Three Layer Cake

What design style/icon best describes your approach to grilling? 

I would say that my style is contemporary with classic undertones.  My flavors are straightforward, very clean, very clear.  My trademark grilling trilogy, which is using olive oil, kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper is truly the gateway to great grilling.  Since it’s grilling and barbecue, in terms of a style icon, maybe that’s American Typewriter Font, which is actually on my website.  And then my mascot is the ladybug.  The reason I have the ladybug is just a lucky little design coincidence, a ladybug is red and black and the iconic colors for outdoor cooking are red and black.  Plus the ladybug is an international symbol of good luck.  A ladybug is all about outdoors and a lady bug is more refined and lady-like than say a fly! 

First thing you notice in a restaurant? 

I’m going to say the salt on the table or the lack thereof.  And there’s a very interesting dichotomy in the restaurant world.  Restaurants chefs almost always cook with kosher or sea salt, but many restaurants put iodized salt on the table.  This is changing with better restaurants putting salt cellars on the table but in most restaurants this dichotomy is there so I’m always looking to see if the cook/chef has made the connection between the kitchen and the dining room.  Once you sit down and are served, I look at the quality of the silverware and the quality of the bread.  If the bread is good you know you’re going to have a good meal. 

Eating what food brings back the best memories and why? 

I have a list as long the list to Santa Claus every Christmas.  But I would have to say fresh tree-ripened peaches in the summer time (not a peach from the grocery store that’s mealy with no flavor.)  But a peach from a farm stand or a tree-ripened peach brings back the memories of my grandmother who would sit every summer and peel bushels and bushels of peaches that were so ripe that they would fall apart in her hands.  She would slice them and coat them with SureFresh (so they wouldn’t turn colors) and freeze them so that all winter long we had peaches to eat on Sundays.  When she had put up enough for the winter, she would make homemade peach ice cream with the extra peaches.  I can still taste it today.  My mother and I try have tried to recreate it but we can’t.  It was big chunks of fresh peaches and milky creamy ice cream. Next on my list are  homegrown tomato sandwiches.  Mayonnaise, white bread, eating them over the kitchen sink with the juice dripping down your elbows.  I am home. 

If money were no object, you’d buy what for your home?

If money were no object, I would buy a new home for my home.  Really, I have everything I need.  If I had the space, there’s a fabulous new espresso machine that I would buy that grinds and tamps the coffee just before it makes a shot of espresso for you.  It’s no muss, no fuss and a great cup of coffee!

Describe your dream yard/outdoor space.

My dream yard would be in my new home (laugh).  That would be on the water so that I would have both natural water and a swimming pool, a complete outdoor kitchen with a wood burning pizza oven.  A gas grill, a charcoal grill, refrigerator, running water, wine refrigerator.  The works.

Your most cherished grilling accessory.  What’s its story? 

The first “mop” that I was every given on the barbecue circuit.  On the barbecue circuit men use mops.  They look like a miniature 12” version of a mop that you mop the floor with.  That’s how you put the basting sauce on the meat.  Since it’s cotton you can’t wash it.  You use a couple of times then throw it away.  So I have never used the mop that was given to me 15 years ago by the Pit Masters at the Rendezvous Restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee. But I have engineered the first silicone mop.  It has 167 bristles.  You can put it in the dishwasher, so it comes out like new every time.  It has an angled handle to keep your hand from the heat as you are mopping the food.  I always travel with two pairs of 12-inch locking chef tongs and my new Grill Friends BBQ Mop.

Magazine (or website/TV program) you can’t live without. 

That’s a hard question to answer because I get absolutely every food magazine and I love them all for different reasons.  But in terms of magazines I would say Fine Cooking, Saveur, Cooks Illustrated and “the Trilogy”:  Food & Wine, Gourmet and Bon Appétit.  For websites, e-gullet and Sauté Wednesday and Three Layer Cake.  Without fail, I read the Chicago Tribune and the NYT Food Section every Wednesday.

You’ll always pick up a magazine from the checkout line if Barbra Streisand is on the cover.

You can never have too many…

Bottles of great red wine.  Turley Zinfandel from California.  There’s also a Paloma Merlot that’s unbelievable.  It was Wine Spectator’s wine of the year two years ago, and I had already been there long before and had a case of it already! That was lucky forecasting for me!  These are just two of my many favorites…

You’re most proud of your collection of… 

Roosters!  I have roosters from all over the world—  from Ireland, France, Italy.  I even have Burmese opium weights (the weights they used to weigh opium) which were fashioned after the Chinese signs of the year, so I have five different sized roosters!  Every time I travel someplace, I try and bring back a rooster that reflects that country’s culture or craftsmen.

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