Kerry Diamond:
My name is Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder of Cherry Bombe and the host of Radio Cherry Bombe, and I would like to welcome you to Chef to Chef, our chat today with the legend Jacques Pépin and Chef Angie Mar. We'll be talking with them in just a minute. First, this is also part of our Julia Jubilee celebration. The Julia Jubilee is a virtual celebration of the life and legacy of Julia Child, and we've had so many wonderful events so far, and I'm really happy that a lot of you have been able to join us for each of them.
Kerry Diamond:
Today's conversation and demo is brought to us by Le Creuset. Le Creuset is the amazing cookware brand. I'm sure all of you know Le Creuset really well. They have been around since 1925 and their enameled cast iron pieces are some of the most coveted pieces among the Bombe Squad; I know that for a fact. I always had my eye on one of their shiny white dutch ovens, and I was very happy when I was able to get one. We're going to be giving away one of their brand new pieces, it's a dutch oven in artichaut, their gorgeous new color. Artichaut is artichoke as you know in French. And check out our Instagram tomorrow for a chance to be entered into the giveaway. Everyone who's tuning in today will be automatically entered, all right?
Kerry Diamond:
And thank you to everyone who's joining us from all around the world. It was really great just watching everyone tell us where they're tuning in from. We've got Toronto, Aix-en-Provence in France, Omaha, Austin, all over California. So thank you, everybody, for tuning in on your Sunday.
Kerry Diamond:
Let me tell you a little bit about the folks who are going to join us. Jacques, I'd love to welcome you to the screen. Jacques Pépin is an absolute culinary legend, and we are so fortunate to have him with us today. He has won more James Beard awards than I could even count, authored so many cookbooks. Jacques, hi.
Jaques Pépin:
Hi.
Kerry Diamond:
It is so lovely to see you. How are you doing?
Jaques Pépin:
Delighted to be with you, it's great.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. Accolades upon accolades, and I think more so than anything, Jacques is so well known as a teacher, and he has taught people around the world how to cook for years. Jacques, it is so lovely to see you.
Jaques Pépin:
That's what happens when you get old, so many people.
Kerry Diamond:
And I'm going to introduce our friend Chef Angie Mar. Angie as many of you know is the chef and owner of the Beatrice Inn, and she is working on a brand new restaurant, Les Trois Chevaux, that will be opening later this spring. Angie will be interviewing Jacques for us, and then Angie will be doing a demo of her oxtail bourguignon, which is a recipe that you can find in a special cookbook that the Jacques Pépin Foundation put together. If you're not a member of the Jacques Pépin Foundation, I totally recommend that you join. It's jp.foundation. And Jacques, you have a big fundraiser coming up, right, on May 14th, that we can all buy tickets for?
Jaques Pépin:
Yeah. We are going to cook virtually. That's the first time for me, but yes. We're going to do that on the 14th and the 15th.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh great.
Jaques Pépin:
With Claudine. Claudine is here, my daughter.
Kerry Diamond:
Hi Claudine.
Claudine:
Hi. We'll have a lot of fun.
Jaques Pépin:
And Rollie, my son-in-law, who is the President of the foundation. He is the guiding. I just do the cooking.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm sure Angie will talk a little bit more about the foundation. I just want to thank you both for joining us and Angie, I'm going to hand things over to you and I'll see you for the demo in a little while. Bye everyone. Cheers.
Angie Mar:
Hi everyone. Hi Jacques.
Jaques Pépin:
Hi, how are you.
Angie Mar:
So well, thank you.
Jaques Pépin:
You look absolutely wonderful.
Angie Mar:
You too. First of all, it is such an honor to be sitting here with you and just in conversation. There's so many things that I think we all have learned from you. It's truly, such an amazing career. For me, it's an honor to be here talking with you because when I was a little girl, I used to watch you on TV. I used to watch you, I used to watch Julia and that's how I learned how to cook before I knew I wanted to do this professionally. For me to be able to sit here and to chat with you and for you to be a part of my life is really such an honor. Thank you for that, first of all.
Jaques Pépin:
Thank you.
Angie Mar:
Tell everybody ... We had a conversation the other day about when you moved to New York and you were only coming here ... You weren't supposed to come here for a long time. I think you said you were only supposed to be here for three months. Tell us why you ended up staying and when you came here and what that was like.
Jaques Pépin:
That was well before everyone of you was born. No, I moved. I worked in Paris. At the time, my parents had a restaurant in Lyon. But, I always wanted to come to America. America was cities like the Golden Fleece or the El Dorado. I said, I'm going to America for a year, learn the language a little bit, maybe two years and come back. From the first time I arrived in New York, I loved it. I never went back and that was in September 1959, so that's a long, long time ago.
Angie Mar:
Yeah.
Jaques Pépin:
Now, as you can see, I totally lost my French accent. I have a Connecticut accent now and I'm purely American.
Angie Mar:
First of all, you were telling me a little bit about your first apartment in New York. I think I'm still in shock, when you told me that. Can you tell everybody about your first apartment in New York, where you working and what your job was when you came here.
Jaques Pépin:
The day after I arrived, I worked at Le Pavillion in New York on 57th between Park and Lexington. It was considered maybe the greatest French restaurant in America. Within 48 hours, three or four days that I was here, I learned how to take the subway and went up to Columbia University to register to take classes, English for Foreign Students, that type of thing. The man who sponsored me to come, Ernest, he was a guy from Alsace in France, a little restaurant called La Toque Blanche, The White Hat, the white tux. It was on 50th and 1st Avenue. On top of it, at some point, there was an apartment empty. So he said, do you want the apartment there? I rented it, I said sure. With my friend Jean-Claude and another guy because we had three private entrance to that apartment. The whole floor, three window on the street, three window on the back, three big bedrooms, living room and we paid $75 a month, which was $25 each.
Angie Mar:
Wait, even though you were splitting it?
Jaques Pépin:
Yeah, 25 bucks each.
Angie Mar:
I'm still jealous. When you told me that the other day when we were having lunch, I was like, oh my gosh and I thought I had a good deal.
Jaques Pépin:
Even at Columbia. I went to Columbia and the credits, one credit was $30, that is one class, which is three hours a week was three credits was $90. So, I took two or three classes. It was feasible for someone. At Le Pavillion, I was making $85 a week, a lot of money for me, at the time because in Paris, I was doing about $150 a month. So, there, $85 a week and one shift. In France, it was two shifts, starting at 9:00 in the morning until 2:00. You were off from 2:00 to 5:00 and from 5:00 to 10:00 you came back. The whole day. So, here it was one shift, so that was great.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. When did you meet Julia?
Jaques Pépin:
I met Julia ... Six months after I was in America, I knew the trinity of cooking, Craig Claiborne started at the New York Times. James Beard and Julia Child. The food world was very, very small. I met her through Helen McCully. Helen McCully is not very well known now, but at that time she was quite well known. She was the Food Editor of McCall, House Beautiful and I met her through Craig. She kind of became my surrogate mother. She was never married, never had any kids. She was a beautiful lady from Nova Scotia. In the spring of 1960, a few months after I was here, she told me, I want to show you that manuscript I just got. I looked at the manuscript of French cooking. She said, that's really good. I'm looking at too. I said, I should do something like that. She said, well, the woman lives in Boston, she's coming to New York next week and do you want to cook for her? I said absolutely. We cook. She says it's a very tall woman that she had a terrible voice. Here comes Julia.
Jaques Pépin:
Julia at that time, spoke French better than my English. But at the time, I think our conversation was in French most of the time. That was in the spring of 1960, so a long ... Then we stayed friends for half a century, basically.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. I'm curious. What did you cook for her?
Jaques Pépin:
At that point?
Angie Mar:
Yeah.
Jaques Pépin:
Wow. At that first dinner, I don't remember what we cook. I just remember that I had a braised ham and an apple tart. I wanted to do an apple gallette or whatever for her. Julia loved to eat, loved to drink, loved to have a good time and we kind of agreed on many things. She always says we started cooking together. Not exactly. I started cooking in France when she was in France in 1949 and so forth. That's when I entered an apprenticeship. We cooked in the same kind of style and so forth because she was from France at that time. We had a good time. I cooked many times at her house in Boston.
Angie Mar:
Were you nervous cooking for her the first time? I was very nervous for you, the first time I cooked for you. I still get nervous cooking for you.
Jaques Pépin:
Not really because it was different at the time. When I met Julia, no one had ever heard of Julia. She'd never written a book, she'd never done television. She was just a lady who was doing that book, so like another friend, come in the kitchen, start cooking together and have a good time. We never thought about that. Remember that at that time the cook was really at the bottom of the social scale. Any good mother would've wanted their child to marry a lawyer, a doctor. Certainly not a cook. It was totally different between cook and so forth. Even with James Beard.
Angie Mar:
I think my mother would still like me to marry a doctor or a lawyer. I don't think she's changed her mind on that. Tell me about cooking on television and ... You're such a natural when you get in front of the camera, always. I'm still, whenever I cook in front of people, or I do TV, I'm still, to this day, always very nervous. I think the chemistry that you and Julia had on screen, it's so amazing. Tell us about that.
Jaques Pépin:
You shouldn't. I know that you won't if you think about what you're doing. I probably would be nervous on television if I'm not cooking. But, if I'm cooking, I'm there doing something I like to do. I have to think about, I'm going to cook that first, do that too, so I forgot about being nervous this way. I started in television, I don't know when, the late '80s and Julia stared in the mid '60s, '64 I believe, something like that. It was certainly ... We cooked together at BU. I had been teaching at Boston University there for a while, 37 years now. At some point, Julia lived in Boston and when I went to Boston, I always see her. We had lunch together or dinner. Breakfast sometimes. I say, why don't you come to BU with us? She said yes. We start cooking together at BU, doing demonstrations.
Jaques Pépin:
In fact, we did the series for PBS in the '80s or so-
Angie Mar:
I remember watching it.
Jaques Pépin:
It was Cooking in Concert. We did that at BU and it was a special for PBS for KQED, the PBS station in San Francisco. We did a couple of those and that's how we started really cooking on television together. Eventually we did a series, cooking show at her house. What people don't realize is that we have no recipe.
Angie Mar:
Yeah.
Jaques Pépin:
We decided, okay let's do stew or let's do whatever. That's why when we finished doing the series, it took more than two years for the series to come on the air because they wanted to do a book and the people at Random House kept calling me and her. What did you? What was that? We had to over and over again.
Angie Mar:
Figure out what the recipe is.
Jaques Pépin:
So, that was sort of a reversal. Usually when you do a show on television, you at least have the manuscript of the book to know, or the package down to know what you're going to do. Not with us.
Angie Mar:
I feel like over the course of your career, you have really been such an inspiration to countless generations of cooks and of chefs and people in general. It's always so, so amazing. I think that what you do with the Jacques Pepin Foundation, I think is so incredible because I feel like you've always wanted to teach. You've always wanted to give back. I think that with this industry, that's really what cooking is about. We always pay it forward. We always want to nourish others. Tell us about the Jacques Pepin Foundation and why ... It's a cause that for me that I think is so, so important. Tell people about why it's so important to you and the difference that it's made in a lot of people's lives.
Jaques Pépin:
Well thank you. Thank you for being part of it in the new theory with the video and so forth. The credit goes, really, to Claudine, my daughter and my son-in-law Rollie, particularly. He's a chef, as I am, except he has a PhD because he matriculated at Johnson and Wales and has been going back to school. So, he created the foundation four or five years ago. The idea there is to use ... Like at KQED, I did 13 series of 26 shows, plus other shows. I have hundreds of video of show, especially of technique. I did that book La Technique: The How To. We use those video to teach people. What he wanted to do and what we are doing, is to work with community kitchen all over the country to teach people, who have been a bit disenfranchised by life. Many people have been incarcerated or other people are homeless people, former drug addicts, veterans. It's not really young people. It's people 20, 30, 45, 55 years old. To teach them the basic principle of cooking so that they can reintegrate the workforce and start opening a little eatery, a little restaurant and start working and redo your life and be proud of yourself, that type of thing. It's been doing very well, but as I said, the credit goes to my son-in-law and Claudia.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. I think it is such an amazing foundation and what you've done to give back. I think that's ... A lot of people don't realize how giving the culinary community is and how it's so important that we continually learn and we continually give back to the community. Not just through our dining rooms, but also through charity work and what I think our industry does is ... It's ageless and for us it's really about ... I got into this very late in life. I didn't really start cooking professionally until I was-
Jaques Pépin:
You're not very late in life now. Are you kidding?
Angie Mar:
Moisturizer. It's the moisturizer, that's it. I feel like I started cooking a little bit later in life. I wasn't somebody who ... Your mom had the restaurant, so when were you working in the restaurant?
Jaques Pépin:
Yeah, when I was six years old, I was putting stuff away or cleaning the bottle with the wine it. Finally, I had enough of that. I left home when I was 13 to go into a partnership. That was 73 years ago, I've been in the kitchen professionally, so it's a long time. But, there is no question you always learn. I can work with you. I can work with anyone. If you look at the way other people do things, you always learn, especially in America, where people come from so many parts of the world. There is always another angle. You can probably do a book on chicken with 10,000 recipes from South Vietnam to West Africa to or Italy or whatever. Yes, you can always learn when you are in the kitchen if you open your eyes. That's the beauty of what we do.
Angie Mar:
Exactly.
Jaques Pépin:
In addition to that, we have to feed, because we are hungry two or three times a day. It's an endless situation. People say, why do you cook and why do you still like to do it. Because I'm hungry, so I have to cook. The cooks are very, very generous. I don't know of any great cook who are not a very generous person. Giving away time, giving meals, feeding people. Often, for a very minimal amount of money, they work, but you have that thing with the cook, which are generous. You are.
Angie Mar:
Talk to us about ... Every time that I eat your food, which I just love it. I watch your videos. You are using ingredients from everywhere. Even though, like, Le Pavillion, you've always cooked very traditional French cuisine, so many of the recipes that you do, which is why I love it, it's not just traditional French food. Even when you cooked for me the other day, there was clams with sambal. What inspires that? Is it the travels?
Jaques Pépin:
All of it. All of it. It's true that very often ... I've done 31 books, but I have regarded that maybe the quintessential French chef, when in fact, you open my book and page 27 or whatever, you have a black bean soup with banana slices in it and cilantro on top. On the next page, you have a fried chicken or a New England clam chowder or lobster roll. All of those years. I'm probably the quintessential American chef now after all those here. But certainly, my wife born in New York from a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban father. There is that influence as well. For all those years that I've been here working with different people. Gloria loves Chinese food, Japanese, Vietnamese and other types of food. Gloria, so we eat. It's great. That's the point. Those dishes that you learn as a child are very visceral or very essential to you and those are the greatest dishes in the world. Then you come to another country. Someone come from Vietnam, give me that, the greatest dish of their youth. I'll taste it and mmm, eh. You don't know, you always have to look with the eye of the people. That's what's great with cooking, especially in America. I mean, 24,000 restaurants in New York, the amount of ethnicity is unmatched anywhere in the world. That's extraordinary.
Angie Mar:
What do think and you and I always have conversations about restaurants now versus restaurants back then. What kind of advice to you give, especially now, as the culinary world is changing, once again. It's constantly changing, but given we've been in a pandemic and the future of restaurants is very different. I get a lot of emails from students that are getting out of culinary school and they're worried about their future, what the dining industry is going to be like. It's never going to die. I think this industry will always spring back, but what advice do you have for younger cooks, younger chefs that are just getting into this industry now?
Jaques Pépin:
I tell you, last Monday, I went back to New York, the first time in a year and half. I went to New York to go to Le Pavillion there, which is the restaurant that Daniel Boulud is opening. It will not be the Pavillion that I worked in. The recipe will be different too. Picture a much more casual lunch too. Things are changing. I foresee the future of the restaurant with the type of thing that you are doing. You are doing cooking which is very personal, very accented by you, by who you are and so forth. I feel that it will go back, strangely enough, a little bit my mother's restaurant. In my family, in France, we had 12 restaurants that I counted, owned by 12 women. Not by 12 women, but by all the women, my aunt, my mother, my cousin and so forth. Those were restaurants where they went to the market in the morning, they cook whatever that day. The menu was limited to five, six dishes. It was fresh that day. It was very personal. The people who came to your restaurant ended up being friends, coming into the kitchen to see what you were cooking.
Jaques Pépin:
I see, not all, many, many restaurants going to this. Maybe a smaller clientele, a more limited menu, something fresh, something very personal and all that. Your restaurant Les Trois Chevaux are not going to be that small, but I know you are going to do something very personal because that's who you are and you have that passion. That passion is great for cooking and your specialty guiding and all that. This is a great thing because too much we've done in the last two years were not always the fault of the chef, but sometimes you work at a restaurant and the owner will tell the chef, next door they are doing this, a bit of Tex Mex, they're doing a bit of this, they're doing a bit of this. Then the chef ends up, okay, I'm doing a little bit of all of that, you want to be different and everyone is the same, like all the kids with the same jeans with the hole in your knee. They want to be different, but they're all the same.
Jaques Pépin:
This is hopefully going to change a little bit because I remember years ago, with Andre Soltner, that you know, had Lutece in New York. Lutece was often called maybe the greatest restaurant. The point is, you could've taken me there and put something on my eyes, I would've said, oh, this is Soltner cooking. I'm cooking there at Soltner. Not that is maybe the greatest, but the point that it was very personal. That's the way he cooked and that's what you do too and that's what people should do. That's the great thing.
Angie Mar:
Yeah.
Jaques Pépin:
I see more coming this way.
Angie Mar:
I hope that's what it is and I think that I agree with you and that's honestly one of the greatest compliments in my career when you said that to me. I remember that night, because we were at my restaurant. We were at the Beatrice. I remember you saying that to me. It was one of the greatest compliments of my career.
Jaques Pépin:
Yesterday, we came to your restaurant with Claudine. You gave a can of caviar with a bottle of Champagne to start with. That was pretty good.
Angie Mar:
I know you like it. I know you like caviar, as do I.
Claudine:
It was awesome.
Angie Mar:
And all the pate. All the pate de campagne.
Jaques Pépin:
I love your campagne pate.
Angie Mar:
Well, I'll make more for you guys soon. I will make more for you guys soon.
Jaques Pépin:
Good.
Angie Mar:
Is there anything else that you wanted to tell the audience today?
Jaques Pépin:
No. I want to tell the audience, cooking is very important and I think the pandemic, to a certain extent, brought back cooking to a certain extent and family too. I know that from the beginning of the pandemic, Claudine, my daughter, who does Facebook, I don't really do Facebook, and asked me, why don't you do small recipes of five, six minutes, four minutes with things that you have in your freezer or in your refrigerator, in the pantry, to show people simple stuff. We've done 170 of those, which she shows all the time. It was amazing, the response that we had from people doing those simple recipes. It does bring people together in a family. I hate when you go somewhere and see the kids are on their iPhone and the parents on the iPad eating in a corner by themselves. That's horrible. Cooking is an equalizer in the kitchen, as you know, everybody's the same. But, in the dining room, even more important. You have to sit around the table, you have to talk about the order of the day, you have to enjoy the food together. That's what civilization is all about. I think the pandemic will bring a little bit of that in families.
Angie Mar:
I hope so. I really hope it does. Thank you so much for taking the time. Do you want to tell everybody how to get tickets for the event in May on the 14th and 15th, so we can all know how to-
Jaques Pépin:
Here is my son-in-law Rollie. He will tell you exactly.
Angie Mar:
Hi Rollie.
Rollie:
Hi.
Claudine:
It's like the whole family's here.
Rollie:
How are you? Good to see you. So nice to see you in your kitchen.
Angie Mar:
Thank you. I can't wait to have you guys. It's a bit of a mess right now. I'm still under construction, but you know, I could have you guys in.
Jaques Pépin:
So, what do they have to do.
Rollie:
In order to sign up to join in our fun on Friday, May 14th, you guys can go to our website, which is jp.foundation. Just www.jp.foundation and you'll get a pop-up right there and you can sign up. The members, people who have joined the Jacques Pepin Foundation as a member ... We launched membership back in November, you get a half price ticket. So, if you wanted to sign up for a membership, that could make it easier for you for the tickets. With membership, you get access to great videos, like the one that you made for us Angie, that you're going to make today, your ox tail bourguignon, which is in our video recipe book and a hundred other recipes from other chefs. We hope you guys will come and visit us and really happy to be with you today.
Jaques Pépin:
Yes.
Angie Mar:
All right. Thank you guys so much for taking the time.
Jaques Pépin:
Thank you. Happy cooking.
Angie Mar:
Bye. Love you.
Claudine:
See you soon Angie.
Jaques Pépin:
Bye-Bye.
Claudine:
Bye. Hi, Elaine.
Kerry Diamond:
Jacques, thank you so much. Angie that was wonderful. Oh, my gosh, we could've had Jacques on forever. Unfortunately-
Angie Mar:
I could just talk to him forever.
Kerry Diamond:
I know.
Angie Mar:
You don't need to see me cook, we should just keep talking to Jacques.
Kerry Diamond:
Unfortunately, we grabbed him for as long as we could today. We'll have to have him on Radio Cherry Bombe and hopefully we'll get to have more conversations with him. What an amazing teacher he's been over the decades. Like I mentioned at the start, I think, 24 James Beard Awards, Emmy Awards, Legion d'honneur, if I'm saying that right, from France. Just amazing. I wanted to get some advice from him about how to make beef bourguignon, but you're going to show us right now how to make the oxtail bourguignon.
Angie Mar:
I was obsessed with hearing his story ... Here's the thing, I've been very lucky to have a friendship with him over the last couple years and every time I'm around him, I'm always so enthralled to listen to his stories because he's just such a wealth of knowledge. I think that anybody that has a chance to go revisit one of his many, many books, you absolutely should. Because, even know, even as a professional chef, I sit here and I look back through his cookbooks and through his memoirs and it's truly really, really incredible. So I think-
Kerry Diamond:
His memoir is beautiful. How did you two become friends?
Angie Mar:
I kidnapped him for dinner. I did. I actually kidnapped him for dinner one day. We were on a panel one night and I was like, he's coming back to the Beatrice for dinner come hell or high water, so I kidnapped him and we've been friends ever since.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. I totally encourage everyone to read his books and join his foundation if you can because it's rare that we get to continue to learn from a legend like Jacques, but also support everything that he does. I'm a bit of a history buff and Angie, like you were saying, you could in so many directions with Jacques. You could talk with him about how to cook, you could talk to him about ... I loved hearing about his family restaurants. That makes me want to do a Cherry Bombe story on his 12 family restaurants all run by the women in his family.
Angie Mar:
Well-
Kerry Diamond:
He also ... He cooked for Charles de Gaulle and he turned down the Kennedys. The Kennedys wanted him to be a White House Chef and he said no.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I know. His stories are just so incredible. I'm just going to start cooking while we're chatting. Is that okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. Tell everyone what you're making, Angie.
Angie Mar:
While I was watching ... While I was about eight years old and I was standing on a stepstool in my dad's kitchen ... We used to have this little black ... I'm very old, I used to have those black and white TVs with the turn knobs for the dials.
Kerry Diamond:
Yup.
Angie Mar:
That's the TV that we had in our kitchen, so I used to be in the kitchen with my dad on Sundays and he would make bread every Sunday morning and then we would do a roast or a braise. Beef bourguignon is one of the very first recipes that I ever learned how to make. It was just one of those things that came out of Julia's book. I still have my first Julia Child book and this page with the boeuf bourguignon is splattered with red wine and beef fat. It sits on my shelf at home and I just love it.
Angie Mar:
All right. I'm going to get started. Can you guys see the pot? Can you guys see all this back here?
Kerry Diamond:
We can see it on the second. Yes, everybody should check out the second video and I should give a shout out to Le Creuset. They sent Angie some beautiful Dutch ovens and other pans and pots to cook with. That is the new color, artichaut. What a beautiful green that is.
Angie Mar:
It's perfect for spring. I'm just going to start by searing the oxtail.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, you seasoned those with a lot of salt. Should people not be afraid to use that much salt.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. Everybody thinks I'm crazy to use this much salt, but I'm actually not because it needs it. You can do this bourguignon with any cut. Traditionally you would do it with the shoulder or just like something you could braise. I, personally, really, really love oxtail because I think it's unctuous and velvety and really, really delicious. For me, boeuf bourguignon done with oxtail is perfect. I'm just going to take some time to brown this.
Kerry Diamond:
Someone asked why your hair's not tied back. Angie's cooking for herself.
Angie Mar:
I'm cooking for myself.
Kerry Diamond:
She can wear her hair down. It's Sunday and she's off today. She's building a new restaurant. So, Angie can let her hair down with the Bombe Squad today. Angie, what do you ask your butcher for when you buy oxtail?
Angie Mar:
What do I ask my butcher for?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. I usually ask my butcher for oxtail, meaty pieces of oxtail, because, when you think about it, you have the whole tail, it's thicker up here and gets thinner down here. I like both of them, but I like to ask for meaty pieces that are cut about three inches. You can obviously have them trim some of the fat. I usually leave it because I like that unctuousness.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. And Barbara mentioned ... Angie, this isn't for you. But Barbara, I think you have to adjust your view because right now you all should be seeing two shots of Angie. You see the wider kitchen shot and then you see a shot that's a lot tighter on her pots. If you don't see that, go up to the view and click on that. Alison, you only see one as well. Go up to where your view is and click on gallery, that should help everybody. Try that. View is in the top right hand corner. Okay. All right. Can't change a view on an iPad. Okay, we'll keep talking so you can kind of get a sense of what Angie is doing.
Angie Mar:
Do you want me to put another camera on.
Kerry Diamond:
No, no, you're good. You're good. They're only ... They have to adjust their view. There we go. Donna's going to move around what everybody sees. Now you Angie putting in ... What are you putting in now, Angie?
Angie Mar:
I'm still browning off the oxtail right now.
Kerry Diamond:
Great.
Angie Mar:
I just have to tell you guys that I'm so obsessed with all this Le Creuset stuff, so thank you so much Le Creuset for sending this stuff.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes. Thank you to the Le Creuset team for sending this over to Angie. Now Angie, how long do you have to do this part?
Angie Mar:
I basically brown the oxtail for maybe 8 to 10 minutes until it's nice and golden. I'm going to add my carrots and pearl onions in as well.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Angie Mar:
You could use cipollini, but right now I have some white pearl onions, which I really like.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you prepare the pearl onions?
Angie Mar:
You can get them peeled if you want. If you get them with their paper still on, you just put them in some hot water and the skins will just slip right off.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Angie, I don't know if you caught our chat last week with Stanley Tucci and Ina Garten, but they were talking about Julia Child's beef bourguignon recipe and Ina was saying how she's simplified it over the years because back in Julia's day, the cuts of beef were much tougher and you really did have to cook it for four hours.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I only cook my boeuf bourguignon for maybe about two and a half, three hours. It kind of depends on the cut of meat. I think for oxtail, it usually ends up being around three.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. All right. Everyone's happy now. They can see all three views. Okay good. Thank you everyone for bearing with us. And then, Angie, how about the carrots. Do you cook the carrots beforehand or they go in just peeled?
Angie Mar:
No, I just throw them in raw because they're going to be in here for a while. The great thing about beef bourguignon, and this is one of the things I always make this on friend Sunday. The great thing about beef bourguignon and it's really any braise, for that matter, is for me, it's this great one-pot thing. I really love because I'm obviously cooking in my kitchen at the restaurant, but typically on Sunday, I'm cooking at my kitchen at home. I've got a typical New York apartment, so there's really not a lot of room. For me, anything that I can do in a one-pot thing that I can leave and forget about it, I'm like, all about.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I hate splatters, but you're not putting the top back on that.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I'm going to put the top back on very shortly. Right now, I'm going to add a little bit of flour to this. We're just going to go straight in, maybe like a tablespoon or so. What this is going to do is, we're going to brown the flour. I'm going to give this a toss in a second. We're going to brown the flour and add the wine and the stock. And, what that's going to do is it's going to help thicken up the gravy just a bit.
Kerry Diamond:
When it comes to the wine and the stock, what kind of stock are you using?
Angie Mar:
For this, I'm going to use a nice, light beef stock and a red wine. Everybody's always like what wine should I use. I typically go with something that I would like to drink. For this one, I'm going to use a cabernet.
Kerry Diamond:
How about if you ... Someone asked if you were gluten free, can you use cornstarch instead of flour in this.
Angie Mar:
I've never tried that, but what I would actually do for gluten free ... What I typically do is I would omit the flour and I would take the time at the end to reduce the sauce a little bit more. It's actually really good that you brought that up with gluten free. The thing is that with oxtail ... Here, I'll show you. With oxtail, you obviously have this bone. Can you guys all see that?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Angie Mar:
You have this bone right here in the middle. The great thing about this cut is that it's got so much collagen in it, that if you wanted to omit the flour, you absolutely could and you'd still get thickness on the gravy if you reduced it because all of this of the bone here, when you braise it, it's going to extract all of this amazing collagen out of him. You're not going to get that thick of a stew if you were to go with, let's say, a beef shoulder, which it doesn't have the bone. It is marbled, there is fat in it, but it's really about the bone and the collagen, which is why I love this. You would also do well, if you are going to go gluten free to maybe use like a short rib, a bone-in short rib. You would still get a really nice sauce out of that as well.
Kerry Diamond:
Some folks are saying that they've made Julia's and followed it step-by-step and it was absolutely worth the time that it took to make it.
Angie Mar:
Oh, 100%.
Kerry Diamond:
That is the classic. Everyone should make that at least once.
Angie Mar:
Everyone should make that at least once.
Kerry Diamond:
If not a dozen times.
Angie Mar:
So, I've put some wine and some stock in here. I'm going to leave this. I'm just going to put the lid on.
Kerry Diamond:
Is anyone else impressed that Angie is wearing white in kitchen and cooking with red wine? I am, yeah.
Angie Mar:
You know what, I actually, and I, for some reason, I wear white there all the time and I eat all the pasta and for some reason, I can end up with no pasta sauce, which is shocking. You can either cook this on the stove top or you could pop it in the oven. If you are cooking at home and your kitchen is a little bit smaller, what I like to do is I would just put this in the oven at 300 degrees and just let it simmer. Just make sure you have a really tight fitting lid. I actually have another boeuf bourguignon that I did a little bit earlier this morning.
Kerry Diamond:
Ooh. Oh my God. That's so good.
Angie Mar:
I learned that TV magic from Jacques, so we'll thank him for that.
Kerry Diamond:
Let me ask. That's rapidly boiling. Is that okay?
Angie Mar:
It's going to be fine. You usually want it to just simmer. Right now, I'm at the point where I brought the heat up a little bit because I want the sauce to reduce.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Angie Mar:
You can just tell. The meat is just falling off the bone tender and everything is gorgeous.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God. Someone said where's the smell-a-vision. Exactly. I wish I could smell that right now. Angie did ask if I wanted to come to the kitchen and interview her in the kitchen. I should've said yes.
Angie Mar:
I asked Kerry if she wanted to come for lunch. I did.
Kerry Diamond:
I regret it. I regret it.
Angie Mar:
Now, I'm going to be eating this by myself.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. That is a great Oscar meal if anyone is watching the Oscar's tonight.
Angie Mar:
You can see, it's still a little loose, but I'm just going to leave it uncovered and I'm just going to simmer it uncovered for maybe 10 to 20 minutes more and it should get really beautiful and shiny. I do like to finish it off with a little bit of butter to get some sheen on the sauce and then some fresh cut parsley just to bring it a little bit brighter.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Do you take the meat out as you reduce the stock?
Angie Mar:
You can if you want. I typically don't. I just leave it. When I'm cooking at home, I'm just home cooking and it's just one thing. If you're going to take it out of here while I'm reducing it, I would put it in a bowl and I would ladle some of the sauce into it, cover it with foil, just to keep the moisture in. When you remove the meat completely and it's not with any liquid and uncovered, it's going to dry out. That's with any braise. Just make sure if you are going to take the meat out while you're reducing it, that you put a little bit of the gravy in there and cover it.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us how you would serve that, once it's done.
Angie Mar:
There's a couple different things with this. I would ... It really depends on what kind of mood you're in. Essentially you could serve this with either buttered potatoes. Which, when I do that, I just do either red or Yukon potatoes. I boil them with a little bit of salt and herbs. Drain them and I just toss them in butter. I use really, really delicious, very, very fatty, very rich French butter and then a little bit of parsley. Then, you could also do it with egg noodles as well. I think Julia used to serve it with egg noodles.
Kerry Diamond:
That's how my mom did it, with egg noodles. So good. You mentioned you put herbs ... Angie, you said when you boil the potatoes, you put salt and herbs in the water.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. I do-
Kerry Diamond:
I never put herbs in the water when I'm making potatoes.
Angie Mar:
Really? Oh, I always do. Just to give it a little bit more of an aromatic.
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm. What do you put in there?
Angie Mar:
I do thyme, salt and pepper.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, okay. That's a great suggestion. We're getting a few questions about pearl onions. I know they're really hard to find. Have you ever used frozen?
Angie Mar:
I've never used frozen.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. If anyone has advice for frozen pearl onions, mention it in the chat. That would be great. You're going to serve this. It's so amazing. This only gets better ... If you have leftovers, which is kind of hard to imagine, it only gets better in time, right?
Angie Mar:
Yeah, it only gets better in time. I'm going to put it in ... I'm actually going to take it out because I feel like it's fine right now. We have our new Les Trois Chevaux plates. Kerry, you're the first people that I'm showing them to.
Kerry Diamond:
Beautiful.
Angie Mar:
Very excited.
Kerry Diamond:
We can talk about the restaurant in just a minute.
Angie Mar:
I'm just going to serve this up. I, for me, I like a lot of meat so-
Kerry Diamond:
Our friend Diane said that Ina uses frozen pearl onions. Okay.
Angie Mar:
Does she? Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
If they're good enough for Ina, they're good enough for all of us.
Angie Mar:
Exactly. By the way, Ina is the other person that I feel really taught me to cook besides Jacques. I used to watch Ina all the time when I was cooking at home and just kind of learning.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, I would love Ina and Jacques Pepin. That would be another dream colab. Oh my gosh.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, can we do that?
Kerry Diamond:
We could try. We could try for anything.
Angie Mar:
I'm going to bring this around to the other side because I feel like it's better.
Kerry Diamond:
Angie, what's the difference between pearl onions and a more traditional onion?
Angie Mar:
Well, they're smaller, they're a little bit sweeter. For me, I like the sizing of pearl onions. I think they're perfect for especially when we're doing individual plates like this. They're going to stay together as well. If you were going to do a braise where you were straining out the onions and you just wanted the flavor, I would say definitely do a bigger onion. Do a Spanish onion. Do something that you can strain out. If you want something that you're actually going to be able to see and serve, you can actually see ... Do you see that right there? How the onion stays together. I like things that I can see it, I know what it is, it's beautiful. It's bite-sized.
Kerry Diamond:
Someone said pearl onions are best because they're cute. That is true.
Angie Mar:
They are cute. I agree with that.
Kerry Diamond:
Angie, we also have Carolyn has a Le Creuset question. She's considering buying a 9-quart oval. Do you have any thoughts on the ovals versus the rounds?
Angie Mar:
Yeah. I love both. In my kitchen, I have both. I think that if you're going ... They're an investment piece and the great thing about Le Creuset is that your grandkids are going to have that. Your great grandchildren are going to have the Le Creuset because they're just so perfect. I think that if you are going to get only one, I would absolutely get the oval because at the end of the day, you could do this in the round, you could do it in the oval, but the oval is fantastic because I actually like to roast birds in the oval Le Creuset. I think they're kind of perfect. You can do whole chickens, you can do turkey. The oval is ... If you're going to invest one good piece, just like we would invest in one good little black dress, I would absolutely invest in an oval Le Creuset for sure.
Kerry Diamond:
Great. Do you have a favorite Le Creuset color.
Angie Mar:
Oh my gosh. I mean. I'm really digging the artichaut right now, but I also do love the whites as well.
Kerry Diamond:
Someone mentioned that they, or someone in their family, got passed down the flame, from a grandmother.
Angie Mar:
That's so amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
I think that's one of the original colors and such a beautiful orange color. What I wanted to ask Jacques and someone else mentioned this in the chat, how does he keep those pans clean? What are your chef secrets. I know you're just using the Le Creuset that they sent over, but they're so shiny and new. I was so jealous. All of Jacques pans look like they were brand new.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, I know. They're so great. I don't know what he does to keep all of his pans clean because that man is cooking a lot. For us, we have one day a week where we soak them and we go town and we just scrub.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Somebody said Barkeeper's Friend. Do you use that?
Angie Mar:
No, I don't know what that is.
Kerry Diamond:
It's that scrub that you can use. I'm sure now we're going- Some people, it looks in the chatter, camp Bon Ami and some are camp Barkeeper. We'll see.
Angie Mar:
Well, I'll have to try that.
Kerry Diamond:
Angie, while we still have you, let's chat a little bit about what you have been up to because it has been quite the year for you. You closed her beloved Beatrice Inn that you were the chef and owner of. You worked so hard last year during the pandemic to keep it open. But, you decided, time was up and you literally are opening a restaurant next door. Can you tell me a little bit about the new restaurant?
Angie Mar:
Yeah. The new restaurant is called Les Trois Chevaux and it's actually so amazing that I was able to sit here with Jacques because I had every intention of opening this restaurant as the Beatrice Inn. And it was really incredible because I ... Tejal Rao from the Times, who I just absolutely adore, she did this amazing piece how the Beatrice was moving next door. And it was just so incredible because the day after that piece came out in the Times, Jacques called me and he said, you can not open the Beatrice. You absolutely can not. I said, what do you mean. I'm opening the Beatrice, like, it's already done. He said, no you can't. You are at the stage, in your career, where you need to believe that it's time for you to have something that bears your name.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Angie Mar:
Something that's been handed down to you. And I need you to believe that.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. Some might not know this, but Angie was hired to be the chef at the Beatrice and she wound up buying it from the original owner.
Angie Mar:
Yeah. It was a very pivotal moment for me because he said that to me and I sat there and thought about it for probably a good month, month and a half and then I realized, you know what, he's right. I ready to do something new. I think I've been ready for a long time. I think that New York is really read to grow again. I think it's ready to be reinvented. That's the great thing about New York. We're constantly reinventing ourselves and I really wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to be a part of that because the energy here right now is so palpable. It really just is tremendous, the creative energy right now, in the city. To call it Les Trois Chevaux, which is naming it for my family. My last name in Chinese means horse and I have two younger brothers and so, when we were kids, my dad and my uncles used to call us the three horses. That was our nicknames. For me to do a restaurant that really paid homage to my family and my roots and also the cuisine that I love, really mixed into one. To have the opportunity to start from an entirely blank slate is something that is so tremendously exciting and I'm so grateful for.
Kerry Diamond:
I know you haven't said much about the menu yet. Can you tell us anything?
Angie Mar:
It's still being worked out. It's still being worked out. I can tell you that it will absolutely be a departure from what I was doing at the Beatrice.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. That's all we can get out of Angie about the menu, so we have to wait. You know I had some restaurants and this is always a restaurateur's least favorite question, but when do you expect to open the new restaurant?
Angie Mar:
That is the million-dollar question.
Kerry Diamond:
I know. I'm sorry to even ask.
Angie Mar:
At this point, I think it's going to be probably late May. Yeah, it'll be late May. As I'm talking to you from my kitchen right now, the crown moldings are being painted right outside of my kitchen. The floors just got done. I think it's going to be late May.
Kerry Diamond:
So tremendous. This is Angie's new kitchen behind us. Some folks ... Pamela, yes, late May 2021. Some folks might not realize this if you were never at the Beatrice or just didn't realize when you went in, Angie's kitchen was so tiny and she made so many miracles out of that kitchen and now you've got ... Your kitchen is how many times the size of your previous?
Angie Mar:
Five times.
Kerry Diamond:
Five times? Wow.
Angie Mar:
Yeah, it's five times the size of our old kitchen. We're so excited. I don't even ... I think that we actually, when we got in here and we got the equipment installed, we actually all cried, we were so excited.
Kerry Diamond:
Aww. That's amazing. All right ... Somebody wants to know what kind of salt ... Oh, and if folks have questions for Angie ... I forgot to even look at the Q&A box. Angie, what kind of salt do you use?
Angie Mar:
Kosher. I use the Diamond Crystal Kosher. I really love it because it has a nice grain to it and I can really feel when I pick it up how much I'm seasoning. I know it's so terrible because I've written a cookbook and I think that it was a constant struggle ... Kerry, you've done it too. It's the measurements. Measurements are always the hardest thing. As a cook, I just want to cook off of instinct, but using the Diamond Crystals is really, really fabulous because of the grains. You actually know what you're grabbing and how much you're using.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Did you put oil in the pan first?
Angie Mar:
I did. I used a little bit of olive oil. Not too much.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, great. How about your team. I know ... Folks who don't know Angie, she for years, has always been one of my favorite chefs because she always recognizes her team and gives them credit for all the amazing work that she does. Will you be able to bring some of your team back for the new restaurant.
Angie Mar:
Yes, my entire team is coming back.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Angie Mar:
My entire team is coming back. I am so excited. I think that chefs, quite often, get the majority of the credit and our faces, our names are in the spotlight. But, the reality is that, no great achievement can be done on your own. We are nothing. Chefs are nothing without their team and the strength of their team. For me, we have been working so hard over the past eight years that I was at the Beatrice to really build the right team. It takes a while. It takes a while, right? For those of us in the industry, we know. You've got your really good ones. You've got people that you think are good, but they're not and you've got to get rid of those people. And then you've got people that just aren't going to work at all. When you find the really great ones and you hold on to them, you cultivate them. That is really what make restaurants an experience just absolutely remarkable. It's a family.
Kerry Diamond:
Angie, folks are asking where is the new restaurant. Can you tell us again?
Angie Mar:
I'm right next door to the Beatrice Inn, well, where the Beatrice Inn was. I'm at 283 West 12th Street. That's on the corner of West 4th and West 12th in the West Village.
Kerry Diamond:
Great. Angie, thank you so much. Hopefully everyone's following Angie on Instagram and following her new restaurant Les Trois Chevaux. Angie also has a gorgeous cookbook. If you don't live near New York, you're not going to be in New York any time soon, you can also pick up Angie's gorgeous cookbook and support her that way. Angie, I can't thank you enough. I know you could've talked to Jacques for two hours and that would've made-
Angie Mar:
For the rest of my life.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. Hopefully you'll be spending more time with him and maybe we'll get another opportunity to interview him. Thank you for your time. I know it's Oscar day. It's always a big day. I want to thank everybody out there for joining us and for taking part in the Julia Jubilee, our virtual celebration of the life and legacy of Julia Child. Thank you so much to Le Creuset for supporting this chat and demo and for sending Angie those beautiful pieces in artichaut. That is a gorgeous, gorgeous green color and for everybody out there, we'll be giving away one of the Dutch ovens in artichaut on Instagram. You'll all be automatically entered, but make sure you check out the Le Creuset give-away on Instagram tomorrow. I also should mention our magazine. For those of you that don't know about Cherry Bombe, we are a magazine that's all about women in food and our brand new issue is all about Julia Child. Be sure to check out that. Angie, as always, you're the bombe.
Angie Mar:
Thank you, Kerry. It was so great to be here. Thanks everyone for coming.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Thank you everyone. Don't forget, we've got more amazing programming as part of The Julia Jubilee. Tomorrow we've got more talks and demos all week long. Just go to cherrybombe.com to check out the schedule. All the programming is free thanks to our wonderful sponsors, but you do have to RSVP. All right everyone, have a wonderful afternoon and we'll see you tomorrow.