Next Generation Apples

I have Steve Job's Stay hungry, stay foolish speech saved in my inbox. A work colleague sent it to me upon his death and every now and again, on a slow Wednesday afternoon, I take another stroll along with the 2005 Stanford graduates who received the speech that day. I'm not a huge fan of lifting individual quotes from the text so rather than insert a inspirational one-liner I'm just going to ask you to take 4 minutes and read the whole thing yourself. It's worth it.

I've been thinking about generations a lot lately. #OWS seems simply, and probably unfairly put, a fight between an older generation who played the game while it still worked and a younger generation who was told how to play the game, played it and it hasn't worked. There is a lot of anger out on those streets and it seems that more and more, we're better at finding things that divide us rather than pull us together. But as the entire nation reflecting on Jobs death and the role that Apple products played in my generation's lives, for a brief moment, we came together, across generations.

My mom and I celebrated Thanksgiving last weekend and in accordance with tradition we planned to do a million things, and only accomplished a cherished few. We glitter frosted acorns ala Martha, made a delicious pizza with my favorite crust discovered last summer, and played with apples. To be specific we baked two apple pies for two separate upcoming Thanksgiving celebrations.We scavenged Mer's two old standbys: 1970's editions of Joy of Cooking with hand drawn illustrations and The Complete Betty Crocker replete with orange and brown clad kids enjoying cookies.

Mom made these baked apples for breakfast and I'm not sure where she picked up the recipe but I'm a fan. Simply carved out, stuffed with good things and then left to hang out in the oven while you sip on coffee and discuss the world's problems.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet that you just may have a stray apple or two hanging around from the fall that are too old to eat raw but too lovely not to use. Plus I'll bet that Friday morning you'll be a little bit interested in breakfast and if you're not gunning for leftovers, you should be gunning for these.

Side note: Mer wanted me to position this perfectly, "Do you think people will be asking you what those tiles are? I bet everyone will want to know. I just love those."

So here we are, on the cusp of my absolute favorite holiday (as it should be for any home cook) and I just wanted to leave you something here to inspire you. No matter what draws your generations together, whether technology or food or football or any combination therein, here's wishing a warm and happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

Mer's Next Generation Apples

Core out as many apples as you need, 1 per person

Stuff with a good mix of chopped nuts and raisins (Mer likes the fancy mixed kind with golden and purple varieties of varying sizes)

Sprinkle with cinnamon and just a pinch of nutmeg

Pour maple syrup into the apples until they overflow, just barely

Place in a cutely photographable oven safe dish and pour 1/2 inch of water into the bottom of the dish

Bake for 1 hour at 350

A New Cookbook: Eleven Madison Park

I spent a good chunk of last evening sitting on the well-tailored white pleather sofas in the lobby of the Allegro, chatting with a pair that has taken the New York restaurant scene for a spin. Will Guiarda and Chef Daniel Humm are on their first stop of a multi-leg cookbook release tour to talk about their 16 word menu, their come-back kid style turnaround, and what a true New York restaurant really looks like.

Will and Daniel are quite a pair. Brought in separately to steer the 7 year old Eleven Madison Park into a new direction, when these two started working together they felt that something sparked. Five years later, proof of that spark is blazing before us in the form of the holy trinity for New York establishments: four stars in the New York Times, and a Michelin star (three to be exact), and now a cookbook. The book itself mirrors the restaurant's menu: first divided seasonally, as eighty percent of Eleven's produce comes from their local farmers markets. Then, within the season, we essentially peruse the menu which typically looks something like this:

 

You have your choice between selecting your own prix fixe four course meal (selecting one word under each leaf) or traversing through the chef's choice tasting menu. "We want our guests to be able to fulfill their cravings if they come in hungry for foie gras, but wanted to keep the element of surprise alongside the feeling of control." And in some ways, this delightfully thick cookbook does just the same. We playfully drift through each season, but as we go we are guided with precision that only a well-trained chef can provide. Recipes of this caliber certainly require advanced techniques and equipment but Chef Daniel does want you to cook from it. Recipes have stand in methods, just in case your sous vide is still being shipped from Sky Mall. The result is a book that takes us on a pristine walkabout New York's top restaurants and into the creative minds of a wildly successful pair of restauranteurs.

Nestled amongst the recipes is the story of the restaurant itself. How an unknown chef in small town Switzerland went to San Francisco and then was snagged to turn around an aging bistro in New York. How an entrepreneurial-spirited general manager found himself under the tutelage of Danny Meyer and when asked to do a stint at Eleven, he found a space for collaboration, a place for no "front-back" language but an entirely new philosophy. They slashed the number of seats in the restaurant, found inspiration from Miles Davis, and began shaping the restaurant into an icon in and of itself. This pair is seeking to honor the placehood of New York. Nestled in the MetLife building, in a ceiling soaring, old school type setting, it already sits in an iconic mainstay of New York buildings. Currently they're playing with quintessential New York dishes like the Long Island clambake, smoked fish like at your neighborhood deli, and the cocktails created 80 years ago by a handful of bars within striking distance of Eleven. "Someone needed to create a New York restaurant. So many others want to be somewhere else: Paris, Tokyo, London, but we want to represent the amazing melting pot we have, right here in the city." They're breaking rules by serving parsnip skins, but sticking close to the long established rules that work. And what results? Like Miles Davis a cool stream of soothing dishes, punctuated by the well-earned surprise.

So will I cook from it? I'm going to have to go with Chef Daniel's quote when asked if people could, "Yes-ish." I'll use ingredient lists to be sure; I'll use the images as inspiration to better visually balance my own plates; and perhaps, on days I'm feeling very adventurous think about new methods in cooking. For me at least, that is precisely what any good cookbook should do for the home cook. Cookbooks should inspire, rather than be copied by rote. And inspire, it does.