Please welcome Executive Chef Marc Meyer to our Holiday Food Classics Live Chat. As the host of the Holiday Food Classics series at food.gather.com, Marc has proposed several holiday menus and shared recipes from his traditional "big Jewish breakfast" on Christmas morning.
For the last twenty years, Marc has carved a reputation out of a commitment to locally produced, seasonal and sustainable cuisine. His clean, unpretentious approach to flavor has wrought a style that is both innovative and warmly satisfying. "I am constantly looking for that essential quality, the essential purpose of my cooking," he says.
With his wife Vicky Freeman, Meyer opened Five Points in 1999 and Cookshop in 2005. They are currently working on a new project, reviving the beloved downtown haunt, Provence. His first cookbook, Brunch: Recipes from Five Points, made many of the wildly popular items available at Five Points' acclaimed brunch accessible to a broad audience of readers.
"You must constantly be evolving and learning in this business," he says of the career that earned him the title of "Chef to Watch" from Gourmet Magazine and CityMeals. "As a human being, I feel obligated to choose sustainable products and to respect the source. As a chef, I feel obligated to create humble, delicious food that references what people truly want."
Marc joins us today to provide his expert advice on everything from the profession of chef-restaurateur, to sustainable cooking, to planning your seasonal soirée.
To keep the conversation going, please review a few tips below that will make viewing the discussion easier. For those members who may not be aware of this, you must periodically refresh your screen to view new comments as they are added. This will allow you to keep current with the conversation. You may refresh your view by using the refresh button on your browser, or the F5 key on your keyboard, or through the Ctrl+R key (on Windows) or CMD+R (on Macintosh) key combination. After you have posted a comment to the conversation, refresh your screen (see above comment).
I invite you to read Marc's personal welcome message to the epicurean community at Gather, and then join our conversation with your questions and thoughts.
Welcome, Marc! We look forward to speaking with you.
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Brunch: 100 Recipes from Five Points (Rizzoli, October 2005) can be purchased at:
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Comments: 49
Gather member Julia Shrenkler sent in a question: "Marc, forgive this business-y question but I'm so interested in the varied work of chefs, who balance between art and business...given the competitive business climate in the food industry, how do you juggle menus at not one but two Manhattan restaurants?"
note to the Mod: Thanks for getting my first question in queue.
With running two restaurants, publishing a cookbook, and renovating another restaurant, how do you juggle the demands of a chef's schedule to make room for family time?
I have been thinking about cooking a goose this year. In Vermont we have access to much fresh fowl at this time of year. I wonder if you have any tips for buying and roasting goose. I understand they are very fatty, but that the fat is good for frying other foods.
I am a big fan of using locally grown ingredients, as I know you also love to do, but I often find it difficult to do this on a budget - timewise and financially. Do you have any tips for the best ways to buy local - have you found co-op or community farms a good resource or are they usually more trouble than they're worth. And how do you find stores that have a large selection of local products?
Barbara
P.S. I think your articles are great!
To Deborah S. - Our family tradition for Christmas dinner is a goose and has been for many years. I'm not sure of the cooking, that's Dad's doing, but it gets a dry herb rub and during cooking lots of basting.
The fat that comes out is great to use thru the year - potatoes, brussel sprouts, cold on bread with fresh tomatoe slice. It's slightly salty so it can replace salt and fat at the same time in a recipe.
Thanks for the tips on how to use the fat later on. Lynn Rosetto Caspar raved about it the other day on NPR, but I wasn't sure why.
The german goose tradition uses juniper berries, but I never thought they had much flavor.
Here is a question we received from Walter Whitney: "Marc, Is it recommended that someone obtain a degree from a culinary arts program in order to secure a quality position in a kitchen? Is the cost incurred really worth the hype?"
In my experience, piercing a duck's or goose's skin with a knife and then parboiling it for, perhaps, five minutes, will force out some of the fat when you air dry it because the ski will shrink further as it dries. It also produces a crisper skin.
How do you recommend making french fires in the oven>
Anna R. has the following question for you: "I have a small bay leaf tree growing in a container ... and don't know when/how to use the leaves. I've used dry bay leaves before but can I just pick the leaves off the tree & use as needed? What's the difference in strength between these fresh leaves & dried leaves?"
Joanne H. sent in a question: "Obviously, to be a chef, one must be passionate about food and dedicated to the crazy hours and high pressure. If you had not pursued this avenue, what profession do you think you might have chosen instead?"