| Excerpt | | | | "It was a big deal for two women to go into |
| | | | business together in 1977," says Lukins, who |
| The following is an excerpt from the book The | | | | thinks this angle helped the shop get press |
| United States of Arugulaby David Kamp | | | | coverage almost as fawning and widespread as |
| | | | Dean & DeLuca's. Zabar was the odd man out |
| Published by Broadway Books; September | | | | where press was concerned. E.A.T. was |
| 2006;$26.00US/$35.00CAN; 0-7679-1579-8 | | | | flourishing, and it offered an even more |
| | | | extensive and dazzling line of prepared foods |
| Copyright © 2006 David Kamp | | | | than the Silver Palate, but the proprietor's |
| | | | truculence precluded him from ever being a |
| Chapter Seven | | | | press favorite, a circumstance that only got |
| | | | worse in the eighties, when he let loose on |
| The New Sun-Dried Lifestyle | | | | the writer Julie Baumgold, the wife of New |
| | | | York's then editor Edward Kosner, for trying |
| "What Dean & Deluca did was give the food | | | | to return some item she'd purchased. ("I told |
| market a clean artistry that made it very | | | | her to go fuck herself, 'cause there was |
| now, very tied into the moment when SoHo was | | | | nothing wrong with it," Zabar says.) |
| being noticed," says Florence Fabricant, the | | | | |
| New York Times food-beat scoopmeister, who | | | | "Eli's a great merchandiser, and his shop was |
| wrote about the store nearly from its | | | | always spectacular, but I don't think he |
| inception. "Jack Ceglic was responsible for a | | | | liked us at all," says Lukins. "I think he |
| lot of that, the industrial look. And Giorgio | | | | thought we copied him -- and we didn't. I |
| and Joel were really fanatic about ferreting | | | | mean, we were one tiny corner of his shop! |
| out product. It all tied together. And the | | | | But we got the publicity and the good |
| other important thing they tapped into was | | | | reviews." Within a year of its opening, the |
| the need for prepared foods." | | | | Silver Palate was selling its own product |
| | | | line at Saks Fifth Avenue, including such |
| Indeed, the time had at last arrived when it | | | | items as winter fruit compote, Damson plums |
| was socially and economically acceptable for | | | | in brandy, and blueberry vinegar. |
| young professionals -- and even harried moms | | | | |
| in the suburbs -- to take home freshly | | | | Four years later, The Silver Palate Cookbook |
| prepared entrées, along with salads and | | | | was published by Workman and became the |
| sides purchased by the pound. In an earlier | | | | cookbook of the eighties, not just in |
| era, prepared foods were problematic: they | | | | Manhattan but throughout the United States. |
| seemed too fancy and expensive (as Jean | | | | More disciplined and earthbound than The |
| Vergnes found out during his brief experiment | | | | Moosewood Cookbook, yet less intimidating and |
| with Stop & Shop in the sixties), and, for | | | | grown-up than the two volumes of Mastering |
| women, they seemed a cop-out, a betrayal of | | | | the Art of French Cooking, Lukins and Rosso's |
| their domestic duties. But with more women in | | | | book was perfect for have-it-all, |
| the professional workforce and more people | | | | multitasking baby boomers who wanted to cook |
| amenable to the general idea of "gourmet" | | | | well but not all the time. Its introduction |
| eating, especially if it had the imprimatur | | | | recalled the state of affairs that led the |
| of a prestigious shop like Dean & DeLuca or | | | | two ladies to their decision to open their |
| E.A.T., prepared foods started to take off -- | | | | shop: a new era in which women found |
| Rob Kaufelt, who grew up in the supermarket | | | | themselves juggling "school schedules, |
| business and now runs Murray's, the beloved | | | | business appointments, political activities, |
| New York cheese store, calls the rise of | | | | art projects, sculpting classes, movie going, |
| prepared foods "the biggest change in the | | | | exercising, theater, chamber music concerts, |
| grocery-store business over the last thirty | | | | tennis, squash, weekends in the country or at |
| years." | | | | the beach, friends, family, fund raisers, |
| | | | books to read, [and] shopping," and yet were |
| Dean & DeLuca's secret weapon in this regard | | | | still compelled "to prepare creative, |
| was Felipe Rojas-Lombardi, who for a time was | | | | well-balanced meals and the occasional dinner |
| a partner in the store with the namesake | | | | party at home." The Silver Palate lifestyle |
| owners and Ceglic. Peruvian by birth, | | | | offered two solutions: you could use Lukins |
| Rojas-Lombardi had come to Dean & DeLuca by | | | | and Rosso's recipes, or buy their products |
| way of the James Beard Cooking School, where | | | | and prepared foods. |
| he'd risen up through the ranks to become the | | | | |
| master's right-hand man in the kitchen. | | | | The very emergence of the word "lifestyle" in |
| Rojas-Lombardi had also worked as New York | | | | the late seventies signaled a progression in |
| magazine's in-house chef, their go-to man for | | | | America's food culture. Stylish living wasn't |
| testing recipes. This pedigree proved helpful | | | | just for wealthy boulevardiers anymore, but |
| not only in eliciting constant plugs for the | | | | for anyone who considered himself upwardly |
| store in Beard's syndicated column and in New | | | | mobile -- and eating, cooking, and |
| York but in the fact that Rojas-Lombardi was | | | | food-shopping were about as lifestylish as |
| a skilled, inventive cook: he roasted | | | | things got. In 1976, when The New York Times |
| chickens tandoori-style, grilled salmon on | | | | expanded from two to four sections a day, |
| cedar planks, and went out on a limb with | | | | introducing a new daily business section and |
| such oddball entrées as elk steak and his | | | | a rotating fourth section devoted to soft |
| notorious rabbit with forty cloves of garlic. | | | | news and service journalism, the first two |
| "Felipe did some of the first pasta salads | | | | "fourth sections" to appear were Weekend (on |
| that people had ever seen," says Ceglic. "He | | | | Fridays) and the Living section (on |
| did everything with the products we sold, and | | | | Wednesdays), both of which had a heavy food |
| people cottoned to it." | | | | component. The Weekend section carried the |
| | | | restaurant-review column, which ran longer |
| "The idea was that if you didn't know what a | | | | and held greater weight than it had when |
| sun-dried tomato was, well, here it was, in a | | | | Claiborne introduced the column in the early |
| pasta salad," said Dean. | | | | sixties. Whereas Claiborne's early columns |
| | | | were often roundups, devoting just a blurb or |
| The third point in New York's prepared-foods | | | | a short paragraph to each restaurant, the new |
| triangle, with Dean & DeLuca downtown and | | | | version evaluated no more than two |
| E.A.T. serving the Upper East Side, was the | | | | restaurants at a time, with much more |
| Silver Palate, a tiny shop on the Upper West | | | | intimate, first-person critiques by the |
| Side, on what was then a drab stretch of | | | | Times' new reviewer, Mimi Sheraton. |
| Columbus Avenue. The Silver Palate's genesis | | | | |
| lay in a mid-seventies catering company | | | | The Living section was even more |
| called The Other Woman, a single-person | | | | gastronomically inclined, with shopping news |
| operation run by Sheila Lukins, a young | | | | and product evaluations from Florence |
| mother of two who cooked out of her apartment | | | | Fabricant; a wine column by Frank Prial (a |
| on Central Park West. As her company's name | | | | metro-desk reporter who happened to be an |
| and slogan ("So discreet, so delicious, and I | | | | oenophile); health and nutrition news from |
| deliver") suggested, Lukins's clientele was | | | | Jane Brody; recipes, essays, and travelogues |
| mostly male: professional men who wanted | | | | from Claiborne; and a new column by Pierre |
| their dinner parties catered but not in an | | | | Franey, bylined at last, called "60-Minute |
| inordinately fussy, Edith Whartonian fashion. | | | | Gourmet." Arthur Gelb, who was put in charge |
| | | | of the new culture sections by the paper's |
| Lukins was a self-taught cook, more or less | | | | executive editor, Abe Rosenthal, had wanted |
| -- she had taken a course at the London | | | | to appeal to time-strapped upwardly mobile |
| Cordon Bleu while she and her husband lived | | | | home cooks by running a column called |
| there, but "it was the dilettante course," | | | | "30-Minute Gourmet"; Gelb and his wife, |
| she says. Her greatest inspiration was not | | | | Barbara, had been impressed by Franey's |
| Child and company's Mastering the Art of | | | | ability to whip up quick, simple, delicious |
| French Cooking but the more practical, less | | | | meals in the Hamptons -- flounder in a butter |
| labor-intensive recipes of Craig Claiborne's | | | | sauce, say, or pork chops with capers -- |
| New York Times cookbooks and his Sunday | | | | after a long day of fishing. |
| pieces for the Times Magazine. Lukins's | | | | |
| cooking was eclectic but somehow all of a | | | | But Franey was still too much of a purist to |
| piece -- aspirational comfort food: moussaka, | | | | limit himself to thirty minutes. (Like a lot |
| lasagna, ratatouille, stuffed grape leaves, | | | | of chefs, he was also made queasy by the word |
| and the quintessential Lukins dish, Chicken | | | | "gourmet" and preferred the title "60-Minute |
| Marbella, the quartered bird baked after a | | | | Chef," but he yielded to Gelb on that |
| long soak in a Mediterranean-style marinade | | | | matter.) The first "60-Minute Gourmet" column |
| of oil, vinegar, garlic, prunes, olives, and | | | | featured a recipe for crevettes "margarita" |
| capers. | | | | -- an invention of Franey's that called for |
| | | | shrimp to be cooked in a sauce of tequila, |
| While running The Other Woman Catering | | | | shallots, and cream, with avocado slices |
| Company, Lukins became acquainted with Julee | | | | tossed in at the end -- and began with a |
| Rosso, a young professional who worked in the | | | | statement of intent (written by Claiborne) |
| advertising division of Burlington Mills, the | | | | that declared, "With inventiveness and a |
| textile company. Rosso had attended many | | | | little planning, there is no reason why a |
| events catered by Lukins, and was so | | | | working wife, a bachelor, or a husband who |
| impressed that one day, she hit up Lukins | | | | likes to cook cannot prepare an elegant meal |
| with a proposal. "She said, 'So many women | | | | in under an hour." |
| are working late now. What if we opened up a | | | | |
| shop for them?'" Lukins remembers. The two | | | | Excerpted from The United States of Arugula: |
| went into business as the Silver Palate in | | | | How We Became a Gourmet Nation by David Kamp |
| the summer of 1977, with Lukins as the cook | | | | Copyright © 2006 by David Kamp. Excerpted |
| -- carting food over from her apartment | | | | by permission of Broadway, a division of |
| several times a day to the then kitchenless | | | | Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No |
| store -- and Rosso as the marketer and | | | | part of this excerpt may be reproduced or |
| front-woman. | | | | reprinted without permission in writing from |
| | | | the publisher. |