French Connection- Jacques Pepin and me!

Coming soon, delicious details from Chef Thomas Keller's absolutely fantastic demonstration and food photos. Also, my best, coolest, most soulful chef connection of the whole Pebble Beach Experience coming up. But first, my Jacques moment.

International culinary legend Jacques Pepin himself, what a guy, was scheduled to present on the demonstration stage on Saturday at 3:30 at the Pebble Beach Food and Wine Experience . I suppose it was fortunate that Todd English punked out because the cook top in the first demo tent cracked, badly. The KILLER production team was on it, they called a local appliance provider who, some how, got a new cook top on site fast. They dismantled the broken one and installed a new one in record time. No one noticed, but I bet they were really stressing. They were ready in plenty of time for Jacques and Claudine.

We cleaned up and re-set the stages after Keller's fabulous demonstration. How fun to turn around and come face to face with Jacques sipping a glass of champagne in our prep tent! "Oh, hello chef, it is an honor!" I stammered. He and his daughter Claudine Pepin arrived to inspect the set up and gather the remaining ingredients for the "mis en place". Despite excellent preparation and coordination by the PB staff, we ran back and forth getting item after item. As much as I tried to gather the list all at once, new things kept coming up. Platters, plates, no smaller plates, more olives, more water. It was really funny. The main kitchen was, incidentally, far away! Brenn Gambon from the PB staff was a rock star, you name it, he got it, FAST. By the second day I was joking "Brenn, can you get me a box of happy kittens, a bag of pine needles and an eggplant?" I had to tell him I was kidding, because he would gave found those items.

Meanwhile, Iron Chef Masaharu Morimoto was setting up in the other tent. He had a HUGE monkfish, the most remarkably ugly fish in the world, and he was hoisting it up on a couple of hooks! Yikes, meanwhile I was running back and forth to see what Jacques needed. Finally, I committed to Jacques, he had a large amount of prep, most of it done. He and Claudine did six total dishes! He featured tomato dishes, which was weird, since it is not even close to tomato season. Hey, he is rich, famous and a great chef, he can do what he wants. The tomatoes actually looked pretty nice. I was working with a VERY young culinary student of the California persuasion: in other words not used to a forceful, bossy chef. Poor kid, Jacques has that crazy thick accent, he mumbles and he is a bit impatient. He had the kid pitting olives with the side of a sharp knife, his hands and board were all greasy. I was envisioning a bloody mess. I came in to assist, kid's gotta toughen up. I love California more than anything, but most kitchens are soft. I wonder how many CA culinary students intern back east and get a shock when they are introduced to an east-coast-chef run kitchen! Or, worse a FRENCH chef!

Yet, Chef was very gracious and super professional, come on he and Julia invented this stuff! The first dish was Spaghetti with Fresh Tomato and Anchovy Sauce, simple and lovely. He and Claudine joked and bickered back and forth to the delight of the huge audience. They then busted out a Tall Greek Tomato Salad (second plate from front), essentially a horizontally cut tomato with Greek Salad ingredients stacked inside. Great presentation. He peeled and stuffed a tomato with a rice mixture ( 5th plate) and then showed a Caprese salad done in a tomato cut horizontally, not all the way through, fitted with wedges of buffalo mozzarella and basil (4th plate). Claudine made a great tartare dish with a disk of a new product of theirs by California Caviar, Pressed Caviar. It is a paste of caviar that can be flattened and sliced, frozen and shaved or molded into rounds or discs. She topped her dish with a flat disc of caviar, paper thin, shiny and jet black ( 3rd plate). Excellent idea.

The crowd adored them, but Jacques was really pissed for a bit because his cook books did not arrive for the post demo book signing. During his demo, one of the young co-founders of this event, David Alan Bernahl II, announced that they would buy and ship Jacques' cook book for each attendee! It was an Oprah moment, for sure. Now that is CUSTOMER SERVICE! Jacques was very pleased. I was really impressed at the gorgeous food and all the time he spent with the guests : photos, fawning, answering the same questions over and over. He is a treasure. After the demo, he headed off to get ready for the Cristal Champagne Dinner featuring chefs Eric Ripert of Le Bernadin, Sylvain Portay of Groupe Alain Ducasse, Daniel Humm of Eleven Madison Park and many other greats. Me, I was figuring out how to dispose of the hulking corpse and innards of the eviscerated monkfish and accompanying nasty fish water that the fish was iced in from Chef Morimoto's Monkfish Hot Pot demonstration. Oh, the glamour...
Degrees of separation, 5. Great man, legend, French, off to sip more well deserved champagne.

Keep posted for the upcoming details about Chef Keller's presentation and great, heartwarming true stories from a new favorite chef and friend, Chicago's Rick Tramonto.