At Cooking Camp, Sustainable Fish and a Dinner
Honoring David Bouley
Everything from Austrian cuisine to
sustainable fish was on the menu at the seventh annual New York Culinary
Experience, a cooking camp held at the International Culinary Center in
SoHo this past weekend.
The event exposed some 150 students
to a mix of both well-established chefs like David Bouley and Andre
Soltner, as well as rising stars like Emma Bengtsson, who was
propelled to fame last year when she became the first
female chef in New York to earn two Michelin stars for Aquavit.
It was the first time teaching a
cooking class for Bengtsson, who showed students how to make a Scandinavian
bouillabaisse, which involved cleaning mussels, searing seafood and making a
parsley aioli.
The chef’s methodical approach
helped students of all cooking abilities create the dish. Comments like “It’s
very doable” could be overheard in various parts of the kitchen. Bengtsson
herself was self-deprecating when a sauce she created started to separate. “You
know how you see these classes and everything looks so smooth?” she said. “I’m
not there yet.”
Bengtsson, who describes herself as
shy, is reluctantly coping with her newfound fame. “My career has gone straight
to somewhere I’m not familiar with,” she told Speakeasy after class. “I’m so
used to being the person behind another person. I’ve always followed along, and
I never had a problem with that. And now all of sudden, I’m that person.”
She is also aware of her position
now as a role model for other female chefs. “I’ve always just wanted to cook
and make beautiful food. But I think a lot of women in general might be a
little intimidated and scared and not want to be noticed,” she said. “But you
don’t have to be noticed. You just have to push yourself up there.”
Supporting Sustainable Seafood
In another classroom, chef Kerry
Heffernan focused on seafood, with a crudo of porgy, a soup of local clams,
and a black sea bass with garlic mustard pesto. He maintained a relaxed and
comfortable teaching vibe, cheerfully improvising on recipes he put together
late at night. “Let’s try putting it all in the pot,” he said nonchalantly of
the clam dish. At one point he turned serious when he noticed a student’s
browning fish on the stove. “Get that fish off the flame,” he said, while
swooping in to help.
Sustainable fish is a big focus for
Heffernan, who is part of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s
blue ribbon task force, which
also supports the Seafood Watch app to help consumers make more environmentally friendly
choices. “Unfortunately about 80%-plus of our fish is imported, and the laws in
many of those countries are more lax than ours,” Heffernan told Speakeasy. “Yet
only 2% of seafood is actually inspected. So what you think might be grouper or
snapper or whatever is likely not.”
The most plentiful fish on the
market, he said, are shrimp, salmon and tuna. “Most shrimp that people eat is
from farms in Southeast Asia that I’ve not been to,” he said, “but I’m told you
wouldn’t wade through them in the thickest rubber boots, much less eat anything
that comes out of there.”
Heffernan suggests people steer away
from overfished species like striped bass in favor of more local, abundant
options, like porgy, mackerel, bluefish, squid and tilefish. He also recommends
developing a relationship with your fishmonger, picking seafood at the back of
the display case, and even asking to smell the fish you’re about to buy.
A Seven-Course Dinner Honoring David
Bouley
On Saturday night, the NYCE hosted a
special dinner for about 50 guests to honor David Bouley for his role in the
culinary community. Chefs who have worked with Bouley over the years—including Alexander
Grunert of Brooklyn Fare, Bill Yosses, the former White House
executive pastry chef and Galen Zamarra—prepared courses at Bouley Test Kitchen in TriBeca.
Bruno Verjus flew in from Paris for the event, preparing two courses:
asparagus with an egg yolk cured in seawater for three hours, and a dish of
beef, beet root, anchovy, stracciatella, red cabbage and hibiscus. “I was so
happy to cook American beef that I couldn’t resist,” said the chef of his
second dish. “I decided to make a plate with really red colors.”
The Test Kitchen, which Bouley
jokingly described as a “chef’s Batcave” with its high-tech equipment,
accommodated five round dining tables, and featured an eclectic setting of
copper pots, giant clam-shell bowls, a slate wall with chalk sketches, and a
robust McIntosh sound system.
Seated at one of the tables, guest
Jose Ricardo De Gorordo Cantú traveled from Mexico to attend the culinary
weekend, which was a Christmas gift from his wife (this year’s conference
attracted participants from eight countries). Although trained as an industrial
engineer, Mr. De Gorordo Cantú owns three restaurants in Mexico and wants to
focus on them full time.
“It’s awesome: the people, the
chefs, the food, everything,” he said of the event. He is already planning on
returning next year. “I have to bring my wife to see what gift she gave me.”
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