SALON

Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009 6:01 PM UTC

A rapscallion’s holiday

Two holiday parties: One dirty, the other covered in dirt

By and

Topics: Kitchen Cabinet, Chefs and Cooks, Christmas, Food,

A rapscallion's holiday

We asked members of our Kitchen Cabinet to briefly share some of their holiday memories with us, and we’re sharing them with you all this week. Today we’re celebrating with fabulous foods, be they wholesomely found or more ill-gotten.

From Clark Wolf, food and restaurant consultant:

It was the indulgent start to an excessive decade: 1980, and who knew that wild arugula and padded shoulders were just round the corner? So nice that only one of those endured.

We were working to open a new outpost of the legendary Oakville Grocery, and a small group of us gathered in a Napa Valley farmhouse to rob the very larder we were stocking.

I’d arranged for geese to be raised for us nearby, secured major quantities of Italian white truffles, and gathered quail eggs and a slab of illegally imported foie gras large enough to clog international arteries.

We rendered the duck, gathering and straining the fat so we could pan fry sourdough crostini, scramble the quail eggs (kept overnight in a jar with the truffles to absorb their aroma) to go on top, then gilded that lily with a slash of foie gras and generous scrapings of more white truffle.

We were well into our third or fourth or fifth bottle of Champagne when Rick slipped and dropped the pan, sending the goose flying across Joe’s pristine show kitchen, only to be returned to the oven, forgotten in the haze and profoundly overcooked. We abandoned it. It was all of course far too much, but it felt just right.

I do remember a salad and a delicious, pedestrian poached egg the next noon, but that’s another story.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

From Greg Higgins, Chef-owner, Higgins Restaurant and Bar:

No offense to the founder of Festivus or any other feast days, but the winter solstice is primordial, predating all organized religion. It’s also the normal peak of truffle season along the 45th parallel.

There are many food memories brought on by the abbreviated days around the winter solstice, but I’m most moved by the scent of dank earth, the kind coming from a freshly dug Oregon black truffle. These things are precious, and the hunt for them is shrouded in a mystery that feels appropriate for the misty, dreary days of the Northwest winter.

There are secrets and pacts, and my band of rogue foragers never talks about the whereabouts of our forays. We take our experience and intuition and a bit of luck with us into these eternal forests, and we dig under thick moss and broad ferns. Occasionally, we get a waft of their unmistakable perfume, hovering elusively in the wet air. We gently rake back the duff of conifers and leaves, finding black nuggets encrusted in forest clay. The hunt continues until we’re content to return, chilled to the bone but charged by the aroma in our gunny sacks — spices, rich earth and exotic fruits.

Back in the kitchen, we spray away the tenacious clay to reveal the velvety black trophies. Preparing a simple risotto, it’s easy to forget the numbing cold and our sore knees and backs from the day’s adventure. Some fresh chevre, a leek or two pulled from the kitchen garden, a bit of patient stirring and all that remains is the celebration at the table with fellow foragers and an ample supply of dark and pungent pinot noir nurtured in that same red clay.

We, like many other mycophages, celebrate this auspicious day rather than some of the more religious or spiritual holidays, celebrating the return of the light. 

Clark Wolf is founder and president of Clark Wolf Company, a New York-based food and restaurant consulting firm. More Clark Wolf.

Higgins turns out fine cuisine in support of his premise that food is community - an idea that creates respect, commitment and responsibility from farmer to chef to diner. “We're interested in nourishing and sustaining not only our customer's appetites but also the land and the quality of life we all enjoy,” says Higgins. With an agricultural region that provides unparalleled abundance and diversity - from wild salmon, mushrooms, and huckleberries to some of the finest wines in the country, Higgins is defining a cuisine that is truly rooted in the northwest. More Greg Higgins.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
142 points143 points | comment
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
120 points121 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
112 points113 points | 84 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
104 points105 points | 28 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
75 points76 points | 19 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations