Posts Tagged ‘the Chef Diaries’

The Chef Diaries: Chapter One, Ivy Stark, Oaxaca, Mexico

By Tami Ganeles-Weiser

Overseeing the burgeoning Dos Caminos empire, Corporate Executive Chef and devotee of regional Mexican cuisines Ivy Stark doesn’t seem like she would ever have the time to travel, to delve into the peoples and study food cultures of the world. Then again, this Colorado native doesn’t seem like she would be a dyed-in-pinstripe wool NY Yankee fan who never misses Spring Training camp. In a recent interview in her cramped, shared office, cluttered with cookbooks, Jorge Posada pictures and a trail map of the Arapahoe Basin, this charming and ever-curious Chef described pictures and memories from her latest trip to Mexico and shared her deep culinary knowledge for this first installment of a new series of unique travelogues for thechefsconnection.com. Each chapter will tell the stories of recent trips by some of the world’s most respected, busiest and smartest Chefs.

 

Welcome to The Chef’s Diaries, Chapter One: Chef Ivy Stark, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Ivy Stark has had a varied and expansive culinary career, inspired first by her mother’s Kentucky kitchen. She recalls vividly “making potato salad with my mother for the very first time. That really sparked my love of cuisine at that very moment. I’ll never forget it.” She attended ICE for her formal training. “ You learn technique in Culinary School.” It still comes in handy. At a busy brunch service in the meatpacking district’s Dos Caminos, the hollandaise had broken. She fixed it in a instant. “That is the benefit of Culinary School.”  Chef Stark found her found her culinary muses first in the Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Fenniger’s famed Border Grill that brought legitimate traditional Mexican cuisine to California, mastering every station. She was Sous Chef at the fine dining icon, Sign of the Dove  in Manhattan and served as Executive Sous Chef at Cena. She continued her culinary brigade climb as Chef de Cuisine at Ciudad in LA, with her original mentors, and then spun heads by taking a position as beverage manager and sommelier at the acclaimed Brassserie 8 1/2.  Beverages are “ an important part of the experience”. She also learned about the front of the house and customer service from a different angle. This is refelceted today in her mezcal menu and unusual selection of Mexican beverages. At Match Uptown, Zocalo and Amalia, she served as Executive Chef. Amalia was an intimate restaurant, based upon locally obtainable foods cooked in a coastal Mediterranean palate. “I am very proud of what I did there and I still enjoy cooking that style food.” She would love to study the Turkish regions around the North Black Sea and visit Lebanon and Syria and would like to go to Israel one day, when time allows. Her favorite city in the world is Istanbul, which many natives feel is a culinary crossroads of the world. “I’ve never had a bad meal there… It’s why I keep going back. The beauty of the country. There is so much I haven’t seen. The food is amazing, the wine is amazing and it’s inexpensive.”

She loves New York and its ebullient energy. “You can go have a nice meal in a restaurant at 10 o’clock at night. In other cities, everything’s closed,” she said. Chef Stark is busy with work, plenty of wonderful friends and her dogs. In a ode to New York’s uniqueness, her dog walker is a retired Wall Street Executive.  Today, Chef Stark is “… very happy. I love Dos Caminos.” She is “in the kitchen very single day…I’m lucky in that I get to spend a lot of my time just being creative and focusing on quality control.”  The size of Dos Caminos is a challenge she loves. “Volume is a challenge as far as controlling consistency since you are putting out 600 covers (in each restaurant) as opposed to 200 but I love it. It’s fun!” Her kitchens are known for being friendly places where folks stay. She “…only likes to hire nice people.” As for histrionic yelling and antics, “We don’t allow that. We have fun when it’s time to have fun. There is a lot of camaraderie and if there is someone who doesn’t fit in, isn’t nice, they won’t make it. It’s a warm, family environment. We are serious when it has to be and when it’s serious it’s quiet. Everybody is just doing what they have to. Following instructions from me or the Chef , quietly. I like a quiet kitchen.”  She is working on spring ideas right now in collaboration with her Chefs and is planning on expanding her mezcal menu. “Not a lot of people are familiar with the differences in different mezcal,” she said and she can’t wait to share that with her customers and friends.  She would love to “eventually” have a product line from Dos Caminos, and “it’s something we’ve talked about many times.”

Chef Stark is a vigilant and devoted food lover. She has so many cookbooks in her apartment she has no place to put them anymore. She keeps Rick Bayless, Diane Kenney (“the authorities” she said) and Dornenburg & Page at her fingertips. She recommends Culinary Artistry to “… to every chef-sous chef-learning chef.” The most important thing is “to learn about flavor. I got that (book) when I was a young chef and I’ve been reading it ever since.” She still uses it today as a resource. Rick is “so authentic” and “has his own creative work… He has done a lot to bring the cuisine forward in the United States.” She is a great advocate of the varied cuisines of Mexico, which are far more than gobs and globs of yellow cheese coated piles of beans and ground meat. In Mexico, “…sauce is everything. You may have a big bowl of mole but only a (tiny) portion of meat.” She just returned from a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico’s unofficial culinary capital, and shared her visit to the markets, the ruins and Abigail Mendoza’s restaurant and home in Teotitlan de Valle thirty minutes from Oaxaca City. OaxacaChef Stark is was so intrigued by the local bananas growing in their natural upside down state and other agriculture that she had to stop and ask questions and snap a few shots.Abigail is a world renowned specialist in her native Zaptecan Oaxacan cuisine and her sisters are noted rug weavers. She spent the day with Chef Stark.

 

The rugs they make and sell are hand loomed, hand dyed and intricately designed by her sister and are stunning. The vivid colors are all from indigenous plants and insects.  Although it may sell for upwards of three thousand dollars, “…it probably takes her a year to make it.”  The dyes are hand made as well. It’s still made over a wood fire and as her family cards the wool over the smells of chamomile.

Abigail prepared Tlayudas in the traditional way  on a stone manteca, with delicious results. Tlayudas are large thin corn tortillas served with grilled beef, beans and lettuce. The most traditional beans in the Oaxaca region are negro (black), Colorado (red), coloradito (faint red), chichilo, verde (green), amarillo (yellow), and mancha manteles (tablecloth stainers).

The Mendoza homestead, like all in the region, has an formal Altar room which is where all important family gatherings are held. It is also where guests are fed. Note that this rural area is a zen-like dreamy place of deep reflection. This rural area is never quiet, filled with roosters crowing at all hours of the day and night, goats bleating, and rollicking parties with music and dancing every night. They go to the market every day, work using the fruits of the earth from morning to night and share foods in an all but biblical way but they are quite modern, having have access to the internet at their local libraries and located about 400 miles from the uber-urban Mexico City.

In the markets and in town the chile rellenos were flavorful and richand the sweet and creamy tamales were tinged pink with dried crimson cochineal.  Tamales can be found stuffed with chicken, fish, sauces , herbs and edible flowers. Ribs stewing in a cazuela filled with chile paste made from chiles toasted on a comal and avocado leaves and colored with achiote.  Avocado leaves taste like “anise, but are more mild.” Chicharones, fried pig skin, were huge caramel colored pieces, still bubbling and just salted.  Chapulines, grasshoppers  or crickets are crunchy and salted, served as  snack with garlic, lime and ground chiles.

Mezcal leaves are everywhere. Mezcal is most famous as a liquor made from the fermented, roasted core of a maguey plant, (a type of agave) and is in some ways similar to the well known tequila. Most mezcal is  produced in Oaxaca and it is the favored drink, having its own smoky taste profile and history.

One of the unique aspects of Oaxacan cuisine is its stunning variety of moles. Moles originated in Spanish and Arabic food in Spain and became uniquely Mexican with the addition of  New World ingredients such as chile mulato, miltomate (tomates de milpa), tomatoes, peanuts, avocado leaves, canela (insert picture) – mexican cinnamon, raisins, nuts, seeds, yerba santa leaves and Mexican chocolate (insert picture). In Oaxaca City, moles are sold in markets all over the city as a paste which is combined with water and simmered with a variety of meats at home. Herbs like epazote, a Mexican herb that grows wild “in Central Park and the median of the Long Island Expressway,” which Chef Stark forages and tastes (“carefully.. along with other culinary herbs…”) and tiny Oaxacan garlic, often roasted underground, are just as important to the famed never-sweet hot chocolate ground on a metate and served everywhere.

Chef Stark visited the local barbacoa family. Each family in town is designated or has inherited a position of culinary preparation in the small town and the food is bartered.  The barbacoa family made a lamb barbacoa the day Chef Stark visited. They put the gutted animal over wood in an underground pit. Like in so many cultures, the entire creature is used and eaten.

“The stomach is stuffed with gizzards and eaten, like haggis,” Chef Stark said. That was not her favorite. It is covered with mezcal leaves and for true “terroir”, the carcass is then covered with locally “sourced” aluminum siding and buried with dirt. It is allowed to cook over the hot fire and embers overnight ever so gently , producing tender, juicy meat.

Chef Stark visited the village butcher who’s shop was “ … spotless…”  She had “no hesitation whatsoever about eating anything anywhere… it was delicious.”
He showed her the pork leg he was working on, fabricated it, chopped it, ground it and made sausages . “It takes him 30 seconds to do the whole thing,” she marveled.

Chef Stark can’t wait to go back to Mexico and investigate the regional cuisine of Vera Cruz in greater detail but her next adventure is in Barcelona , where she’ll be working on her Castillian accent and incredible, inspiring and unending desire to learn about the cultures and foods of the world.

The Chef Diaries: Chapter Three, Aliya LeeKong, Part 3, Peru

By Tami Ganeles-Weiser

Chef Aliya LeeKong is always on the lookout for what is going on in the culinary world. One country in particular was capturing a flurry of headlines and after some research and planning she spent a week in a land that has more culinary schools per capita than anywhere else in the world. It has been influenced by the Spanish, the Chinese, the Japanese, the Incas and many indigenous, tribal peoples. Chef LeeKong immersed herself and yet she felt after an intensive all-cooking all-eating week, “… it was not enough time.” Read along as we learn about her recent culinary expedition to Lima, Peru and the Sacred Valley of the Andes Mountains in the next chapter of the Chef Diaries.

The Chef Diaries: Chapter 3, Aliya LeeKong– Peru.

Chef Aliya LeeKong, traveling

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bio-diversity alone would have been enough to compel Chef LeeKong to jump on a plane and see this Latin American gem. But Peru’s culinary environment is setting the world on fire, and she needed to see it and taste it for herself. “What’s already happening (there) and what’s going to happen (there) is tremendous,” she said.

She was immediately captivated by the busy and picturesque capital city of Lima. “Lima is amazing. It’s set in the mountainside. Between the salt air and the mountains- it’s amazing,” she said.

The sheer variety of foods grown was like nothing she had ever seen. “The varieties of potatoes! Amazing herbs and fruits. I travel a lot,” she said, marveling, “…(and) this was the first time I was like what’s that ? What’s that ? What’s that?”

A stuffing cucumber at the market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

potatoes and aji limo chiles at the market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

yacon or ground apple, another tuberous vegetable

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She tasted the tumbo, a passion fruit cousin but “…more tart and a bit floral,” she said.

 

tumbo fruit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She tasted the local chermoya fruit.

Cherimoya

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She adored the slighty dry fruit that tasted like butterscotch called lucuma. Lucuma is commonly used in many dessert preparations and is set to become an acai style super fruit in the US since it’s a nutritional powerhouse.

 

Chef Aliya’s favorite fruits- lucuma and tumbo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notwithstanding warnings from her doctors in New York not to try foods before washing them very well, “ …when I was in the markets … I was eating them all!”

Chef LeeKong investigates the seasonal produce used by average home cooks wherever she travels. She found that in Peru most people shop often and eat fresh foods daily. The varying climates and geographical landscapes create one of the riches environments for produce on Earth. Even for Chef Aliya, a renown expert in the world flavors, Peru’s never-ending varieties was a true Willy Wonka Factory.

She also loved learning about the impeccably fresh fish and shellfish harvested from the nearby Pacific Ocean early every morning, ready to be sold and eaten before lunch. The shrimp are more like crawfish and the scallops, large and succulent, are eaten with foot on.

A fresh scallop

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ceviches are made from mariscos ( shellfish only), mixtos ( mixed fish and shellfish ) and pescado ( fish only ).

She tasted causa, a layered, composed dish of mashed potatoes, lime juice aji amarillo, and oil, layered with crab, avocados, mayonnaise and onions., shared salads with corn, queso fresco, dried olives, fava beans, cilantro, limes, and potatoes and found quinoa in every conceivable color everywhere.

 

potatoes or papas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arroz con pollo , a Latino classic was on every menu but arroz con pato was her favorite – rice with duck. Her recipe for arroz con pato is on her website at aliyaleekong.com

Peru is a large Latin American country with a sizable coastline on the south pacific ocean, boarders with Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia. Peru has many climates within it’s borders-has has many different topographies from ports to jungles to the Andes mountain range- and Chef LeeKong went through quite a few.

 

Map of Peru and South America

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peruvian cuisine is a poly-cultural mashup of the foods of indigenous tribal peoples, kingdoms and fiefdoms, colonial European conquistadors mixed with the history of tumultuous years of being run and overrun by neighboring countries and the wildly diverse ecosytems.

 

Map of Peru with the Andes mountain range and main rivers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The resultant economic complexities have brought immigration from all over the world that has forced Peruvian cuisine to evolve into a multi-dimensional culinary profile unlike any other and well beyond ceviche and pisco. These two classic dishes, have left Peru’s borders and have now, gone on to influence some of the very cultures from whom Peru took inspiration.

Pisco is a grape brandy. Although it is also claimed by Chile as a national drink, in Peru it is distilled in copper pot stills and it is produced in the Ica Valley around the Pisco River and the Ica River. In Lima, Queirolo restaurants, with small plate or pequeño meals, Chef LeeKong was told that it the make their own Piscos. An American bartender in the 1920′s created the pisco sour. Penelope Alvarez, a local chef-instructor that Chef LeeKong worked with told her that it must be served immediately to prevent any bitterness. It’s an insult to the proprietor or server if you leave it unfinished.

Pisco sour

 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ceviche, the most famous dish from Peru, has an interesting history all it’s own. Ceviche (seviche, cebiche) is considered the “national” dish of Peru. It is also immensely popular in Ecuador, who sometimes claim it as their “own”. Every Latin American and Central American country has their own traditional version. It has become more popular in the US over the past thirty years outside of the Latino communities and it is increasing in popularity globally.

In Peru, it is traditionally served with slices of cold orange-fleshed sweet potatoes and hearty chunks of corn-on-the-cob with huge kernels and occasionally toasted nuts. This exactly is how Chef LeeKong prepared it using flounder.

In one of Lima’s oldest cevicheria’s she snapped this picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Ecuador, ceviche is often served with nuts, dried corn nuts and popcorn. Just to complicate the Peruvian – Ecuadorian debate, the Peruvian Incas may have invented or at least popularized popcorn. Onions and tomatoes occur in most Mexican preparations, although there are distinct regional variations. In Ecuador and some Central American countries, like Guatemala and El Salvador, it is frequently prepared with ketchup. Ketchup is not used in Peru. Traditional Peruvian ceviche is flavored with Peruvian lemons which are similar to a key lime. Throughout Peruvian cuisine is the utterly omnipresent Peruvian aji amarillo or yellow pepper and the red rocoto pepper. Chef LeeKong, who tried peppers raw at the markets, was probably allergic to the raw rocoto pepper.

 

aji amarillo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

red rocoto pepper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ceviche is also sometimes made with sour oranges particularly in the Caribbean. Although the taste profiles are different everywhere ceviche traveled, what remains the same is the fresh, white fish or shellfish and the technique.

The history of the birth of ceviche technique is a matter of myth. Tales abound of fishermen who made ceviche in the morning and allowed it to “cook” in the sun. Perhaps ceviche’s history is fishermen’s accidental fare that became beach food. Chef Aliya found that lunchtime was the main meal, especially in the coastal city of Lima where fish and seafood are common. It was well accepted that this was rooted in the lack of refrigeration from fishing time to eating time. This would seem to make sense out of the fisherman’s ceviche tale. But perhaps ceviche also tells the story of Peru. Some historian and Peruvians feel ceviche was created by the ancient Incas. Peru was the home of the great Incan Empire. Peruvian take great pride in that important past.It’s a huge source of tourism, a commercial and marketing tool and a national cultural treasure.

Inca Kola

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other historians think that ceviche really much later, after a consequential and influential Japanese immigration which began in the late 1800′s. There has even been a Prime Minister of Japanese descent.

In Lima, Chef Aliya enjoyed a wide variety of food. She cooked cooked conchitas a la parmesana, grouper and crawfish stew and suspiro de imena con frutas de estacion with a homemade dulce de leche and a meringue with port. She had a memorable tasting dinner at Chef Virgilio Martínez Véliz’s Lima restaurant, Central.

Chef Virgilio Martínez Véliz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He is is rising international star noted for his French and asian touches given his years working in NYC at Lutece and years of travel. Although he invited her, she couldn’t fit in a day at the at the markets with him near his new restaurant in Cusco.

Before heading of into the Andes, Chef LeeKong, went to the lima markets in Milaflores. She picked up aji dulces and dried aji panca and dried aji amarillo to cook with.

 

dried aji panca

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ancient root vegetable of the Andes, olluco

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a common yuca or cassava tuber (not a yucca plant) widely used throughout Latin America and the Caribbean

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Andean highland root vegetable, mashua

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She continued on to an old stately casa with elaborate rose gardens and lotus and turtles in ponds and aloe and agave plants lining the stairway that went up the mountainside to get to the manor house at the top. There, she cooked with another local cook. He explained that the antichichos were a form of shish kebabs because the Spanish conquerors had Arab wives who brought the tradition with them. This street food made of animal hearts is very popular to this day. They made aji paste from the fried chiles, and created papas a la huanicaina, antichucos from calves hearts and aji, vinegar, garlic and cumin in a paste . Lamb stew with garlic, cumin, black pepper, spinach, cilantro, pisco and stout beer and an avocado salad with fresh water shrimp chopped tomatoes, lime juice, a corn rice, frijoles from fresh beans with ginger and epazote, a coconut casserole and a sweet rice pudding. The meal finished with Colonial desserts of candied limes filled with sweet milks and macaroons.

Tiny pepito melons and Peruvian fruits in a still life

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She did get to the Sacred Valley and Cusco.

 

Sacred Valley and Cusco map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The archeology left behind in the relics of Machu Pichu and the Sacred Valley is a source of national pride, tourist dollars and provides a deep sense of history for the indigenous peoples.

Peru’s population is as heterogeneous as it’s produce is diverse. Speckled with the descendants of Incas, Conquistadors, Colonists, European travelers and traders and Andean peoples, they were joined by a huge influx of Asian peoples by the 19th century. Slave labor was brought in from China. The Japanese also began consequential immigration to Peru and Brazil in late 1800′s. The strong Pan-Asian influence is evident in Peruvian food and unusual in the Americas. Peruvian dishes like arroz chaufa, a fried rice, and lomo saltado, a beef and potato stir-fry as well as the use of fresh ginger root.

Chef LeeKong started in Cusco to acclimate to the height.

 

Entering the robust Andes and the Scared Valley

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There Andean villagers sell goods at the market regaled in vivid and colorful dress.

Selling Andean textiles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

behind the scenes of the Andean market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Corn has been a staple food since Incan times. Today there are over 55 varieties grown. Corn is used in numerous Peruvian dishes. In northern Peru grated corn is the base of pepián, a stew, mixed with turkey, onion, garlic and chilies. In Arequipa, soltero is made of beans, corn, onion and a queso fresco. In the Andean jungle, the inchi cache, is a stew of chicken, roasted corn and peanuts. Desserts include the sanguito made from yellow corn flour, raisins and molasses. Peruvian corn is also used to make drinks. Purple corn is the main ingredient of the chicha morada. Chef Leekong drank it perfumed with cinnamon and cloves and finished with a punch of lime juice . It was “ delicious and refreshing,” she said. Fermented corn is the basis of the famed, super-strong chicha de jora beer that has to be consumed the day it is made.

Maiz Morado, Purple Corn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Andes, many local ingredients are integrated into the Peruvian staples, for example, the antichuchos, which are made with alpaca.

Many families keep guinea pigs and fatten them with leftover corn beer sediment. They are eaten for special occasions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She took cooking lessons at local hotels. The lucuma was pureed and lightened with whipped. At the San Pedro market the frugality of the local people was apparent in their use of every part of the animals . (Warning: this is a graphic picture)

 

Horse jaws and jowls

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The small restaurants has guinea pig meat in their potato causa, quinoa crusted shrimp and dark chocolate and lucuma mousse. The pastales, or pastries, were sweet tamales.

In Urubamba in the Sacred valley, Chef LeeKong took another cooking lesson starting at a small farm . She enjoyed yerba buena and local mints. They made quinoa lomo saltado (the Chinese stir fry dish ) with alpaca meat. She made a tirado – a trout with leche de tigre- the leftover fiery liquid at the bottom of the ceviche bowl and local river seaweed. She visited the volcanic salt evaporation ponds were rose, white and brown salts are collected.

She visited the “Wednesday” market and saw a wide variety of proteins.

pigs at the market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

dried meat at the market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chef LeeKong was intrigued by this adventure. Her trip to Peru lacked only one thing- “enough time.”

So where does world traveler, an expert in the exotic food, go next to explore the world of food? “Japan,” she said without hesitation. “It has everything- a dynamic population, a growing and sophisticated food scene, great culinary training and rich and varied regional culinary tradition.”

 

We’ll be waiting to talk to her about it.

 

The Chef Diaries: Chapter Three, Aliya LeeKong: Part 1, India

By Tami Ganeles-Weiser

Spicy has many definitions. Chef Aliya LeeKong personifies them all. She is savory, piquant, warming, and exotic in a soft, addictive way. Meeting her leaves a lingering memory. Chef LeeKong could have any number of careers, yet she has chosen a most creative path within the food world. Perhaps it has chosen her. Her striking beauty and charm could make her a broadcasting star. Her keen intellect and Ivy League Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Neuroscience from Brown University and her M.B.A. from Columbia University could make her a success on Wall Street. Her culinary skills, beginning with a classical training at the French Culinary Institute and honed at the back of the house at Per Se and Jean Georges could have led her to a Chef De Cuisine position at a fine dining temple of classism in Manhattan. Instead, she is a Culinary Creative Director at the upscale, flatiron district restaurant Junoon, which the New York Times recently complimented, calling it “elegant…opulent (and) warm.” It is a unique restaurant, fresh , innovative, exotic and exciting, very much like Chef LeeKong. She merges traditional Indo-Pakistani regional, seasonal foods with French techniques and her own special world of know-how.

Visit Aliyah’s website at aliyaleekong.com

Read on for the next installment in the series: the Chef Diaries: Chef Aliya LeeKong – Goa, India.

Chef Aliya LeeKong

Aliya Leekong was born into an American immigrant dream. She is the only child of successful, professional, well-educated parents. Her father is an entrepreneur originally hailing from Tanzania and her mother is a prominent surgeon originally from Pakistan, but of Indian roots. Even her grandfather had been a prominent surgeon, who the government asked to relocate during the post World War II partition to Karachi from Mumbai to help the population.

Aliya was raised in suburban, central Florida and was an extraordinary student. On the surface she had a suburban childhood like many others. In reality, she spent her summers traveling to her parents’ homelands. Exotic locales like Karachi, East Africa and Thailand were so familiar that they “…were just places (she) went in the summers.” She travelled to Hong Kong and Beirut. She explored Singapore and China. She visited much of Western Europe and Canada. She started traveling within the U.S. as a teenager. She still travels extensively. She’s recently been to Bahrain and St. Lucia and visits her husband’s homeland in the West Indies and explores his Trindadian and Chinese roots. Her theme music could be “These Boots Are Made For Walking.”

It is no wonder that she loves “…places that are cross-cultural points.” It’s woven into the fiber of her being. Even after a few minutes, it’s clear that she is very special.

It was no surprise that she chose to spend two weeks investigating the cuisine of Goa. Goa is a tiny province on the central west coast of India. It has sixty three miles of coastline on the Arabian Sea, much of it soft sandy beaches. It has been famed for its secluded port with solid defensive potential, for its 90′s hedonistic, all night, Bollywood-style dance parties and for its 1960′s hippiedom. The beach culture, spice plantations, the Portuguese and Goan restaurants all create a tourist draw. But Goa and its food are unique because of its history.

Goa on a map, within India

Before 1500 Goa was a tiny trade port city with travelers from around the globe with seafaring capabilities. It was run by the same overlords as its neighbors. By 1512 Portugal’s leader, Albuquerque, had securely garrisoned Goa and renamed it “Lisbon of the East.” Goa has a strategic geographical importance, as seen in this picture that Chef LeeKong took of the lush hills surrounding the coastline. The hillside provides a perfect 360 degree view. In the ancient world, as now, geography and security trumps everything.

the hills protecting the Goan ports and beaches today

Goa became important in the spice trade route to the Portuguese.

The blue lines represent the cinnamon, clove and other ancient, exotic spice routes.

Goa remained under Portuguese rule for almost four and a half centuries, even after the India- Pakistan separation after World War II, even after the French small Indian provinces like Ponicherry had come under Indian rule. Goa came under Indian rule in the 1960′s.

A Colonial Era building

Portuguese era street name which remain today

Large-scale architecture from Colonial times

today’s murals in Goa

Today Goa is predominately Catholic, not Muslim or Hindu like much of the surrounding subcontinent. The food reflects the mix of cultures. Chef Aliya did what she does when she visits any new place. She stays with friends and family. “When I go any place I cook in people’s homes and in restaurants to learn the local nuances of the food. True home cooking,” she said.

In Goa she stayed with family who has retired to the Bardez district near Anjuna and Baga Beaches. She taught cooking at a culinary school in Vasco de Gama and visited a famous spice farm in Ponda.

map of Goa

The fields were lush with peppercorn bushes and vanilla vines and intercropped with coconut and mangos.

She took many trips to the markets and found fruits and vegetables of incredible beauty. “Indian food is regional food,” Chef Aliya said. “I take that as an inspiration here in terms of how I look at food and what is local for us to use…I go to the market and see what’s there.”

fresh coconut being opened

tubers at market 

Fresh from the Ocean 

At the market 

She was introduced to the local liquor, fenny, a liquor made from coconut or custard apple.

custard apple

Chef Aliyah visited Goa during the festival of DiWali, the festival of lights. It is a major holiday in Hinduism and is a minor holiday in Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism and has many local rituals. In Goa they eat special sweets. Throughout the region there are special farmers market and fairs.

coconut about to be wrapped

Chef Aliya studied Goan specialities at local restaurants.

In a restaurant kitchen

She made traditional Goan dishes like fish recheado or reshad, Goan xacuti (pronounced shakuti) and Goan fish curry and the ever present fresh fried fish and curried crab.

fried fish

crab in spice paste

Recheado or reshad is often made with local mackerel or pomfret and it is stuffed with spice paste of fresh coriander (cilantro) turmeric, red chiles, cloves, black pepper cumin seeds, garlic and ginger with malt vinegar. Chef Aliya noted that the pungent, vinegary bite and tartness that was ever-present, in Goan cuisine differs from other Indian regional cuisines. In the Goan fish curry, the tartness comes from mangos and kokum or tamarind, the Indian curry flavor profile from Kashmiri chilies and green chilies, along with coconut, ginger and coriander.

 The most famous dish from the region is of direct Portuguese descent – vindaloo. In the U.S. and Britain it appears on virtually every Indian restaurant menu and marks the fieriest dish. It originates from the Portuguese word “Vinha De Alhos,” which means “wine (or wine vinegar) of garlic.” It was a Portuguese beef or pork stew pungent with vinegar and garlic. It had a total makeover through its years in Goa and became a tart, thick curry. It is traditionally thicker than most curries but not as solid as a korma. It requires a copious amount of oil and benefits from being made at least a day before so that the spices can penetrate the oil. The time also allows the strong vinegar taste to develop fully and become assertive. The key to a Goan vindallo is the distinct tartness of the vinegar and the full marriage of the intense flavors.

Goa has unusual souring agents like kokum and and thickening agents like poli (ground wheat). These are kokum fruits, partially dried.

Kokum

Chef Aliya used the traditional cooking vessel,the tava, to prepare flatbreads. A tava is a large flat griddle used extensively from South Asia across the Middle East, throughout Anatolia and the Balkans.

Xacuti another famous dish. The word is also derived from a Portuguese word, chacuti, although the Portuguese version, like with vindaloo, has significantly evolved in India. Goan xacuti is rich with white poppy seeds and kashmiri chilies and is a vibrant red. Unlike the other dishes, it is not particularly tart.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in her travels, as we follow her to rural Turkey.Goa was a culinary trip Chef Aliya relished. She visited spice plantations and learned about a unique flavor profile and added it to the tool box of palates at her command. For a woman whose dream as a little girl was to have her own stainless steel spice dhabba – her own spice box filled with compartments of multicolored, fragrant magic – this was a rich and satisfying experience. Would she return to Goa? “There are so many places to go in India. So many places all over the world I want to go to,” she said.

 

 

The Chef Diaries: Chapter Two, Chef Shaun Hergatt-The World

By Tami Ganeles-Weiser

Chef Shaun Hergatt embodies determination. He is determined to earn three Michelin stars, rise to the top of the Pellegrino list and score four stars from The New York Times. He is focused on perfection. Food critics and foodies alike have long known his incredible talent for coaxing flavors using impeccable classic French techniques. His determination has taken him far from his native Australian provincial up-bringing and catapulted him around the world three times. In a recent one on one interview, this self-motivated, brilliant and thought-provoking Chef shared his world travel stories, his well-trained and well-tailored food ideology, his inspirations and his aspirations with wry wit and honesty.

Welcome to The Chef Diaries, Chapter Two – Chef Shaun Hergatt.

Chef Shaun Hergatt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chef Hergatt is in every way a self-made man and he carries that swagger with him unabashedly. He was raised in Australia without any connections to the food world whatsoever. His childhood heroes weren’t traditional Aussie fare. “Robuchon and Thomas Keller were my heroes when I was a kid,” he said. He wondered why there weren’t any Australians with “…that level of respect and recognition” in the food world. He quickly set his sights on achieving that level of greatness.

When he first began his culinary studies, he didn’t stray far from the rugby fields he played on as a kid. He stayed close to his American Dad and his Scandinavia Mom and worked hard in school. During his intensive culinary apprenticeship program his chef-supervisor recommended to the board that he leave his small fine dining restaurant and move to a very large, prestigious Sydney hotel because of his exemplary skills and rapidly evolving talent. He move to the big city and labored diligently without complaint, but ultimately he felt that it was simply not the right situation for him to fulfill his calling. It wouldn’t be the last time that he was driven to find a greater challenge in his pursuit of excellence. He knew then, as a very young man, that he wanted, he needed, to learn more about “…the art of cooking.” There was more to it all than plating 1,500 covers a day. He yearned to find the “…inspiration, technique, product-the things that were the artists’ tools.” He wanted to understand “the human beings behind the concept(s), [their] motivation, [their] direction…” He was eager to find them and work with them and learn what they knew.

Although he may not have felt fulfilled, his cooking, work ethic and skills met with great accolades while he was in Sydney, and the world was beginning to take notice. He was still very young when he rose to Chef de Cuisine of the huge, regal Dining Room at uber-elegant The Ritz-Carlton. In 2000 he was named Best Young Chef and the restaurant was named “Top 5 Up and Coming Restaurants in the World” by Condé Nast Traveler.

Ritz Carlton, Sydney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When I left I wanted to be respected as one of the best on the planet … [and, at the time] the guys I worked with didn’t have that aspiration. They were content.” Notwithstanding the good reviews, he was not content. Retrospectively, he might have trained differently. “If I was younger,” he said, “and I was just starting my apprenticeship again, I would work for the best guy on the planet…What happened with me was a little bit stupid … I thought I knew what I was doing,” he offered with the magical elixir of time, age and hindsight. There was nothing more important to Chef Hergatt when he was at this early stage in his career than that his work be his own. Completely his own at any cost. He was hellbent on chiseling out his career without anyone’s handouts or even a helping hand. “That was a big thing for me. If I was going [to be successful], then I was going to be the man who stood alone and said … I may not have had any advantages [but] … everything I built is because I made the decision to be successful.” It may have been a more difficult path, but today Chef Hergatt exudes the justifiable pride and confidence of having done exactly that. It is thoroughly engaging.

He set his sights on the largest market – the United States – to master his next challenge. He headed right to the biggest food market, New York City. Chef Hergatt worked at the very prestigious Atelier at the Ritz-Carlton in New York City. Chef Hergatt has trained under some the most decorated chefs in the world, but none were the mentors he envisioned. Although he sopped up what they had to offer,  his “… expectations always exceeded what they could give and so [he] would end up finding [himself] being more of a solo player.” Chef Hergatt wanted to grow and he “… needed to find something else to feed [himself]. That’s the key [to growth.]” It wasn’t that he thought he was better than they were, he explained. It wasn’t youthful bravado or a do-it-on-my-own-no-matter-what issue at this point. By the time he was at Atelier, he was already a skilled Chef and although he was working with seasoned professionals, it was still disappointing after a few years. He faithfully put in his few years and gave it his all but he knew after a short while that , “it just wasn’t teaching me enough.” He realized that he learned quickly. He moved to Miami Beach to become the Executive Chef at The Setai Hotel. Under his toque, The Setai’s restaurant was named “Esquire’s Best New Restaurant” in 2005. He became famous for dishes like his salt –pressed Tasmanian Trout with asian pear and daikon sprouts with a citrusy Kalamansi dressing, a Green Curry Chicken redolent with basil and lemon grass and an unusually extensive variety of fish all with and Asian twist and a clean aesthetic.

 

setai miami beach restaurant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, his eponymous and successful restaurant, SHO-Shaun Hergatt,  is nestled on the second floor in the Wall Street area of New York City in a Setai Hotel.  The restaurant has earned 2 Michelin stars. So far.

 

SHO-Shaun Hergatt, dining room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SHO’s shimmering hallway of wine

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His challenge today is creating his own food at his own restaurant. “Ultimately, when it comes to cooking,  I’ve created my own style of cuisine.” Not fusion, he pointed out quickly, which he finds too “mixy-matchy.” His food is always the freshest available, but neither farm to table or locavore by strict definition. It is without a doubt seasonally influenced. It is classic and unique and he defends his choices with great vigor and the indignity of a misunderstood artist. He does not define the parameters of his table by someone else’s pre-determined geographical demarkations or a rule book based on temporal trends. When your range is French with Asian influences, your boundaries are world wide and pure freshness, absolute quality, taste components, environmental sustainability and seasonal availability are the crucial factors, not physical proximity. To Chef Hergatt, Santa Barbara is local when Thailand or Bali is a sourcing option. In essence, his dishes are created with great consideration to time and space in the largest sense.

Chef Hergatt respects and likes all the chefs he worked for, he pointed out at various times, and yet he never mimics their foods or does his own take on their styles. He only prepares his original creations. He never compares his work to anyone else’s or theirs to his. “You can’t compare different genres, spirit…with different chefs … [there are] no winners [it's] just…great[ness.]” Greatness and creative freedom have been exactly what he has achieved.

Chef Hergatt is disarmingly honest and earnest in his Promethean quest for culinary perfection. I intend “… to supersede everyone I had worked for.” Where does this strong will emanate from? His childhood. His “… own internal feeling.” He still wants to be able to “… say [to himself] – do you know what? … I supersede[d] every chef I ever worked for [so now] I might have a grasp on being the best in the world.” That remains his goal. So why the drive to make the grades, raise the ratings, add to the stars? “Ego and business,” he said. Gradations create fame, which drives business, which in turn gives him more creative freedom. Ego is not his concern at all. His work and his drive is no ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ for a modern day Don Quixote. It’s not about the process. It’s not about the journey. It’s not about something theoretical. He possess a searing drive to actually be the best – to get as close to traveling at the equivalent of the speed of light – because he must.

Perhaps what sets Chef Hergatt apart from many young chefs who arguably focus too much on art and innovation for it’s own sake is that he is equally driven by his love of food. His superior command of kitchen techniques has been recognized as some of the finest in the world by the international press since the beginning of his career. He focuses on creating consistently superlative taste. Artistry is part of the package, but not it’s entirety. You do after all, eat this art.

This is not to imply that he is an an ivory-tower, intellectual artiste. He is far from that. He is a highly competitive man. Chef Hergatt readily admits that he is competitive, but not in a conventional manner. He doesn’t care about beating others. Others are utterly irrelevant. It’s about beating the bar that the best set as he sees it.

The restaurant’s food and décor has been misunderstood by some critics as an anachronism – an out-of-touch throwback to 1980′s opulence filled with power broker lunches and free spending moneymen and their fat expense accounts. The space is peppered sparingly with a curated selection of handcrafted artwork from across the globe sourced and chosen by the Chef, set into a floor plan with vast, wide hallways and open hushed spaces, Asian planked flooring, muted lighting and waterfall-evoking glasswork. It is replete with clean architectural features. The spotless kitchen is intentionally open in the back. The Chef even considered the size of the chairs to accommodate diners of every size and keep them comfortable. He chose the fabrics, too, because they were easy to keep clean but took into consideration each room’s overall artistic feel, without allowing the costs to balloon out of control. In reality, the restaurant, food and décor is a reflection that Chef Hergatt is, without any doubt, in control.

 

artisinal necklace from SHO’s artwork

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a daily basis he strives to make his diners “… fall in love with what we are doing. It’s not an ego thing. It’s all because you care about their experience and want them to enjoy it.” And when he achieves all his culinary benchmarks what would he do ? He’d “… still be cooking every day to get better .You never leave the kitchen. The truly great chefs stay – not on the line – but it’s your devotion.” He greatly admires master chef and restauranteurs Chef Daniel Boulud and Chef Jean-George Vongerichten for doing just that.

Chef Hergatt likes to be uncomfortable. He enjoys the struggle heading towards his ideals. “As soon as comfort factors come into my life, I’ve lost the game.” But is he is a travel adrenaline junkie? Does he eat weird foods? “No, I’m a very calm person,” he insists. “I … am at peace … because I am confident that I’m at a level now where it’s acceptable, but I still strive for better and better … there is no room for mediocrity … I’ve got very high standards for lots of things. I feel like there’s nothing wrong with high standards. I feel I like everyone’s okay with mediocrity.”

Chef Hergatt has traveled far as a Chef and as an individual. He also has circumnavigated the globe and hopes one day to visit Russia to explore the cultural world of St. Petersburg and Moscow so he can better understand his many Russian patrons. “They are so intriguing,” he said. It’s also close to his Mother’s homeland. “I definitely have to go back to Scandinavia and I have to go back to Finland and Norway and actually spend lots of time there.” He’s already spent time in Denmark and Sweden. His culinary trips to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Malacca, Kuala Lampur, Penang, Bangkok, Chaing Mei and Bali have given him a variety of ingredients at his beck and call.

 

map of southern and southeast asia

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In Malacca we used fresh green peppercorn off the tree for cooking,” he said as he described the difference in taste to the brined or dried ones that are available.

 

green peppercorn plant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He enjoys cooking with local ingredients he found as he tasted his way thought each city.

 

Kuala Lumpur food

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

street food in Penang

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For exotic ingredients or those that are not generally available fresh in the New York area or the US, he has them grown by local farmers, for his restaurant exclusively.

 

spices in Penang market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He learned about the open-air wet markets of Asia, where live chickens stand atop dead chickens. Piles of animal carcasses, whole goats and sheep lie on vintage 1960′s folding tables below hanging fowl and next to still-bloody whole fish and mixed crates of vibrant, wildly colorful fresh peppers and redolent melons. The markets are unrefrigerated, in the notoriously oppressive heat and unrelenting humidity.

 

dead fish and a very live turtle in the wet market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“It’s how real people live,” he said with a broad smile.

He has also traveled through much of Europe- “… London, Paris many times, Madrid, Portugal and I’ve been through South America – Argentina, Uruguay – every major city in North America- and I’ve been to Colorado and places like that. I’ve been a lot of places and it is always an inspiration because you go to learn different things. You don’t take their food and use it – you take inspiration from what you’ve learned.”  That includes the basic elements of what he experiences, not necessarily the food per se.  It can be the colors, the shapes, the textures – virtually anything can trigger an idea. “You could be sitting on a plane and see something that inspires you for a dish. You walk through the wet markets in Asia and you can pick up something … everything [becomes a part of] what I am doing.” He doesn’t generally use the ingredients as inspiration. Like many visual and graphic artists, he described deriving inspiration from an unusual object, such as a glass of water, ice or a straw. Yet he never forgot for an instant that taste was the primary focus. That it is food and a dining experience. And that it’s his job to make us love it.

June, 2012

 UPDATE:

AUGUST, 2012

Chef Hergatt has left SHO and is reportedly planning top open a fine dining restaurant midtown.

 

 

 

 

The Chef Diaries: Chapter Three, Aliya LeeKong, Part 2: Turkey

By Tami Ganeles-Weiser

The ancient spice routes and silk road pathways carved through the rural countryside of what is now Modern Turkey. It’s no surprise that lifelong world traveler, Chef Aliya LeeKong, sojourned and studied near those very paths in her own ever-expanding panorama of culinary expertise. In part one of her Chef’s Diaries we learned about Chef Aliya’s exotic background . She recently shared pictures and memories of her experience to another historied land with a rich food culture. Read on for the next installment in her Chef Diaries.

Chapter 3 Chef Aliya LeeKong- Part 2: Bodrum, Turkey

Chef Aliya LeeKong at home

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chef LeeKong travels to expand her culinary knowledge, although it is already vast and expert, but she loves to learn regional techniques and local spice profiles. This was never more true than in her trip to Bodrum, Turkey. Bodrum is a small port city in the south west Aegean coast.

“The seafood was phenomenal,” she said. This small city housed one the Seven Wonders of The Ancient World. It is surrounded by geologically varied terrain. Chef Aliya passed through magnificent arid landscapes on her way to farmlands.

 

rocky countryside outside of Bodrum, Turkey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the geological beauty of Turkey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

colorful hot air balloons rising over Turkish villages

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She spent plenty of time visiting markets and investigating fruits and vegetables indigenous to the area.

 

enormous citron fruit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

local market red and yellow carrots

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Huge fresh olives

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

garden delights

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

watermelon radishes at the market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

market lemons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

fresh fish at the market with ruby gills fanned out showing off their freshness

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turkey is unique geographically and has many influences primarily because it is a transcontinental country.

 

 

Map of Modern Turkey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a physical land bridge between the Eastern hemisphere to the Western hemisphere. Since the Bronze Age, nations have used Anatolia ( currently central and southern Turkey) as a travel route between Asia and Europe.

 

 

Trade routes through rural Turkey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emperor Constantine moved the capitol of Rome to Constantinople, which is now modern Istanbul because of it’s central location in the Empire. It was the epicenter of the Christian world. The Crusaders, Venetian maritime merchants and the Byzantines all ruled the valuable land crossing at different times. The Ottoman Turks reigned beginning in the 11th century. They united Anatolia, which had been fragmented and expanded their kingdom extensively. The Ottoman Empire ran from the Adriatic Sea to the Danube River. (map ) Islam was introduced, but Christianity was and still is very popular. There were many different ethnic minorities and religious groups in the Ottoman Empire and over the years, many significance, often violent difficulties arose against some of the groups and against neighboring lands. After World War Two when a secular Turkish state was founded, a more modern style of society was created. The importance of their geography is hard to overstate. It is reflected in every way in their foods.

Chef LeeKong spent much of her time with a friend who lives in “…a farming community. It was deeply rural, so we did a lot of artisinal stuff there- preserve making, cheese( making), yogurt (making).” The yogurt was what we would think of as Greek style, even though Greece and Turkey, adjoining neighbors,  have had a long, turbulent and violently troubled past. They share many food palates. Yogurt is one of many foods that are a reflection of Turkey’s history. Even it’s cooking technology reflects it’s history and geography. Chef LeeKong found a tandoor oven in Turkey.

Cooking flatbread in a tandoor oven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This oven, closely associated with Indo-Pakistani cooking, is in essence a hole in the ground where breads and other items are baked against a hot brick-lined wall. It’s appearance in rural Turkey is evidence of it’s migration. Archeology indicates that this cooking technology made it’s way to rural Turkey centuries ago like Marco Polo taking new food stuff back and forth. Chef Aliya’s picture shows us that this cooking method, now so very old, is not only still there but in rural communities, it is still being used. Specific doughs also traveled through the region, although the uses vary from place to place. Sometimes the names change or the recipe varies just a bit over time. Yufka dough is used throughout the region. In Bulgaria and Turkey it is used for both sweet and savory applications, like flat breads and baklava. It is similar to the savory staples flatbread of Turkey, lavash, in some respects. Yufka dough we would have to assume traveled with traders,workers and slaves. The Levant’s Muslim and Christian communities (as well as their now disbursed Jewish communities from Syria and Lebanon, etc.) use a dough virtually identical to yufka in ingredients and procedure for its’ flatbread called makook. Turkish foods are an anthropologist’s dream.

The anthropological and multicultural feel of Turkey was evident to Chef LeeKong everywhere. In a Sephardic Jewish home she made stuffed grape leaves, so often associated with Greece, and stuffed zucchini blossoms, so often associated with southern Italy, while the megaphones blared the sacred call to Muslim prayers.

 

Turkish Sephardic Dolmades and stuffed zucchini blossoms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In another surprise to the Chef the women cooked on what Chef LeeKong recognized as an Indian tava. In the Middle East and Turkey this large flat round griddle is called a saj or sac and like it’s identical twin, the tava, it is used to make flatbreads.

 

 

beautiful flatbreads

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chef LeeKong learned a new technique to make baklava with the village cooks. They didn’t use phyllo dough. They used yufka, laborious and lovingly handmade. It was a rolled into sheer sheets and laid in a circular pan.

 

 

yufka dough stretched into a round cake pan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They did not put butter between year layer or even every other layer. They layered thirty-three translucent sheets of yufka at one time, doused them with melted butter,

 

 

 

 

Butter over Baklava

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and then added the filling. This was done three times to create over one hundred layers! At the end it was sauced with the the traditional, delectable sweet syrup after it was cooked .

 

 

Baklava ready to eat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can check out her video of this at her website-http://www.aliyaleekong.com/

Turkish cooking she said, like “…the terrain (itself) was … always interesting.”

What Chef LeeKong likes to do is add these techniques to her classical toolbox. She always applies “ …classical French technique to almost everything…sweating vegetables to extract flavor ( for example).”

 

 

potpourri of Turkish aromatics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As to the Turkish spice and herb profile, Chef LeeKong found the Turkish cuisine that she encountered to be tempered and low. It was very “ mint driven, olive oil driven, garlic driven, cumin driven.” She was told that the Turkish “…don’t like coriander.” She found that most unusual since “… to me coriander and cumin balance each other out.” Even one spice combination shift, one seemingly minor change, “ can make all the difference between cuisines.” Those changes continue to intrigue Chef LeeKong and drive her quest to study the wide world of exotic cuisines.Read on about her trip to Peru –yet another cross-pollinated country-in the next entry in the Chef Diaries.