Grant Achatz: Alinea

By JULIETTE ROSSANT What do you get when you buy Alinea (Ten Speed 2008)? Before you get to the title page of Grant Achatz' grand volume study the photographs by Lara Kastner: Inner leaf--gray tone wood photograph or impression, hardly recognizable, possibly to clear reader's mind Same dark grey background but of hallway with recessed lighting Scores of magenta lights prick dark background--microbes glowing?... Lit doorway opening onto same corridor, flanked by benches... [a dozen or so photos later...] Finally, brooding Grant Achatz, arms akimbo, chef's whites, standing in kitchen, flanked by cooks and waiters The overall effect of these photographs is a sense of Alinea's austere, elegant, and dramatic vision of cuisine and service. It is Alinea's conceit, in the sense of organizing theme, as well as excessive appreciation of one's own worth. This is not a cookbook or a cook's book for others to cook from. It is more complex and less utilitarian then that. It is interesting to imagine Grant Achatz' negotiations with his publisher: did he ask for scented paper or different packaging that would feature paper of different weights, or materials, or perhaps he wanted holograms? Or does the seriousness of this book offset the fun in placing a dish of tofu and peas on a pillow and wafting lavender smoke (pp. 68-70)? Deciding what this book is and how to read it is half the fun of looking through its pages – and consumes part of the essays leading up to the recipes. The organization is fairly straightforward. There are essays by Michael Ruhlman, Jeffrey Steingarten, Mark McClusky, Michael Nagrant, Grant Achatz – this one entitled: "Where It Comes From", and lastly, a essay called "How to Use this Book" by business partner Nick Kokonas. The recipes are organized according to the four seasons. But before searching for a recipe, read the how to section: Alinea is not a restaurant–at least not in the conventional definition of the word. Certainly, customers come here to eat and drink, and they all arrive with lofty expectations. But we expect more from them. They must give themselves over to Grant's plan for the evening and trust in his decisions. … Everything that is true about Alinea the restaurant is also true of this eponymous volume. This is not a typical cookbook. Although it contains the verbatim recipes for more than one hundred dishes from the Alinea kitchen, we don't expect readers to make the dishes verbatim. Instead, our goal is to craft an experience similar to dining at the restaurant: here is a way to approach food, to think about life, to evoke an idea. The experience is singularly yours. Enjoy it as you make it your own. (p. 37) The underlying tension of the book is between creating the Alinea conceived dishes and using the book only to inspire cooks. It may be that we are encouraged to experiment, fail, and discover, but this is undoubtedly also a presentation of the mysteries of Alinea and a manifesto about the restaurant as a restaurant rather than a cookbook. Ultimately, we decided the book should mirror the dining experience as closely as possible. What you hold in your hands is our translation of that experience into book form. (p. 49) What you do with the experience, one assumes, both in the restaurant and with this book, is entirely up to you. We are warned against being intimidated by gadgets: Pacojets, Volcano vaporizers, and antigriddles, and we are told to improvise, substitute, and yet still hope to create the same kind of inspiration. There is a website, Alinea Mosaic with sources for ingredients. Perhaps the most fascinating part of the book is the lists and descriptions of equipment and ingredients. These include: Propylene Glycol Alginate, Spherification, and Ultra-Tex 3. It is hard to down play how important these terms are to chefs and Foodies who want to really understand technique and know the latest vocabulary - and win at the next version of Celebrity Chef! The Game. As for the recipes, Super Chef searched through autumn recipes, listed by ingredient. The first is Pheasant (smoke ring symbol) shallot, cider burning oak leaves (pp. 223-224). Pheasant is cooked sous vide. Shallots are roasted in a slow oven and chopped. Apples are made into a jelly with agar agar. Then oak skewers with leaves attached are threaded with pheasant, apple gel and shallots, dipped in tempura batter and fried. The oak leaves are briefly ignited and served in a squid serving piece – a kind of metal skewer serving tray. This is Autumn. One note from Super Chef for readers: the print is small, black on grey and white on grey, and difficult to read. It is heavy, unwieldy, and hard to balance. Do not drop it on your toes. Previous articles: [Cookbook reviews - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef