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What is dirt candy? Vegetables, of course. When you eat a vegetable you’re eating little more than dirt that’s been transformed by plenty of sunshine and rain into something that’s full of flavor: Dirt Candy. It’s also the name of my restaurant, which opened in October, 2008.

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Yesterday was pretty stressful – I knew that I lost Iron Chef America, but I didn’t know the final score and I couldn’t tell anyone the result. People were so excited and I felt like I was going to let them all down. I think I threw up from nerves three times before the show aired. It may sound childish but I really wanted to win. I wanted to take this victory for the vegetarian community, I wanted to take it to earn vegetables some respect and I wanted to take it because Mark Dacascos said if I won I could cut off Morimoto’s ponytail. I wanted to cut that ponytail off so badly. There’s no worse feeling than trying really hard for something, giving it your all, doing your best, and having that just not be good enough.

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Appearing on the Time Warner

cable guide was its own reward.

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The viewing party was absolutely great and I can’t believe how excited everyone was, even after the show was over. Douglas Richard and Clarice Martin drove up from West Point to watch, my wine reps – Owen and Camille – both came, Roopa and Matt made hundreds of tiny cupcakes, Erin brought me okra pickles, tons of friends, my parents, and lots of familiar faces from Dirt Candy all showed up and were the best cheering section a girl could want. There were even some press people who I’ve made friends with from covering the restaurant who came to hang out and watch – which is especially amazing because press people are normally in their coffins by 9pm since they start drinking around noon. (Note: if you are Canadian, I am so sorry that Food Network Canada isn’t airing the show. Why do they punish you for living in the world’s greatest, most maple-flavored country? Please let Prime Minister Harper know that we cannot stand for this treatment!) (Also: a huge thanks to Angels and Kings on 11th and A who let us swarm their bar for the evening and were very gentlemanly about everything.)

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This is a swarm, Dirt Candy style.

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Watching the show brought a few things to mind:

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1) The butter thing. Alton Brown and Kevin Brauch were a lot of fun to joke around with and the camera crews and floor crew had a great time playing with us. We were a lot less solemn than Morimoto’s side and so they gave the three of us a lot of camera time. The butter thing was a joke we kept kicking back and forth and it was funny, but I feel like it wound up taking over the show. And it wasn’t even accurate. Jesus, Danielle and I are good at what we do but we can’t cook for only three people. So when Jesus was making the beurre blanc sauce with all that butter at the end, he was making it in the proportion we use at the restaurant, which is enough for at least 30 servings. Unfortunately, we wound up throwing out a lot of what we made on Iron Chef because it was easier to cook in the proportions we knew, rather than figure out proportions all over again.

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I know my vegan customers, and I know that they’re awesome people with well-developed senses of humor, but one thing that bothered me is that I’ve tried really hard to make sure everyone feels welcome at Dirt Candy and I worry that the focus on how much butter we used is going to alienate some folks. If you’re vegan and you’re reading this, just know that I don’t care about your health, I will destroy you with some of the richest most drool-inspiring vegetarian food you’ve ever had, and I don’t need butter to do it. Trust me: I have a mighty arsenal of weapons that I can use to put your soul into food shock and nine out of ten of them don’t involve dairy.

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The crowd is shocked to see that Jesus,

Danielle and were professionally cleaned

for our Iron Chef America appearance.

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2) Jesus and Danielle looked great. Normally the three of us are in stained whites, bleeding and sweating on each other, victimizing one another with our mood swings and elbowing each other out of the way. But watching the two of them onscreen I felt really proud. Danielle looked like some kind of broccoli slinging supermodel and Jesus looked like a vegetable slicing stud. It was like working for years with Clark Kent and then turning around and suddenly seeing that they’re actually Superman.

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3) One of the hardest things to watch was myself – slicing my finger, squeaking in an ultrasonic voice pitched for bats to hear, getting my sentences edited in half – but I also was relieved to see I didn’t act like a total freak. This was me a year ago, and there are so many things I would have done differently in this challenge if I did it today. But Past Me did alright by Present Me, and I’m proud of her. Also, did anyone else catch my drag queen worthy acting at the top of the show? They asked me to make sure my reactions were big so I figured, “You want big? Let me just super-size that for you.”

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4) The judges were rough. I was so psyched to have Jeffrey Steingarten as a judge since I feel like he’s the “real” judge in the same way that I think Morimoto is the “real” Iron Chef. But I also think he was having a bad day. He just seemed irritable and out of sorts throughout the 6 hour shoot (yes, it lasted 6 hours!) and I really wanted him to engage with my food more than, “I think this tastes good. I don’t think this tastes good.” I would have loved to sit there and serve him my food and listen to him tear it apart for hours, but he didn’t seem to be feeling at his best that day. As for the other two judges, I knew I was in for it when Kelly Hu said she didn’t like fat and that she liked her broccoli “nude.” If she wants “nude” vegetables I suggest she go to a strip club – Dirt Candy doesn’t do “nude.”

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Sir Jeffrey will wither you with

an icy glare now.

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5) I wished I could have tasted Morimoto’s food. He and I did so many of the same dishes and used so many of the same techniques and I wanted to get a better sense of what he was doing. When the judges tasted his creamy dish with pickled broccoli and my creamy dish with pickled broccoli and said that it “made sense” when he did it but not when I did it, I wanted to taste what that meant. Taste can be affected by so many different factors from presentation to expectations and I wanted to taste it for myself. Was it just that he plated it differently? Did he get the benefit of the doubt because he’s cooked on Iron Chef America for 8 seasons? Or was there an actual taste difference, and if so what was it? Not being able to taste his food was the biggest bummer of the show for me.

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But overall, I’m thrilled. I do feel like I let down the team by not winning. But this was me and Jesus and Danielle one year ago. We did our best, and we went down fighting. And, to be honest, to me the biggest accomplishment was keeping my dignity (most vegetarians on reality TV get flayed alive) and having fun and having that fun come across on the show. Food is my life. I have busted my ass in hot, sweaty kitchens for twelve years, I have taken friends to the hospital for gruesome injuries they’ve gotten on the job, I am covered with burn and knife scars, I have given cooking my sweat and blood and tears and except for my marriage and my family it means more to me than anything on this planet. But that’s no reason to act like a pompous jackass about it. It has to be fun. More than anything, I want people to be surprised, to laugh and to enjoy themselves when they eat my food, and I think that came across last night.

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For the three of us, it feels like the first year of Dirt Candy is truly over now that our Iron Chef episode has aired. We are such different people making such different food than we were a year ago when this was filmed. For us, this was a chance to look back at who we were when the restaurant had just opened and we were struggling to make it work, and to raise a glass to our Past Selves and say, “Your Future Selves want you to know it’s all going to be worth it.” Because looking around that packed room, listening to people cheer and laugh and heckle, watching customers and friends and family meet each other for the first time, and get drunk together, and eat cupcakes and pizza together, it felt like everything worked out after all. It would have been nice to win, but if this is losing, it doesn’t feel so bad. If this is losing, I can live with that.

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And, like I said on the show…

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“Hey, Dirt Candy! How ya’ll roll?”

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The last installment in the epic tale of filming my episode of Iron Chef America. The episode airs this Sunday, August 29 @ 10pm on the Food Network. Except in Canada. Apparently the Food Network hates Canada and the episode won’t be airing there in the foreseeable future even though I’m Canadian. If ever the UN cared about international relations, this would be the time to get involved before the situation escalates. Read part one and part two.

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The actual filming Iron Chef – as opposed to the preparation, the sitting around and the waiting – was bizarre. I was all jacked up on adrenaline and my nerves were jangling like alarm bells and the first thing they did was film my entrance. Inside my skull my brain is screaming with stress and I have to walk down the runway in a swirl of artificial smoke, and then hit my mark at the end and strike a pose.

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“Again,” they said.

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Then, “Again.”
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There’s no music. No direction. You feel like you’re on an episode of America’s Next Top Model strutting down a runway towards Mark Dacascos and you just keep having to do it over and over again.

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Danielle, Jesus and I got a chance to watch the taping of the Iron Chef episode that featured Dina Marino’s battle and we learned a few things:

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1) Taping a TV show is very, very, very boring.

2) Television studios are freezing cold.

3) We didn’t stand a chance.

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The first in a three post series about the bizarre experience of being on Iron Chef America. This morning: the beginning! (the next post will go up late this afternoon – and the Iron Chef episode airs this Sunday, August 29 @ 10pm on the Food Network)

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The strangest thing about being on Iron Chef is that it happened so long ago – I actually filmed my segment almost exactly a year ago today. About five months ago I just started assuming that my episode was so bad it would never air. But now it’s airing and the thing that’s going to be weirdest is the time warp of watching myself a year ago on TV. I’m a completely different chef now, and I can’t look back at the food I was making when Dirt Candy opened without a list in my head of all the things I’d do differently. The strongest urge I’m going to have while watching the episode is to yell at my past self, “You call that cooking? Come on, step up your game, Past Me!”

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Past Me practicing plating for Iron Chef.

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When I first got the call to be on Iron Chef America, Dirt Candy had been open for less than a year. I’d been cooking with electricity for almost six months, and had finally gotten the gas hooked up about three months before. I was in the middle of service and Michael Colameco was shooting a segment for his show in the dining room so we were in total chaos. The phone rang, and someone on the other end said, “Hi, we’re calling from the Food Network. Is Amanda there?” They told me they were the producers of Iron Chef America and they were inviting me to compete on an episode.

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“I don’t think so,” I said.

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Starting around 8pm or so this Wednesday, I’m going to be posting my behind-the-scenes story about doing Iron Chef, in preparation for this Sunday, August 29th screening of my Iron Chef America battle against Masaharu Morimoto – blood will fly, vegetables will be massacred and there will be only one survivor. There will be a second post Thursday morning and a third post on Friday. See you then!

One year ago today – terrified, months late, over-budget, and without gas – Dirt Candy served its first paying customers. Building this restaurant was almost impossible and nearly killed more than one person, and the idea of trying to serve my kind of vegetarian food in a 350 square foot space was one that didn’t look like a natural winner.

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One year later, Dirt Candy is far more successful than it has any right to be. And while it’s always nice to have the support of the press, what’s far more important has been the support of every single customer who’s eaten here. By opening up your wallet and plunking down the price of a meal, each and every one of you has kept the lights on. I know Dirt Candy isn’t for everyone, but enough of you love it that you’ve made it what it is, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me and to all of us who work here. We’ve seen customers become friends and friends become customers, and it does our heart good when the names of our regulars appear on the reservation list.

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So from myself and from Jesus, my sous chef, from Kristen, my server, Antonio, my dishwasher and Danielle who does daytime prep, a huge thank you to all of you who’ve kept us in business for a whole year. There are things we wish we could do better but can’t because of limitations imposed on us by the size of the restaurant. There are things we get wrong because we haven’t figured out how to get them perfect yet. But apparently we’ve gotten enough things right to keep a lot of you coming back for more, and that means more to us than you’ll ever know.

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And, just for fun, here’s a quick summary of what’s happened here in the first year:

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How do you know it’s Spring? When the airlock comes off the front of your restaurant. The bright orange Dirt Candy wind baffle has been taken away by the airlock fairies leaving many confused vendors in its wake. One of our delivery guys came into the restaurant asking if Dirt Candy was closed and if we were a new restaurant, while another came in asking for directions to Dirt Candy because he thought it was right here. Nope, still the same restaurant, only now our ski parka is in winter storage.

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Today, January 19, 2009, is officially known as Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. In the UK they’re doing mental health programs to make the day go down easier, in Canada people are walking to the ends of their driveways to get the paper and then suddenly sitting down in the snow and not moving for hours, and in America people are staring at their ringing cell phones in terror then refusing to answer them while manically ordering sweaters they don’t need online. All in all it’s a depressing day.

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As for me, I’m staring at my menu. Jesus and I make everything on it dozens of times every night and, to be honest, I’m getting bored. The customers keep it fun with their rare allergies (I’d never heard of a mushroom allergy before), their food phobias (someone wanted the grits but confessed to a horror of poached eggs so we scrambled his), their stories about getting to the restaurant (one person recently drove from Buffalo to eat here), their occasional pleas for our help to impress their dates, their non-sequiturs (one customer pulled out a series of marshmallows shaped like penises and seemed very proud of them) and their general variety. But I’m dying to shake up the menu some, to get experimenting in the kitchen with some dishes and to try out some new craziness. Problem is, still no gas. Until we have gas we can’t do anything differently because it’s too hard on everyone working here to make changes when we’re cooking all electric.

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So on Blue Monday I look at my menu, feel depressed that we still don’t have gas and learn the real reason why we don’t serve tacos. And to anyone reading, treat yourself well tonight. Have two desserts, an extra glass of wine, ignore your work, read magazines in bed, don’t take calls from people you don’t want to talk to and refuse to feel guilty about the state of your apartment. It’s not laziness or self-indulgence but an issue of public health because, after all, this is Blue Monday.

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Although it took a year to get Dirt Candy open, we really were only around for about 8 weeks of 2008 and so I didn’t expect that we’d show up on any “Best of” lists. Personally, I’m allergic to the last week of the year because it’s when newspapers and magazines become a giant wall of “Best of” lists and it all sort of blurs together after a while. Best New Restaurant? The Dark Knight. Best New Chef? The Tale of Beedle the Bard. I can’t keep it straight. But some folks surprised me by going out of their way to say nice things about Dirt Candy in their year-end lists, which was real friendly and it’s much appreciated.

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Over on Eater, the Feedbag picked Dirt Candy as one of the “Best Newcomers of 2008″ and Gothamist singled us out for a nice mention in their round-up of “The Way We Ate 2008.”

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As for 2009 things don’t look too shabby so far. Gourmet has already weighed in with a first taste review in which they say the hush puppies are, “…so good it’ll stop your heart…” which is really nice to hear unless you have coronary disease, and they call the spinach soup, “…soothing and spiky…” The February 2009 issue of Bon Appetit does a national restaurant round up of “Hot 10 Modern Vegetarian” and not only do they put Dirt Candy in at number 6 (I’m not sure they’re ranked by number, but still…six is a nice number) but we’re the only veggie place in NYC they pick. Not a bad way to start the year, although the way things are going pretty soon it won’t matter if Dirt Candy gets good reviews or not, it’ll simply be judged on how much bottled water it contains, how much gasoline I’ve hoarded and whether or not I can defend it from marauding bands of mutant bikers who cruise the post-apocalyptic American crud-scape fighting over the last can of beans in the world.

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Future Dirt Candy customers.

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We’ve been open for just a little over a month and, surprisingly, no one’s dead or injured. I thought for sure we wouldn’t make it this far, but people have been coming and they seem to be having fun. Still no gas (although there may be light at the end of that particular tunnel) and the construction is still dragging on (no heat, the menu box hasn’t been fixed yet, the sound system is still out of commission and we’re running on a Bose sound dock, other boring problems, blah, blah, blah) but as far as the food and how people are receiving it, we couldn’t be happier.

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Hey, look! It’s grits!

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The Amateur Gourmet did a super-nice video piece on the place full of snazzy Video Toaster effects and he really loved the food. The Feedbag did an interview and then came in to eat and I couldn’t be happier that a committed carnivore like Josh Ozersky is enjoying what we’re doing here. And there are more happy diners writing at the Pink Pig, and at Yelp and on Menupages.

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It feels really, really rewarding that people seem to enjoy what we’re doing so far. Jesus (sous chef), Debbie (pastry),  Kristen (waiter) and I have worked really hard to make this place exactly what we want it to be, and while it’s not quite there yet (I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like it’s perfect), and we’re not planning on relaxing anytime soon, it sounds like we’re at least moving in the right direction. And just wait until the gas is on and we become an unstoppable volcano of food.

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That’s when the kimchi doughnuts and the paella crisp are going to officially go on the menu – we just weren’t able to make them as good as I want them to be without gas. Not because you need gas to cook them, but cooking on countertop appliances is slow and taking those two dishes off the menu for now really frees us up to make everything else as good as it should be. Fingers crossed that the gas will be up before the holidays, the construction will be over and I can stop arguing with contractors over HVAC systems and upholstery because I am sick and tired of having to manage a construction job and I really want the freedom to play more with the menu.

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Also, I’ve been behind with this blog. I really wanted it to be more active than it’s been so it’s going to step up its game in the next few weeks. We’ll be doing a special holiday series on “Death By Contractor: How a Restaurant Gets Built” focusing on how this place got put together. Our wine list is pretty weird, so we’ll be writing more about our wines so that people can meet them and learn that they’re nice wines who won’t stab you in the back and steal your wallet if you encounter them in a dark alley, we’ll be writing about the other people who work here and more about the food after the gas is on and the menu starts morphing like a mighty Transformer.