Laurent Gras

Provence at Christmas Time

You might not think about it, but Provence also knows winter, which usually starts around Christmas. In the upper part of the Provence region we have a house that's been in the family for several generations. It is a “Mas” meaning in Provencal language a house that has been extended in size over the generations. When I was a kid it was already as it is today. We were usually there in the summer, and very rarely came during wintertime. But this year it is Christmas and snow is part of the scenery. The only way to get to the house during this time of year is to walk up this small unpaved road. 

The property uses water from a natural source, still located on the outside of the house. There is no electricity so it is candles in the evening. We can’t sleep there now as the walls of the house are so cold it takes several days for the wood fire to heat the space before you can feel comfortable inside. But on a sunny winter day,  after a long walk in the forest, having a picnic lunch on the side of the house at the warmest hour is really enjoyable. And that's exactly what we did.

In summer there is more activity. Sheep are eating the grass on the upper fields. In the lower fields of the property, the grass is cut, dried naturally and stored for the animals to eat during winter. Condors are flying in the air and plunge down like a missile when they identify an animal they can capture in bring back to the nest. Wild strawberries and huckleberries grow in specific areas that we know and they come back every year with a variable crop. There is fresh milk just a few hours old from a farm below. Even if the coffee doesn’t come from the espresso machine the “café au lait” is very enjoyable.

Riding with a Pro

Riding with a professional cyclist (even if it is not a race, but nice tempo riding) it is more exiting than watching them on TV. I had a chance this fall to be part of an event that combined food and cycling to raise money for cancer research.

The main cycling event was a 100K ride on Sunday with about 250 cyclists participating. Everybody knows Charleston, SC is a dead flat place so nobody was afraid of getting dropped on the first climb. But the group still split few times over the course of the three hours it took to cover 100K.

George Hincapie, an American pro road champion, stayed in the front to let people ride and chat with him from time to time. He is really a nice person, very approachable and very enthusiastic about food. When you burn over 6000 calorie a day, it makes sense that you're interested in food. He's really at ease on the bike, removing or adding clothes, tweeting on his cell phone, and eating, all like he was comfortably sitting on a chair. His pedaling cadence was high, probably over 90 RPM, and he was shifting gears much more often than any other rider to keep his pedaling very fluid.

The night after the ride we all went to Trattoria Lucca where chef Ken Vedrinkski and his staff cooked a wonderful dinner. Even if I was in charge of serving two dishes, I had a chance to sit down in the dining room and enjoy the food with guests. Ken and Charleston have a great sense of hospitality.

Banana Flambée

One day you buy those beautiful yellow organic bananas that are ready to be eaten. But then if for some reason after a couple of days, they are still in the fruit basket and start to go from yellow to dark brown, it is not completely over. They've lost the appeal to be eaten raw, but what about flambée with a vanilla ice cream from L'arte del Gelato? It is all good.

The most important thing is the pan. It has to be just the right size to fit all the bananas without overheating during the cooking process. I warm the pan, melt fresh butter and roast the fruit on both side until it starts to get that nice caramel color. Then sprinkle the cane sugar over the top and lower the heat to let the sugar caramelize and roll around the fruit. The spoon has an important role to baste the fruit with the cooking butter. The last chapter is to increase the heat, pour the cognac over the top and turn the pan into fire. I'll do it twice as I like fire work. Serve the fruit glazed with their cooking juices and some vanilla gelato.

Food Gallery by Tammar & Shimon

This is a series by Tammar and Shimon. They are photographers in NYC and dear friends. They came to L2O at the opening in 2008 to shoot the food and the restaurant. For these photos, they decided the layout, the lighting and really made it their shoot. I have always felt their sensibility is just right, and the pictures reflect what we were trying to achieve at the time. Their studio is few blocks away from home. I hope to spend time with them to improve my photography skills in term of lighting, diaphragm aperture and speed. Food pictures in a kitchen space are getting close to being a studio format and I still feel like a beginner when it comes to it.

Doing pictures for the blog pushed me to buy a digital version of my old Leica. I never used a flash with my old camera. At the time, it was a traveling tool I used to fix all the important moments happening from early morning to sun set. No pictures at night time. I realized it is much more complex to photograph inside a room versus in natural light where the sun gives you exactly what you are going to get. 

 

 

Cooking at Home

Cooking at home, for a chef really has an advantage: you get to eat everything you cook. But the disadvantage is you don't have a team around you to put everything together and do the dishes. I enjoy the process of cooking at home. Usually a glass of champagne comes in the middle and that make it even more enjoyable. I usually buy a small list of ingredients the day ahead to avoid going to the store three times in the same hour.

At dinner the other night, I was responsible for the first course. Suddenly the pressure of the service came right back to me. I thought to myself, I am going to do a ceviche so I don't go into a war with the pots and pans.

In the afternoon I picked up a live lobster, a fillet of stripped bass and a few garnishes. I poached the lobster slowly, cooled it down in water, removed the shell and sliced it finely. The stripped bass had a bright red blood line and a translucent flesh, so those were good signs of freshness. I removed the skin, then sliced the fish into fine strips. The garnishes were a combination of sliced torpedo shallot, diced ginger and jalapeno. The juice for the ceviche was a combination of meyer lemon, lime, orange, garlic, ginger and chili.

All the plates were assembled in stages, one by one to keep them cold until they hit the table. The rest of the meal was a little bit like when I'm doing a dinner with other chefs. I help out on the other courses, but no more pressure. Maybe because the wine pairing were excellent that night.