The key to French cuisine is in the sauce. You can have the simplest of ingredients, you don’t even need the best quality ingredients, but if you have a great sauce, you will have a great meal. Sauces can be complicated, but they don’t need to be. The Secret Sauce to a good dinner party is the combination of good friends, good food, good conversation and a few glasses of wine doesn’t hurt.
My friend Lucien Vendome once took me to a very old restaurant on the Ile de la Cite in Paris. Lucien is a world renown French Chef. That night we had a wonderful meal highlighted by fantastic sauces. Lucien explained that there is a chef working in the basement kitchen of the restaurant that makes the same sauces night after night for years. Those same sauces have been made in that restaurant for over 100 years. There is something to be said about tradition and great sauces. The lesson is that with repetition, even the most complex task becomes simple.
We had a great sauce and the secret sauce working this week. Lucien and Ela Vendome visited Memphis from Poland and we took advantage of the opportunity to reconnect with a few old friends from Kraft Food Ingredients. Lucien Vendome, Mike Taylor, Jody Driver, Pam Gray and I got together along with our significant others. It was a perfect forum to tell a few of our favorite stories:
Mike Taylor, Lucien and I were driving from Frankfort Germany to Reims France several years ago. I am driving and struggling to stay awake. To keep a conversation going, I asked my car-mates to describe what their mothers cooked for meals on a daily basis.
Lucien growing up in the south of France, started with: The day would begin with a baguette and confiture…
Mike growing up in east Texas, started with: We had beans and then we had beans and if times were really good we had beans and tamales…
As the French would say “Viva La Difference!”
Jody Driver and I were at the IFT trade show quite awhile back. Jody did a masterful job of managing and enormous enterprise-wide effort. One year I can remember her being 9 months pregnant with her son Gregory (Now 25) and sneaking off to a quiet corner of the booth to sing Happy Birthday to her then 3-year-old daughter Lindsey.
Pam Gray was always our style guru. Back in the day when Manolo Blahnik shoes were all the rage, Mike Strauch and I would have an annual over/under bet on how many pairs of shoes Pam would bring to the week-long IFT event.
The over/under was 12 and the safe bet was the over
The KFI Team back in the day
The meal we had Thursday night was a lot of fun. The old joke is: How do you cook for a world renown French Chef…You let them cook. Lucien and I have been cooking together for years. When it comes to sauces, he is the master and our meal this week was All About The Sauce!
Le Menu
Entrée
- Citrus Melon Napoléon
Le Plat Principal
- Rack of Lamb Provençal
- Pommes Frites
- Haricot Verts
La Sauce
- Roasted Garlic a la Vendome
Dessert
Peach Cobbler A La Mode with Raspberries
(Note: Citrus, Melon Napoleon)
Le Plat Principal – Rack of Lamb, Pommes Frites and Haricot Verts
Lucien and I doing the “Culinary Shuffle”
The KFI Alumnus…Pam, Jody Lucien, Mike & Paul
Click here to watch the Culinary Master At Work
Lucien called it a simple sauce. I counted over 15 ingredients and close to 7 processes. Of course, for Lucien it was simple, but the flavor was amazingly complex. By layering in flavor with:
- Sautéing the mirepoix with herbs
- Reducing the stock, wine and base with tomato paste
- Roasting the garlic
- Sautéing the shallots
- Adding the roux
- Condensing with immersion blender
- Top noting with mustard and butter
The lesson is that with repetition, even the most complex task becomes simple. The sauce was magical and the evening, with its Special Sauce was memorable
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