The New Sun-dried Lifestyle

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

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The New Sun-dried Lifestyle