Nibbles And Sips Around Town – ‘Interview With Top Chef Master Marcus Samuelsson’ by Jordan Wright

A child is seated on the grass in the Land of the Midnight Sun, his attention drawn downward by a clump of flowers. They are everywhere stretching across the rolling hillside as far as the eye can see, but he is focused on collecting specific elements for a simple bouquet clutched in his tiny left hand. A striped knit cap is pulled down tightly over his head.  He is five. He appears curious and self-assured, methodical and intense, traits he evidences in no small measure to this day. The scene is from a black and white photograph out of Marcus Samuelsson’s latest book, Yes, Chef, an autobiographical journey that opens with his earliest memories of his adoption from his native Ethiopia. 3,700 miles as the crow flies, to Sweden.

Top Chef Master Marcus Samuelsson at the Howard Theatre. Photo by Jordan Wright.

Marcus Samuelsson’s ascendancy to Top Chef Master is no fluke. Hard work, numerous television appearances and a slew of cookbooks have shown a bright light on his skills and restaurants. His unique path to a life in professional kitchens began when he was cut from his small town of Göteborg’s soccer club because of his slight frame. “I sometimes think of myself more as a failed soccer player than an accomplished chef,” he admits.

For a while he knocked around a few local restaurants until landing in Switzerland where he trained under the old European hierarchical system where Larousse Gastronomique and Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire were the bibles of French cooking. There he was put to the test in a brutally exhaustive regime fraught with demeaning work, withering insults from head chefs and inhumane hours. The system offered internships to Michelin-starred restaurants where the treatment of young chefs was equally as intense. Samuelsson not only survived, unlike many of his peers, but thrived, learning the intricacies and pitfalls of the business from the inside out and perfecting a disciplined mind that would rival that of an Eastern mystic.

Over the years and throughout his travels Samuelsson kept a diary of his food experiences carefully recording the regional dishes he learned to prepare and daydreaming about how he would do them differently when the time came to open his own restaurant – a time that would come when he could at last merge international flavors with traditional cuisine. That day came in 2011 with the opening of Red Rooster in New York’s Harlem where he has put down roots in the city he has come to call his own.

Ambessa Teas.

Last month I sat down with him in the newly restored Howard Theatre in Washington, DC where he has created the venue’s current menu and where he was preparing to discuss and sign his latest book along with an onstage cooking demo. He kindly brewed me a cup of Choco Nut Blend from his new line of Ambessa specialty teas he has created this year for Harney and Sons.

Jordan: You say in your book that a jazz musician looks for a new kind of perfect as going “deep in the shed.”  Does that apply to you?

Marcus:  Yes! Well, sometimes. For me perfection can be different things. When I started cooking French food we were serving only about two percent of the population. Now I find perfection in berbere [an Ethiopian spice mix] and the countryside of Ethiopia where I’ve found the smells and flavors that I didn’t know how to value earlier in my life. Perfection can mean different things at different times in your life.

You mention in your book wanting to hang out with Keith Haring and Madonna.  Who would you like to hang out with now that you haven’t yet met?

It’s been planned for me to cook for Nelson Mandela and that would be really nice.  It just hasn’t worked out yet.

Who are the chefs that you most admire today?

My grandmother, who was not a professional but got me going, Charlie Trotter who embraced me early in my career, and I love what Alice Waters has contributed to American cooking.  Also I look up to Daniel Boulud and the so many of the unknown chefs who are not yet recognized for their craft.

Are you working with any new ingredients?

Well, not new. I love discovering the ancient Ethiopian foods and presenting them to a non-Ethiopian crowd. It’s fun to treat things a little bit differently like using the chili-like berbere with chocolate or on popcorn.

Who’s been the greatest influence in your life?

My mom and my dad who always gave me guidance. My grandmother giving love and cooking, my parents for my schooling, and my Ethiopian mother who gave me the ultimate sacrifice by making sure we [Samuelsson’s sister was adopted into the same family] would survive.

LINK

Marcus Samuelsson’s website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3RFV6UGSA4&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwV0rK9hFU8&feature=related

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Jordan Wright
Jordan Wright is an accomplished writer on food, spirits, travel, and theatre. Her clients include the tony Georgetowner and hip sister publication the Downtowner, the Washington Examiner and San Francisco Examiner, as well as LocalKicks.com, DC Metro Magazine, Washington Life Magazine, Washingtonian Magazine, MDTheatreGuide.com, The Alexandria Times, Hartkeisonline.com, and now DCMetroTheaterArts. Her articles feature restaurant openings, food and wine events, food-oriented film reviews, farmer’s markets, food trends, restaurant reviews, food memories, new food products, hotels, spas, resorts and interviews with the country’s leading chefs – from Jose Andres and Top Chef’s Carla Hall, to CakeLove’s Warren Brown and Top Chef’s Spike Mendelsohn. She has also interviewed famed chef and TV star, Anthony Bourdain, Eric Ripert, cookbook author Joan Nathan, and director Robert Kenner for an in-depth article about his film Food, Inc. Photographs by Wright accompany many of her articles and NBCNews.com has picked up and used several of her stories. Jordan Wright hails from three generations of show business. Her grandmother, Betty Morton, was a Ziegfield Follies girl; her step-grandmother Corinne Griffith, a noted author and silent screen star wrote Hail to the Redskins; her father, Georgie Price, an entertainer and founder of The Lamb’s Club in New York, as well as a CBS radio show host, songwriter and vaudevillian; her sister, Penny Larsen Vine, a theatre critic both on radio and in print for Variety, a former longtime member of the Outer Critics Circle, and a lead performer in countless national touring companies; one brother, Peter Price, appeared in leading roles in over 16 major motion pictures for MGM; while her other brother, Marshall Price performed at Carnegie Hall. Niece, Stephanie Vine, was the final Annie in the original production of Annie on Broadway, and niece, Liz Larsen, has received two Tony nominations and a Helen Hayes award for lead actress in Sunday in the Park with George. Wright sang with Columbia Records in New York and Barclay Records in France. In the sports world her grandfather was the original owner and founder of the Washington Redskins football team. Wright has traveled throughout four continents and currently resides in Old Town Alexandria.

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