Craig Claiborne’s magic wand: A modern fairytale

Do you believe in fairy tales?  Well I have one for you –my Cinderella-Zarela story made possible by  two fairy godfathers,  Paul Prudhomme and New York Times food critic, Craig Claiborne who is being honored this week at two exciting events.  The first is  a symposium entitled Craig Claiborne and the Invention of Food Journalism at the New School and a celebration of his life and contributions to the world of food organized by the Southern Food Alliance and the state of Mississippi to be held at the Astor Center where I will be a panelist.

This is the story:

Once upon a time a ranch girl from Chihuahua, Mexico, married a handsome widower with three children in El Paso, Texas.  A year later they had twins,  Rodrigo (now a lawyer)  and Aaron Sanchez (a Food Network star and chef and co-owner of Paladar and Centrico).  With two more mouths to feed, finances became strained so she started baking cookies to supplement her income as a social worker, then she began cooking for her sister’s parties and all of a sudden she had started a catering business.

That young girl was me.

My mother decided to give me my inheritance in life by taking me to cooking lessons around the country and February 1981, found us in New Orleans sitting across from Chef Paul Prudhomme experiencing a culinary epiphany. The class I had signed up for was deeply disappointing and, after much urging from my mother, I mustered the courage to speak to him and ask his advise.  He invited us to cook at his restaurant K-Paul’s for the remainder of the week and he taught us Cajun and we cooked Mexican.

Almost exactly 2 months to the day I was cooking at a grand event at Tavern on the Green for The Confrerie de Maitres Cuisiniers from France.  The original plan was for Chef Paul to cook a meal for 125 people but, this being a Warner Le Roy event, it grew to 500 people and the concept had to be changed at the last moment to a buffet of regional American cooking. They needed someone to make Tex-Mex food and Chef Paul suggested me. I told him I couldn’t do it -at that point I didn’t even know how to chop an onion.  He told me :  “You don’t have to, you’re the chef.   Just say bring me a chopped onion.”  My mother made much of the food but, at her insistence,  I got all the credit.  I met Craig briefly that night but didn’t connect. We got a lot of press but nothing happened.

It took six months of picking up and putting down the phone  before I finally got the nerve to call Warner to “offer him a deal.” He miraculously took my call and agreed to my suggestion that I come up and cook at one of his legendary parties .  He agreed to let me do the food for his annual Academy Awards party and was a little disappointed as were some of his guests that we did not make Tex-Mex food but Craig spent the evening in the kitchen taking  notes about the regional dishes like snapper hash, beef salpicon and chicken and pork tablecloth stainer we prepared.  He invited me to cook a meal in his kitchen on my next trip to New York.

I was back within a month and when his article describing the meal I made for him, “Memorable dishes from a Master Mexican Chef”, was published I knew my life was about to change.  Next came the invitation  to join cooks whose careers he’d made by writing about them with excitement as a culinary explorer and food editor of the New York Times –Marcella Hazan, Madhur Jaffrey, Paul Prudhomme, Alice Waters, Wolfgang Puck, Diana Kennedy, Roger Verge, Poilaine (who sent bread from Paris) and many others cooked their best dishes for the celebration of the publication of his controversial autobiography. A Feast made for Laughter. I made langostinos al ajillo (Langoustines in garlic sauce.)

Then, at Craig’s suggestion,  the chef of the White House called to ask for some recipes for light soups to serve Queen  Elizabeth during her visit to the Reagan ranch in January 1983 .  They chose my recipe for caldo tlalpeno and I sent the ingredients. I understand that it is still on the White House menu roster.

When Mike Deaver, Chief of Staff for President Ronald Reagan, called to ask me to cook at the Williamsburg Economic Summit I thought I was in a dream. Attending would be Nakasone of Japan, Pierre Trudeau of Canada, Great Britain’s Margaret Thatcher,  Mitterrand of France, Germany’s Helmut Kohl, Fanfani from Italy, and President Reagan.  It was a marvelous, unforgettable experience that is still the highlight of my professional life.   Best of all, I was able to share all these fantastic experiences with my mother who relished them even more than me.

I don’t know what Craig saw in me that I certainly did not know I had but his belief in me gave me the courage to move to New York, newly divorced,  with my two little boys, where I’ve lived a mostly fairytale existence.

In almost every picture I have of Craig Claiborne and me, I’m resting my face on his shoulder and he has his arm around me. As a very proper gay Southern gentleman, Craig could be quite distant and was very reserved about showing affection but he would allow himself to be loved. There was something very sweet and fragile in him that made you want to hug him and he let me show my love and appreciation until the end of his life.

To this day, Chef Paul Prudhomme is my friend and mentor and I never forget his mantra;  “you’re only as good as your last meal.”