October 23, 2019 • 46 mins
Host Michael Ruhlman speaks w/ Arborist Ian Wogan and Chef Suzanne Cupps about "Wood."
Ian Wogan's True Tree Service: https://www.truetreeservicemiami.com/consulting-arborist/
Chef Suzanne Cupps New Restaurant 232 Bleecker: http://www.grubstreet.com/2019/08/dig-inn-suzanne-cupps-232-bleecker-nyc.html
Host Michael Ruhlman's new book "From Scratch" is out now! https://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Meals-Recipes-Dozens-Techniques/dp/1419732773
All of the music on "From Scratch" is by Ryan Scott off of his album "A Freak Grows in Brooklyn". Listen here: https://www.ryanscottguitar.com/
Special thanks to Ted Sanchez for the delicious pizza!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to From Scratch. My name is Michael Rohlman and
I'm a writer. I've spent the last twenty years in
professional kitchens, writing about and with the world's best chefs.
From Scratch is a podcast about cooking. In each episode,
we'll talk with one chef and one non chef about
the same theme. The great thing about the cooking life
is that you never stop learning. In this show, I
(00:26):
want to go to the edges of what I know
and then go beyond together with you, with all chefs,
home cooks, and everyone who cares about food and cooking.
On today's episode, we're going to be exploring the theme
of wood. We'll talk with the chef who's preparing to
open a restaurant which features a wood grill at the
heart of the kitchen. She'll explain her philosophy and tips
(00:47):
for cooking with wood. Also, she'll show us a great
recipe for a simple vegetable dish that you can try
in your own wood fire at home. But first, we
wanted to think a little bit outside the box and
explore wood in its initial state before it becomes a
(01:08):
cooking fuel. We mean trees. We wanted to learn a
bit about trees. I recently read two great books about trees,
A novel called The Over Story by Richard Powers and
The Hidden Life of Trees, a nonfiction book by Peter Volaban.
Both ask us to consider the fact that trees communicate
(01:29):
with each other and if we listen with us. This
is from the preface of Hidden Life of Trees. The
most astonishing thing about trees is how social they are.
The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes
even going so far as to nourish the stump of
a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down,
by feeding at sugars and other nutrients and so keeping
(01:51):
it alive. Trees need to communicate, and electrical impulses are
one of their many means of communication. If a giraffe
starts eat in an African acacia, the tree releases a
chemical into the air that signals that a threat is
at a hand. As the chemical drifts through the air
and reaches other trees, they smell it and are warned
(02:12):
of the dangers. Even before the giraffe reaches them, they
begin producing toxic chemicals. One reason we can't see this
is that trees live on a different time scale than
we do. Some trees are many thousands of years old,
a hundred times our lifespan. It's just something to think
about as we think about wood and cooking with wood
(02:35):
and ever changing and powerful heat source. But first, we
wanted to talk about trees generally with someone who works
with them. Ian Wogan is an arborist in Miami. We
contacted him because he's a leading expert in all matters
having to do with trees. Wogan is a co founder
of True Tree Service, a company that accomplishes many different things.
(02:57):
Aside from climbing trees while operating chainsaws, they help out
with emergency disaster relief, and they even consult with cities
on how to add ecological diversity back into urban centers.
And we especially wanted to hear from Ian because of
a concept called stacking functions. Stacking functions is a term
(03:18):
that comes out of the world of permaculture and essentially
means to have individual elements in a system perform more
than one function. Great cooks stack functions all the time
without using that term, but don't worry, we'll come back
to that. For Ian Wogan's work, he sees stacking functions
as a necessary way to maintain the pre existing complexity
(03:39):
of an ecosystem, and he's doing it in small, creative
ways all over. For example, he plants herbs and vegetables
on the rooftops of his clients, which reduces their building's
energy use and of course provides a food supply. Another example,
he uses the barks of specific trees as locations to
plant infant orchids, which are being reintroduced into the local environment.
(04:02):
It stacks the trees functions of shade and beauty with
assisting the growth of another smaller organism. He sees each
stacked function as a variable in an incalculable equation that
makes up a healthy environment in a In a fully
functioning ecosystem, the interactions are innumerable, are countless, So there's
(04:27):
no way that we can save everything that these orchids do.
And so therefore by losing them and by them going extinct,
we have no idea what we're missing out on, or
what what ecosystem function is not going to be the
present anymore. To demonstrate some functions that have stacked themselves
(04:47):
naturally over a long long time, Wigan took our producer
Jonathan to the water via canoe. He wanted to examine
a very peculiar looking tree. One of my favorites for
its beguiling appearance, the mangrove. I think mangroves are one
of my favorite trees. Mangroves take a long time to grow,
for sure. I don't know how old this this stand is,
(05:11):
but it's certainly old. We've we've done some restoration plantings
and they seem to take forever. Mangroves grow with the
edges of water and have a unique appearance because their
roots systems begin above the water. Starting at the lower trunk.
The roots shoot downward and break into pair after pair
(05:33):
of thin arching props which make their way down into
the water and beyond. It looks like the mangroves are
walking on hands filled with dozens of fingers. All along
the shore. Here are the prop roots. So it's these,
it's these. It looks like they're almost crawling, but these
(05:53):
these thin prop roots coming off of the trunks of
the mangrove trees, and they're in these beautiful sweeping arches
that that just kind of repeat themselves over and over.
But what the prop roots do, because they're above the
water line, they can exchange oxygen without being totally under
the soil. The main reason that Wogan took to the
(06:16):
water to visit the mangrove trees is to show them
in contrast with sea walls. Sea walls are flat concrete
embankments which extends several feet above the waterline to separate
land from sea through modern construction technique, built after a
water line has been cleared of mangroves and other plants.
But just to give a little context for for where
(06:36):
we're at, um, you know, we have this this like
perfectly square squared off gray seawall to our left and
all this this coastline historically would be mangrove. Well, there's
a there's a few different varieties, but the red mangrove
(07:00):
grows in salt water conditions right along the coast. They
have these big aerial proper roots that allow them to
breathe with the tidal fluctuations. And those hundreds of fingerlike
roots which extend above the water are world class stackers
of functions for starters. As Wegan mentions, they're like snoricles
(07:22):
for the tree, allowing it to breathe. Next, because of
the huge amount of surface area that the roots have,
they pacify the waves that come with storms. Big waves
become tiny ripples after they pass through mangrove trees. On
the contrary, the cement sea walls, which have replaced the mangroves,
have the opposite effect. They work as an echo chamber
(07:42):
for waves, reverberating and causing more chaos near the edge
of the water and below it. And another major function
the mangrove roots systems creates safe spaces for fish nurseries.
So they provide habitat for for the fisheries, for all
the for all the the hatchlings and the baby fish
that are being born. The mothers go up into the mangroves,
(08:05):
lay their their eggs in the in the proper root areas,
and then the and then the hatchlings have a have
a protected sheltered area. Two uh, you know, to grow
and to get ready for open water. Because right here
where are our bow is is pointed, is basically the
(08:26):
in between of this densely urban design philosophy. And then
to the right here with the mangrove fringe, the natural
ecosystem that would would otherwise exist without our influence. And
the real question is not what's better, it's how to
design for a combination of the two. Wigan thinks we
(08:49):
can learn from the mangroves and apply lessons from nature
much faster than the speed at which it evolved. Is
the fact that we, as as these cognitive human beings,
have they to study and understand and and appreciate and
then replicate. So whereas the mangroves took how many hundreds
(09:10):
of thousands of years too to develop the form that
they did, we now we we can understand that form
and then use it to two the benefit of our
surrounding environment are built environment. But what about when something
in nature was causing a negative effect? What creative stacking
(09:30):
of functions can be done? That these trees along the
coast here were introduced from Australia because they're super salt tolerant,
and they the original intent was to help prevent erosion,
and so they brought these what are called Australian pines,
even though they're not a true conifer. They brought these
(09:51):
Australian pines and planted them and they became a super
invasive species. So invasive it's a very relative term um
But basically, where we have gone in and disturbed land
or populations, a lot of these species will will take
over that have been introduced by us from other parts
of the world, and the main issue is the fact
(10:13):
that they they prevent the the succession of native ecosystems
that have been here for many generations, thousands of years
and all of the all of the relationships that exist
in those native ecosystems. You might be thinking, what the
heck does this have to do with cooking, Well, I'm
glad you asked so. One of the things, you know,
(10:36):
looking at looking at that as an invasive that just
needs to be cut down and cartered off is is
the the standard model approach. But if you look at
that as a resource, there's there's such an abundance of it,
and they're you know, they're looking for solutions to um
(10:58):
to have it removed. All you do is cut it
down and cart it off. You It's it's just the
same it's the same thing as as the principle of
stacking functions. If you can if you can create a
revenue stream from that waste product versus sending it to
(11:20):
the landfill, then you then you are maximizing the lifespan
and the usability and then and then the energy cycle.
We're in the front yard of a friend of Ian's
named Ted, who built a clay wood burning oven on
his back porch. Ian's preparing the fuel for a pizza
(11:41):
party later in the evening. This is Australian pine. So
one of the things that we were talking about is
how to how to consider what what might be just
an invasive species to some how to figure out incorporating
resource bank into a use of the energy that's gone
(12:06):
into the growth of these trees. So splitting this would
and we're gonna burn it in a little would open
for making some amazing pizza. The freshly cut Australian pine
has a deep rosy pinkish color. When chopped open, it
(12:27):
looks kind of like pulled pork when you're starting to
pull it apart with two forks. This wood is so
spectaculars beautiful. So this would basically dulled the saw that
I was using to cut it into rounds. I mean,
just just ate the chain up and this would be
(12:49):
considered a bit wet, but once it gets going, it's
incredibly hot. So my name is Ted Sante's. I'm a
veterinarian live in Miami, Florida, and I love to cook
at home. So I have a little wood burning oven
here that we're testing out some wood today, and then
(13:10):
I built this kind of outdoor pizza oven because we
entertain a lot, so we have a lot of people
over and basically pizzas like the perfect the perfect cooking
event to bring people together. So so you have to
have a wood burning oven, and it has to be
outside because it can't be inside. So we've made this
nice little uh of an outside. So this is a
(13:32):
batch of Australian pine logs that we harvested today from
a tree that was felled in Hurricane Irma two seventeen.
That the Australian pine is an incredible high temperature burn
that has very little sap, so it doesn't have a
(13:53):
lot of sootiness or or smoke that that comes off
of it. For me, I just needed to heat up
the oven, so I need it's something that works fast,
that burns nice, and that you know, is an intense
heat hardwoods. Obviously you put a soft wood, which we
have a lot of, it burns so quick, it just
does not it doesn't heat the oven up. So this
(14:15):
is actually a very very dense woods and it's doing
a very good job at heating the oven right now.
But we make our own dough um. It's actually mimicked
after the famous Brooklyn Roberta pizza dough um. And we
made our own little homemade sauce. Um. We're gonna do
a little bit more since it's a smaller crowd, We're
gonna do some more exotic. Sometimes when I cook for
big crowds, you can't put the fancy ingredients where we
(14:38):
put out some nice, fancier mushrooms. We've got our house special,
which is our kale, pepper and lemon pizza, and then
we have a little bit of a fresh arugula to
top off, so it would be a simple menu. Think
so far it's working really well. Australian pine is an
invasive species, so I would love to see it all
gone and and when not have Australian pine to use.
(15:02):
But in the meantime, I think it's a great thing
to use instead of using hardwoods from other places in
the country. For a chef guest. In this episode, I
(15:40):
was lucky to sit down in conversation with Suzanne Cups.
She's preparing to open a new restaurant called to thirty
two Bleaker in Manhattan, which will feature a wood fired
grill at the center of its kitchen. We talked about
cooking with wood, menu development, and even how home cooks
can stack functions in their own kitchens to reduce waste
and increase verie to be with their food. But first,
(16:01):
I always want to know how chef's got started. Most
have always had an affinity for cooking, or at least
an interested food from an early age. Suzanne showed an
astonishing lack of natural acumen in the kitchen and one
of my first memories of cooking was we would make
like for lunch, like tuna fish salad um. And one
(16:22):
time I was old enough to use the stove. I'm
not sure how old that was, but my sister said, hey,
Mom and I are going out, can you go ahead
and harriboled eggs for the tuna salad um? So I
did it, and when they got home, um, my mom went,
my mom and sister went to make the tuna fish
and crack the eggs and they were completely raw, and
they're like, what what did you do? Did you why
(16:45):
didn't you horribled eggs? And I was like I did,
and they're like, what did you do? I said, I, well,
I took the eggs. I put them in a pot
of water, and I put them in the sink and
I ran cold water over him, because that's what I
always saw my mom do. At the end, I just
didn't realize that had to boil first. Suzanne, raised in
South Carolina, moved to New York in or early twenties
(17:05):
and landed a job in the HR department of the
famous Waldorf Astoria hotel. I didn't really understand what the
hospitality business was until I went to that hotel, and
then I started realizing, like, oh, this is really interesting.
This is just how it is in the South. You know,
you're welcoming, you smile at people, you want to make
sure everybody feels comfortable whatever it is UM. And so
(17:27):
I really got interested in like that idea of hotels
UM and hospitality UM. And part way through my time there,
they needed some help in the steakhouse, the Boulomare Steakhouse,
and so along with my normal HR job, I started
kind of working a couple of nights a week in
the steakhouse and more of like maitre d type of
work welcoming people UM. But it didn't take long before
(17:51):
the kitchen called to her, specifically one at the Institute
of Culinary Education in Lower Manhattan, a culinary school usually
referred to as I had a friend who was a
co worker at the Wald Earth and she um started
going to ICE for some recreational classes. And she would
bring into the office all these cakes and um cookies
(18:12):
and elaborate desserts that she made, and I was amazed.
You know, it was a little fancier than what I
was used to eating, and I was amazed. I didn't
really know anything about the cooking school, UM in general,
and so she started telling me about it, and then, UM,
once something like that happens, I just, you know, can't
(18:33):
stop thinking about it, and ended up going to see
the school. And once I saw the kitchens at ICE,
and that's when I was on twenty Street, I was
just kind of hooked. After six years of cooking experience
under chef Anita Low at Anissa, Suzanne found herself stoking
the wood fire at a long time favorite restaurant of mine,
the Grammarcy Tavern. So I started on the tavern woodburn
(18:54):
and grill. Uh. It was so hard. It's uh, it's
very busy for twooks out there. So if you were
the sioux chef, or if someone had to step in
and help you step in between the two cooks, which
is not a lot of room, and you're standing directly
in front of the fire. So there's a door that
kind of separates the fire that you have to open
(19:15):
to feed it. And when a lot of times if
you're if you know how to work with fire, you
have to have a lot of oxygen, so sometimes you
have to keep that door open. So if you're in
if you're the six chef in the middle, and it's
busy and you're plating and you're in front of that fire,
it gets pretty hot. Yeah, you're pretty much medium. Well sure, Um,
what do you like about cooking over wood over flame?
I mean, what I love about it is it's alive.
(19:37):
You know, it's always changing, You're really engaged in the cooking.
What do you like about cooking with fire? I think
there's a bunch one of this is just what you said.
I think it is an engaging experience. It's um, It's
number one. It's the taste of it. You know, food
over a wood burning grill is, if it's done right,
(19:58):
is super delicious. Um. And then I I love the
what it brings to a restaurant. I love the openness
because you know Woodbritain girls, they're not down in the
basement or in the back, They're right out in front
of the gas. And I like that. It's a it's
a experience that you can have along with the gas
that come into the restaurant. So I think that that, um,
(20:19):
that idea of cooking and being next to the people
you're cooking for is a really special thing. I think
the fun part about grilling it is a little trial
and error, Like you have to be able to say, Okay, today,
I'm going to cook the chips and I'm gonna see
how this state comes out, and tomorrow I'm gonna do
it with that and kind of see how it acts
people cooking at home. What what should they what should
they keep in mind when they're choosing what to put
(20:43):
over live flames versus a uniform heat of a gas
or electric range. One thing I think you wanna uh
think about is the cut of what you're buying. So
for example, you may wanna if you if you like
fish and you're cooking in a pan over gas burners,
something like trout is great. Um, it's thin it's quick
(21:06):
to cook. You can get like a crispy skin on
it really easily. Now, if you have a home grill,
your grill um number one, your fish might stick a
little bit more to the grill. So thinking about UM,
how do you treat it? You are you doing skin on?
Are you taking that skin off? Maybe it might be
an easier way UM picking a thicker fish. Like I
(21:27):
really love um arctic char um, which for anybody who
hasn't had, is a lot like a salmon um. I
I like it because I feel like it doesn't dry out.
It the same as salmon um. But salmon arctic char
um kind of a thicker like a shripe bass could
work really well on a grill. So also um being
able to create some flavor something that's really thin. If
(21:49):
you put it on the grill um and you keep
it on for too long, it's really thin, it's gonna overcook.
So I think when you have a little bit thicker
piece of meat or fish, it's it's a little easier
to get the correct temperature that you want UM and
getting some flavor into it. That's that's really interesting. Talk
about the variations and the differences in the levels yeah,
(22:10):
I think the the it's it's important. I think you
want to create, um, your hot spots. So again, if
you're you're grilling a chicken, you we want that brownness,
you want that crispy skin. Um. But if you're doing
head of cauliflower, I don't know that I want that
coming in in flames and sit all over it. I
think you want you want to enhance the flavor of
(22:33):
the vegetable without masking it. Especially fish too. I think
I love grilled grilled fish. Um. But if the fish
just tastes like grill, if the fish is delicate, you
have to be able to have yeah, you know, building,
whether it's different levels or different spots on the grill
for items. Well, also you have you can think of
(22:53):
cooking time. Chicken and cauliflower take a long time. Fish
takes a short amount of time, right, So so you
have to manage your you know, indirect heat and direct heat.
Use indirect heat in the oh yeah lots. Yeah, I
think indirect heat is one of the most interesting and
even things like um like even more direct such as
(23:16):
cooking in the embers. Um. I'm excited about doing that.
And a lot of vegetable dishes that either get cooked
right before service in the embers or something that gets
finished in the embers. Is really interesting to me that
that heat is outstanding. Yeah. So in the in the
bottom of the fire where you're collecting all the ash, um,
it's just a really it's not quite the same heat
(23:39):
as above it above the grill. So cooking in the
embers um all the ash that's produced by the fire
gives it really mellow, nice heat. You have to you
have to protect the food. So a lot of times, um,
I'll wrap something in foil or double foil. Um. But
another way is if you have like a heavy cast
iron pot, that's great to kind of just put down
(23:59):
there or um, it doesn't burn in the same way
if as if you have it up top. So a
lot of times you can keep something in there for
two hours without it getting scorched because you're not cooking
with flame. You're just cooking with the heat of the embers. Right.
And another one of my favorite things to do is
like turnups and cole robbie um to do those in
the embers of the grill, because they get sweet and
(24:21):
they get you know, just really they take on a
different taste. Will you put them in the ash, I will,
but I like to wrap them so like for something
like Cole Robbie. Um, you can do it many different ways,
but I actually like to peel it, toss it with
a little olive oil and salt, wrap it in foil.
So it's just kind of creating a little pouch. So
it's halfway steams to So can you taste the Can
(24:43):
you taste the fire? Oh? Yeah, and it's it's about
the fire, but it's also about um, like converting them
in their their sugars too, and the sweetness that comes
out of them when you cook it like that. It's
much different than if you're doing it in a regular
oven or blanching it or you know, would you do
you have the need to part cook something before you
brill it, definitely? I think um that's part of the
(25:05):
key of why restaurant food taste so good and people
try to replicate at home sometimes miss that stab. Just
to be clear, part of cooking means cooking something part
way in advance, and when it comes time to serve,
cooking it the rest of the way, often with a
different technique like boiling and shocking something before grilling it,
like for qualifier. I I steam it first almost always. Um,
(25:27):
so it's completely done no, Um, like halfway done yeah. Um.
I think when you do that, then you get the
inside cooked perfectly. And then what you're doing, um to
order right when the guest guest once it is is
charring it. So it's the flavor. So I think, Um,
that's a big technique that restaurants use is if you're
(25:49):
cooking from from raw vegetables. Um, it depends how you
cut it. If you cut it thin, no problem. Um.
But to get the timing right and to get the
taste right, it's really halfway cooked. Um. One thing I
love is that I'll definitely do is grilled carrots. Um.
But again for me carrots, um, I love roasting them first,
(26:10):
so that act of roasting them changes the texture and
the taste, and then putting them on the grill, rolling
them on the grill at the end is what makes
them really special. UM. Let's talk about the wood itself.
Does it matter and what kind of would do you use?
What do you prefer, what do you what's best, what's acceptable?
I think would the type of wood does matter? Um. However,
(26:34):
I would say anybody grilling on true root wood. It
doesn't matter, So it doesn't it doesn't matter. I think
for a restaurant it does. UM. At home, I would
be excited to kind of use whatever whatever is around UM.
But for when I cooked, when I was telling you,
these were just lugs like you get for your fireplace,
(26:54):
is that kind of what just hard whatever hard wood
it was, And I think that's fine. UM. I think
it's for me. It's a little bit more how you
use the fire than it is what type of wood. UM.
But having said that, I'm really I'm actually researching in
the middle of deciding what, um, what would I want
to use for two thirty two. I've used white oak before,
a Gramercy UM, and that's a great wood. I think
(27:16):
it's um. It creates flavor, but not overpowering flavor. So UM.
But I've been I've been kind of picking everybody's brain
and talking to UM chefs all over to see what
what kind of wood that they use. UM. I'm I'm
learning more people are going with things that are like
apple wood or um peach wood. Yeahforts yeah. I think
(27:39):
again the idea that you want something that helps to
flavor food but not overpower it is really the key
One way that great chefs like Susanne Cups are stacking
functions around their wood fire grills is by looking past
the most traditional ingredients for grilling. A lot of times
people associate grill with with big meats like steak, pork,
things like that, sausages and yeah, great, we're gonna be
(28:02):
doing that too. But what I love is is to
be able to um, to showcase vegetables, seasonal and local vegetables,
um over a wood burning grill. Um. Again, that's not
a new concept by any means, but I think, um,
it's not done as much as as such as steaks
or fish on a grill. Like what kind of vegetables everything?
(28:23):
Uh of cauliflower or um, maybe not a whole head,
but um, I'm working on like a quarterhead of cauliflower. Um. This.
There's this vegetable that Norwich Meadows um uh started growing.
I think last year might have been his first year,
called Georgia Banana roasting squash. And it's this giant squash.
It's uh maybe three ft long, um, really heavy. Uh.
(28:49):
And when the farmer is a first brought it to me,
I was like, this tastes good. I don't know about
this one. You know, you always see those like decorative
gourds that you know are UM and it is super delicious.
So I'm I'm excited about UM. You know, all the nuance,
all the diversity of of vegetables being cooked over that grill.
I think it UM. My point is to make vegetables
(29:12):
taste delicious, not to force them on people. UM. And
so I think that we're going to make some really
tasty vegetables over that grill. Part of what I've been
doing for the past a few years is really leaning
into what are the right cooking techniques for vegetables and
and how do I have less manipulation because these farmers
that we work with grow delicious organic vegetables, So I
(29:32):
don't want to puree and shop all of them. I
want them to look like what the vegetable is. Suzanne's
expertise with wood fired grilling will be center stage at
a brand new restaurant in Greenwich Village. So the restaurant
is called two thirty two Bleaker, very easy to find
since it's a also the address. So the restaurant will
be neighborhood UH facialist casual. UM. It'll be again open
(29:56):
kitchen with the woodburnning grill will do some homie pasta's
a well, and it'll really be it'll feel like New York.
It'll feel like the seasons. Again. I'm super excited about
having that wood and fire in the wintertime. I think,
you know, for us, I guess I'm a New Yorker
now in your seventeen years, which is crazy. Um, but
(30:17):
in the winter, like, where do you want to go
if you're if you're getting out of your warm apartment,
you want to go somewhere that feels cozy, that feels
more and that fire relay will help. Um, But it's
it's gonna be a fun space. It's going to be
a place that you can, um, you can come and
you can meet a friend that you haven't seen in
a while, or to be a place that you can
come once a week. And that's the type of food
that I want to cook is something that is feels
(30:40):
interesting and feels new, and they're you're always discovering, you know,
slightly different flavors, but it's not something that is unrecognizable.
When you read the menu, you'll say, oh, this sounds good,
I like this, I know this, or maybe this I
haven't had it this way, you know, so hopefully it's
a place that UM does food feels a little bit straightforward, UM,
(31:03):
but maybe a little bit different than maybe you might
cook it at home. When I explained to Suzanne the
concept of stacking functions, she agreed that this is something
that great chefs have always had to do. She offered
some of her favorite ways to multiply the effectiveness of
the resources that you put into your home cooking. The
best way to cook at home is to think not
(31:24):
just in terms of one meal, but think for like
three meals. And I think the less waste that way,
because a lot of times you cook one dish and
you know, you get tired of eating it after the
second or third day, or maybe the first day. UM.
And so to be able to whether it's chicken and
you know, cutting out your bones first and using those
(31:44):
in the stock, or whether it's grilling that chicken breast
one day and then everything that you don't UM eat
you get chopped up and put in a pasta the
next day. I think those are those are definitely UM
a lot of what you want to think about when
you go to the grocery store. And for those that
plan ahead, one great tool at your disposal is a freezer.
I am a big advocate for using the freezer. I
(32:07):
think people, um, people feel like, oh, when it goes
in the freezer, it gets frost and it goes to die.
But um, but the reality is when you make something
and you freeze it that first day that you make it,
it's delicious. You take it out sometimes three weeks a
month later, Um, it's it's great, whether it's a soup
or a stock or um or even just a cook
(32:30):
chicken breast. A lot of times, um, that's the best way.
Not if you leave it in your fridge for three
days and then you decide to freeze it, it's not
going to taste the same. Well. There is a New
Yorker cartoon I saw recently. It's two suburban, middle aged
women in a kitchen and one saying the other should
I throw this out now? Or should I put it
in the freezer first? That's yeah, that's true. What's your
(32:52):
recommendation for people not abandoning their food to thee I
think you have to. Again, you have to have it
in mind when you first buy that food, when you
first bring it into your kitchen, if you if it's
an afterthought. It's not gonna get eaten, it's gonna it's
gonna turn in your fridge, or it's gonna be, you know,
be an afterthought and put in your freezer and again
(33:13):
like you're just gonna leave it. So I think, um,
you know the idea of right now, it's grape season
in New York, there's like delicious concord grapes, Mars grapes,
all all different kinds, and I want to use those,
but the restaurant I'm opening isn't opening in the next
three weeks. So um, what I'm thinking of is is
creating like a roasted grape sauce and roasting them with
(33:36):
time and shallots and and maybe a little rosemary and
and making a delicious sauce. Putting it in the right
size containers. I think that's part of it. Is if
you put it in a giant container that you know,
you're like, oh, I don't really need a whole court
of this. I'm not going to pull this out now.
(33:56):
But if you if you freeze things in like cup
container sizes, it's very easy to pull out. Um, you know,
at Thanksgiving when you're like I'm tired of cranberry sauce. Oh,
but I have this really delicious concord grapesauce that I
made a month ago. So I think it's just um.
You have to be thoughtful and what self respecting cook
doesn't love pickling vegetables, putting food up, as we used
(34:17):
to say, preserving food, being the keepers of the food.
In my cooking, I use so many, um, different types
of pickles. And it's not your standard dill pickle like
everybody thinks it's. Um. It's really like, right now is
the kind of the end of pepper season or sweet peppers, um,
But they're so great and so just creating a very
very simple vinegar water maybe a little sugar honey based pickle. Um,
(34:41):
it's something as long as it's submerged, you can keep
in your refrigerator for a year. Um. So thinking about
that and it really again adds to your cooking. I
love pickled peppers and winter squash. Um. But the pickled
peppers aren't around when the squash is out. So being
able to pull that out and have a little arder
for yourself really, you know, make some delicious meals for
(35:04):
the winter. My takeaway from hearing both Ian Wogan and
Suzanne cups Is this systems are complex and need all
the support and creativity they can get. Whether it's a
major ecological center or your own home kitchen, both can
benefit from the concept of stacking functions. And we don't
(35:26):
expect you to know how to wake up tomorrow and
plant orchids on the barks of forty foot trees or
reinstall mangroves on coastlines in your area, but thinking about
stacking functions can help you today. With your own kitchen.
You can think ahead about methods that multiply the effectiveness
of your resources. You can brainstorm new practices that reduce
your own waste, whether from food or other cooking materials.
(35:49):
You can even start caring for a cast iron pan.
They could stay in your family for a century, like
a great tree. When we come back, we're making grilled
jerked carrots with Chef Suzanne cups h. How would you
(36:23):
recommend people at home do this? They're gonna hear as
soon as say I want to. That sounds good. I
want to grill carrots. I think it's so easy to do
do at home. I'm just finishing up, but entitled now
this is the next weeks my last week. UM yeah,
and we're doing a jerk carrot. Um. So we're making
kind of like a jerk marinade. And so we we
pre roast the carrots before service, and then during dinner, Um,
(36:44):
when someone orders, we we brushed them with a little
the jerk sauce, throw them on the grill, so it
gets a little bit of like how you would imagine
jerk chicken. Uh, and then a little bit more when
they come off super delicious. Love that idea. So we've
come to untitled where she is executive chef, is her
very last day before she heads over to her new
(37:05):
venture on Deco Street, and we're gonna talk to her
about and watch her cook jerked carrots. So um, the
inspiration is definitely UM, I really love to cook uh
flavors from over the world. So even though we try
to highlight um local seasonal ingredients and especially vegetables in
this recipe, UM I want to, I don't want it to.
(37:28):
I'll just be from New York, the flavors of the
U s and and not just the Northeast. So UM,
I love kind of making a play on this on
this sauce very traditional and that it's got ginger and
hallapeno and garlic and all spice and nutmeg and clove,
all those kind of traditional seasonings. Um, but we're we're
adding our own twist on it with seasonal peppers also. Um.
(37:50):
And in the type of food I cook, I I
don't love anything that's nuclear, uh, and so I don't
want anything that's that's overwhelming and flavor. So I love
the jerk flay or without without all the spice. Yeah. Um.
So we make the marinated and then we roast the carrots,
and then we put it all together, so it doesn't
have that, um, same taste of you know, the chicken
(38:11):
mean cooked over a grill with the jerk for hours. Um.
But I think you'll still uh, you'll you'll still find
some really fun flavors that you know, and jerk beautiful.
Let's let's do it. So all I do is, uh,
take the carrots lightly, scrub them. I love the skin
is good, flavor, the color is beautiful. There's no reason
really to peel it. So we scrub them, toss him
(38:33):
in olive oil and salt, and bake him in an
oven if you're doing it at home, four or fifty
until they're they're tender. And that's that's the other key.
You want to stick a knife in them. Make sure
it's cooked, not mushy, but but the whole way through.
So they could in your home level. Depending on the
size of the carrot, it could take thirty minutes. It
could most likely take more more like forty five minutes.
(38:55):
They look thoroughly cooked, they looked if the carrots are
beautifully caramelized. And then really all it is is throwing
them on the grill. I like to do it dry first, um,
and then start adding that that kind of lacker of
the jerk sauce. D you put it on before you
put on? Yeah, on a saucet, Just get it on,
start getting some char on it. I don't even put
(39:17):
any I've already roasted them with olive oil, so I
don't need any olive oil or salt to start. Um.
I just want that that uh grill, that flavor of
the grill, and then starting to get that that um
jerk sauce kind of worked in there. Did you want
to cook that jerk sauce too? Yeah, so there are
are are jerk sauce. We we do cook it beforehand
(39:39):
and before we blend it. So that all the all
the ginger and garlic and spices are already roasted out,
so we predo it. Of of course, we're in a restaurant,
so we're doing things to order. Um. If you're at home, yeah,
you could totally cook it. The only thing is you
don't want to overcook. Your carrots are already fully cooked,
so really you're warming them in the jerk sauce. Beautiful, Yeah,
(40:00):
just describe what you're doing. So I'm gonna get a
kind of medium to high heat. Again, the idea that
the carrots are already cooked, um, and I just want
that flavor and some char on them. So I'm putting
them all on the grill first, and I'm gonna take
a paint brush and my jerk sauces. Um, it has
(40:21):
a little body to it. It's not too thin, and
it's gonna stick right on that carrot and I'm just
gonna lightly brush them. Again. It depends, Uh, it depends
your flavor profile. If you like it spicy, put some
hobbing euros in. We we use something a little less spicy,
like New mex peppers or um or like habanada, which
(40:41):
is a local type of pepper that is has the
same floral flavors as having euro but without the spice,
which is awesome for me. Um. So, I'm gonna roll
the carrots as they're cooking. So the top side I
had seasoned with the jerk, now that's going to be
on the bottom against the grill, and I'm just gonn
roll them over and continue season. It depends on how
(41:03):
your grill is. Um, these should be done and what
size your carrots are. These should be done in five
minutes or less. You could do this with any vegetables.
An egg plant. It's a great I love with eggplant.
I love doing a mi so honey, so me so honey,
a little rice spun, vinegar or lemon or something to
brighten it up. That that's a perfect analogy. Um. And
(41:26):
it's the same thing. You brush it because you want
to create that flavor flavor and like layers, you don't
want to just put it on the top like you're
saucing a dish. Um. You want to to kind of
cook into and vegetables like you know, they got a
lot of water content and they they'll absorb the flavor
if you if you um do it layer by labor,
layer and you season it as you go. So I'm
gonna turn over those carrots one more time, and you
(41:49):
can see they're already starting to get that nice char again.
I don't wanna. I'm you could say they're they're getting
blackened a little bit, but I'm not going for burnt carrots.
I really just want some of that grill and to
to create that flavor of the jerk and you and
you can still see the carrots through. It is not
a thick sauce. Um, it's more for a flavor. The
(42:11):
other key to this is whenever you're cooking vegetables like this,
when they're hot, is when you want to finish seat
your seasoning. So um, when they're so warm, I'm going
to brush them with one more time with the jerk.
I had originally salted them when I cooked them the
first time, but they need a little finishing salt. I
just used kosher salt, but you could use you know, whatever,
(42:32):
your favorite malden or whatever. Um. And then Mikey always
a little lemon juice, lemon line something like that, whatever
you have at home. It just needs acid. It gets
heavy if you don't add that. And then when I'm
putting them on a plate um. I made another sauce.
So the idea where when you have jerk, sometimes it's
a little spicy, it's a little as a depth of flavor.
(42:54):
I love to balance it with something that's fresh. So
we made a cucumber mint sauce, super easy. You put
whole cucumbers in a blender, um with h some blanched
so cook, cook that mint just for a second, and
then a little tofu. So the tofu adds some you
can't taste it. She doesn't make it taste Asian or
anything like that. Somebody it's it's not watery, not too thin.
(43:16):
And I put a little olive oil as well, just
for a mouth feels it makes a nice, fresh, bright sauce.
And then again like the idea that carrots are delicious.
But I'm in a restaurant. I wanna i wanna make
it really interesting for the guests. So I've got those
marinated cucumbers. We're using Persians, but you can use um,
(43:36):
you know, any kind of more fresh maybe not a pickled,
fully pickled cucumber. Again, it's all about how your dish
looks when when it gets to the table. You want
to be pleasing to the eye. So we've got these
multicolored carrots, shaves um and then uh, to finish it,
one of my favorite things is um candied ginger, So
(43:57):
make it an house. We just take ginger, we slice
it and cut it really thin and julienne to cook
it down in a little simple syrup and then we
fry it and then that I think that adds to
what the flavors of jerk normally are. What's a gorgeous
plate that you You've got this beautiful bright green a
sauce beneath the cucumber mint sauce, and then we've got
(44:18):
the main item, the carrots um that are beautifully sauced,
and we've got the big curls of fresh carrots. We've
got some lightly lightly dressed cucumbers and some beautiful candy
ginger for more flavor and crunch. Looks like a beautiful
vegetable dinner. Great. This is very versatile. You can do eggplant.
(44:40):
You can also do a fish like this if you
if you um, we're using blackfish right now, stripe bass,
whatever you want to grill you can still you can
brush that jerk sauce right on it. Um and you
can do carrots in fish you know, it doesn't have
to be just a vegetable dish. I think it works.
Um works great in that way, too, Beautiful Chef, thank
you so much, really appreciate it. Thanks for stopping in.
(45:05):
Special thanks to our guests Chef Suzanne Cups and arborus
Ian Wogan. You can find links for more information about
their work on our show. Notes. From Scratch is produced
by Jonathan Dress. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis are
supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins. All of the music on
(45:26):
From Scratches by Ryan Scott off his album A Freak
Grows in Brooklyn. Also, I've got a new book out
called From Scratch about ten staple meals and all they
can teach you about cooking. We'll have a link in
the show notes, or go to Amazon or any independent bookseller.
From Scratch is a production of I Heart Radio. For
(45:48):
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Rose here and Well has been here, Gotta
(46:10):
Smile form with me as a man, Henry only want
my mo Everything's only
Welcome to From Scratch. My name is Michael Rohlman and
I'm a writer. I've spent the last twenty years in
professional kitchens, writing about and with the world's best chefs.
From Scratch is a podcast about cooking. In each episode,
we'll talk with one chef and one non chef about
the same theme. The great thing about the cooking life
is that you never stop learning. In this show, I
(00:26):
want to go to the edges of what I know
and then go beyond together with you, with all chefs,
home cooks, and everyone who cares about food and cooking.
On today's episode, we're going to be exploring the theme
of wood. We'll talk with the chef who's preparing to
open a restaurant which features a wood grill at the
heart of the kitchen. She'll explain her philosophy and tips
(00:47):
for cooking with wood. Also, she'll show us a great
recipe for a simple vegetable dish that you can try
in your own wood fire at home. But first, we
wanted to think a little bit outside the box and
explore wood in its initial state before it becomes a
(01:08):
cooking fuel. We mean trees. We wanted to learn a
bit about trees. I recently read two great books about trees,
A novel called The Over Story by Richard Powers and
The Hidden Life of Trees, a nonfiction book by Peter Volaban.
Both ask us to consider the fact that trees communicate
(01:29):
with each other and if we listen with us. This
is from the preface of Hidden Life of Trees. The
most astonishing thing about trees is how social they are.
The trees in a forest care for each other, sometimes
even going so far as to nourish the stump of
a felled tree for centuries after it was cut down,
by feeding at sugars and other nutrients and so keeping
(01:51):
it alive. Trees need to communicate, and electrical impulses are
one of their many means of communication. If a giraffe
starts eat in an African acacia, the tree releases a
chemical into the air that signals that a threat is
at a hand. As the chemical drifts through the air
and reaches other trees, they smell it and are warned
(02:12):
of the dangers. Even before the giraffe reaches them, they
begin producing toxic chemicals. One reason we can't see this
is that trees live on a different time scale than
we do. Some trees are many thousands of years old,
a hundred times our lifespan. It's just something to think
about as we think about wood and cooking with wood
(02:35):
and ever changing and powerful heat source. But first, we
wanted to talk about trees generally with someone who works
with them. Ian Wogan is an arborist in Miami. We
contacted him because he's a leading expert in all matters
having to do with trees. Wogan is a co founder
of True Tree Service, a company that accomplishes many different things.
(02:57):
Aside from climbing trees while operating chainsaws, they help out
with emergency disaster relief, and they even consult with cities
on how to add ecological diversity back into urban centers.
And we especially wanted to hear from Ian because of
a concept called stacking functions. Stacking functions is a term
(03:18):
that comes out of the world of permaculture and essentially
means to have individual elements in a system perform more
than one function. Great cooks stack functions all the time
without using that term, but don't worry, we'll come back
to that. For Ian Wogan's work, he sees stacking functions
as a necessary way to maintain the pre existing complexity
(03:39):
of an ecosystem, and he's doing it in small, creative
ways all over. For example, he plants herbs and vegetables
on the rooftops of his clients, which reduces their building's
energy use and of course provides a food supply. Another example,
he uses the barks of specific trees as locations to
plant infant orchids, which are being reintroduced into the local environment.
(04:02):
It stacks the trees functions of shade and beauty with
assisting the growth of another smaller organism. He sees each
stacked function as a variable in an incalculable equation that
makes up a healthy environment in a In a fully
functioning ecosystem, the interactions are innumerable, are countless, So there's
(04:27):
no way that we can save everything that these orchids do.
And so therefore by losing them and by them going extinct,
we have no idea what we're missing out on, or
what what ecosystem function is not going to be the
present anymore. To demonstrate some functions that have stacked themselves
(04:47):
naturally over a long long time, Wigan took our producer
Jonathan to the water via canoe. He wanted to examine
a very peculiar looking tree. One of my favorites for
its beguiling appearance, the mangrove. I think mangroves are one
of my favorite trees. Mangroves take a long time to grow,
for sure. I don't know how old this this stand is,
(05:11):
but it's certainly old. We've we've done some restoration plantings
and they seem to take forever. Mangroves grow with the
edges of water and have a unique appearance because their
roots systems begin above the water. Starting at the lower trunk.
The roots shoot downward and break into pair after pair
(05:33):
of thin arching props which make their way down into
the water and beyond. It looks like the mangroves are
walking on hands filled with dozens of fingers. All along
the shore. Here are the prop roots. So it's these,
it's these. It looks like they're almost crawling, but these
(05:53):
these thin prop roots coming off of the trunks of
the mangrove trees, and they're in these beautiful sweeping arches
that that just kind of repeat themselves over and over.
But what the prop roots do, because they're above the
water line, they can exchange oxygen without being totally under
the soil. The main reason that Wogan took to the
(06:16):
water to visit the mangrove trees is to show them
in contrast with sea walls. Sea walls are flat concrete
embankments which extends several feet above the waterline to separate
land from sea through modern construction technique, built after a
water line has been cleared of mangroves and other plants.
But just to give a little context for for where
(06:36):
we're at, um, you know, we have this this like
perfectly square squared off gray seawall to our left and
all this this coastline historically would be mangrove. Well, there's
a there's a few different varieties, but the red mangrove
(07:00):
grows in salt water conditions right along the coast. They
have these big aerial proper roots that allow them to
breathe with the tidal fluctuations. And those hundreds of fingerlike
roots which extend above the water are world class stackers
of functions for starters. As Wegan mentions, they're like snoricles
(07:22):
for the tree, allowing it to breathe. Next, because of
the huge amount of surface area that the roots have,
they pacify the waves that come with storms. Big waves
become tiny ripples after they pass through mangrove trees. On
the contrary, the cement sea walls, which have replaced the mangroves,
have the opposite effect. They work as an echo chamber
(07:42):
for waves, reverberating and causing more chaos near the edge
of the water and below it. And another major function
the mangrove roots systems creates safe spaces for fish nurseries.
So they provide habitat for for the fisheries, for all
the for all the the hatchlings and the baby fish
that are being born. The mothers go up into the mangroves,
(08:05):
lay their their eggs in the in the proper root areas,
and then the and then the hatchlings have a have
a protected sheltered area. Two uh, you know, to grow
and to get ready for open water. Because right here
where are our bow is is pointed, is basically the
(08:26):
in between of this densely urban design philosophy. And then
to the right here with the mangrove fringe, the natural
ecosystem that would would otherwise exist without our influence. And
the real question is not what's better, it's how to
design for a combination of the two. Wigan thinks we
(08:49):
can learn from the mangroves and apply lessons from nature
much faster than the speed at which it evolved. Is
the fact that we, as as these cognitive human beings,
have they to study and understand and and appreciate and
then replicate. So whereas the mangroves took how many hundreds
(09:10):
of thousands of years too to develop the form that
they did, we now we we can understand that form
and then use it to two the benefit of our
surrounding environment are built environment. But what about when something
in nature was causing a negative effect? What creative stacking
(09:30):
of functions can be done? That these trees along the
coast here were introduced from Australia because they're super salt tolerant,
and they the original intent was to help prevent erosion,
and so they brought these what are called Australian pines,
even though they're not a true conifer. They brought these
(09:51):
Australian pines and planted them and they became a super
invasive species. So invasive it's a very relative term um
But basically, where we have gone in and disturbed land
or populations, a lot of these species will will take
over that have been introduced by us from other parts
of the world, and the main issue is the fact
(10:13):
that they they prevent the the succession of native ecosystems
that have been here for many generations, thousands of years
and all of the all of the relationships that exist
in those native ecosystems. You might be thinking, what the
heck does this have to do with cooking, Well, I'm
glad you asked so. One of the things, you know,
(10:36):
looking at looking at that as an invasive that just
needs to be cut down and cartered off is is
the the standard model approach. But if you look at
that as a resource, there's there's such an abundance of it,
and they're you know, they're looking for solutions to um
(10:58):
to have it removed. All you do is cut it
down and cart it off. You It's it's just the
same it's the same thing as as the principle of
stacking functions. If you can if you can create a
revenue stream from that waste product versus sending it to
(11:20):
the landfill, then you then you are maximizing the lifespan
and the usability and then and then the energy cycle.
We're in the front yard of a friend of Ian's
named Ted, who built a clay wood burning oven on
his back porch. Ian's preparing the fuel for a pizza
(11:41):
party later in the evening. This is Australian pine. So
one of the things that we were talking about is
how to how to consider what what might be just
an invasive species to some how to figure out incorporating
resource bank into a use of the energy that's gone
(12:06):
into the growth of these trees. So splitting this would
and we're gonna burn it in a little would open
for making some amazing pizza. The freshly cut Australian pine
has a deep rosy pinkish color. When chopped open, it
(12:27):
looks kind of like pulled pork when you're starting to
pull it apart with two forks. This wood is so
spectaculars beautiful. So this would basically dulled the saw that
I was using to cut it into rounds. I mean,
just just ate the chain up and this would be
(12:49):
considered a bit wet, but once it gets going, it's
incredibly hot. So my name is Ted Sante's. I'm a
veterinarian live in Miami, Florida, and I love to cook
at home. So I have a little wood burning oven
here that we're testing out some wood today, and then
(13:10):
I built this kind of outdoor pizza oven because we
entertain a lot, so we have a lot of people
over and basically pizzas like the perfect the perfect cooking
event to bring people together. So so you have to
have a wood burning oven, and it has to be
outside because it can't be inside. So we've made this
nice little uh of an outside. So this is a
(13:32):
batch of Australian pine logs that we harvested today from
a tree that was felled in Hurricane Irma two seventeen.
That the Australian pine is an incredible high temperature burn
that has very little sap, so it doesn't have a
(13:53):
lot of sootiness or or smoke that that comes off
of it. For me, I just needed to heat up
the oven, so I need it's something that works fast,
that burns nice, and that you know, is an intense
heat hardwoods. Obviously you put a soft wood, which we
have a lot of, it burns so quick, it just
does not it doesn't heat the oven up. So this
(14:15):
is actually a very very dense woods and it's doing
a very good job at heating the oven right now.
But we make our own dough um. It's actually mimicked
after the famous Brooklyn Roberta pizza dough um. And we
made our own little homemade sauce. Um. We're gonna do
a little bit more since it's a smaller crowd, We're
gonna do some more exotic. Sometimes when I cook for
big crowds, you can't put the fancy ingredients where we
(14:38):
put out some nice, fancier mushrooms. We've got our house special,
which is our kale, pepper and lemon pizza, and then
we have a little bit of a fresh arugula to
top off, so it would be a simple menu. Think
so far it's working really well. Australian pine is an
invasive species, so I would love to see it all
gone and and when not have Australian pine to use.
(15:02):
But in the meantime, I think it's a great thing
to use instead of using hardwoods from other places in
the country. For a chef guest. In this episode, I
(15:40):
was lucky to sit down in conversation with Suzanne Cups.
She's preparing to open a new restaurant called to thirty
two Bleaker in Manhattan, which will feature a wood fired
grill at the center of its kitchen. We talked about
cooking with wood, menu development, and even how home cooks
can stack functions in their own kitchens to reduce waste
and increase verie to be with their food. But first,
(16:01):
I always want to know how chef's got started. Most
have always had an affinity for cooking, or at least
an interested food from an early age. Suzanne showed an
astonishing lack of natural acumen in the kitchen and one
of my first memories of cooking was we would make
like for lunch, like tuna fish salad um. And one
(16:22):
time I was old enough to use the stove. I'm
not sure how old that was, but my sister said, hey,
Mom and I are going out, can you go ahead
and harriboled eggs for the tuna salad um? So I
did it, and when they got home, um, my mom went,
my mom and sister went to make the tuna fish
and crack the eggs and they were completely raw, and
they're like, what what did you do? Did you why
(16:45):
didn't you horribled eggs? And I was like I did,
and they're like, what did you do? I said, I, well,
I took the eggs. I put them in a pot
of water, and I put them in the sink and
I ran cold water over him, because that's what I
always saw my mom do. At the end, I just
didn't realize that had to boil first. Suzanne, raised in
South Carolina, moved to New York in or early twenties
(17:05):
and landed a job in the HR department of the
famous Waldorf Astoria hotel. I didn't really understand what the
hospitality business was until I went to that hotel, and
then I started realizing, like, oh, this is really interesting.
This is just how it is in the South. You know,
you're welcoming, you smile at people, you want to make
sure everybody feels comfortable whatever it is UM. And so
(17:27):
I really got interested in like that idea of hotels
UM and hospitality UM. And part way through my time there,
they needed some help in the steakhouse, the Boulomare Steakhouse,
and so along with my normal HR job, I started
kind of working a couple of nights a week in
the steakhouse and more of like maitre d type of
work welcoming people UM. But it didn't take long before
(17:51):
the kitchen called to her, specifically one at the Institute
of Culinary Education in Lower Manhattan, a culinary school usually
referred to as I had a friend who was a
co worker at the Wald Earth and she um started
going to ICE for some recreational classes. And she would
bring into the office all these cakes and um cookies
(18:12):
and elaborate desserts that she made, and I was amazed.
You know, it was a little fancier than what I
was used to eating, and I was amazed. I didn't
really know anything about the cooking school, UM in general,
and so she started telling me about it, and then, UM,
once something like that happens, I just, you know, can't
(18:33):
stop thinking about it, and ended up going to see
the school. And once I saw the kitchens at ICE,
and that's when I was on twenty Street, I was
just kind of hooked. After six years of cooking experience
under chef Anita Low at Anissa, Suzanne found herself stoking
the wood fire at a long time favorite restaurant of mine,
the Grammarcy Tavern. So I started on the tavern woodburn
(18:54):
and grill. Uh. It was so hard. It's uh, it's
very busy for twooks out there. So if you were
the sioux chef, or if someone had to step in
and help you step in between the two cooks, which
is not a lot of room, and you're standing directly
in front of the fire. So there's a door that
kind of separates the fire that you have to open
(19:15):
to feed it. And when a lot of times if
you're if you know how to work with fire, you
have to have a lot of oxygen, so sometimes you
have to keep that door open. So if you're in
if you're the six chef in the middle, and it's
busy and you're plating and you're in front of that fire,
it gets pretty hot. Yeah, you're pretty much medium. Well sure, Um,
what do you like about cooking over wood over flame?
I mean, what I love about it is it's alive.
(19:37):
You know, it's always changing, You're really engaged in the cooking.
What do you like about cooking with fire? I think
there's a bunch one of this is just what you said.
I think it is an engaging experience. It's um, It's
number one. It's the taste of it. You know, food
over a wood burning grill is, if it's done right,
(19:58):
is super delicious. Um. And then I I love the
what it brings to a restaurant. I love the openness
because you know Woodbritain girls, they're not down in the
basement or in the back, They're right out in front
of the gas. And I like that. It's a it's
a experience that you can have along with the gas
that come into the restaurant. So I think that that, um,
(20:19):
that idea of cooking and being next to the people
you're cooking for is a really special thing. I think
the fun part about grilling it is a little trial
and error, Like you have to be able to say, Okay, today,
I'm going to cook the chips and I'm gonna see
how this state comes out, and tomorrow I'm gonna do
it with that and kind of see how it acts
people cooking at home. What what should they what should
they keep in mind when they're choosing what to put
(20:43):
over live flames versus a uniform heat of a gas
or electric range. One thing I think you wanna uh
think about is the cut of what you're buying. So
for example, you may wanna if you if you like
fish and you're cooking in a pan over gas burners,
something like trout is great. Um, it's thin it's quick
(21:06):
to cook. You can get like a crispy skin on
it really easily. Now, if you have a home grill,
your grill um number one, your fish might stick a
little bit more to the grill. So thinking about UM,
how do you treat it? You are you doing skin on?
Are you taking that skin off? Maybe it might be
an easier way UM picking a thicker fish. Like I
(21:27):
really love um arctic char um, which for anybody who
hasn't had, is a lot like a salmon um. I
I like it because I feel like it doesn't dry out.
It the same as salmon um. But salmon arctic char
um kind of a thicker like a shripe bass could
work really well on a grill. So also um being
able to create some flavor something that's really thin. If
(21:49):
you put it on the grill um and you keep
it on for too long, it's really thin, it's gonna overcook.
So I think when you have a little bit thicker
piece of meat or fish, it's it's a little easier
to get the correct temperature that you want UM and
getting some flavor into it. That's that's really interesting. Talk
about the variations and the differences in the levels yeah,
(22:10):
I think the the it's it's important. I think you
want to create, um, your hot spots. So again, if
you're you're grilling a chicken, you we want that brownness,
you want that crispy skin. Um. But if you're doing
head of cauliflower, I don't know that I want that
coming in in flames and sit all over it. I
think you want you want to enhance the flavor of
(22:33):
the vegetable without masking it. Especially fish too. I think
I love grilled grilled fish. Um. But if the fish
just tastes like grill, if the fish is delicate, you
have to be able to have yeah, you know, building,
whether it's different levels or different spots on the grill
for items. Well, also you have you can think of
(22:53):
cooking time. Chicken and cauliflower take a long time. Fish
takes a short amount of time, right, So so you
have to manage your you know, indirect heat and direct heat.
Use indirect heat in the oh yeah lots. Yeah, I
think indirect heat is one of the most interesting and
even things like um like even more direct such as
(23:16):
cooking in the embers. Um. I'm excited about doing that.
And a lot of vegetable dishes that either get cooked
right before service in the embers or something that gets
finished in the embers. Is really interesting to me that
that heat is outstanding. Yeah. So in the in the
bottom of the fire where you're collecting all the ash, um,
it's just a really it's not quite the same heat
(23:39):
as above it above the grill. So cooking in the
embers um all the ash that's produced by the fire
gives it really mellow, nice heat. You have to you
have to protect the food. So a lot of times, um,
I'll wrap something in foil or double foil. Um. But
another way is if you have like a heavy cast
iron pot, that's great to kind of just put down
(23:59):
there or um, it doesn't burn in the same way
if as if you have it up top. So a
lot of times you can keep something in there for
two hours without it getting scorched because you're not cooking
with flame. You're just cooking with the heat of the embers. Right.
And another one of my favorite things to do is
like turnups and cole robbie um to do those in
the embers of the grill, because they get sweet and
(24:21):
they get you know, just really they take on a
different taste. Will you put them in the ash, I will,
but I like to wrap them so like for something
like Cole Robbie. Um, you can do it many different ways,
but I actually like to peel it, toss it with
a little olive oil and salt, wrap it in foil.
So it's just kind of creating a little pouch. So
it's halfway steams to So can you taste the Can
(24:43):
you taste the fire? Oh? Yeah, and it's it's about
the fire, but it's also about um, like converting them
in their their sugars too, and the sweetness that comes
out of them when you cook it like that. It's
much different than if you're doing it in a regular
oven or blanching it or you know, would you do
you have the need to part cook something before you
brill it, definitely? I think um that's part of the
(25:05):
key of why restaurant food taste so good and people
try to replicate at home sometimes miss that stab. Just
to be clear, part of cooking means cooking something part
way in advance, and when it comes time to serve,
cooking it the rest of the way, often with a
different technique like boiling and shocking something before grilling it,
like for qualifier. I I steam it first almost always. Um,
(25:27):
so it's completely done no, Um, like halfway done yeah. Um.
I think when you do that, then you get the
inside cooked perfectly. And then what you're doing, um to
order right when the guest guest once it is is
charring it. So it's the flavor. So I think, Um,
that's a big technique that restaurants use is if you're
(25:49):
cooking from from raw vegetables. Um, it depends how you
cut it. If you cut it thin, no problem. Um.
But to get the timing right and to get the
taste right, it's really halfway cooked. Um. One thing I
love is that I'll definitely do is grilled carrots. Um.
But again for me carrots, um, I love roasting them first,
(26:10):
so that act of roasting them changes the texture and
the taste, and then putting them on the grill, rolling
them on the grill at the end is what makes
them really special. UM. Let's talk about the wood itself.
Does it matter and what kind of would do you use?
What do you prefer, what do you what's best, what's acceptable?
I think would the type of wood does matter? Um. However,
(26:34):
I would say anybody grilling on true root wood. It
doesn't matter, So it doesn't it doesn't matter. I think
for a restaurant it does. UM. At home, I would
be excited to kind of use whatever whatever is around UM.
But for when I cooked, when I was telling you,
these were just lugs like you get for your fireplace,
(26:54):
is that kind of what just hard whatever hard wood
it was, And I think that's fine. UM. I think
it's for me. It's a little bit more how you
use the fire than it is what type of wood. UM.
But having said that, I'm really I'm actually researching in
the middle of deciding what, um, what would I want
to use for two thirty two. I've used white oak before,
a Gramercy UM, and that's a great wood. I think
(27:16):
it's um. It creates flavor, but not overpowering flavor. So UM.
But I've been I've been kind of picking everybody's brain
and talking to UM chefs all over to see what
what kind of wood that they use. UM. I'm I'm
learning more people are going with things that are like
apple wood or um peach wood. Yeahforts yeah. I think
(27:39):
again the idea that you want something that helps to
flavor food but not overpower it is really the key
One way that great chefs like Susanne Cups are stacking
functions around their wood fire grills is by looking past
the most traditional ingredients for grilling. A lot of times
people associate grill with with big meats like steak, pork,
things like that, sausages and yeah, great, we're gonna be
(28:02):
doing that too. But what I love is is to
be able to um, to showcase vegetables, seasonal and local vegetables,
um over a wood burning grill. Um. Again, that's not
a new concept by any means, but I think, um,
it's not done as much as as such as steaks
or fish on a grill. Like what kind of vegetables everything?
(28:23):
Uh of cauliflower or um, maybe not a whole head,
but um, I'm working on like a quarterhead of cauliflower. Um. This.
There's this vegetable that Norwich Meadows um uh started growing.
I think last year might have been his first year,
called Georgia Banana roasting squash. And it's this giant squash.
It's uh maybe three ft long, um, really heavy. Uh.
(28:49):
And when the farmer is a first brought it to me,
I was like, this tastes good. I don't know about
this one. You know, you always see those like decorative
gourds that you know are UM and it is super delicious.
So I'm I'm excited about UM. You know, all the nuance,
all the diversity of of vegetables being cooked over that grill.
I think it UM. My point is to make vegetables
(29:12):
taste delicious, not to force them on people. UM. And
so I think that we're going to make some really
tasty vegetables over that grill. Part of what I've been
doing for the past a few years is really leaning
into what are the right cooking techniques for vegetables and
and how do I have less manipulation because these farmers
that we work with grow delicious organic vegetables, So I
(29:32):
don't want to puree and shop all of them. I
want them to look like what the vegetable is. Suzanne's
expertise with wood fired grilling will be center stage at
a brand new restaurant in Greenwich Village. So the restaurant
is called two thirty two Bleaker, very easy to find
since it's a also the address. So the restaurant will
be neighborhood UH facialist casual. UM. It'll be again open
(29:56):
kitchen with the woodburnning grill will do some homie pasta's
a well, and it'll really be it'll feel like New York.
It'll feel like the seasons. Again. I'm super excited about
having that wood and fire in the wintertime. I think,
you know, for us, I guess I'm a New Yorker
now in your seventeen years, which is crazy. Um, but
(30:17):
in the winter, like, where do you want to go
if you're if you're getting out of your warm apartment,
you want to go somewhere that feels cozy, that feels
more and that fire relay will help. Um, But it's
it's gonna be a fun space. It's going to be
a place that you can, um, you can come and
you can meet a friend that you haven't seen in
a while, or to be a place that you can
come once a week. And that's the type of food
that I want to cook is something that is feels
(30:40):
interesting and feels new, and they're you're always discovering, you know,
slightly different flavors, but it's not something that is unrecognizable.
When you read the menu, you'll say, oh, this sounds good,
I like this, I know this, or maybe this I
haven't had it this way, you know, so hopefully it's
a place that UM does food feels a little bit straightforward, UM,
(31:03):
but maybe a little bit different than maybe you might
cook it at home. When I explained to Suzanne the
concept of stacking functions, she agreed that this is something
that great chefs have always had to do. She offered
some of her favorite ways to multiply the effectiveness of
the resources that you put into your home cooking. The
best way to cook at home is to think not
(31:24):
just in terms of one meal, but think for like
three meals. And I think the less waste that way,
because a lot of times you cook one dish and
you know, you get tired of eating it after the
second or third day, or maybe the first day. UM.
And so to be able to whether it's chicken and
you know, cutting out your bones first and using those
(31:44):
in the stock, or whether it's grilling that chicken breast
one day and then everything that you don't UM eat
you get chopped up and put in a pasta the
next day. I think those are those are definitely UM
a lot of what you want to think about when
you go to the grocery store. And for those that
plan ahead, one great tool at your disposal is a freezer.
I am a big advocate for using the freezer. I
(32:07):
think people, um, people feel like, oh, when it goes
in the freezer, it gets frost and it goes to die.
But um, but the reality is when you make something
and you freeze it that first day that you make it,
it's delicious. You take it out sometimes three weeks a
month later, Um, it's it's great, whether it's a soup
or a stock or um or even just a cook
(32:30):
chicken breast. A lot of times, um, that's the best way.
Not if you leave it in your fridge for three
days and then you decide to freeze it, it's not
going to taste the same. Well. There is a New
Yorker cartoon I saw recently. It's two suburban, middle aged
women in a kitchen and one saying the other should
I throw this out now? Or should I put it
in the freezer first? That's yeah, that's true. What's your
(32:52):
recommendation for people not abandoning their food to thee I
think you have to. Again, you have to have it
in mind when you first buy that food, when you
first bring it into your kitchen, if you if it's
an afterthought. It's not gonna get eaten, it's gonna it's
gonna turn in your fridge, or it's gonna be, you know,
be an afterthought and put in your freezer and again
(33:13):
like you're just gonna leave it. So I think, um,
you know the idea of right now, it's grape season
in New York, there's like delicious concord grapes, Mars grapes,
all all different kinds, and I want to use those,
but the restaurant I'm opening isn't opening in the next
three weeks. So um, what I'm thinking of is is
creating like a roasted grape sauce and roasting them with
(33:36):
time and shallots and and maybe a little rosemary and
and making a delicious sauce. Putting it in the right
size containers. I think that's part of it. Is if
you put it in a giant container that you know,
you're like, oh, I don't really need a whole court
of this. I'm not going to pull this out now.
(33:56):
But if you if you freeze things in like cup
container sizes, it's very easy to pull out. Um, you know,
at Thanksgiving when you're like I'm tired of cranberry sauce. Oh,
but I have this really delicious concord grapesauce that I
made a month ago. So I think it's just um.
You have to be thoughtful and what self respecting cook
doesn't love pickling vegetables, putting food up, as we used
(34:17):
to say, preserving food, being the keepers of the food.
In my cooking, I use so many, um, different types
of pickles. And it's not your standard dill pickle like
everybody thinks it's. Um. It's really like, right now is
the kind of the end of pepper season or sweet peppers, um,
But they're so great and so just creating a very
very simple vinegar water maybe a little sugar honey based pickle. Um,
(34:41):
it's something as long as it's submerged, you can keep
in your refrigerator for a year. Um. So thinking about
that and it really again adds to your cooking. I
love pickled peppers and winter squash. Um. But the pickled
peppers aren't around when the squash is out. So being
able to pull that out and have a little arder
for yourself really, you know, make some delicious meals for
(35:04):
the winter. My takeaway from hearing both Ian Wogan and
Suzanne cups Is this systems are complex and need all
the support and creativity they can get. Whether it's a
major ecological center or your own home kitchen, both can
benefit from the concept of stacking functions. And we don't
(35:26):
expect you to know how to wake up tomorrow and
plant orchids on the barks of forty foot trees or
reinstall mangroves on coastlines in your area, but thinking about
stacking functions can help you today. With your own kitchen.
You can think ahead about methods that multiply the effectiveness
of your resources. You can brainstorm new practices that reduce
your own waste, whether from food or other cooking materials.
(35:49):
You can even start caring for a cast iron pan.
They could stay in your family for a century, like
a great tree. When we come back, we're making grilled
jerked carrots with Chef Suzanne cups h. How would you
(36:23):
recommend people at home do this? They're gonna hear as
soon as say I want to. That sounds good. I
want to grill carrots. I think it's so easy to do
do at home. I'm just finishing up, but entitled now
this is the next weeks my last week. UM yeah,
and we're doing a jerk carrot. Um. So we're making
kind of like a jerk marinade. And so we we
pre roast the carrots before service, and then during dinner, Um,
(36:44):
when someone orders, we we brushed them with a little
the jerk sauce, throw them on the grill, so it
gets a little bit of like how you would imagine
jerk chicken. Uh, and then a little bit more when
they come off super delicious. Love that idea. So we've
come to untitled where she is executive chef, is her
very last day before she heads over to her new
(37:05):
venture on Deco Street, and we're gonna talk to her
about and watch her cook jerked carrots. So um, the
inspiration is definitely UM, I really love to cook uh
flavors from over the world. So even though we try
to highlight um local seasonal ingredients and especially vegetables in
this recipe, UM I want to, I don't want it to.
(37:28):
I'll just be from New York, the flavors of the
U s and and not just the Northeast. So UM,
I love kind of making a play on this on
this sauce very traditional and that it's got ginger and
hallapeno and garlic and all spice and nutmeg and clove,
all those kind of traditional seasonings. Um, but we're we're
adding our own twist on it with seasonal peppers also. Um.
(37:50):
And in the type of food I cook, I I
don't love anything that's nuclear, uh, and so I don't
want anything that's that's overwhelming and flavor. So I love
the jerk flay or without without all the spice. Yeah. Um.
So we make the marinated and then we roast the carrots,
and then we put it all together, so it doesn't
have that, um, same taste of you know, the chicken
(38:11):
mean cooked over a grill with the jerk for hours. Um.
But I think you'll still uh, you'll you'll still find
some really fun flavors that you know, and jerk beautiful.
Let's let's do it. So all I do is, uh,
take the carrots lightly, scrub them. I love the skin
is good, flavor, the color is beautiful. There's no reason
really to peel it. So we scrub them, toss him
(38:33):
in olive oil and salt, and bake him in an
oven if you're doing it at home, four or fifty
until they're they're tender. And that's that's the other key.
You want to stick a knife in them. Make sure
it's cooked, not mushy, but but the whole way through.
So they could in your home level. Depending on the
size of the carrot, it could take thirty minutes. It
could most likely take more more like forty five minutes.
(38:55):
They look thoroughly cooked, they looked if the carrots are
beautifully caramelized. And then really all it is is throwing
them on the grill. I like to do it dry first, um,
and then start adding that that kind of lacker of
the jerk sauce. D you put it on before you
put on? Yeah, on a saucet, Just get it on,
start getting some char on it. I don't even put
(39:17):
any I've already roasted them with olive oil, so I
don't need any olive oil or salt to start. Um.
I just want that that uh grill, that flavor of
the grill, and then starting to get that that um
jerk sauce kind of worked in there. Did you want
to cook that jerk sauce too? Yeah, so there are
are are jerk sauce. We we do cook it beforehand
(39:39):
and before we blend it. So that all the all
the ginger and garlic and spices are already roasted out,
so we predo it. Of of course, we're in a restaurant,
so we're doing things to order. Um. If you're at home, yeah,
you could totally cook it. The only thing is you
don't want to overcook. Your carrots are already fully cooked,
so really you're warming them in the jerk sauce. Beautiful, Yeah,
(40:00):
just describe what you're doing. So I'm gonna get a
kind of medium to high heat. Again, the idea that
the carrots are already cooked, um, and I just want
that flavor and some char on them. So I'm putting
them all on the grill first, and I'm gonna take
a paint brush and my jerk sauces. Um, it has
(40:21):
a little body to it. It's not too thin, and
it's gonna stick right on that carrot and I'm just
gonna lightly brush them. Again. It depends, Uh, it depends
your flavor profile. If you like it spicy, put some
hobbing euros in. We we use something a little less spicy,
like New mex peppers or um or like habanada, which
(40:41):
is a local type of pepper that is has the
same floral flavors as having euro but without the spice,
which is awesome for me. Um. So, I'm gonna roll
the carrots as they're cooking. So the top side I
had seasoned with the jerk, now that's going to be
on the bottom against the grill, and I'm just gonn
roll them over and continue season. It depends on how
(41:03):
your grill is. Um, these should be done and what
size your carrots are. These should be done in five
minutes or less. You could do this with any vegetables.
An egg plant. It's a great I love with eggplant.
I love doing a mi so honey, so me so honey,
a little rice spun, vinegar or lemon or something to
brighten it up. That that's a perfect analogy. Um. And
(41:26):
it's the same thing. You brush it because you want
to create that flavor flavor and like layers, you don't
want to just put it on the top like you're
saucing a dish. Um. You want to to kind of
cook into and vegetables like you know, they got a
lot of water content and they they'll absorb the flavor
if you if you um do it layer by labor,
layer and you season it as you go. So I'm
gonna turn over those carrots one more time, and you
(41:49):
can see they're already starting to get that nice char again.
I don't wanna. I'm you could say they're they're getting
blackened a little bit, but I'm not going for burnt carrots.
I really just want some of that grill and to
to create that flavor of the jerk and you and
you can still see the carrots through. It is not
a thick sauce. Um, it's more for a flavor. The
(42:11):
other key to this is whenever you're cooking vegetables like this,
when they're hot, is when you want to finish seat
your seasoning. So um, when they're so warm, I'm going
to brush them with one more time with the jerk.
I had originally salted them when I cooked them the
first time, but they need a little finishing salt. I
just used kosher salt, but you could use you know, whatever,
(42:32):
your favorite malden or whatever. Um. And then Mikey always
a little lemon juice, lemon line something like that, whatever
you have at home. It just needs acid. It gets
heavy if you don't add that. And then when I'm
putting them on a plate um. I made another sauce.
So the idea where when you have jerk, sometimes it's
a little spicy, it's a little as a depth of flavor.
(42:54):
I love to balance it with something that's fresh. So
we made a cucumber mint sauce, super easy. You put
whole cucumbers in a blender, um with h some blanched
so cook, cook that mint just for a second, and
then a little tofu. So the tofu adds some you
can't taste it. She doesn't make it taste Asian or
anything like that. Somebody it's it's not watery, not too thin.
(43:16):
And I put a little olive oil as well, just
for a mouth feels it makes a nice, fresh, bright sauce.
And then again like the idea that carrots are delicious.
But I'm in a restaurant. I wanna i wanna make
it really interesting for the guests. So I've got those
marinated cucumbers. We're using Persians, but you can use um,
(43:36):
you know, any kind of more fresh maybe not a pickled,
fully pickled cucumber. Again, it's all about how your dish
looks when when it gets to the table. You want
to be pleasing to the eye. So we've got these
multicolored carrots, shaves um and then uh, to finish it,
one of my favorite things is um candied ginger, So
(43:57):
make it an house. We just take ginger, we slice
it and cut it really thin and julienne to cook
it down in a little simple syrup and then we
fry it and then that I think that adds to
what the flavors of jerk normally are. What's a gorgeous
plate that you You've got this beautiful bright green a
sauce beneath the cucumber mint sauce, and then we've got
(44:18):
the main item, the carrots um that are beautifully sauced,
and we've got the big curls of fresh carrots. We've
got some lightly lightly dressed cucumbers and some beautiful candy
ginger for more flavor and crunch. Looks like a beautiful
vegetable dinner. Great. This is very versatile. You can do eggplant.
(44:40):
You can also do a fish like this if you
if you um, we're using blackfish right now, stripe bass,
whatever you want to grill you can still you can
brush that jerk sauce right on it. Um and you
can do carrots in fish you know, it doesn't have
to be just a vegetable dish. I think it works.
Um works great in that way, too, Beautiful Chef, thank
you so much, really appreciate it. Thanks for stopping in.
(45:05):
Special thanks to our guests Chef Suzanne Cups and arborus
Ian Wogan. You can find links for more information about
their work on our show. Notes. From Scratch is produced
by Jonathan Dress. Our executive producer is Christopher Hasiotis are
supervising producer is Gabrielle Collins. All of the music on
(45:26):
From Scratches by Ryan Scott off his album A Freak
Grows in Brooklyn. Also, I've got a new book out
called From Scratch about ten staple meals and all they
can teach you about cooking. We'll have a link in
the show notes, or go to Amazon or any independent bookseller.
From Scratch is a production of I Heart Radio. For
(45:48):
more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Rose here and Well has been here, Gotta
(46:10):
Smile form with me as a man, Henry only want
my mo Everything's only
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