Julia/Julie and Julia/Me and some sad goodbyes

Though I’d love to keep my story on Budd Schulberg up forever because I loved him so and want to honor him, it’s time to move on.  There’s much too much going on in the food world. You can still find Budd’s story in the archives where it will live forever as will the legacy of Sheila Lukins, founder of The Silver Palate, who passed away yesterday.

Sheila was fiery, with wild hair, great style and tiny like the shoebox-size shop she founded with Julee Rosso  on Columbus Avenue in New York that revolutionized the way people ate at home in the early eighties as a new New York restaurant scene was starting to bud. She redefined “take-out” by presenting food with big flavors from all over the world, mainly Greece and Morocco,  for people to take home.  They popularized dishes we now take for granted — ratatouille with 20 cloves of garlic, grilled breast of lamb redolent of rosemary and mint in a balsamic vinegar and soy sauce marinade and the, now ubiquitous, broccoli with lots of roasted garlic.  She and her partner produced an excellent a line of jarred products that are still for sale today and wrote The Silver Palate Cookbook, The Silver Palate Good Times Book and my personal favorite,“> the New Basics, books that taught people how to make these contemporary, healthy foods, with local ingredients (whenever possible) in easy to follow recipes that are beautifully illustrated by Ms Lukins. There were other books and all total sold more than 7 millions copies.

But what I admired most about Sheila was her steely determination.  When she had a stroke due top a cerebral hemorrage in 1991, she had to learn to walk and talk again and when she passed away she was food editor for Parade.  Nothing ever stopped her… except brain cancer that has killed too many of our friends recently.

Sheila you will continue to inspire and will be in my kitchen for as long as I live.

picture courtesy of www.212dressingroom.com/testing/cafedes.jpg

Cafe des Artistes

One of my favorite lines about the restaurant business was uttered by George Lang, owner of Cafe des Artistes, the legendary restaurant that he owned with his wife, Jenifer Harvey Lang,  and closed last week after 25 year run. George said to me one day: “The restaurant business has gone the way of prostitution —–it’s full of amateurs! He is no amateur and Cafe des Artistes was arguably the most opulent, sensuous and beautifully run restaurant in the city for many decades — a place where you went to be pampered. But people don’t know how or won’t let themselves be pampered in the Old World style these days. Probably it’s just that, like me, they cannot afford this kind of guilty pleasure. And, oh how I’ll miss it.

Julia Child Reincarnated !

I had the pleasure and honor of shooting a segment of Julia Child’s Cooking with Master Chefs and as I watched Meryl Street play her in
Julia and Julie, the hit movie, it was as if at moments Julia had been reincarnated. Meryl had all her ticks down and her inimitable voice that reminded me of Julia saying to the crew just as we were about to start shooting: “Bring me a stool. I don’t want to tower over Zarela.” That’s the kind of gentle giant, Ms Child, was and I’m happy that her book is finally a best seller!