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Well, it happened. I sold out.

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Like Dionne Warwick and the Psychic Friends Network, like Mary J. Blige and Burger King’s crispy chicken wrap, or Claire Danes and the Latisse Eyelash Prescription Treatment System, I am endorsing a product. Which appeals deeply to my childhood self. I mean, I grew up seeing Bill Cosby eat Jell-o Pudding Pops and Michael J. Fox drink Pepsi, so joining their ranks (in some small way) kind of makes me want to jump through time and high-five my eleven-year-old self. The product?

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From now until infinity you will not be able to use a Wusthof knife without thinking of me.

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Do not attempt this at home unless you want to cut off your nose.

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You can see the entire campaign over on their Edge site.

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When they asked me to endorse them they sent me a nice chef’s knife in the mail, as well as a letter inviting me to be one of their spokespeople as well as a bunch of material outlining the campaign they were planning. I opened the package, took the knife (“Cool,” I remember thinking. “They sent me a knife because I’m a chef.”), glanced at the rest and thought, “Junk mail,” and tossed it in the trash. A week later someone from the agency putting the campaign together called.

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“Did you get the knife?” she asked.

Oh, great. Now she was going to try to sell me something. Well, ha, ha, sucker. I’ve got my knife and I don’t have to give it back.

“Yep, thanks. It’s nice.”

Now, just try to sell me more knives so I can refuse you.

“What did you think about it?”

What did I think about the knife? Well, it’s sharp and it cuts things? What does she mean? What is she talking about?

“Um…”

“You know, the proposal?”

The trash was long gone. What had I done? I tried to fake it.

“You know,” I said, “I thought it looked good, but why don’t you refresh me…”

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It’s amazing I’ve survived this long around so many sharp knives and so much fire, to be honest. But, ultimately the joke’s on Wusthof. What they don’t realize is that they didn’t need to pay me to endorse them. I was doing it a long time ago for free. Way back in 2004 I did my first ever interview as a chef. Ted Lee (of the Lee Bros. cookbook out now!) needed some chefs to talk about knives for a piece he was writing for the New York Times. He figured that I worked with vegetables so I’d have a different take on it. He’d talked to lots of chefs about their fancy Japanese knives, their hand forged custom steel, their ceramic knives built by robots. Me? I used a Wusthof.

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Amanda Cohen, a sous-chef at Pure Food and Wine in Manhattan, bought her less exalted Wüsthof chef’s knife at a Bed Bath & Beyond store in Manhattan. But she is every bit as sanguine as Mr. Heflin about its form and function.

“My knife fits my hand so perfectly,” Ms. Cohen said. “Every time I pick it up, it’s like, `Hello, old friend!’ “

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I’ve always used whatever knife I had lying around. I usually go for a Wusthof if I’m buying one, because I take my knives to hell and back and really beat the tar out of them so $900 knives that require constant maintenance are wasted on me. Later in the NY Times piece:

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“As long as you get the job done on time, a knife is a knife,” said Ms. Cohen, the sous-chef at Pure Food and Wine. “I see all these guys with their knives in fancy carrying cases, and I always want to ask them, `Does that make the food taste better?’”

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I’ve got a Wusthof tossed in my bag and that’s kind of all I need. Just the 6″ chef’s knife. From now until I go off a cliff, I’m Thelma and this is my Louise.

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2 gether 4 ever.

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So thanks, Wusthof, for putting a price tag on a relationship you didn’t even know already existed. And the campaign’s not just about me. Marc Vetri of Vetri in Philadelphia and Katherine Clapner the pastry chef who owns Dude, Sweet Chocolate in Dallas are both part of their campaign as well this year, so I’m in good company.

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And I got a free knife!

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As you can probably tell by my earlier posts on How to Be a Chef and Should You Go to Cooking School? I really believe that other people should be exposed to my opinions on a regular basis. And who better to beat over the head with my club-like wisdom than a bunch of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, soft-skinned, hopeful cooking school students? Which is why I’m really excited that Johnson & Wales in Charlotte, NC has chosen me to be their Distinguished Visiting Chef this year.

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I’ll be down there from Saturday through Monday, March 23 – 25, to warp young minds, crush their hopes, and kill their dreams. I’ll also be doing cooking demos. They use a lot more diplomatic language than I do, so here’s what they say:

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The Distinguished Visiting Chef Program was established in 1979 to honor outstanding culinarians and to provide an expanded learning experience for culinary and pastry arts students. Each year the College of Culinary Arts of Johnson & Wales University honors experts in the field of culinary arts by inviting internationally recognized chefs from the United States and abroad to visit the University and share their knowledge with the students. Drawing on their expertise, these individuals pass on valuable information acquired over the years as they lecture and demonstrate to Johnson & Wales University students.

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Which basically means: warp, crush, kill.

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Actually, I’m kind of excited. I feel like a lot of kids are coming out of cooking school the way I did: totally unprepared for the real world. I’m hoping that by vaccinating them with a little bit of reality poison now, they’ll be better able to resist its corrosive effects in the future. Also, they set up a scholarship in my name, which is kind of nice except that I can’t apply for it. Which is too bad, because with my name on it, I thought I’d be a shoo-in to win. Instead, someone named Brandon Lopez got the scholarship, to which I say: Congratulations, Brandon. And you owe me a 20% kickback.

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I had no idea Johnson & Wales looked like Mordor.

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So when you’re going about your day on March 24 and 25 just realize that I’ll be down in North Carolina, attending a fancy dress party in my own honor, killing the weak, and luring the strong into being my future employees. Thanks, Johnson & Wales!

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I think by now I’ve talked about being on America’s Test Kitchen for longer than it took to actually film the episode. That’s okay! I can talk about being on my favorite cooking show until I turn blue in the face and fall over dead. The episode is called “Simple and Satisfying Vegetable Mains” and it’s airing all over the place depending on when ACT airs on your local PBS station, but if you’re like me and you want to put it on a loop and watch it over and over again in the comfort of your own home, you can find the entire episode online!

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Thank you, internets!

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(Update: as of Tuesday, November 6, Dirt Candy has re-opened! Seriously. We’re open. You can eat here! People have been confused, so be confused no longer!)

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I’m in the middle of re-opening Dirt Candy and so far the biggest problem (besides having to remake everything from scratch, all at once) is that my internet service is out. Verizon told me, “We don’t know why it’s out, we don’t know when it will be back, and it may never be back.” As you might imagine, these are not the words I wanted to hear. The biggest thing I need internet access for are Open Table reservations. To their credit, Open Table is being really great about this (a huge improvement over my last interaction with them) but for now, if you want a reservation (or need to cancel a reservation, or change a reservation) please call the restaurant (212-228-7732). I’m really sorry for the inconvenience, but just imagine: it’s only a single phone call for you, but I’ll be answering the phone all day long.

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Then there’s storage. Dirt Candy has off-site storage over on Avenue D, right in the middle of the flood zone. My storage unit: in the basement. This is what it looks like.

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My husband was over there yesterday and today digging it out, and what really sucks is that insurance doesn’t cover this loss. The policy I had through the storage place doesn’t cover water damage, and the coverage I have through my home owner’s policy doesn’t cover this particular location for flooding (because it’s in a flood plain). This was all news to me!

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Want to buy a Dirt Candy Cookbook: Special Superstorm Sandy Edition?

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The store is still open, and we’re still selling stuff, but we have no more men’s t-shirts (unless you’d like to buy a wet, mildewy one saturated in heating oil and raw sewage) and I won’t be able to ship any book orders until this weekend. I’ll keep you posted on developments.

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(Update: as of Tuesday, November 6, Dirt Candy has re-opened! Seriously. We’re open. You can eat here! People have been confused, so be confused no longer!)

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OMG – SuperKillerPsychoStorm Sandy has hit New York! The second Hurricane Sandy stopped being overly dramatic in a desperate bid for attention, I strapped on my shoes and walked down to Dirt Candy to check out the damage. Fortunately there wasn’t any. No leaks, no explosions, no radioactive mutants squatting in the rubble and killing people for gasoline. Unfortunately, there is also no power and no one is sure when it’s coming back online. Con Edison says that it will be four days, but these are the same people who once told me that my power bill jumped by $2200 in one month because they mis-read my meter, so I’m not sure they’re the best judge of things.

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Since there’s no way to know what’s going on, Dirt Candy is going to be closed for the rest of the week. I’ll still be heading to Austin to do the first vegetarian event ever at the Alamo Drafthouse (full, sense-shattering details here) and we’ll be open again on Tuesday, November 6 unless something bad happens in the interim. But keep your eyes on Facebook, or Twitter, or here, and I’ll let you guys know the second those plans change.

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Of course, tomorrow I also have to head to my storage space on Avenue D, which got something like 4 – 6 feet of water. And my storage unit is in the basement. So it’s not looking good.

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How all my customers look now that we are in the post-apocalyptic future!

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So I had this cookbook launch party at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe on Monday night. I hadn’t done anything like this before, so I was mostly just terrified that no one would show up and it would be me, Ryan, and my husband standing onstage with five people in the audience who thought they were there for a Malcolm Gladwell reading. My parents, mother-in-law, and great-aunt Lee came into town for it, boosting our potential numbers to nine people, at least four of whom would know why they were there, but it also boosted the potential for embarrassing disaster that would destroy my self-confidence for all eternity to much higher levels, too. Click on through for the photo tour of destruction!

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Read the rest of this entry »

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I say this completely and totally, 100% without irony: Happy Birthday, Martha Stewart!

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Martha Stewart has been to Dirt Candy
and it was one of the weirdest, funniest,
most nerve-wracking nights I’ve ever had.
Plus: Martha Stewart came to Dirt Candy!!!

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She took all the tasks that were traditionally dismissed as “fussy,” “feminine,” and the concern of “housewives” and turned them into the fuel for a career that shot her into the stratosphere, saw her become a pop culture icon, and a multi-millionaire. For years I had a subscription to Martha Stewart Living and nothing made my lousy, sixth-floor walk-up nicer than the hours I would spent poring over every issue. For me, the magazine wasn’t a source for potential home improvement projects, but an escape hatch into a world where things like bookshelf organization, kitchen renovation, flower arranging, and cottage painting weren’t just possible, but they were priorities. For that hour or two every month I felt a little less broke, and a lot more happy.

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Like Paula Deen, Martha Stewart is one of those figures in the cooking/food/lifestyle arena who has been mocked, ridiculed, and dismissed, but their public images aside, these are women who busted their butts, put their shoulders to the wheel, and worked. They worked hard, and they worked for a long time, and ultimately they succeeded at exactly what it is they wanted to do. I can’t find a reason to criticize that.

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So Happy Birthday, Ms. Stewart!

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Back on Wednesday, June 13, I went out and cooked at Justin Cucci’s and Daniel Asher’s Linger Restaurant in Denver as part of the James Beard Celebrity Chef Tour. It’s taken me forever to write about it because I’ve spent most of my time since then lying on the floor in New York, melting. But Denver was gorgeous, one mile above sea level, and cool and crisp despite the wildfires that were just starting.

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See! It’s all clean!

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Read the rest of this entry »

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Jesus left Dirt Candy over a year ago, but he was my sous chef and my friend, and part of him will always be a part of Dirt Candy. We have a handle that we use to open up the basement hatch which we all have to do about 100 times each day. It was always getting lost, so one night Jesus braided together this rope for the handle out of plastic wrap, just like a kid at summer camp making lanyards.

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It wore out recently, and so I had to throw it away. It was the last thing that Jesus did that was still here. So from now on, while he’ll always be a part of Dirt Candy, it’ll only be in spirit.

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It’s always sad when people leave Dirt Candy. This past Saturday night was the last service for two people: Emily, who’s been my sous chef for the past 6 months, and Diana who’s been my server for close to 2 years. Emily came on board from Northern Spy Co. after Jesus left and she dealt well with having to replace my sous chef of many years. She’s decided it’s time to move on and do something else, and I’m grateful she’s stuck around this long to help train my new sous chef (more on him in a minute).

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How we say goodbye at Dirt Candy: 5 mini-bottles and 1 tiny cup
(a gift from our intern, Nin).

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I’m really sad to see Diana go. It’s weird to meet someone who is a server prodigy, but she was born with a strange superpower that gives her complete control of dining rooms. I’ve only seen her mess up someone’s order 3 times in the over 18 months she’s been here, and I’ve never seen someone who can keep the service craziness so neatly compartmentalized in her mind without getting stressed out. If I could keep her here forever, maybe chained up in the basement, and not get arrested, I would do it.

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Diana with our equally amazing dishwasher, William.

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But Diana has fallen in love with New Orleans and decided to move there for a bit. She’ll come back to the city eventually and there’ll always be a place at Dirt Candy for her. (Evidence in support of the “She’ll come back eventually” theory: Kristen, my first and much-loved server recently started working in the kitchen, training on prep and hopefully one day working on the line when needed. She’s also going to be waiting on tables in the upcoming months.)

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Diana’s goodbye dinner was at Del Posto where the amazing
Brooks Headley made her this farewell cake.

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It’s not all people leaving and me crying, however. Last Saturday night was also the first service for my new sous chef, Travis. He worked at a bunch of teppanyaki restaurants in Atlanta before moving here but has sworn not to juggle spatulas, toss shrimp into anyone’s mouth or build an onion ring volcano unless I start paying him a lot more money.

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Travis, pointedly not catching an egg in his hat.

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So two people leave, one person arrives, and the Circle of Life continues.

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