Jesse is a friend -- and I am so grateful to him for his willingness to do this 'interview" -- and to do it via email despite a terrific suggestion we do it a la Hunter Thompson. He truly helped to jump start my willingness to ask for help now and then when I need it. To do it on the blog is at least a start to trying to do it in life. And, Jesse (and Kelsey) have taken Betty and I to terrific places in Chicago -- and are good friends who help me in more ways they know.
Jesse Badger, chef, is someone I have experienced in his urging me to try things I might not (jellyfish?), in the amazing goat dishes he prepared for the coming together the day before his wedding, and in other ways. Some of you may know him from his stints at Spoke and Bird or the Little Goat Diner in Chicago, or in Indiana at The Green Door, or in Kentucky (for example). He is now Sous Chef at Untitled in Chicago, Michelin Bib Gourmand recognized and soon to be visited by . . .
Bibliochef: First, thanks for doing this I appreciate it and know Cooking with Ideas readers too. What led you to a life in which food plays such a central role?
Jesse: I've enjoyed cooking for as long as I can remember and the first job that I ever got was in a restaurant where every new hire (I was actually hired as a busser) was required to work in the kitchen for 30 days. I was really good at it and enjoyed it and basically never left. I have worked in restaurants ever since.
BIbliochef: Amazing how those early jobs that on eat surface seem not-so-wonderful, like bussing tables, can lead to a lifetime vocation! Where is the best place you have cooked?
Jesse: On a charcoal grill in my backyard on a nice day.
Bibliochef: Ok, now that is the best answer I have ever heard. Having started as a busser, and in the intervening years, you have had various roles in various restaurants. What role is your favorite?
Jesse: I like being a chef, not necessarily the Executive Chef, as long as I have some room for creative expression.
Bibliochef: When you create recipes or menu items for restaurants, how do you know when it is right to put on the menu?
Jesse: Just look for a good balance of the five primary flavors (salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami), a concept or technique that is worth featuring, probably something utilizing produce that is particularly good at that moment, and if it is enjoyable to eat and look at, then I'd consider it done.
Bibliochef: Hmmm. I wonder if that works at home too. Every once in a while when I make things sans recipe I go just a little too far adding things and probably should just stop earlier. . .
Knowing that you were also a graduate student in literature, what is the best food scene or work that you suggest we all read?
Jesse: I'd say Blood, Bones, and Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton is one of the best pieces of "food writing" I've read. I put that in quotes because, it is actually just one of the best pieces of autobiographical writing I've read, it just happens to be by an excellent chef that I admire. She now several years later also has a cookbook, Prune, that is a nice companion work for people who are interested in seeing how the ideas in her autobiography relate to the actual food at her restaurant.(Her restaurant is also called Prune.)
Bibliochef: Ok, I admit it, I am having a memory lapse and think I read her autobiography, and reviewed it here on the blog. But I cannot find it. Those "filing" errors are annoying! Maybe I ought to stop using cute-sy titles for reviews and ensure the book title is there! In any case, I will certainly be out there looking for her cookbook and I know at least one person (you know her too) who has wanted to eat at Prunce forever.
Another question: You can invite anyone living or dead to a meal that you cook. And you are unconstrained by budget. Who would you invite? What would you cook – or would you want someone else to cook?
Jesse: This in all fairness should be two separate questions: first, who I'd invite to cook dinner for and second who I'd like to cook for me.
If it was me cooking, I'd invite M.F.K. Fisher and I'd make the best oysters I could get my hands on with nothing on them, a selection of perfectly ripe cheeses, fresh pasta with ragu Bolognese with a lot of organ meats in it, entrecote steak-frites with bearnaise, and for dessert seasonal fruit pie with buttermilk icecream.
If I was inviting someone to cook for me, it would probably Frédérick Morrin and David McMillan from Joe Beef, Liverpool House, Vin Papillon, et al. Based on their cookbook, various interviews they've done, and essays they've written, it seems like they would throw a killer dinner party. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I'm guessing their menu would be really similar to the one I outlined above.
Bibliochef: Good idea to split it into two questions! I may steal that in the future. Having had bucatini with a goat rage on it that you made, I am jealous of the meal with M.F.K. Fisher. And, on the two guys, you set me googling (and reading this piece for example) -- and planning a trip to Montreal where I have not been in some time.
If you were creating a cookbook, focused on one ingredient what would it be?
Jesse: there hadn't been three different books in the last few years that came out all dedicated to eggs, I would have said eggs. I'll get ahead of this one and say bacteria, most commonly Lactobacillus acidophillus but there are a few others. Bacteria are essential for a lot of the food trends that are coming to the forefront right now (fermented pickles, dry-cured meats, sourdough breads, etc) but no one has really focused on the usage of specific strains of bacteria as an ingredient, although David Chang and a few others are already funding university research that is trying to do just that, so it is definitely an area where I, and the culinary community abroad, have a lot of interest.
Bibliochef: Zowie! Can;t wait to read it. If you were recommending one essential gadget for everyone to own, what would it be?
Jesse: A stainless steel rod cake tester. These serve more purposes than most people could possibly imagine from checking doneness on meat and fish, to docking homemade crackers, to testing cakes. You can even use them to make really fine Trofie pasta by rolling the noodles around the shaft.
Bibliochef: Bricolage! And, that simple gadget saves at least one person you know from under done cakes. It strikes me that life is filled with the need to balance improvisation and discipline. Would you say this is the case with being a chef? How?
Jesse: Probably the most obvious way that this manifests itself in cooking, professional or otherwise, is that many of the ingredients we use are essentially unprocessed organic products and differ from one to the next: no two lemons have the exact same levels of acidity, tannin, and sugar just as no two tomatoes taste exactly the same. Because of this it is necessary for us to be able to taste and "improvise" an adjustment that will yield a desirable result from different materials each time. Discipline plays into this in that the more consistent our technique, the fewer other variables we are introducing to the process, thereby making it more consistent and replicable we can make the result.
Bibliochef: Thanks. Somehow navigating between these two seems to be the essence of. . . well, survival and life too? Foodies like me – who are definitely not food professionals or chefs – have lots of illusions about what life is like for a chef. What do you think we ought to know about what it is “really” like?
Jesse: A lot of it is pretty boring like entering invoices and costing out recipes. Even expediting service, where you stand at the pass and check every dish, adjust seasoning, clean plate rims, and add final garnish is really just doing the exact same things hundreds if not thousands of times in a row. It takes a very specific type of person to enjoy that aspect of being a chef.
Bibliochef: There is a tiny bit of repetitiveness for the hobby blogger too -- though I know it is not at all the same! In my case, every interview here includes questions I ask everyone. The first of these is: What’s the absolutely best meal you have ever had? What made it the best meal?
Jesse: Probably the extended tasting menu at Osteria Francescana when it was #1 on San Pellegrino's 50 Best list. The food was all perfect and there was a logical progression of courses not just in flavor and heaviness, but also ideologically which makes sense as Massimo Bottura is one of the most cerebral and philosophical chefs working today. The beverage pairings were delicious, creative, and unorthodox (definitely the only place I was served yuzu kosho infused sake as part of an ostensibly Italian tasting menu). The service was simultaneously unobtrusive, friendly, professional, and funny. Most interestingly of all even after all the research and hype before we went to dinner there, they managed to not only live up to our expectations, but also to exceed them and surprise us.
Bibliochef: Jealous -- having learned about him some from the documentary on him in the Chef's Table series! Another question I ask everyone: What music, films, books related to food would you recommend? Why? And I ask it even though you have referenced some earlier in our interview.
Jesse: I'm going to go with two dramatically different people whose monikers both start with MF: M.F.K. Fisher and MF Doom.
M.F.K. Fisher (who I said I would like to cook for earlier) is one of the best known food writers in history for good reason, and her collection The Art of Eating includes some of the best American food writing of all time. If you can only read one work by her, it is a good way to make that one work actually include several books.
MF Doom is an avant-garde hip-hop artist, probably best known for his collaboration with Madlid called Madvillain (which also includes a couple of arguably great food related songs in "One Beer" and "Meatgrinder"). However the album in question is his solo work, MM...Food which is an anagram of MF DOOM and deals exclusively with songs centered around food imagery, references, puns, and some just straight up about food, there are also a tone of samples related to food used throughout the record. Like most of his material, it is clever, thoughtful, and genuinely funny.
BIbliochef: You may have led me to hip hop and gotten me to listen! And again a question for all interviewees here at Cooking with Ideas: What do you eat for comfort food?
Jesse: Pasta and noodles of any type.
Bibliochef: When I began this blog long ago and lived full time in the Finger Lakes, I would ask if people have a favorite restaurant in the Finger Lakes region, so let me know if you do! Otherwise, how about a favorite in Chicago or elsewhere?
Jesse: Café Marie-Jeanne in Humboldt Park is probably the most obvious choice for my favorite restaurant in Chicago right now. The quality and creativity of the menu at that price range along with an excellent natural wine program make it pretty hard to beat, not to mention that they are open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day except Tuesday. Honorable mention goes to Potsticker House (previously Ed's Potsticker House), which is probably the restaurant that I have eaten at more times than any other in the entire world and ALWAYS recommend to people when they ask about my favorite restaurants.
BIbliochef: Two more for my list! And, finally, one last question. What am I not asking that I should? What question have you never been asked that you have always wanted to be asked? What's your answer?
Jesse: I kind of always wanted someone to ask what the first thing I distinctly remember cooking was, because the answer is so ridiculous: it was a petite green salad with sherry vinaigrette, Lobster Thermidor, asparagus with Hollandaise, and Baked Alaska. I made it at my parents' house in the middle of nowhere in southern Indiana in the late '90s when some of the specialty ingredients were pretty hard to come by and I used literally every piece of equipment in our not super well equipped kitchen. Everything came out great except for the Hollandaise, which I made a little too acid and spicy so it overpowered the asparagus, which was from our own garden at the time.
Bibliochef: Well, that leads me to want to ask another question: who ate that meal? But, instead, just this: Thanks for humoring me, and for sharing your words with CookingwithIdeas. See you soon.