My French Kitchen Daily

"This very old recipe was originally cooked in a pot balanced on three stones, and was dish of the poor, designed to make the most of cheap, common ingredients." – Harris, 'Rich Bouillabaisse' from My French Kitchen











July 27


He had looked back at those very early days along the docksides, learning that the food we ate was not something that came in a box, but real and live, and from the sea in this case, so that when the cooking began it was understood that we were all – he thought then that to learn from the ground up, the sea up – was something of a brotherhood, was to touch something quite real, to care for, even love; if the cook could take into consideration where this sole came from and where it lived and perhaps even loved, he came to see that that love was then transferred over onto the menu, and from there to the plate, and from there the experience that the diners would enjoy. Casulet, the greatest of chefs in Brittany, and told him many times that the most important of the chef's day was the bright early morning at the docks or at the markets. "It is not just price, you see, although price makes a difference over the long haul, of course. It is that you have suffered just a bit yourself awaking early and getting dressed and walking down to the dock men. See how it is that they live. When they see you, they will fish a little harder, they will use proper techniques because that is what you, the caregiver of the of recently passed, demand. The great chef is a part of the chain you see." At Casulet's he learned, above all else, humility of the origins of things. Casulet's was 4-stars by design. It could have been 5 with only a slight bit more time by Casulet himself, but he did not want that. He wanted to remain in a small hamlet and humble and connected to the water itself not the routine of colorful images that would splash across the magazines, although there was that too. When he had moved back to the states, he already knew what would be the name someday of his own place here in five lakes city of Madison on lake Monona, en pots, for it came from Casulet's desire to use the ground morsels of leftovers from various butchering. Here he had docks but not fishing necessarily; that was what he missed most, the sole for the cotriade, for the bouillabaisse, but he had access to the pigs, and so en pot was what it would be. He sat on a second level balcony off of Machinery Row and looked out over the lake considering his first menu.