake and stock from roasted chicken bones.  He cooked it down to syrup.  David took to knife steels that he made good and hot on a burner for about 45 min and put them into the Tade to impart a smoky flavor to the sauce.  He told us how he learned this when working in Japan. 







Then he proceeded to make the fish dashi.  He steeped the Katsuabushi like a tea, and then strained it with cheesecloth and a chinois.  He added cockles and made the most fantastic soup…  It tasted clean, fresh and salty like the essence of the sea itself.




Then he talked about finding a Pork purveyor in Tennessee that made an intensely smoky pork belly.  He told us of how he decided to make a dashi from this smoky pork and proceeded to show us all the same steps – only instead of fish flakes, we used pork belly.   He skimmed it, like a stock and talked about using it as a braising liquid for other things.  He served it as a soup with slices of ham.





Next he took a pork belly that he cured himself with sugar and salt and charred the hell out of it on an open fire.  He scraped the char off of it and served it in a fish dashi – it was the most amazing thing I have ever tasted.   David’s magic is in taking something so simple and making it into pure deliciousness.







When the seminar ended, Ruth Reichl came by to taste the pork belly soup and even Ruth raved about it.







During the lunch break, I asked Todd English and Grant Achaz to sign my copies of their books, and then wandered around to explore the sponsor pavilion again.

I tasted a delicious Chablis-style chardonnay from Foris.  The chef from the Greek travel and tourism board talked to me about how he makes his lamb, which is oven-poached at 400 degrees for about 40 minutes, then finished in a salamander.  That lamb was so tender, it fell apart when I put my fork to it.






I spent some time talking with the woman representing Switzerland.  She had a lovely Swiss cheese and this fantastic nut cake that I couldn’t stop eating.  The cake is and Engadine specialty made like a shortbread and praline sandwich with chopped nuts inside.  It was really yummy.






I lingered and talked to many people there (some I look forward to keeping in touch with) and suddenly noticed that it was late, so I rushed up to my room to drop off my books and booked it back to Conde Nast.  When I arrived at the third seminar (Laurent Tourondel), they had just opened the doors to let people in.  The line started to roll in and I walked up to the door to make sure I was at the right room when someone said “excuse me; the end of the line is back there.”  Another woman, one I spoke to the evening before, said “just because you are from New York, there is no reason to be rude!”   

Taken aback, I just looked at her dumbfounded.  I had no intention of cutting the line; I just wanted to make sure I was going to the right room.  So, when it was my turn to enter, I shuffled in (about four rows back) and sat down – right next to the first woman that made the comment.  After a few moments of talking, she turned out to be rather nice, so I forgot about it, but the other woman, the second commentator, continued to behave rudely toward me.

One the other side of me sat a delightful woman whom also attended for the past three years.  She and I chit-chatted a bit before Laurent began.  Laurent basically decided to make two recipes:  the first was garlic bread.  He took really good bread and created slits in the tops, pureed some butter with parsley and herbs, much like you would make classic escargot butter.  Then he smeared the butter into the bread and warmed it in the oven.  The results were quite delicious.







Next, Laurent prepared a parsnip and duck comfit risotto. He began with a basic parsnip puree (of course it had cream and butter in it).  Then he started the risotto.  We watched him make the risotto using classic techniques until it was nearly finished – then he took some of the parsnip puree and added it directly to the risotto, then he finished it with a splash of white wine.  In a separate pan, he had a pan with slices of parsnip sautéing in butter.  As he worked, the staff handed out samples of his “pigs in a blanket.”








While tasty, the delightful woman to my left began to choke.  I feared for her and really did not know how to help her.  After a few moments, she recovered on her own, but I was quite frightened for her sake.  

Back to the risotto: Laurent took the shredded duck and sautéed it, just to warm and brown it, and then he plated it all together.  The staff brought around samples for each of us to try but Chef wanted us to taste what he-himself prepared, so he walked around serving everyone from his pot.







Let me tell you – the difference between the staff-passed risotto and his risotto was tremendous. Theirs tasted like risotto al dente.  His was creamy with a lovely sweetness and a subtle, but pronounced flavor of parsnip.  It was wonderful.  The sliced parsnip tasted as though they were coated in sugar and caramelized.  However, because they are in season, their natural sweetness shone through. 

Before we left, he gave us little samples bags with Madelines (YUM! I know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow).







For my final seminar, I watched in sheer amazement as Jean Jorge addressed raw ingredients.  Now, I consider myself fairly educated when it comes to food, but this man spoke new languages of food… well above my skill sets.  I had fun watching him turn fresh fish and meat into signature masterpiece art.

First, he made a cerviche from a range of Thai flavors – lime leaves, tapioca, coconut milk and juice, Asian pear,  chili oil — oh, and sushi-grade tuna.   Each ingredient popped, creating a symphony of flavors on my palette.





Jean Jorge brought his son to be sous chef – his son works at the restaurant and is clearly following in his footsteps).



Next, he made an Arctic Char sashimi draped in trout eggs, lemon foam and horseradish… it was so beautiful… like a work of modern art.






The following dish was really remarkable.  It was a kampachi sashimi with cherry vinaigrette and shaved candied pecans.





Our “main” course in this fantastic tasting menu was a hand-cut beef tartar with Gruyere sticks.



His finale reminded me of a dish that Lydie Marshall taught me – it is a simple brunoise of fresh vegetables steeped in a flavorful broth.  He began the broth as chicken stock, added a mirapoix, and brought it to a simmer, then strained it.  


This soup featured clean, delicious flavors.  Chock full of vitamins and minerals, the soup seeped into my weary and over-indulged body as I drank it.  My body screamed for this soup.  Drinking it felt really nourishing and good.



Jean Jorge was most gracious as he signed my book when the lecture ended.  

As I drove home, I reflected back on all I learned this weekend.  I really enjoyed this experience, as I do every year. I have an opportunity to meet with so many culinary leaders and watch them create such fantastic things.  I always walk away learning so much more about food and thinking about food differently afterward.

At the same time, I became acutely aware that I ate more food in three days that I normally do in two weeks.  The closer I came to home, the more I wanted to curl up in bed with an aspirin and a great cup of tea.  I think I will go back to salads, chicken soup and the gym this week.