Magazines » May/June 2009 Issue » The House that Food Built
In early March, Adam Dulye stood at the ticket counter in Denver International Airport with his luggage: seven coolers brimming with 450 pounds of fresh produce. After checking his load, he and two companions slipped off their shoes and lumbered through security with 50 pounds of potatoes, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and flour. Very few things, it turns out, can keep an innovative spirit from taking flight.
In 2007, chef Dulye was invited to cook at the James Beard House in New York City. Regarded as one of the culinary world’s most prestigious honors, the opportunity to present a meal in Beard’s former residence is a sweet dream for aspiring chefs. But when the restaurant where Dulye worked closed for a lengthy renovation, he had to plate the idea. He moved to Boulder to man the stoves at the Culinary School of the Rockies and eventually cooked up a new proposal for the Beard House: a dinner focused on the indigenous ingredients and varied techniques of Colorado cuisine. After drafting several menus, Dulye and chef Kyle Mendenhall from The Kitchen in Boulder crafted an inspired five-appetizer, five-course masterpiece rife with locally farmed products from ham and lamb to quail and striped bass.
But there was another Colorado creation poised to sit at Beard’s table: “To be honest, in thinking of the concept for how I wanted to do this dinner, the first thing I thought of was beer,” Dulye confesses.
A beverage plan is standard for a Beard House dinner; one centered on beer is rare. He teamed up with Kris Oyler, cofounder of Steamworks Brewing Co., and Steamworks’ chef Shawn Clark to toy with beer and food pairings that would provoke a wine-leaning audience. “Going into it, we really wanted to accentuate why beer is such a good pairing with food, and how that relates to wine,” Oyler says. To truly express Colorado through food, Dulye opted to tow all of the homegrown ingredients with them, from the suds to every spice, sauce, and seasoning, rather than sourcing them in New York. With a final thumbs-up from the Beard House and a nod from Frontier airlines, a half-ton of Colorado cuisine was cleared for take-off.
Whether a shallot or a chef, when your destination is the Beard House, it’s important to stay true to your roots. James Beard, who passed away in 1985, was crowned the Dean of American Cookery, and he preached that our national food identity is about regionality; each state’s indigenous ingredients comprise a cuisine that is wholly American. The philosophy prevails today and is proven time and again in Beard’s showcase kitchen.
Sadly, despite the ubiquity of his ideas, Beard himself seems somewhat obscure next to other spicy characters like Wolfgang Puck, Rachael Ray, Rocco DiSpirito or Anthony Bourdain. Without him, however, there would be none of the latter. In the ’40s, he plucked the ho-hum task of cooking from the housewives’ kitchen and espoused it as an art form. As prolific with a pen as he was with a whisk, Beard wrote 19 food books, some of them still kitchen standards, and was the very first celebrity chef, starring in the 1946 television show “I Love to Eat” and innumerate TV appearances. He founded the James Beard Cooking School and spent three decades teaching his craft. Ultimately, Beard carved a vision of our nation’s culinary landscape.
And then, of course, there is his house. After his death, Beard’s funky brownstone in Greenwich Village -- known for its massive kitchen, mirrored bathroom, and revolving door open to chefs, food writers, and culinary students -- was converted into a veritable performance space. The James Beard Foundation invites upstart chefs to overtake Beard’s kitchen and fashion meals for foundation members, guests, and food enthusiasts; they’re encouraged not just to bring course after course, but discourse after discourse. Wolgang Puck was the first pro to get behind the burners in 1987, well before Spago was a household name.
Eating at the Beard House is more akin to attending a fabulous dinner party than dining at a restaurant. “The idea of being in someone’s home creates that intimate experience, but the food and beverages are at a much more elevated level,” says the foundation’s director of programming Izabela Wojcik. Entering from the street, diners passed through a cramped hallway into a small foyer before walking directly through the legendary kitchen. There, Dulye and the others were mixing and frying, whisking and sweating. Such intrusions are welcome; guests are invited to banter with chefs even amid the frenzy. The sight also affirms one of the largest draws of these dinners: The chef who wrote the menu is touching, cooking, and plating every dish.
Just outside the kitchen in a glassed-in patio area, Dulye’s five delectable appetizers floated by on white plates, quail Scotch eggs and Colorado grass-fed steak tartare setting the tone for a night of Rocky Mountain revelry. Guests were also served their first taste of Steamworks’ impressive selection; the beer-only cocktail reception opened the door to a nightlong conversation about suds.
After an hour, attendees were ushered upstairs to the intimate dining area. Seating is assigned by the Beard House, with the intention of bringing together diverse but cohesive groups; many fly solo, members sit with guests, and ages run the gamut. As plates arrived, each with a paired beer and wine, strangers became friends, and the banter turned increasingly spirited; oenophiles, foodies, and beer geeks, most meeting for the first time, navigated the meal together, sometimes struggling with semantics as
tannins and legs met hop spice and malt backbones. It was the sort of discussion that would have made Beard smile.
The third course was noticeably brave. Dulye and Oyler chose not to pair a wine with a quail dish, citing how well the duo worked as it was. So, Steamworks Lizard Head Red Ale stood alone. A relatively unfamiliar style for the audience (previous courses played against a highly approachable kölsch and lager), Steamworks’ already solid red ale thrives with food: The sturdy malt profile complemented the quail’s sweetness, and the elevated roasted notes were just crisp enough to wash away the bird’s fat. “It’s a really good red beer, one of the best sellers in our pub, but when people tried it with that dish, they were blown away,” Oyler glows. If there were any skeptics about beer’s place at the table, they were silenced by that course.
As the dishes became richer, so did the beers (a nice ladder effect to stave off palate fatigue), until diners were deep into a juicy cut of Spring Creek Farms lamb and not even blinking at the Backside Stout and D’vin Bourdeaux Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon. But the final pairing pulled even beer veterans out of their comfort zone.
“One of the things about cooking at the James Beard House is that it should push the envelope, and it would’ve been disappointing to just go up there and say ‘For dessert, we’re doing a stout or a porter,’” says Dulye. “It’s such a safe thing.” Instead, Oyler and Dulye matched the überhoppy Conductor Imperial Pale Ale to brown butter cake, mascarpone zabaglione and white chocolate (the key ingredient, says Dulye, in balancing the bitterness). The reception was mixed, but the point not lost: For as newfangled as pairing beer and food might seem, there are still paradigms that can be challenged.
When Dulye departed the Beard House, his coolers were certainly lighter and less cumbersome. But he left more behind than his bounty; New York diners met Colorado cuisine and welcomed beer onto their white tablecloths. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg,” Oyler reflects. “I see a whole lot of opportunity for the craft brewer to go in this arena.” Slowly but surely, beer is earning its wings.
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This article originally appeared in the May/June 2009 Issue of DRAFT Magazine
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