This past weekend my family and I had the pleasure of celebrating my Dad’s (Ben Bloom) birthday.  Special events in our family are not celebrated with lots of pomp and circumstance or lavish, expensive gifts to each other.  Instead, our special occasions are celebrated with food and last Saturday night was no exception, except for one minor detail.  My brother Alex and I actually did the cooking for Dad. Most often Ben is the one creating the culinary masterpieces that grace our family table but we thought on his birthday he deserved a night off.

Now as you can imagine cooking for Ben is not without stress or anxiety. Having run LaCuisine for the past 25 years he has seen and eaten a ton of incredible food.  I don’t mean to say that he puts pressure on us when we cook; in fact it was just the opposite.  He was sitting contently in his favorite chair reading the Times, enjoying some excellent wine.  The stress comes more from the fact that we can’t let this man down.  I have now worked in the business for last 2 years and my younger brother Alex is a second year student at the Culinary Institute of America.  If, with those combined credientials we can’t put together a top notch dinner, than what good are we, have we learned anything after all these years of eating terrific food?  Well the answer is quite simply, yes we have, thank you very much Dad.

Saturday’s Dinner featured two courses focusing on the seasonality of spring; Dad was a spring baby after all.  Earlier in the week Alex and I put our collective heads together and came up with a menu that we thought would be straightforward to execute but also present very well.  After a number of phone calls back and forth, “Lets roast the lamb, no we should grill it, better yet grill then roast!”  You can see my point two over ambitious cooks over thinking the whole meal.  Finally we settled down and decided Dad would like simple clean flavors, the type of food that we grew up eating and enjoying as a family.

The first course was an Asparagus Velouté topped with a Seared Sea Scallop over crème fraiche and finished with a Cantaloupe Melon Gelée.   Asparagus Velouté is a rich creamy asparagus style soup with herbs, a dish that shouts spring. The seared scallop added a touch of sweetness, the crème fraiche a hint of creaminess, and the final bright note from the melon gelée.  A dish of subtle elegance, simple yet fresh flavors that were the perfect embodiment of early spring.

The second course was a Herb Crusted Roast Rack of Colorado Lamb served over Pureed Chive Smashed Potatoes with Spring Onions and Carrots, finished with a Veal Demi-glace.  This dish featured the earthy tones of the lamb, the smooth yet slightly piquant bite of potatoes, and the richness of the demi. The ring of carrots and spring onions added the final bright notes to the dish.

For dessert my step mom, Patty, made one of our family favorites, Chocolate Buttermilk Cake with Fresh Whipped Cream Icing topped with Shaved Chocolate.

All in all the meal was a slam-dunk if I do say so myself. Our vision actually turned into reality and the final presentation and flavors were just what we had hoped for.  Dad seemed genuinely pleased with the outcome, glad not to have been in the kitchen for hours on his special day. We spent the last hour after dessert dissecting what we had eaten, trying to decide what could have been done better, what worked, what did not. Could we have added a pinch of this or a pinch of that, what would have happened if we used this ingredient instead of that, typical Bloom family dinner conversation.  My wife summed up the night the best when upon leaving she said, “Your family really is food obsessed!”  Cheers to that!

Today’s New York Times had a significant number of letters commenting on Marcella Hazan’s Op Ed piece from November 29th.  Seems like she hit quite a nerve in the controversy between calling one a chef versus a cook, and the ramnifications of the decision.

Although I’ve been cooking most of my adult life, and produced most of La Cuisine’s food for the first 8 – 10 years of our existence, I have never thought of myself as a chef.  I am a fairly non-hierarchical guy, I call my doctors by their first names along with anyone else I happen to run into.  I don’t think it’s disrespectful, just a way to diminish barriers and promote conversation.  Here in the kitchen, we have an Executive Chef, but no one refers to him as such, his name is Uli.  Our Pastry Chef is Kevin, our Sous Chef Louis, etc.  The titles are descriptive of their roles in the organization, not what we call them.

My son Alex is completing his externship from the Culinary Institute at Restaurant Daniel, a fairly traditional French kitchen, where titles are used more often than not as a sign of respect.  Most of the instructors at Hyde Park are referred to as Chef as well.  It is simply a different orientation.  Neither is right or wrong for every one in every situation.  Does it “cheapen” the title as some in today’s paper thought, when applied to today’s celebrity “chefs”?  Probably a bit – can you equate four or five years of experience to 20 or thirty?  Does the definition need to be expanded a bit to embrace the radical shift in training, experience and exposure that today’s chefs receive?

The most interesting point Marcella made back on the 29th is the need to remember that “the food prepared and shared at home…has provided a solid center to our lives.  Which is why, as we come together over the holidays, we should take a moment to think about how we can become cooks again.   Cooking delivers its truest and most enduring gifts when it is savored in intimacy, prepared by a cook with love.”

I think back to my grandmothers’ kitchens in Brooklyn, the aunts, uncles, cousins and more gathered around large tables laden with food, cooked with joy, eaten with delight.  In many respects, it is why I do what I do.  Cook or chef, chef or cook, I’m not sure it really matters.  What seems most important to me is the simplicity of great ingredients, well seasoned.  Gather those you care about most, then cook, eat, drink, enjoy.

Ben