About the Author

                                                                  (Not the author...)

To tell you the story of the genesis of this blog, I have to tell you about Sarah. To tell you about Sarah, I need to tell you a little about myself.

        My name is Jesse Sutton, and I am a chef in Charleston, SC. I initially started cooking because my then-girlfriend, Christine, wouldn't loan me twenty bucks. I was a waste of space, I had no job, and I asked her to spot me some cash. That day, her roommate was hanging out with the KM of a local dive bar, and he intervened, as I was being berated, with the offer of a job, despite my total lack of credentials. Fast-forward 19 years, and I have cooked in diners, red-sauce Italian joints, 5-star hotels, and once did a 6-month apprenticeship with a Michelin 3-Star badass.

        I got my first (and to date, only) executive chef job at age 33. It was a wine bar with a wood fired pizza oven. My job was to make food that was elegant enough to go with their serious wine program (for instance, they had a 5-year vertical of Vega Sicilia Unico) but also bring in a Charleston bar crowd. It was irritating, trying to get large crowds of smoking hot 23-year-old chicks (less exciting than you would think) to get into serious food and wine, but I loved it. I gave that place everything I had and then some. It didn't last (more on that later), but I went down swinging.

        Before that, I worked at the badly misunderstood and never lucrative Tristan, right hand man to the intense, talented, and taciturn Nate Whiting. His food was beyond impressive. We got great reviews, and why we didn't make great money is something I'm not gonna touch right now. But it was during my time of playing Leo McGarry to his President Bartlet that I met Sarah.

        We needed a cook, and I saw that one applicant was from Louisiana, where I spent some time. Her resume wasn't all that well put-together, but it included a run at Bayona, where my wife worked post-Katrina. Susan Spicer is a really respectable chef, but more than that, she is a goddamn hardass, so I knew that this girl was at least worth talking to. I gave her a call. She was quiet and reserved on the phone, with a thick small-town Louisiana accent, and I didn't get much of an impression. We set up a stage for the following Tuesday.

That Monday, Nate was off so I was running the show. It was slow as balls, so when I saw Sarah's name on the reservation book, it jumped out. The girl was coming in for dinner the day before a stage. Very, very smart. Good sign. When she showed up (as part of a deuce, dining with a friend), I asked the hostess which one was Sarah.

“The pretty one!” the hostess replied.

        Sure enough, Sarah was a doll. Small, slightly built, pale skin and gorgeous dark hair, and a 1000 watt smile. Damn.  I hadn't counted on that. I used to get nervous talking to pretty girls. (Dealing with the wait staff at the wine bar cured me of that. All girls, all lookers! Our pastry chef called it 'the Hooters of wine.')

I went up to the table and introduced myself. I apoligized for Nate's absence, and asked if we could cook for them. I remember saying something about how we would see what she was all about the next day, so now was time for us to show her what we are all about. I don't rememer the wording, but it was a good line. To be honest, the real reason I went above and beyond was that Tristan didn't pay very well, and we really needed people, so I wanted to put our best food forward.

We cooked for them, she had a great time, total success. Even better was that she turned out to be an absolute sweet heart. Ken, the manager, said “She's never gonna make it. Way too pretty, way too nice.”

I went and saw them again at the end and she said,

“Now I'm terrified. That was the best food I ever had and now I'm so scared.”

“Don't be scared, be excited,” I replied. She took that advice to heart.

        The next day I was out fishing, and I got a call from Nate. He said “Dude, this girl you cooked for is awesome, I really want to hire her. Do you mind if I just do it?”

        I reminded him that he was the executive chef, and could do whatever, but that I appreciated him asking. And so little Sarah joined the team. She was very green, but wanted to learn so bad. And she had an ingenuity to her that belied her short-ass resume. One day, she was blanching asparagus, and she had them all laid out all over her cutting board. I asked what she was doing, and she said she was putting all the fat ones together, all the medium ones, and all the skinny ones, for even cooking. She did this without being told. It was a remarkable moment.

Sarah and I bonded almost instantly. I saw a little of twenty-year-old me in her, with the insatiable curiosity and analytical mind. But she was like a better version of twenty-me, because she lacked the arrogance, the swagger, and the devotion to partying above all other things. She had a fresh enthusiasm about her craft that was (and is) a constant source of inspiration to me, up until this day. During my last year at Tristan, I put a lot of energy into her. Nate and I loved her like a baby sister. I taught her as much as I could, and my wife and I befriended her on a personal level. I took her fishing, I took her to interesting restaurants (including her first tapas bar, which her stodgy and conservative father misheard as topless bar, leading to an awkward but hilarious conversation), we made family dinner together on holidays.

        When I left Tristan to take over the wine bar, she became my biggest fan. She would walk over after her shift (the restaurants were neighbors), sit at the bar, and try new dishes. She would accompany me to events when I didn't have enough help. She ran the kitchen for our staff holiday party. One of our bartenders fell in love with her, and was absolutely CRUSHED when I revealed her sexual orientation, and thus, his lack of a chance. (Oh, yeah, Sarah is gay, btw.) I offered her a sous-chef job something like 150 times.

        Sarah took to Tristan like a fish to water, but sadly, didn't do the same to Charleston. Her time here was marked by traumatic personal-life issues, and she was deeply lonely. She had moved to town following the dissolution of a relationship, and she never fully recovered from that. I tried as best as I could to be a good big brother to her, but there were wounds I could not heal.

        The situation was, she wanted her old girlfriend back. At first, I thought this was insane. I am of the opinion that when relationships end, its usually for a reason. And besides, they no longer lived in the same state. Well, long story short, the more I heard about the situation, the more I began to realize that she may have ended the relationship for the wrong reasons. And little by little, they started to thaw the ice. First, they texted. Then there were little weekend trips. Eventually, they were back together, and are to this day. I was over the moon to see the veil of melancholy leave my young friend, but I also knew this meant a very real chance of her moving away.

         Rachel, for that is her girlfriend's name, was planning to go to grad school. Her choices were U of South Carolina (two hours away in Columbia) or LSU (16 hours away in Baton Rouge). The plan was, if she went to USC, that they would live in Charleston, and she would commute (brutal but technically possible). However, unfortunately for me, LSU won out, which meant little Sarah was moving away. I was crushed.

        Don't get me wrong, I was, and am, absolutely overjoyed that she is in a committed relationship with a girl who is smart, pretty, funny, talented, and amazingly nerdy. (I'm a sucker for nerdy girls.) But I was losing my fishing buddy, protege, little sister, and source of endless inspiration. Who was I going to have gumbo contests on Fat Tuesday with now? There was going to be a void in my life and I needed to make sure we stayed in contact.

        That's where this blog came in. It was a medium for us to remain connected. A place where we could share ideas, learn together, challenge each other. We did it for about three years. I don't know why we let it die. I think partially it was Sarah's move away from the culinary world. There wasn't much in the way of good hospitality work in Thibodaux, LA, and besides, she needed to be a bread winner, due to Rachel's grad school. So she got a corporate yet blue collar job (she drives a forklift at a hardware store) and doesn't cook anymore. Which is a shame, because her experience never had a chance to catch up with her natural talent. I still fantasize about her getting back into the game, but I respect her choice. As for the two of them, they bought a house, they are doing great. They are my family and I love them. But that is how I came to have a defunct food blog, named after the chef-aliens from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

        Meanwhile, my job status was also changing. The wine bar was a labor of love, but the space was too large and too high-rent to actually turn a decent profit. There was no day-time business whatsoever, and a shift in neighborhood demographics had curtailed our late-night business most nights. The place had limited daylight appeal. It was too dark, too clubby. The space needed to be busy for lunch and dinner every day in order to pull the kind of numbers we had to pull, so the owner (who also loved that place like a baby) pulled the plug.

        I kept my job in the company. They converted it into a barbecue restaurant, that I am perfectly proud of. I don't write the menu, but I develop recipes, and my job description hovers in that gray area between prep chef and systems analyst. I like the people I work with, and I have to say, the amount of success we have had is terrific. We just finished our first year and we are dominating the wine bar's numbers, which was a bitter pill to swallow at first, but it would be petty of me to complain about success, so I got over it.

        The problem is, I like making food. I like writing menus, I like technical challenges. Every once and a while, I get to fine-tune a recipe, but for the most part, my job doesn't include much actual cooking. I have always enjoyed food writing, but never taken it particularly seriously. I was banging my head on how I could get some ideas out, and I remembered this blog. I got Sarah's permission to change the direction a bit, and thus, The Dentrassi is reborn.

The name, by the way, referrs to the aliens in Hitchhiker's Guide that are chefs to the evil Vogons.

“The Dentrassi...let us on board.”

“Who are the Dentrassi?”

“THE best cooks, and THE best drinks mixers, and they don't give a wet slap about anything else.”

Beer on the Mind

Hey Jesse! Here is a few ideas for a menu I am working on. It isn't a complete menu by any means but I know with a little guidance from you it is a great first step. The beers listed are made by Bill Mungai who is a home brewer in LC.

Snack: Charcuterie
          Serrano ham, mortadella, corned beef, pastrami w/ whole grain mustard, cornichons, garlic                 aioli, spent grain flat bread or crackers
Pairing: Dry Stout, 4.7% ABV

Snack: Spicy Jerk Wings
         Jerk seasoned grilled wings w/ molasses lime sauce
Pairing: Pilsner Shade Tree, 4.5% ABV

App: Duck Confit
         Black pepper crepe, mushroom, spinach, onion & Dubbel Blueberry Sauce
Pairing: 500 Dubbel, 7.3% ABV

Salad: Chop Salad
          Romaine, blue cheese, bacon, eggs, cucumber, avocado, tomato w/ citrus vin.
Pairing: Kolsch, 5.6% ABV

Sandwich: Classic Reuben
         Spent Grain Rye Bread, 1000 island, Sauerkraut, corned beef (would love to use tongue but I              think it would scare LC people), swiss cheese
Pairing: 500 Dubbel, 7.3% ABV

Burger: Loaded Burger
         Brioche bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, gruyere cheese, Dusseldorf mustard
Pairing: Altbier Dusseldorf, 5.2% ABV

Pizza or Pasta: Carbonara
         Spent grain pizza dough w/ parm sauce, bacon, garlic, parsley, mozz, and sunny side up egg

or

         Spaghetti, pork belly, egg, parm, olive oil, black pepper, parsley
Pairing: 80/- Scottish, 6.1% ABV


Main: Roasted Prime Rib
         Prime rib roasted w/ herbs, spices, & coffee, gouda mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, Quad demi
Pairing: Quad, 11.5% ABV

Dessert: Brie Apple Pie
         Brie crust apple pie w/ vanilla ice cream and Kolsch caramel sauce
Pairing: Kolsch, 5.6% ABV

Miss you and hope to hear from you soon!

Louisiana Lessons

Ok, so I have a co-worker named Andy.  His nicknames are Eye-Candy Andy and Sexual Harassment Panda.  Anyway, he is interested in Louisiana cuisine, so I have been showing him a few dishes during down time.  I promised to teach him a new Louisiana dish every week till the end of the year.  This is great for me, too, because I need a refresher, and it helps you tighten technique to teach it to someone else.

First we did Etoufee.  In this case, we used shrimp, because that's what we had access to.  This allowed me to show the brown roux technique (along with my secret hack trick, which I will not state here, but it rhymes with Bitchin' Croquet).  So many cajun and creole stews use this formula, I had to say 'To be honest, it can be hard to say where etoufee stops and gumbo starts.'  It came out really nice.

Next up, we tackled Blackened Fish.  Our blackening seasoning wasn't totally authentic, just because I don't keep that many dry herbs and spices on hand, but we faked it nicely.  Smoked paprika, salt, sugar, pepper, cayenne, and oregano.  The sugar is a controversial ingredient, but I like it.  It just burns black, but it helps the crust really stick on and gives it a bitter edge that really accentuates the sear and plays well with the heat.  To complete the dish, we did Brabant Potatoes (another NOLA original), and Hot-Sauce-Honey-Butter, which is cliche, but also delicious.  The fish we used was flounder, which I acknowledge is not the authentic choice, but its what we had.

Lastly, this sloppy mess is Barbecue Shrimp, in the style of Pascal's Manale on Napoleon.  Really came out amazing.  I never understood why it is called Barbecue Shrimp, but New Orleans cuisine has always had things with really odd, esoteric names, so why not?  Are you familiar with this one?  I sort of reverse-engineered the dish, using a couple of online recipes and my personal experiences.  You should try it.  You need:

Half a pound of head-on shrimp
Olive Oil
2 lemons, cut into wedges
6 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 branches of rosemary, chopped
1 beer
1 T. worcestershire
1 stick butter, diced
Salt, black pepper, cayenne, parsley
Toasted French Bread

Heat the olive oil in a skillet.
Add the lemons and let them caramelize a little bit.  This will spit and fuss, but the depth it gives to the broth is outstanding.
Drop in the garlic and rosemary, shaking the pan well.
A blast of aroma should hit you in the face.
At this point, drop in the shrimp, deglaze with the worcestershire and half of the beer, and season heavily with the salt and 2 peppers.
Slam the rest of the beer for me, boo.  Or share it with an attractive young librarian and try to get her into a festive temperament.  And remember, beer comes in six-packs, so you can apply more if necessary (for the librarian, not the shrimp.)
Swirl in the butter and check seasoning.  Sprinkle parsley over.  This is window-dressing only, but its a pretty ugly dish, so it needs help.

The way you eat a shrimp is to peel it (still hot and totally greasy, do not wear white for this one), dip the tail meat into the spicy buttery beer jus (holding it by the head), and then eat it in one bite, slurping at the head juices.  Then dip some bread into the jus, soak it up and consume.

This might be the best way in the universe to eat shrimp.

Carving of the Fruit

My outlet at work is the fruit display and so far watching YouTube videos while I eat breakfast has served me very well. At first it was hard for me to see what I wanted to carve by just looking at the fruit. I had to see someone else do it first VIA YouTube before I could understand it. I am slowly getting better at visualizing and kinda doing my own thing based on the fruit I have available to me. I hope to be able to manipulate colors soon. Honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon especially because if I can use the three colors they naturally possess to my advantage then the only limitation is my imagination! X D

FoodHack: Vietnamese Ramen @ CO

THE PROBLEM:  With certain noodle bowl dishes, I find the broth the most interesting, the goodies, the second most interesting, and the noodles the least interesting.  I realize this is hypocritical, due to my conviction that quality of pasta outstrips quality of sauce in importance, or that the tortilla makes the taco, or that good pizza is impossible with mediocre crust, but its true.  When I order the Pho at Pho #1 on Rivers Ave., I invariably have a half pound of noodle sitting at the bottom of my bowl.  My beloved XO ramen at Co shares the same fate.  I realize that the proper noodle texture is paramount, but that doesn't stop me from ignoring the noodles once I've had a bite or two.  I have said on multiple occasions that if Co was out of noodles, pork, fried shallots, and eggs, I would still be happy to pay my $13 for a big cup of XO ramen broth and a straw.

THE HACK:  Consider the great French classic, pot-au-feu.  It is a boiled meat dish served in several courses.  First, the grilled tranches of bread, smeared with the marrow simmered from the soup bones, sprinkled with course salt.  Then, the broth, clear, glistening with beef fat, and, if you're lucky, given the golden color and complex perfume that including a slice of spleen will yield (or so I've read, its damn hard to find cow spleen in this town).  Lastly, a plate of the assorted boiled meats, along with the tender vegetables, accented with pickles and mustard.

I took a similar course the other day with my Vietnamese Ramen at Co.  The bowl arrived steaming in front of me.  First, I stole a few jalapeno slices from my neighbor's garnish tray to give the broth a little zing.  Then, I ate the broth, rapidly and appreciatively, along with the scallions and fried shallots that dress the surface of the soup, along with the soft poached egg, of course.  I may have had a bite or two of the firm noodles or yielding pork belly during this onslaught, but I couldn't swear it.  So there I was, satisfied with my Vietnamese Ramen experience, but still guilt-stricken about the large pile of rapidly cooling noodles in front of me, mingled with limp strands of bok choy and bits of braised pork, all insipid and weak without their dance partner, the bewitchingly subtle and powerful Vietnamese Ramen broth.

The solution?  Have a second course.  Now that I had consumed my beloved Vietnamese Ramen/Egg Broth Soup, I was going to have Spicy Noodle Salad.  I took the bottle of Co housemade Singapore Hot sauce (full of black sesame seeds and other fascinating little bits) and poured a generous amount over my noodles and tossed them well.  The hot, chunky condiment glazed the bok choy, the cool noodles, and the pork, which had already given much of its life to the broth and was now just an excercise in texture, with acidic, fiery pizazz.

You can have your noodle bowl.  I will settle into a Two Course Degustation of Savory Broth followed by Spicy Congealed Noodle Salad.

The waiter looked at me like I was crazy.

Nouveau Creole-Italian Shrimp Dish

Shrimp a la Nage 'Barbecue,' Baby Potatoes, Baby Artichokes, Rosemary

Of the two great cuisines of South Louisiana, this dish typifies Creole.  I'm here defining Creole as New Orleans fusion, big city cuisine, classical European-inflected elegance.  Specifically, this calls to mind the tradition of Italian cooking in New Orleans.  After all, the first Italian and Sicilian immigrants that came to the US in the 19th century came to Louisiana.

This dish is a spin on BBQ shrimp the way they do it at Pascal's Manale on Napoleon Ave.  However, I lightened the sauce, added some actual vegetables, and serve it in the broth.

For the broth:
Shell 2# of shrimp
Saute the shells with olive oil
Pour 2 beers over the shells and add 1 lemon, cut in half, 1 head of garlic, cut in half, and 2 branches of rosemary.
Add a whole stick of butter to this mess.
Add water to cover, about an ounce of worcestershire, and season to taste with Slap Ya Mama shrimp boil and salt.  The broth is actually eaten with a spoon, so go easy on the boil, watch the spicy.

Simmer this 35 minutes and strain.  You will want to press the shells in the strainer.

Trim and halve 1 dozen baby artichokes.  Cook these in the flavorful shrimp-beer-butter broth.  When they are tender, strain and let them hang out in the cooler.

Add 1 pound of baby potatoes to the broth.  Simmer until they are just tender and then let them soak up the broth's flavors while they cool.  They are like little sponges.  Remove them when the broth is cool.

Ok, so now you have:
1) 2# raw shrimp
2) 24 little pieces of shrimp and rosemary-flavored baby artichoke
3) 1# of little tiny shrimp and rosemary-flavored potatoes
4) An amazing shrimp/artichoke/butter/garlic/rosemary/worcestershire/beer broth

Heat the broth back to a boil, rewarm the veg in the broth, correct the seasoning (with lemon, worcestershire, Slap ya Mama boil, and salt, as needed) and poach the shrimp.  When the shrimp are cooked, sprinkle the whole thing with a tiny amount of chopped rosemary and ladle into bowls.


D, D's mom, Lynn and her girlfriend Alisha, and I, had this for dinner the other night and it was great.

The Missing Booklet

Hello, dearie!  I finally got around to opening the secret envelope in the Lucky Peach.  Inside is this little booklet.  I haven't gotten to read it yet, but it is a journal covering MAD, which is a culinary symposium hosted by Rene Redzepi of NOMA.

There are reports of what the speakers had to say, but a lot of that is probably available as on-line videos anyway.  There are some recipes, but not enough to justify the cost of re-buying the magazine in the first place.

At any rate, I propose that when I am finished with the little booklet, I will xerox anything that I want to save and just mail it to you.  I would be happy to share.  You brought me my first Lucky Peach, and for that I owe you.  And if I ever need to look at it again, that would just give me a great excuse to get together with you, perhaps for some fish-ass-kicking.  BTW, if you would please move the fuck back to Charleston, I would appreciate it.

As regards your review so far, I have the following reactions.

Over Easy: First I say, don't knock Daniel's 20 minute scrambled eggs till you've tried it.  In my experience, eggs are one of those things that you can go overboard with technique, and be handsomely rewarded.  I have seen several chefs do some pretty over-the-top things with eggs, and sometimes too much is just enough.

Cases in point:
Bernard L'Ouiseau used to crack an egg white into a buttered pan, and then cook it till it was almost set in a medium-low oven.  Then, he would gently set the yolk in the middle of the white and put it back in the oven until the yolk was just warm.  This was how he did sunny-side up eggs, because he was frustrated with the bottom of the yolk overcooking while he waited for the top of the white.  Oh BTW, Bernard L'Ouiseau, La Cote d'Or, 3 Michelin stars.

Patrick O'Connel has a method for scrambling eggs that Tarver taught me.  He cracks the eggs whole into a steel bowl and gently stirs them over a double boiler, not breaking the yolks (or at least as few as possible), so the whites cook into curds.  Then, when the whites are set, he turns off the heat and stirs vigorously while adding whole butter and salt.  The yolks all break, and warm through from the heat of the whites, but this way you can stop the cooking while they are still kinda liquidy.  Its over-easy scrambled eggs.  By the way, Patrick O'Connel, AKA the Notorious P.O.C., isn't in the Michelin guide, but he has 5 stars, 5 diamonds.

Having said all that, I think I would prefer someone make that omelet for me, rather than me making it myself.  And the ban xeo does look really good.

The Imaginary Dinner was indeed a downer, but sometimes sad things happen.  Maybe telling the story made the cook feel better...  Who can say?


All the World's a Stage
This one made me think of you, and of my first stage.  I don't think we would have been friends if we had met when we were both 22.  I was a little partied-up piece of shit.  But I did work really hard, I guess.  I wish I could have been there for your stage.  All this aside, you make an interesting point about cooking school.  My feeling is this: cooking school is hugely expensive and wasteful.  You can learn a lot more, faster, by staging.  However, its during cooking school that most of us develop the confidence to go out and stage.  The act of enrolling in school means you have jackets, and a decent set of knives, and it kind of demystifies the whole chef-cook relationship.  I feel like by the time a lot of us realize cooking school wasn't necessary, we are already graduated.  Obviously, I feel like staging is the second-best way to learn, but I'll go you one better.  I absolutely believe in the power of mentoring.  Find someone whose skills you admire that cares about you.  I heard an MIT graduation ceremony on the radio, and one of the things the guy said was this:

"There is a three-step road map to success.  1, find a good mentor.  2, surround yourself with people that know more than you.   3, bend over backwards making yourself useful to these people.


So that's my thoughts on that.  I'll send you the booklet when I'm finished reading it.

Love you sis