The Mind of a Chef (2012) s04e05 Episode Script
Past
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And this is a beautiful, beautiful part of the world.
The backdrop of my entire childhood is what I see.
Idle days and hours spent outdoors.
Chucking rocks into the stream.
And you watch clouds go by.
You're deep in your imagination.
I really loved being a kid here.
It's so good to be classic and not trendy.
Oh man, we are making some food here now.
We're in New Hope, Pennsylvania, one hour from Philadelphia on the Delaware River.
This is the house that I grew up in.
I haven't been here in 39 years.
It's funny to call it a house.
It's really a spectacle.
It was a silk mill, and that burned down, and my father built the house to the ruins.
We lived in the ruins.
What a metaphor.
I don't know who the owners are.
I'm definitely on someone's property, I'm gonna go trespass.
Down there was the fire pit where we had the lamb roast.
But you had to walk a wooden plank to get over the water, and of course you need your chandelier outside.
My dad is a theatrical scenery designer.
He brought all of that theatrical skill to the house.
It is a stage set, and you're like, oh, if you go up behind it, it's just held up by a plywood two-by-four.
I mean, everything leaked, and it didn't quite work, but it looks good.
Theatricality, I inherit that from him.
Does this kind of look like the snail? He likes to dream, and see the beautiful things, and smell the wood fire and I have all of that.
The sea creature of your nightmares.
It manifests in the restaurant.
The tower of artichokes, and the olive oil bottle, and the flame.
It's impractical, but it has to be beautiful incandescent light.
I have not been in here in years! Oh my God.
I mean, this is really, this is the six-burner Garland stove, this was the three-bin stainless steel sink.
The fireplace, I mean I can even see our family cat.
How it felt like Mom is always in the kitchen stirring something.
Boy, the smells were good, and she was happy there, she seemed to be.
You could hear her humming along.
You know, when she wasn't grabbing the utensils to come beat the crap out of you.
Mom? Mother was a dancer at the New York City Ballet.
I got her sense of discipline.
I like to put things in order, too.
Order and control, combined with that dramatic sensibility.
Those things in tandem, imprinted on me.
You can see a real retention of romance in a place that has to be tightly organized and formal.
I had such a nice time until it wasn't nice anymore.
There she is! Andrew Abruzzese is a long-time family friend.
Kind of older brother, friend of my father's, but, you know, cool.
His house, it's designed by my dad.
Phew, this thing.
Did my dad do that? Yes, he did.
It's a beauty.
So there's all this sort of imprint of my dad all in Andrew's house.
And our charcoal Andrew absorbs the influence of my father better than I think anyone in the family.
Perfectly lit.
So the sphere of influence of my father goes on and on and on in a kind of ripple effect.
But Andrew's pretty close in the ripples.
We're skewering "wabbits.
" Let me dress inside for a second.
Sure.
This already smells good.
We need bigger.
Watch your thumbs, or you'll never play piano again.
I never could before.
No, we, we're good, right? More or less? I think we should tie the middles.
It has to be metal I've had some disasters on spits in my life.
Let me get what I have.
Or wire.
Reverse.
Is that like from the dry cleaning? Yeah.
Okay, great.
The lower you go, the hotter it is, so let's go here and see how we end up.
Oh, it's just so picturesque, I can't stand it.
Olive oil.
Rosemary branch to baste.
Mm, this is fun, I like the dripping.
Have a little guanciale.
Like butter.
I know! Oh, boy.
Smells good, right? Yeah, it's mild.
Mmm-hmm, I wanna cook the guanciale with the drippings.
Oh, isn't that beautiful.
My mother wasn't the cuisine de bonne femme French farmhouse wife cooking what they would have called "gourmet" back in the day.
In her pursuit of good foods to eat, she knew to go to the Italian market in Philly.
I was her baby, and I was the baby, so I got to go with her everywhere.
That's me, my dad, and my little brother.
That's you! I remember just getting hit by that stench.
Reeking cheese.
Mold on the hanging salamis.
That's a strong aroma memory.
Claudio.
This could be the very one that I have come to with my mother.
First of all, I can already smell it.
They have these giant, giant provolones.
And mortadellas and the scamorzas.
And they're pretty impressive now as a nearly 50-year-old, but you have to imagine also when you're a five-year-old, walking into this store.
Wow.
There are some cuts of pasta here, which I would never have known as a kid, like a Roman candle.
This is actually called, like, a Pompeiian column, "colonna Pompeii," like is that the shape? It's fun, right? I wanna eat that.
Look at this, this is exactly like I don't know, I'm just gonna get down here and pretend I'm five.
Molto saporoso.
I can be a child immediately again.
I remember big barrels of olives in dark mystery water.
I was allowed to scoop out or whatever olives she was getting, and I would get to eat them.
She really she taught us how to eat very, very well.
Do you have a preference? Like, this guanciale? So they're both from New York, you're not allowed to bring in the imported one.
Either one is really good.
I'd like to take one of each.
You want to take one of each? Yeah, thanks.
Sorry.
It's exciting to be here, I'm like oh, and another thing! Some lardo.
What else did you have in mind? I don't know, I need to just look and look and look.
It usually helps people think to have a treat.
Do you like truffles? Moliterno, sheep's milk, black truffle, anchovy, mushroom, and black pepper.
You're kidding.
No.
Mmm, that's very nice, thank you.
What are you thinking? I'm thinking, wine.
Wow, it could be, I used to come with my mom.
That's my dad.
And I'm his dad.
What's with all brilliant people staying in the business? Food's powerful.
Yeah! Italian-Americans call it gravy and the Italians call it Sauce? Ragu.
Ragu.
Generous amount of olive oil.
That's a beef shank.
With the marrow, beautiful.
Pork for flavor.
Veal chop.
Yeah, Sunday gravy, we call it.
They would start the gravy early in the morning.
And that's a good sound.
I agree, that is a nice sound.
It would go down to a simmer, and we'd go to church.
Come home from church, my father would roll up his sleeves that he had, the white shirt on.
He was the gravy man? He was the cook.
We would have dinner at 1:00.
That was a big family thing.
It's getting some nice color.
Are you gonna drain that oil off, or you take all that fat in it? We're cooking all that fat in it.
God, I wonder where the flavor comes from.
Soon as you hear that pitch go up, keep the chunks.
And that will simmer for about two hours.
I'm not going to church, so what are we going to do for the three hours while this simmers? Make ravioli.
Ricotta.
Parsley.
Whole milk mozzarella.
Pecorino Romano.
And you fold this, kind of.
Did I forget anything salt.
I'm gonna rain, just so it's evenly distributed.
That's good, stop.
Like that? How about a little pepper? How's that, good? That does look good and smell good.
Taste.
So, the widest setting.
I like how you're really man-handling it.
You're just going, you're not afraid.
It's like they say, when you're on a diving board, don't be "a'scared.
" And we go down another Too thin is no good, because then there's no balance, it's all filling.
That's good, you can just barely see through it.
Oh, you fold over, you don't drape over.
Form 'em.
Oh, I love that.
This boa constrictor ate eight little mice.
This is my grandmother's cutter.
These are grandmom's homemade ravioli.
These are big.
The average person is gonna eat eight.
When we were kids, we would count by 20s.
Whoa! Oh, I ate 40, how many did you eat? Oh my.
Yeah.
This is so nicely hot.
You can see how the bacon is already turning color.
Yeah, it's starting to get Wow.
I really wanted those kidneys.
This dandelion still has like road gravel in it.
Oh, man! Dandelion, that is gonna go great with guanciale.
And this will be fun, you know, the rabbits eat the dandelion, and then we eat the rabbit, how perfect.
My mother could fill this size paper sack with chanterelle mushrooms.
My mom knew a lot about what was in the woods, not the things to eat.
She would point things out: raspberries.
Onion grass.
Watercress.
And then you go back on your own, and you're like, "I think that was what she said, but I'm six, maybe it wasn't," and so you sort of take some risk.
Was that the chanterelle, or was that the poisonous? This stream, I know, has watercress in it.
This spring canopy is important right now for what we can get, if we even find these things, because by the time the leaves fully develop, the shade here is prohibitive.
I mean, it's a little young-looking over here.
Oh, a frog! Hello.
Look at this.
This is baby cress.
And see how the water's running by? It's clear and fresh, but it's running too hard and fast.
There need to be little pools to the side where the cress can anchor.
It's not quite peppery enough yet, but I really think we can find some that is powerful and peppery, mature, ready to eat.
We are really getting rough and ready here.
Look, there's bottles everywhere we go, pens.
All the things that are fun to find as a kid.
Mom did not want the five kids underfoot.
We were locked out of the house all day.
Rain, shine, snow, whatever, so, you know, what do you do? It's not like we had the internet.
A kid can spend a lot of time playing in the creek.
" The water jumper? They make the most beautiful shadow where their legs are on the water.
You could watch for hours.
Oh, yeah, amazing.
This is watercress, this is mature.
That has some bite.
I'm not gonna pull it up by the root, because I want it to grow back.
Oh, this is very nice.
All right, that looks pretty good.
Oh my god, we just got fiddlehead ferns! I mean, three.
Oh, my God, they all are here! This is fun, okay.
Tight, tight, tight.
You want the whole thing tight like a snail.
Oh, my God.
When you get the big, fat, succulent bursting up.
They really are hard to see, right? Oh yeah, hello it's like a hunt.
You get excited and addicted.
And the fiddleheads here.
Look at those, oh! Isn't that something? Dandelion.
A little white wine down there? Oh, look at that.
This might not taste good, but doesn't it look good, and we picked it.
Yeah, that's good.
See how it's coming away from the bone here? This is running clear up here.
Okay.
Nice, wanna hack that up a little bit? Lovingly, poor little guy.
Maybe use the rosemary.
Ah, bellissima.
Just like grandma used to make.
Pecorino Romano.
Parsley.
Everything goes on top of the watercress from the stream.
Being a chef, you get to eat the little bits.
Oh my God, that guanciale.
I just wanna get fat and deliciousness all over.
Whoa.
You would like some ravioli, I would presume.
Hello, I was like, "What are you gonna eat, 'cause I'm gonna take the whole thing.
" Do you fork and spoon? A fork and spoon, that's "meta-gone.
" What's "meta-gone?" "Meta-gone" is "Americano.
" Is it American to not wait for you? I taste the meat in the sauce, mm.
That's a good gravy, mm-mm-mm.
That'll do, right? There's all this rabbit, but I actually want you really to have some of the watercress, from your local stream.
Oh, I'll take the kidney.
Mmm! Mm-mm-mm! What did you just eat, the cress and the guanciale? Watercress and bacon.
I'm a huge fan of watercress salad, but I've never had it like this.
We were like choking in watercress.
Unbelievable, I want to take my grandson.
Like your mother took you, that's what I want to do.
Nice to see you.
It doesn't get any better than this.
The greenery, the horses, the fields, the hundred-year-old barns, the food, the wine, the streams, the watercress, like I got to go.
What I had of a childhood was brief and brilliant.
It was special and different, and we knew it.
When you grow up and outgrow farther and farther away from those things, it's nice to re-inhabit the mindset and the person you were long ago.
Order and control.
Romance, insouciance, humor.
And the parents were both excellent influences.
Support your PBS station.
And this is a beautiful, beautiful part of the world.
The backdrop of my entire childhood is what I see.
Idle days and hours spent outdoors.
Chucking rocks into the stream.
And you watch clouds go by.
You're deep in your imagination.
I really loved being a kid here.
It's so good to be classic and not trendy.
Oh man, we are making some food here now.
We're in New Hope, Pennsylvania, one hour from Philadelphia on the Delaware River.
This is the house that I grew up in.
I haven't been here in 39 years.
It's funny to call it a house.
It's really a spectacle.
It was a silk mill, and that burned down, and my father built the house to the ruins.
We lived in the ruins.
What a metaphor.
I don't know who the owners are.
I'm definitely on someone's property, I'm gonna go trespass.
Down there was the fire pit where we had the lamb roast.
But you had to walk a wooden plank to get over the water, and of course you need your chandelier outside.
My dad is a theatrical scenery designer.
He brought all of that theatrical skill to the house.
It is a stage set, and you're like, oh, if you go up behind it, it's just held up by a plywood two-by-four.
I mean, everything leaked, and it didn't quite work, but it looks good.
Theatricality, I inherit that from him.
Does this kind of look like the snail? He likes to dream, and see the beautiful things, and smell the wood fire and I have all of that.
The sea creature of your nightmares.
It manifests in the restaurant.
The tower of artichokes, and the olive oil bottle, and the flame.
It's impractical, but it has to be beautiful incandescent light.
I have not been in here in years! Oh my God.
I mean, this is really, this is the six-burner Garland stove, this was the three-bin stainless steel sink.
The fireplace, I mean I can even see our family cat.
How it felt like Mom is always in the kitchen stirring something.
Boy, the smells were good, and she was happy there, she seemed to be.
You could hear her humming along.
You know, when she wasn't grabbing the utensils to come beat the crap out of you.
Mom? Mother was a dancer at the New York City Ballet.
I got her sense of discipline.
I like to put things in order, too.
Order and control, combined with that dramatic sensibility.
Those things in tandem, imprinted on me.
You can see a real retention of romance in a place that has to be tightly organized and formal.
I had such a nice time until it wasn't nice anymore.
There she is! Andrew Abruzzese is a long-time family friend.
Kind of older brother, friend of my father's, but, you know, cool.
His house, it's designed by my dad.
Phew, this thing.
Did my dad do that? Yes, he did.
It's a beauty.
So there's all this sort of imprint of my dad all in Andrew's house.
And our charcoal Andrew absorbs the influence of my father better than I think anyone in the family.
Perfectly lit.
So the sphere of influence of my father goes on and on and on in a kind of ripple effect.
But Andrew's pretty close in the ripples.
We're skewering "wabbits.
" Let me dress inside for a second.
Sure.
This already smells good.
We need bigger.
Watch your thumbs, or you'll never play piano again.
I never could before.
No, we, we're good, right? More or less? I think we should tie the middles.
It has to be metal I've had some disasters on spits in my life.
Let me get what I have.
Or wire.
Reverse.
Is that like from the dry cleaning? Yeah.
Okay, great.
The lower you go, the hotter it is, so let's go here and see how we end up.
Oh, it's just so picturesque, I can't stand it.
Olive oil.
Rosemary branch to baste.
Mm, this is fun, I like the dripping.
Have a little guanciale.
Like butter.
I know! Oh, boy.
Smells good, right? Yeah, it's mild.
Mmm-hmm, I wanna cook the guanciale with the drippings.
Oh, isn't that beautiful.
My mother wasn't the cuisine de bonne femme French farmhouse wife cooking what they would have called "gourmet" back in the day.
In her pursuit of good foods to eat, she knew to go to the Italian market in Philly.
I was her baby, and I was the baby, so I got to go with her everywhere.
That's me, my dad, and my little brother.
That's you! I remember just getting hit by that stench.
Reeking cheese.
Mold on the hanging salamis.
That's a strong aroma memory.
Claudio.
This could be the very one that I have come to with my mother.
First of all, I can already smell it.
They have these giant, giant provolones.
And mortadellas and the scamorzas.
And they're pretty impressive now as a nearly 50-year-old, but you have to imagine also when you're a five-year-old, walking into this store.
Wow.
There are some cuts of pasta here, which I would never have known as a kid, like a Roman candle.
This is actually called, like, a Pompeiian column, "colonna Pompeii," like is that the shape? It's fun, right? I wanna eat that.
Look at this, this is exactly like I don't know, I'm just gonna get down here and pretend I'm five.
Molto saporoso.
I can be a child immediately again.
I remember big barrels of olives in dark mystery water.
I was allowed to scoop out or whatever olives she was getting, and I would get to eat them.
She really she taught us how to eat very, very well.
Do you have a preference? Like, this guanciale? So they're both from New York, you're not allowed to bring in the imported one.
Either one is really good.
I'd like to take one of each.
You want to take one of each? Yeah, thanks.
Sorry.
It's exciting to be here, I'm like oh, and another thing! Some lardo.
What else did you have in mind? I don't know, I need to just look and look and look.
It usually helps people think to have a treat.
Do you like truffles? Moliterno, sheep's milk, black truffle, anchovy, mushroom, and black pepper.
You're kidding.
No.
Mmm, that's very nice, thank you.
What are you thinking? I'm thinking, wine.
Wow, it could be, I used to come with my mom.
That's my dad.
And I'm his dad.
What's with all brilliant people staying in the business? Food's powerful.
Yeah! Italian-Americans call it gravy and the Italians call it Sauce? Ragu.
Ragu.
Generous amount of olive oil.
That's a beef shank.
With the marrow, beautiful.
Pork for flavor.
Veal chop.
Yeah, Sunday gravy, we call it.
They would start the gravy early in the morning.
And that's a good sound.
I agree, that is a nice sound.
It would go down to a simmer, and we'd go to church.
Come home from church, my father would roll up his sleeves that he had, the white shirt on.
He was the gravy man? He was the cook.
We would have dinner at 1:00.
That was a big family thing.
It's getting some nice color.
Are you gonna drain that oil off, or you take all that fat in it? We're cooking all that fat in it.
God, I wonder where the flavor comes from.
Soon as you hear that pitch go up, keep the chunks.
And that will simmer for about two hours.
I'm not going to church, so what are we going to do for the three hours while this simmers? Make ravioli.
Ricotta.
Parsley.
Whole milk mozzarella.
Pecorino Romano.
And you fold this, kind of.
Did I forget anything salt.
I'm gonna rain, just so it's evenly distributed.
That's good, stop.
Like that? How about a little pepper? How's that, good? That does look good and smell good.
Taste.
So, the widest setting.
I like how you're really man-handling it.
You're just going, you're not afraid.
It's like they say, when you're on a diving board, don't be "a'scared.
" And we go down another Too thin is no good, because then there's no balance, it's all filling.
That's good, you can just barely see through it.
Oh, you fold over, you don't drape over.
Form 'em.
Oh, I love that.
This boa constrictor ate eight little mice.
This is my grandmother's cutter.
These are grandmom's homemade ravioli.
These are big.
The average person is gonna eat eight.
When we were kids, we would count by 20s.
Whoa! Oh, I ate 40, how many did you eat? Oh my.
Yeah.
This is so nicely hot.
You can see how the bacon is already turning color.
Yeah, it's starting to get Wow.
I really wanted those kidneys.
This dandelion still has like road gravel in it.
Oh, man! Dandelion, that is gonna go great with guanciale.
And this will be fun, you know, the rabbits eat the dandelion, and then we eat the rabbit, how perfect.
My mother could fill this size paper sack with chanterelle mushrooms.
My mom knew a lot about what was in the woods, not the things to eat.
She would point things out: raspberries.
Onion grass.
Watercress.
And then you go back on your own, and you're like, "I think that was what she said, but I'm six, maybe it wasn't," and so you sort of take some risk.
Was that the chanterelle, or was that the poisonous? This stream, I know, has watercress in it.
This spring canopy is important right now for what we can get, if we even find these things, because by the time the leaves fully develop, the shade here is prohibitive.
I mean, it's a little young-looking over here.
Oh, a frog! Hello.
Look at this.
This is baby cress.
And see how the water's running by? It's clear and fresh, but it's running too hard and fast.
There need to be little pools to the side where the cress can anchor.
It's not quite peppery enough yet, but I really think we can find some that is powerful and peppery, mature, ready to eat.
We are really getting rough and ready here.
Look, there's bottles everywhere we go, pens.
All the things that are fun to find as a kid.
Mom did not want the five kids underfoot.
We were locked out of the house all day.
Rain, shine, snow, whatever, so, you know, what do you do? It's not like we had the internet.
A kid can spend a lot of time playing in the creek.
" The water jumper? They make the most beautiful shadow where their legs are on the water.
You could watch for hours.
Oh, yeah, amazing.
This is watercress, this is mature.
That has some bite.
I'm not gonna pull it up by the root, because I want it to grow back.
Oh, this is very nice.
All right, that looks pretty good.
Oh my god, we just got fiddlehead ferns! I mean, three.
Oh, my God, they all are here! This is fun, okay.
Tight, tight, tight.
You want the whole thing tight like a snail.
Oh, my God.
When you get the big, fat, succulent bursting up.
They really are hard to see, right? Oh yeah, hello it's like a hunt.
You get excited and addicted.
And the fiddleheads here.
Look at those, oh! Isn't that something? Dandelion.
A little white wine down there? Oh, look at that.
This might not taste good, but doesn't it look good, and we picked it.
Yeah, that's good.
See how it's coming away from the bone here? This is running clear up here.
Okay.
Nice, wanna hack that up a little bit? Lovingly, poor little guy.
Maybe use the rosemary.
Ah, bellissima.
Just like grandma used to make.
Pecorino Romano.
Parsley.
Everything goes on top of the watercress from the stream.
Being a chef, you get to eat the little bits.
Oh my God, that guanciale.
I just wanna get fat and deliciousness all over.
Whoa.
You would like some ravioli, I would presume.
Hello, I was like, "What are you gonna eat, 'cause I'm gonna take the whole thing.
" Do you fork and spoon? A fork and spoon, that's "meta-gone.
" What's "meta-gone?" "Meta-gone" is "Americano.
" Is it American to not wait for you? I taste the meat in the sauce, mm.
That's a good gravy, mm-mm-mm.
That'll do, right? There's all this rabbit, but I actually want you really to have some of the watercress, from your local stream.
Oh, I'll take the kidney.
Mmm! Mm-mm-mm! What did you just eat, the cress and the guanciale? Watercress and bacon.
I'm a huge fan of watercress salad, but I've never had it like this.
We were like choking in watercress.
Unbelievable, I want to take my grandson.
Like your mother took you, that's what I want to do.
Nice to see you.
It doesn't get any better than this.
The greenery, the horses, the fields, the hundred-year-old barns, the food, the wine, the streams, the watercress, like I got to go.
What I had of a childhood was brief and brilliant.
It was special and different, and we knew it.
When you grow up and outgrow farther and farther away from those things, it's nice to re-inhabit the mindset and the person you were long ago.
Order and control.
Romance, insouciance, humor.
And the parents were both excellent influences.