And should you care to read the article Ruth wrote about school food in 1978 for New West magazine, there’s a copy in this Dec. 2021 edition of Ruth’s Substack newsletter La Briffe. Alos, find the story Laurie mentions by Jenn Harris on Los Angeles schools trying to introduce items like kung pao chicken and “walking tacos” for kids at 1,000 different schools here or at latimes.com/food.

La Briffe

Is There Life After Lunch?

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4 years ago · 19 likes · 6 comments · Ruth Reichl

And they are…

Nada

Midnight Diner

The Restaurant

and of course, The Bear

Pancakes Rule

From Ruth:

A cooking site recently published a recipe for “everyday pancakes.”

I am here to say that there is nothing “everyday” about pancakes. Their entire purpose in life is to prove that a few simple ingredients can become absolutely extraordinary.  They exist to wake you up, make you happy and send you into the world with hope in your heart.  That’s a tall order for a little cake, and it cannot be achieved by stinting.  The minute you start worrying that they are too rich, you’ve defeated the whole purpose of pancakes. 

The magic is not for the eater alone.  There is magic in their chemistry, and the cook gets to watch as a simple mixture of butter, flour, eggs, and milk puffs itself up and transforms itself into sassy little cakes. 

The speed of the transformation always astonishes me. I stand, mesmerized, watching bubbles form, watching edges crisp, savoring the drama of the flip and the generosity of the scent that surrounds me. There may be a better way to start the day; I haven’t found it. 

If your pancakes aren’t this much fun, it’s time for a change. My favorite basic pancake recipe is so delicious you could easily forego the syrup. But what I love most about them is that, unlike most pancakes, they respect syrup and do not behave like floppy sponges. Whatever recipe you use, however, it will be better if you remember the Better Pancake Rules.

The first rule of pancakes: Don’t use a mix. Let me repeat that: Don’t use a mix. It saves no time, it tastes no good - and it costs more money.

2. Don’t even think about using inferior maple syrup. A good pancake deserves the very best.

3. Don’t skimp. I know my recipe has a lot of butter, but where pancakes are concerned, more is always more. 

4. You can put anything you want into your pancakes. Blueberries, chocolate chips, pumpkin puree... use your imagination. But when pancakes are this good, you probably won’t want to.

Here’s my basic recipe.  I’ve made this so often that I can pull it together in under a minute. After you’ve done it a few times you’ll be able to do that too. This is not diet food, but I promise that these pancakes will make your family very, very happy.  

Ruth’s Pancakes

1 stick butter
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt

Melt the butter in a heavy skillet and allow to cool a bit.

Whisk together the milk, eggs and vegetable oil, then add the butter. Put the buttery skillet back on the burner, ready for the pancakes. 

Whisk the flour with the baking powder, sugar and salt.  Whisk the mix mixture in until its combined.  Add a bit more milk if you think it’s too thick. 

Pour some batter into the skillet. The size is up to you; sometimes I make them tiny for children, sometimes I make them ludicrously large. Watch as the bubbles appear in the batter, grow larger, and then pop and vanish.  When they’ve all popped, carefully flip the pancake and cook the other side.  

Rush the pancakes to the table as each one is finished. You want them hot, sweet, salty and a little bit crisp. You want the memory to linger with your family as they move through their day. 

(The batter will keep in the refrigerator for a couple of days; you will probably have to thin it out with a bit more milk before using.)

More for subscribers …

Look for a bonus “Three Ingredients” mini-episode in the days ahead and more from Ruth, Nancy and Laurie, including Nancy’s recipe for perfect grilled cheese and Ruth’s recipe for what we like to call Robert’s Cheese Toast.

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At last, dear subscribers … the promised recipes….

In Episode 7 of “Three Ingredients,” we talked about Nancy’s struggles and eventual triumph in creating the perfect carrot cake. Her secret ingredient? …. Well, carrots. And no canned pineapple. Read on for Nancy’s introduction to the recipe from her most recent book, The Cookie That Changed My Life, and the recipe itself. We’re also including Nancy’s recipe for sbrisolona, the crumbly cookie we discussed in Episode 8, “Is This the World’s Strangest Breakfast.”

CARROT CAKE WITH BROWN BUTTER CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

From The Cookie That Changed My Life by Nancy Silverton

Everyone likes to put their spin on carrot cake, but at their essence, all carrot cakes are created equal. There are a few variables: nuts or no nuts? And, if nuts, walnuts or pecans? Raisins or no raisins? And what combination of spices? But the basic batter, right down to the addition of canned pineapple, remains the same. I’ve been making carrot cake since the 1970s, and each time I include it in a cookbook, I have the urge to change it. With this version, I wanted to eliminate the canned pineapple, which seems so out of place in this pseudohealthy, hippieish cake. I threw the challenge out to the pastry department to see if anyone had any ideas as to what to replace it with. Diana Leal, a quiet, shy cook in the pastry kitchen, piped up and said she'd just tried a carrot cake that contained roasted carrot puree. What a great idea! I tried it and found that indeed the carrot puree added the moisture and sweetness that canned pineapple did, and also added carrot flavor. Finally, a carrot cake where a hint of carrot flavor shone through.

There's no better match for a carrot cake than cream cheese frosting, but this updated version, made with brown butter, takes the frosting to the next level. You need to use Philadelphia brand cream cheese (or something similar) for the frosting, one that comes in a block, wrapped in foil, not an artisanal product that comes in a tub or from a cheese shop. I'm sure those are delicious, but they won't give the frosting the right consistency.

Makes one 8-inch Bundt cake.

What You Need-The Essential Special Equipment
Cooking spray
6-cup Bundt pan (I used a Nordic Ware Heritage Bundt Pan)

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So would you eat an armadillo?

Armadillos are native to the Americas; their closest relatives are sloths and anteaters. They are traditionally eaten in much of Central and South America, and they are especially prized in Oaxacan cuisine. 

They sleep 16 hours a day, always have four babies at a time — and are considered terrible pests in parts of Texas because they tear up gardens and lawns while hunting for worms. You can find a few fun facts here.

How about a pangolin?

Pangolins might resemble armadillos, but they’re actually more closely related to dogs and cats, and their closest relative is the mongoose. These gentle creatures are the world’s most-trafficked animals (after humans). They are prized in Asia both for their meat and their scales which are thought to have medicinal qualities. Here is a link to an organization dedicated to saving the pangolin; after reading it Ruth is ashamed that she ever ate one.

But, while we have you, this is Ruth in Taishan, in the kitchen that prepared the pangolin.

And since we talk about the late, great, Cecilia Chiang, here’s a link to Soul of a Banquet, the extraordinary film director Wayne Wang made about the woman who introduced high-end Chinese cuisine to America.

A guinea pig perhaps?

Cuy is one of the staple foods of Peru. Here’s an article about it, but fair warning; the pictures are not for the faint of heart.

Laurie references the herb huacatay, a strong, aromatic member of the marigold family known as Peruvian black mint. She also mentions the article she wrote from Peru about the chef Virgilio Martinez, who leads the restaurant MIL and the research center Mater Projects in the Sacred Valley along with the Lima restaurant Central, which was ranked No. 1 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. You can read the article here.

We discuss the classic book by Calvin Schwabe, Unmentionable Cuisine, a fine addition to any food-lover’s library. Irene Virbila wrote a wonderful article about it here.

How about lobster?

Before you answer that question, you might want to read the article David Foster Wallace wrote on the subject for Gourmet Magazine. You can find it here.

Geoducks anyone?

The first time she heard of the existence of clams that grow to 15 pounds Ruth was 18 years old, and she was convinced it was a hoax. From her Manhattan perspective it was impossible to think of an enormous clam as anything but a joke. The name made it seem even more absurd: Gooeyduck?

But geoducks are no joke. Native to the Pacific Northwest, they are among the stranger beasts of the world. And also among the most delicious. If you’ve ever had “giant clam” in a sushi bar, you’ve tasted geoduck. It is the essence of clam — briny, mild, crisp, crunchy.

For an adventurous cook, nothing would be cooler than to open up a package and find a giant clam. You can buy them here. Now what do you do? Slice that long neck into sushi and make the fat belly into an awesome chowder. If you want to know how to deal with this giant mollusk, here’s an instructional video from Andrew Zimmern.

SHOW NOTES

Oops, I dropped …

If you listened to Episode 2 of “Three Ingredients,” you heard us talking a bit about Michelin three-star chef Massimo Bottura, whose Modena restaurant Osteria Francescana was twice named the No. 1 restaurant on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Ruth was about to interview Massimo and his wife, Lara Gilmore, about their new book “Slow Food Fast Cars,” with recipes, stories and gorgeous photos about the food, art, design and people behind their playful and luxurious guest house Casa Maria Luigia outside of Modena. In this episode, Ruth tells us about the talk and the three of us exchange notes about our visits to Casa Maria Luigia.

One of the delights of visiting Casa Maria Luigia is wandering around the property and viewing the art collected by Lara and Massimo, who finds inspiration for his cooking in the works of artists. Consider what he told Ruth about a dish of oysters and potatoes served beneath sheets of gold leaf as she tells it in this story of her first Osteria Francescana meal: “My mind is mixing Piero della Francesca — beautiful gold leaves — and Pistoletto seven hundred years later. But I’m also thinking of stainless steel in the sixties, and how people use tin foil.”

A key piece we discuss in the episode is the triptych by Ai Weiwei called “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (Lego).” It dominates the living room of the guest house and, as Laurie wrote in the L.A. Times last summer, it’s a kind of statement of purpose for Massimo. He is, after all, a chef who loves to break things and put them back together in his own way.

Massimo’s most famous reconstructed “broken” dish is the dessert Oops, I Dropped the Lemon Tart.

As Nancy shares in this episode, the dessert inspired a brilliant save when she and her partner Michael Krikorian were bringing a vintage model Ferrari Formula 1 to Massimo as a gift. Before they could give the model car to Massimo the bag dropped, breaking the Ferrari into pieces. Rather than throw out the pieces, Nancy had another idea. Michael, who tells the full story on his website Krikorian Writes, enlisted the help of a Casa Maria Luigia server and hid the broken car under a cloche on a dinner plate. When Massimo lifted the cloche, Michael said, “Oops, I dropped the Ferrari!”

Massimo’s break-it-and-put-it-back-together philosophy appeared again when Nancy and Laurie had lunch at Osteria Francescana this past summer and experienced his latest menu called “We Are Here,” “reinterpreting,” as the restaurant puts it, “a selection of iconoclastic dishes of Osteria Francescana, bringing the best of the past into the future.”

Here’s a look at “Tortellini or Dumplings,” Massimo’s update to his now-classic “Tortellini Walking Into Broth,” which the chef told us was “the most scandalous, outrageous dish we did in the ’90s.” That’s because instead of a bowlful of tortellini this dish had just six perfect tortellini. (Most Italians are used to ten tortellini to the spoonful, our friend and writer Faith Willinger said in the Massimo episode of “Chef’s Table.”) In his newest incarnation, five tortellini, looking a bit like cloves of garlic, might be mistaken at first for Asian dumplings. But when you take a bite, you taste the pure essence of tortellini.

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Now, about that breakfast …

Sausage on a cookie with zabaglione? Sounds improbable. But Ruth and Nancy both have had and loved the Massimo Bottura dish — as dessert in New York when the chef was in town for his talk with Ruth at the 92nd Street Y and as breakfast at Casa Maria Luigia.

The sausage is cotechino, which you can buy from most good Italian food shops (like Eataly). Should you be ambitious enough to want to make your own, here’s a recipe from Lidia Bastianich. The cookie is sbrisolona, which means crumble cake. We have two sbrisolona recipes for our paying subscribers in a separate post, one from Massimo and Lara’s book and one from Nancy.

We also have a discussion about open kitchens in restaurants, including Nancy’s experiences cooking before an audience of diners at Spago and her own mozzarella bar at Mozza, as well as the time Laurie first realized the kitchen watches back.

Plus, do you plate your takeout food or eat it right out of the container? Laurie, Nancy and Ruth have three different answers to this question.

Then Ruth and Nancy go head to head on Basque cheesecake recipes — Nancy’s favorite method from Pasjoli chef Dave Beran is a bit more complicated than Ruth’s stir-and-bake technique — and Laurie tries to keep the peace. 

Next, we turn to a classic dessert — carrot cake. It’s one of the baking favorites that Nancy tried to perfect in her new cookbook “The Cookie That Changed My Life.” Her recipe may change the way you make carrot cake. Is it revolutionary? It’s certainly not the usual recipe. Paying subscribers to “Three Ingredients” will soon get a copy of the recipe sent to their inboxes. But even if you’re just here to listen, we’ve got a delicious conversation for you.

Ruth Reichl is author of the Substack newsletter La Briffe and 11 books, including “The Paris Novel,” which publishes in April. She was editor in chief of Gourmet Magazine and the restaurant critic of the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Nancy Silverton leads the Mozza Restaurant Group and is author of nine cookbooks. Laurie Ochoa is general manager of L.A. Times Food and one of the writers of the paper’s Tasting Notes newsletter. She was executive editor of Gourmet when Ruth led the magazine, editor in chief of the L.A. Weekly and co-author of “Nancy Silverton’s Breads from the La Brea Bakery.” For more about “Three Ingredients,” see our Welcome Page.

And if you like what you hear, join us at threeingredients.substack.com where we have bonus episodes and lots of extra material. With this episode, we’re sharing revelations about our own styles of party hosting, including photos, plus tips on party giving and the source of that fabulous tablecloth Ruth talks about.

The great little food shops we talk about in this episode

1. Talbott and Arding, where Ruth does a lot of shopping. 202 Allen Street, Hudson New York

2. We Got Nuts, Nancy’s online source for Antep Turkish pistachios. She buys them by the five-pound bag.

3. Breadfolks, the Hudson bakery Nancy asks Ruth about, was opened by celebrity portrait photographer Norman Jean Roy and his artist wife Joanna Jean Roy. Ruth says they did “the greatest” laminated pastries. When they closed the bakery in 2022, there was talk of the couple creating a wholesale operation and bread book, although at the moment both seem to be busy pursuing their photography and art. Meanwhile, Mel The Bakery has taken over the space that Bread Folks once occupied. Their bread is great. 324 Warren Street, Hudson New York

4. Garni Meat Market
   1715 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena

5. Zhengyalov Hatz
   318 East Broadway, Glendale

6. Chino Ranch
   6123 Calzada Del Bosque, Rancho Santa Fe, CA,

7. Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant
   1605 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, California

8. Monterey Market. Ruth says they have “the best” produce.
   1550 Hopkins Street, Berkeley, California

9. Berkeley Bowl
   920 Heinz Avenue, Berkeley

10. Acme Bread
    1601 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley

11. Bub and Grandma’s

12. Kenter Canyon Bread is called Roan Mills

13. Trufflebert Farm
    Eugene Oregon

The story that angered Kermit Lynch

This is an image of the first page of a Metropolitan Home story Ruth wrote about famed Berkeley wine merchant Kermit Lynch. In this podcast episode, we talk about the quote that was changed during the editing process and why that change about the difference between shopping in Provence and Berkeley upset Kermit. The complete piece is here — along with some terrific recipes.

A Marion Cunningham dinner without iceberg lettuce

This is the menu from Marion’s Birthday 70th birthday party thrown by Alice, Ruth and Michael Bauer where iceberg lettuce was not served.

But at Marion’s Eightieth birthday Alice finally gave in and allowed iceberg lettuce (with Green Goddess dressing): This is the story Ruth wrote about it.

Victor Hertzler’s original recipe for Celery Victor at the St. Francis Hotel

Take six stalks of celery well washed. Make a stock of one soup hen or chicken bones, and five pounds of veal bones in the usual manner, with carrots, onions, parsley, bay leaves, salt and pepper. Place the celery in a vessel and strain the broth over it. Boil until soft and let cool off in its own broth.

When cold press the broth out of the celery with the hand, gently, and place on a plate. Season with salt, fresh ground black pepper, chervil, and one-quarter white wine vinegar with tarragon to three-quarters of best olive oil.

Salad for dinner book  https://www.amazon.com/Salad-Dinner-Complete-Meals-Seasons/dp/0847838250

After all the talk about the title of Ruth’s forthcoming book…. it is called neither Fishing for the Moon (which Ruth still loves), nor Apricots and Vanilla. It is…. drumroll please……

.

Food Cart Curry Chicken
Shopping list: 1 pound chicken thighs, 1 lemon, oregano, 1 tablespoon curry powder.

Staples: 1/2 onion, 1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds, 2 cloves garlic, 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, olive oil, salt, pepper.

Serves 3-4

Cut a pound of boneless, skinless chicken thighs into bite size chunks, and slice half an onion into thin rings.

Make a paste by combining 3 tablespoons of olive oil with 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 1/4 teaspoon coriander seed, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 tablespoon of curry powder, a sprig of oregano, 1/4 teaspoon of paprika, 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin and a teaspoon of salt.  Whirl it in a spice grinder or a blender.  Grind in copious amounts of black pepper.

Put the onions and chicken into a plastic bag, pour in the marinade and squish it all around so the onions and chicken are thoroughly coated. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Sprinkle with more salt and pepper. Slick a heavy pan or a wok with a bit of vegetable oil and cook the onions and chicken for about five minutes, tossing every minute of so.  It will splutter a bit, and smell so delicious you’ll be snatching pieces from the pan.

Serve over white rice. I always asked for my chicken without the white sauce, but if you must have it, combine equal parts of mayonnaise and Greek yogurt, with a dollop of sugar and a splash of vinegar. Personally, I think you’re much better off with a righteous hot sauce.

In our fourth episode, Nancy talks about winning the James Beard Award for Best Pastry Chef in 1991, and how aghast the presenter, French chef and cookbook author Madeleine Kamman, was that an upstart from California had beat out two famous men with French and Swiss training. The predicted winner was the legendary Albert Kumin, the original pastry chef of The Four Seasons who went on to work in Jimmy Carter’s White House kitchen and founded the now-closed International Pastry Arts Center in in Elmsford, N.Y.

“He is one of the only people I know who can labor relentlessly in the kitchen, covering the work of three, while remaining totally calm, good-humored and friendly,” Jacques Pépin once told Nation’s Restaurant News about Kumin, who died in 2016 at the age of 94.

Happily the other nominee is still with us. At the time, Jacques Torres was working at Le Cirque where he was famous for, among other things, his miniature edible stove. The youngest person to ever become a Meilleur Ouvrier de France, Torres was Dean of Pastry at The Culinary Institute for 30 years. Today he runs his own chocolate empire.

As for Madeleine Kamman … she was a complete badass. She was an outspoken chef, a champion of women and a legendary teacher. Paul Bocuse once called her restaurants “the best in America,” and she was the author of many books, the most notable being “When French Women Cook.” Laurie keeps a copy of “The New Making of a Cook,” the 1997 revision of Kamman’s first cookbook, on her shelf of encyclopedic cookbooks between Shirley Corriher’s “CookWise” and Marion Cunningham’s “The Fannie Farmer Cookbook,” with Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook” a respectful few books away since it’s likely neither of them would have liked to be beside each other.

Kamman had a famous rivalry with Julia Child. She pointed out that Julia was neither French nor a chef, but simply an American cooking teacher. Madeleine, on the other hand, was a trained chef with a successful restaurant who also wrote cookbooks and had a television show. “I am not for comparing people, any more than you can compare Picasso to anyone,” she opined with typical modestly. A few years ago Mayukh Sen wrote this article about her in the New Yorker.

What we like best about Madeleine? In 1990, she told the L.A. Times writer Rose Dosti that the next generation of great chefs would be American rather than French, and would consist of a 50-50 ratio of women and men. The 50-50 ratio hasn’t quite worked out yet, but Nancy’s win the following year at the James Beard Awards showed that the change Madeleine predicted was already underway.

That 1991 ceremony, by the way, was the first time the James Beard Awards as we know them were presented. Nancy had to remind Ruth that she had written about the ceremony — and about Kamman’s reaction to Nancy’s win — in the L.A. Times, not to mention at least one chef’s complaint about a young Wolfgang Puck winning Outstanding Chef of the Year. Here’s an excerpt:

“Like every awards ceremony, this one had its moments of controversy. Madeleine Kamman, who was sitting in the front row, shuddered visibly when Nancy Silverton was awarded the prize for best pastry chef over Albert Kumin, the dean of American pastry. ‘Albert Kumin changed pastry in this country,’ Larry Forgione of New York’s An American Place, said later. ‘His achievement should have been recognized. And if Chef of the Year was for career achievement,’ he went on, ‘why wasn’t Andre Soltner (the legendary chef/owner of Lutece) nominated?’ The answer seems to be that … the Beard Awards are centered on the food revolution that has swept America. … So it should come as no surprise that Chef of the Year went to America’s highest-profile young chef, Wolfgang Puck.”

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It was actually a call Ruth received from New York Times reporter Julia Moskin that got our conversation started about the James Beard Awards. She asked if Ruth would comment on the organization after chef Timothy Hontzas of Johnny’s Restaurant in Homewood, Alabama, was disqualified as a best chef in the South nominee following an allegation that he habitually yelled at his staff and customers. (Hontzas told The Times that the incidents “were not as severe as the accusers described.” He also said that none of the incidents rose to the level of an ethics violation.) The disqualification, an action taken without consulting all of the restaurant awards committee members — who oversee the annual nominee selections on a volunteer basis — led one committee member and a separate judge to resign in protest.

Ruth declined the request for comment by Moskin, who teamed with Brett Anderson for an extensive story on the messy process of trying to make the James Beard Awards more equitable and diverse. The article opened with the organization’s investigation into an anonymous complaint about Kentucky-raised chef Sam Fore, whose TukTuk pop-up draws on her Sri Lankan family roots. Fore, who was surprised to discover that her social media posts advocating for victims of domestic violence were the subject of the investigation, said the process was “an interrogation.” Ultimately, she was able to remain a nominee in the Best Chef: Southeast category, although the award went to Terry Koval of The Deer and the Dove in Decatur, Georgia.

It’s not the first time the organization has come under scrutiny. In 2005, the president of the James Beard Foundation, Leonard F. Pickell was convicted of stealing more than fifty thousand dollars from the foundation. He was sentenced to one to three years and served about 9 months. He passed away two years later.

At this year’s awards ceremony in June, the restaurant awards committee chair Tanya Holland — who is also an acclaimed cookbook author and chef of the late great Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland (fantastic cornmeal waffles) — said from the podium that New Orleans legend Leah Chase once gave her some advice that seemed to apply to the stresses the organization is undergoing as it tries to find the best way to ensure the awards are fair and equitable: “‘Be prepared to get a lot of criticism in this industry, and work with it; you will make mistakes. The important thing is where your heart is and how you move on.’ The universe knows I’ve made numerous mistakes.”

L.A. Times journalist Stephanie Breijo, reporting on the ceremony, wrote that Holland told the audience “she has become comfortable being uncomfortable, adding that she is motivated to make the industry better. The efforts of the foundation have made a difference in the diversity of the awards’ nominees and winners, she said, and should be commended.

“We’re learning as we go,” Holland said. “It’s not always smooth, but that doesn’t mean we’re not on the right path.”

The endangered 20th-century restaurant

We move from the Beard Awards and a discussion about the mental stress and physical toll restaurant work entails, to an exploration of what makes a 21st century restaurant and how in many parts of the country 20th century restaurants such as diners are closing at an alarming rate. Laurie talks about the closing in May of Los Angeles’ Nickel Diner, which wasn’t technically a 20th century restaurant (it opened in 2008) but had a 20th century soul. Laurie wrote about her last meal at the Nickel, run by Monica May and Kristen Trattner, for the L.A. Times Tasting Notes newsletter. The table was loaded with scrambles, biscuits, homemade pop tarts and of course a maple bacon doughnut, plus marmalade made from blood oranges grown by the artist Ed Ruscha. Here’s an excerpt of the story:

All around us customers are giving hugs to May and Trattner as well as Nickel Diner’s servers, many of whom have worked at the Main Street spot for years and have become familiar faces. The customers also hug each other because it’s a kind of reunion for many who are part of the L.A. tribe in love with the diner and the tattooed punk-rock aesthetic that came with the place.

“We’re a 20th century restaurant,” May tells us by way of explanation of why she and Trattner think it’s the right time to close. Would they have stayed open if they had gotten one of their grants renewed to feed their neighbors living in the surrounding SROs or if inflation hadn’t raised their operating costs or if the pandemic hadn’t happened? Maybe.

But they also feel a change in the city. A few blocks away Suehiro Cafe, another 20th century restaurant that has been on Little Tokyo’s 1st Street for decades and may be the closest thing we have to a “Midnight Diner,” is being forced to move to a new location on Main Street, not far from the Nickel Diner. What difference will a move make? When I walked by the space Suehiro will inhabit later this summer I saw a now-hiring sign and noticed that one of the new jobs listed is “barista.”

Old-school Suehiro doesn’t have a barista. Apparently, 21st century Suehiro will have barista-made drinks. If it helps the place stick around for a few more decades, I won’t mind, as long as they still serve the okonomi plate with broiled mackerel and cold tofu. Because as Zen monk and teacher Shunryu Suzuki once told writer David Chadwick after he asked the master to summarize Buddhism “in a nutshell,” the answer came down to two words: “Everything changes.”

Eating off the cart

Finally, we talk about the safety of food carts. In 1995, when Ruth wrote an article for the New York Times about how much she loved street food, she included this interesting detail: “If the idea of eating at food carts frightens you, consider this. Fredric D. Winters, a spokesman for the New York City Health Department, said that of the 1,600 cases of food poisoning reported by doctors in the last three years, only 8 were said to be from food vendors. Only one case actually proved to be food poisoning, and even that case could not definitely be tied to a cart.”

You can read the entire article here. And in our bonus “Ingredients” post for paying subscribers, we’ll share Ruth’s recipe for a homemade version of the classic New York food cart dish, curry chicken and rice.

Walk into almost any restaurant kitchen and you’ll find the familiar deep red-and-white boxes of Diamond Crystal kosher salt. As Nancy tells us, she even takes a box to Italy when she heads there for the summer because it’s the salt she knows best.

Kosher salt (with the exception of Jacobsen’s, which we discuss below), is…

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Our favorite mortar and pestle

Nancy has shown up at the cooking class she’s conducting in Hawaii with just two treasured pieces of equipment. First and foremost is her beloved mortar and pestle, which is so heavy she’s asked her assistant Juliet to pack it in her suitcase. It’s one originally made for pharmacists and Nancy is so fond of hers that she sometimes buys extras to give to her friends. In fact, she gave one to Ruth years ago and Laurie has had one for decades too.

What makes it so special that all three of us have it in our kitchens? Nancy says that while a rougher molcajete is right for guacamole, she loves the smooth surface of her unglazed ceramic mortar and pestle for making mayonnaise, aioli and especially pesto, which she never makes in a food processor. Laurie found this description on the British Museum website that describes why the original Wedgwood & Bentley mortars were considered superior to marble “for the purpose of chemical experiments, the uses of apothecaries, and the kitchen”: “These mortars resist the action of fire and the strongest acids. ... They receive no injury from friction. They do not imbibe oil or any other moisture. They are of a flint-like hardness, and strike fire with steel.”

Nancy also loves her trusty Microplane. But then, who doesn’t? It pretty much changed life in the kitchen, as John T. Edge explained in this 2011 story for the New York Times.

Note that in our bonus post for Episode 3, available to paying subscribers later this week, we share the recipe for Nancy’s caprese salad, which is on the cover of “The Mozza Cookbook,” plus a pie recipe from Nancy’s new baking book “The Cookie That Changed My Life” and a mini podcast all about salt.

A proper luau

Nearly every year Nancy participates in the Hawaii Food & Wine Festival, founded by chefs Roy Yamaguchi and Alan Wong. It’s an event that grew out of Cuisines of the Sun, which Associated Press writer Barbara Albright once described as “the ultimate food camp.” Nancy happened to be cooking at Cuisines of the Sun the year that Laurie took Jonathan to Hawaii for the first time. Until that trip in the late 1990s, Laurie had only experienced the food of tourist Hawaii and thought that the island destination would be a place where Jonathan could take a vacation from thinking about food in a serious way. Boy was she wrong. When they arrived on the Big Island they were invited to a luau that was unlike any Laurie had ever experienced. Held at Hirabara Farms run by Kurt and Pam Hirabara, who were pioneers in the Hawaii regional cuisine movement, the music, dancing and especially the food — all rooted in Hawaiian culture — were enchanting. There wasn’t a grass skirt in sight.

After that trip, Jonathan was smitten. Here’s an excerpt from a story he wrote for Ruth at Gourmet in 2000 describing that party:

There may be a prettier acre than Kurt and Pam Hirabara’s up-country farm on the island of Hawaii, where the damp, mounded earth and skeins of perfect lettuces glow like backlighted jade on a wet afternoon. But when the sun comes out and the mist melts away, and through a break in the clouds suddenly looms the enormous, brooding mass of Mauna Kea, the loftiest volcano in the world, it’s hard to imagine where that prettier acre might be.

Three hours before chef Alan Wong’s luau at Hirabara Farms, a party celebrating the relationship between the chef and the army of Big Island growers who supply the Honolulu restaurant that has been called the best in Hawaii, the tin roof of the Hirabaras’ long packing shed thrums with rain, and the thin, sweet voice of the late singer Israel Kamakawiwo’ole slices through the moist mountain air. Wong’s kitchen manager, Jeff Nakasone, trims purply ropes of venison into medallions for the barbecue, and pastry chef Mark Okumura slaps frosting on a stack of coconut cakes as high as a small man. Lance Kosaka, who is the leader at Wong’s Honolulu kitchen, arranges marinated raw crabs in a big carved wooden bowl. Mel Arellano, one of Wong’s colleagues from culinary school and something of a luau specialist, reaches into a crate and fishes out a small, lemon-yellow guava.

“I’ve got to eat me one of them suckas,” he says, and he pops the fruit into a pants pocket.

I nibble on opihi, pricey marinated limpets harvested in Maui, and try to gather in the scene. Two of Wong’s younger sisters stir a big pot of the gingery cellophane-noodle dish called chicken long rice; Buzzy Histo, a local kumu hula—hula teacher—crops orchids, exotic lilies, and birds-of--paradise brought over from the farmers market in Hilo. A cheerful neighbor, Donna Higuchi, squeezes poi from plastic bags into a huge bowl, kneading water into the purple goo with vigorous, squishing strokes until the mass becomes fluid enough to spoon into little paper cups. She giggles as she works.

“Some people like poi sour,” she says. “I like it frrrr-rresh. Although most people would say I’m not really a poi eater. I like it best with milk and sugar—it’s really good that way.”

Her friend stops measuring water into the poi and wrinkles her nose. “Don’t listen to Donna,” she says. “You try your poi with lomilomi salmon.”

If you’re hungry for more, here’s an article Jonathan wrote for Food and Wine Magazine, when he visited the islands with Roy Choi.

And here’s the L.A. Times story about poi that Laurie talks about in this episode. Poi is a food that most visitors to Hawaii rarely experience in the way it was intended to be eaten. “The mush you might have been served at a hotel luau,” she wrote, “was almost certainly not aged, and probably served plain, which is the rough equivalent of eating potatoes mashed without butter or cream.” Or, as Victor Bergeron, aka Trader Vic, once wrote, “Americans do not appreciate food which is too far out.”

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Devil in a white can

Ruth, Nancy and Laurie all remember Underwood Deviled Ham with great fondness from their childhoods. Surprisingly, this is the entire ingredient list: Ham (Cured With Water, Salt, Brown Sugar, Sodium Nitrite) and Seasoning (Mustard Flour, Spices, Turmeric).

It turns out that it’s a very old product. The William Underwood Company began making it in 1868 (soldiers ate a lot of deviled ham during the Civil War), and the company’s logo was trademarked two years later making it the oldest extant American food trademark.

And what about that other ham in a can, Spam? As described on the Hormel website, it’s made from six ingredients: “pork with ham meat added (that counts as one), salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite.” We talk about Spam musubi (Spam and sushi rice wrapped with nori), which has been popular in Hawaii for decades — Jonathan called it “the real soul food of Hawaii” in this review of the now-closed Monterey Park restaurant Shakas.

Ruth may not be a Spam fan, but our musubi talk prompted her to bring up one of her favorite nori seaweed-wrapped snacks, onigiri. We thought you might like to make your own onigiri. Here’s a recipe from Serious Eats.

For more recipes, including one prompted by Ruth talking about the zen of pie making — spending time with her rolling pin makes her very happy in the kitchen — check back later this week for this episode’s bonus post for paying subscribers with a new mini podcast.

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All the Missing Trees

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