There are austere rules in the writing of novels that vex the young writer every bit as much as the rules of finesse and discipline and cuisine vex a headstrong apprentice. Young masochists are drawn toward melodrama and coincidence; thus young writers and young cooks have much in common. As do older writers and master chefs.
I speak now of coincidence and the detached collisions of fate. In the early eighties, I spent an extraordinary week in New York City where I attended plays and thrilled to an opera with my agent, Julian Bach, having dinner at the Four Seasons afterward. Like a bird-watcher, I keep a list of great restaurants that I would like to eat my way through during my passage on this earth. I crossed off Lutèce and La Côte Basque on this journey, during which I presented the full outline of The Prince of Tides to my lovely editor, Nan Talese. But Julian Bach and Nan Talese were not coincidences, rather part of the natural architecture of my life.
On the Delta flight back home to Atlanta, fate cleared its throat as I heard a handsome young man in the aisle seat across from me whistling softly. I am not the kind of man who starts up conversations with strangers on airplanes and who then pulls out pictures of his children to show to any passenger within earshot. When I travel, I prize my anonymity and solitude and have no desire to be seated next to a compulsive chatterbox. The whistling from the right drew my attention, but it was the stack of cookbooks that riveted me. In a neatly stacked pile, the young man was looking up recipes from the very best cookbooks published in that year. These were on the cutting edge and the outer rim—it was long before the dawning of the era of the celebrity chefs and the Food Network, but that revolution was in the air. Already, extra virgin olive oil had started to appear in Southern supermarkets, bringing sex, at last, to Southern kitchens. Arugula, watercress, and daikon radishes were making shy appearances in produce departments in my part of the world, and Paul Prudhomme had already made his mark in New Orleans, initiating the era when you could not meet a redfish that someone had not blackened. In my hometown of Atlanta, the glittering era of Pano & Paul’s had begun, Buckhead began to strut with restaurants bucking for four stars, and I heard a Frenchman say you could get a better Russian meal at Nicolai’s Roof’s downtown location than you could in Moscow. Cuisine was breaking out all over the South, as luxuriant and uncontrollable as kudzu. The man across the aisle from me was about to change the history of his home state of Alabama forever.
“Sir,” I said, watching him scribble in his notebook, “those cookbooks you’re reading, they’re wonderful.”
“I think I just spent the best week of my life working in the kitchens of these four chefs,” he said. “It’s amazing what you can learn in just a week. My name is Frank Stitt, sir.”
“Mine is Pat Conroy” I said. “Are you a chef?”
“Yes, I am, though I’ve never run my own place,” Frank said. “I’m about to open a restaurant.”
“Can I ask where?”
“Birmingham, Alabama,” he said.
“It’s a wasteland for good food,” I said. “I was there a month ago.”
“It won’t be a wasteland anymore,” Frank replied with a confidence that both surprised and delighted me.
“If you’re any good at all,” I remember saying, “you’re going to be a very rich man.”
Frank appraised me with care and then said, “I’m good. I’m very good.”
He said it with a measure of conviction and authority that carried much weight with me. Frank declared it like a man with keenly earned self-knowledge, an awesome respect for the art of cooking, and a firm knowledge of the great gift he was about to bestow on his home state. He spoke with enthusiasm about the chefs who trained him in France, and he was already comfortable speaking in the vocabulary and techniques of Escoffier, Joel Robuchon, and Alain Ducasse. I could not mention a restaurant that he did not have knowledge of. His long apprenticeship was now over and Frank Stitt was coming home to deliver the goods to Alabama.
The Highlands Bar & Grill changed the way the people of Alabama thought about food. It was a revolution in the center of a neighborhood that was going slightly to seed but was about to start its renaissance. The quality of its restaurants is an important gauge for a city to measure its call to greatness. Frank Stitt put Birmingham on the culinary map the day he opened his restaurant. Later I heard from a white-shoe lawyer in one of those Atlanta law firms with enough WASP names to start a hive that the Highlands Bar was better than any restaurant in Atlanta. That’s long before the kinks were worked out and long before Frank hit his amazing stride. I made it to the restaurant in the first six months of its existence and discovered that Frank Stitt was a far, far better chef than anyone who had ever crossed the Chattahoochee River from Georgia or entered the Birmingham city limits under the cover of darkness after a lost weekend in New Orleans.
Here is what you get in a Frank Stitt meal and what you get with every recipe in his magnificent cookbook, Frank Stitt’s Southern Table: the full measure and passion of a man on fire with devotion to his chosen work. He gives you all the artistry at his command every time you sit down for a meal, and he does not tolerate lapses in the kitchen or produce that is not the freshest available. I have eaten at the Highlands Bar & Grill over twenty times and have never eaten a single meal that was not superb—the restaurant remains the best reason to move to Birmingham that I can think of. I would call Frank Stitt the best chef in America, but that would cause undue jealousy in the ranks of other chefs whose powers of cruelty are exceeded only by genocidal despots and serial killers with bad tattoos. So let me simply state that I think that Frank Stitt is one of the best chefs in America, and America is starting to come around to my position.
I have watched with interest the growing reputation of Frank and his restaurant on the national scene. Whenever I go to Birmingham, I return to the Highlands or its sister restaurant, Bottega, where I look forward to the changes and improvements in the menu. Frank works miracles with pork, as I discovered when I ordered a tenderloin with a bourbon and molasses glaze that I thought was the best thing I ever put in my mouth. But I had said the same thing about the soft-shell crab with brown butter and bacon vinaigrette and, on the same night, the basmati rice salad with chilled crabmeat, crescents of avocado, roasted peppers, and slivers of olives and mushrooms folded into a lemon mayonnaise that was both delicate and fragrant. I could write poems about the seared duck breast and his Louisiana rabbit simmered in red wine. Even the lowly Southern dish of grits Frank uses as a palette that he fills with slices of country ham and tosses with wild mushrooms, with a dusting of Parmesan cheese, grated fine.
At the Highlands Bar & Grill, there is a sensibility at work in the smallest of details. When Frank offered me a watermelon margarita, I could think of no more nauseating a combination of tastes than a sweet fruit and tequila. Naturally, I was wrong and watermelon has seemed a noble fruit, as kingly as pineapple, since that encounter. Frank’s bar makes a better gin martini than New York’s Plaza Hotel, and his Chilton County Bellini is far superior to the one served at Harry’s Bar in Venice, where it was invented. You can enjoy those drinks at the best raw oyster bar outside New Orleans, where the Apalachicola oysters have been harvested from the Gulf of Mexico on the day you consume them. They are cold and salty and Gulf-born. Just when you think that an oyster on the half shell is the most perfect food on earth, Frank will present you with baked oysters with watercress and a bread crumb crust, or his oyster pan roast with crawfish and buttery croutons, or spicy baked oysters with caramelized onions, pan juices, and chiles.
But then there are the lamb shanks with favas and the cobia with beet relish and how can I leave out the Gulf triggerfish or the magic he works with South Carolina quail or his ravioli with sweet potatoes, mustard greens, and country ham? I cannot do justice to Frank if I fail to praise his foie gras with corn bread or his roast leg of lamb with spring vegetable ragout, or the wine list that grows and mellows and deepens in complexity with each passing year. I have even failed to mention the desserts, which are often the weak spot of restaurants with the raw ambition displayed by the Highlands Bar & Grill. But Frank’s desserts are the stuff of both dreams and paradise, and I have heard men say aloud in front of their wives that they would marry the pastry chef as they scooped up clouds of the cinnamon crème anglaise or moaned over the crème brûlée. The waiters are classy and well trained. Frank’s beautiful wife, Pardis, runs the front with elegance and panache. His chef de cuisine is masterful and the cooks know what they are doing. The knife work is deft and Zen-like, and every night the men and women of Frank Stitt’s Highlands Bar & Grill know that they are in the process of making both history and art.
The food world is coming around to my opinion formed so many years ago. Recently, I was in another airplane to Atlanta when I read that Gourmet magazine had named the Highlands Bar & Grill the fifth-best restaurant in the nation. In the same year, Frank won a James Beard award for being the best chef of the Southeast. The inimitable R. W. “Johnny” Apple of the New York Times made one of his baptismal visits to the restaurant and left shouting kudos and benedictions like all the rest of us.
Over a year ago, my wife and I joined Frank and Pardis for a spectacular meal at Alain Ducasse’s restaurant in New York. It was a meal for the ages, and a great joy to watch Frank smell each dish as it arrived steaming from the kitchen, his eyes lighting up with lapidary pleasure as each dish arrived on our table. The restaurant is as formal and plush and forbidding as the Highlands Bar & Grill is welcoming and all-inclusive. The meal was Proustian and fabulous and indescribable, as all the great meals are.
When Sandra and I said farewell to Frank and Pardis Stitt that night and walked toward our hotel with all the clamor and splendor and mystery of the great city swarming about us, we both agreed that Alain Ducasse is a splendid chef, but we also both agreed that he is no Frank Stitt.
The following three recipes came to me directly from Chef Frank Stitt of Birmingham, Alabama.
GRILLED FIGS WITH PROSCIUTTO, WALNUTS, AND LEMON-MINT CREAM This is one of my favorite summer hors d’oeuvres—perfect for passing around at a party still sizzling from the grill. Make this only with absolutely fresh ingredients: perfectly ripe figs, the finest prosciutto, and the freshest walnuts. Richard Olney was the inspiration for this dish. He loved figs more than almost any other fruit and was especially fond of their affinity for cured ham. We first passed this now-late-summer menu standard at an event in the gardens of the Joseph Phelps winery. The salty ham and the just-beginning-to-warm plump fig is one of the sexiest bites ever. • SERVES 4
1 handful fresh spearmint, plus sprigs for garnish
Juice of 1½ lemons
½ cup heavy cream
Coarse or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 ripe Black Mission figs
16 walnut halves
16 very thin slices prosciutto di Parma
4 fig leaves
1. Prepare a hot grill.
2. Finely chop the mint and place in a mortar with the lemon juice. Pound with the pestle and strain into a medium mixing bowl. Add the cream. Season with salt and pepper and stir to incorporate. The acidity of the lemon juice will thicken the cream.
3. Halve the figs and place a walnut half on the cut side of each. Wrap a slice of prosciutto around the fig, only slightly overlapping where the prosciutto ends meet. (The perfect slice of prosciutto has an outer edge with some of the snow-white fat included.)
4. Char the figs on the hot grill for 30 to 45 seconds per side. The figs should just be warmed through and the prosciutto crisp in parts. These contrasting textures make this a wonderful dish. Place 4 figs on each fig leaf and serve with the bowl of mint cream on the side, garnished with mint sprigs.
RED SNAPPER WITH CRAWFISH MEUNIÈRE Red snapper has been the reigning queen of Gulf Coast seafood for over seventy-five years and with good reason—the delicate, white, flaky, moist flesh fits almost everyone’s idea of what fish should be. Sautéed red snapper is a wonderful thing unto itself. When you mix plump little buttery craw fish tails with lots of lemon and fresh mint, you’ve created a plate of springtime goodness. Don’t hesitate to substitute crabmeat for the crawfish, if you wish. This recipe calls for a quick sauté of the fish. Then the same pan is used to create the ultimate fish sauce—a meunière. Its origin, the story goes, began with the miller’s wife who would use some of the mill’s flour to dust the fish before cooking. She would then add a bit of shallot and white wine to make a sauce, finishing it by whisking in a little butter, lemon juice, and fresh mint at the last second. The only way we improve upon this age-old formula is to enliven the dish with a little crawfish or crabmeat. One of my favorite restaurant experiences is digging into the speckled trout with crabmeat meunière at Galatoire’s in New Orleans (and at Highlands Bar & Grill). Such meals are some of life’s great moments. If you can’t get your hands on impeccably fresh red snapper, opt for wild striped bass, speckled trout, flounder, or pompano. • SERVES 4
Four 6- to 8-ounce red snapper fillets (or other fresh white fish; see headnote)
Coarse or kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons clarified butter
4 tablespoons (½ stick) plus 1½ teaspoons unsalted butter
2 shallots, finely minced
½ pound crawfish tail meat or jumbo lump crabmeat
Juice of 1 large lemon
1 small bunch fresh mint leaves, chopped at the last moment (to yield 2 tablespoons)
Hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco or Cholula
1. Check to be sure that all of the bones have been removed from the fish and any little scrappy ends are trimmed so that the fillets are uniform and will cook evenly. Season the fish with salt and pepper on both sides. Dust the fish with the flour and shake off any excess.
2. Heat a large heavy sauté pan over high heat. Add the clarified butter and heat until almost smoking. Place the fillets in the pan, skin side up. Lower the heat to medium and cook until light golden brown and the outer edges begin to turn opaque, about 3 minutes. Turn the fillets and cook until just done, about 3 minutes more, depending on thickness. Remove the fillets to a rack.
3. Pour out any clarified butter remaining in the pan and add the 1½ teaspoons butter along with the shallots. Cook over medium-low heat until the shallots soften, about 1 minute. Add the white wine and crawfish tails and raise the heat to high to reduce the liquid by more than half.
4. When the wine has reduced, begin to whisk in the 4 tablespoons butter quickly, bit by bit, shaking the pan while whisking. Once the butter is incorporated, lower the heat so that the sauce does not boil, or it will separate. Quickly add the lemon juice along with the freshly chopped mint. Season to taste with salt, white pepper, and a dash of hot pepper sauce. Taste and adjust seasonings, then pour the sauce over the snapper and serve immediately on hot plates.
CURED PORK CROSTINI WITH SWEET POTATO BRANDADE A traditional brandade is made of salt cod, potatoes, and garlic bound with olive oil. In the south of France, brandade is often used as a spread on crostini. Here we’re having a little improvisational fun. Instead of cured fish, we use cured pork, and instead of the typical potato, we use local sweet potatoes. You can substitute roasted or grilled pork tenderloin and still have delicious results, but if you have the time, try this cure. • SERVES 8 AS AN APPETIZER
½ cup sugar
½ cup coarse or kosher salt
4 garlic cloves, crushed, plus ½garlic head
8 whole black peppercorns, crushed
4 whole allspice berries, crushed
1 whole star anise, crushed
1 dried hot chile
1 pound pork tenderloin, trimmed, and silver skin removed
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and quartered
¼ cup slab bacon cut into ½-inch cubes
1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 slices baguette, about ¼-inch thick
Fresh cilantro sprigs
1. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, salt, crushed garlic, peppercorns, allspice, star anise, chile, and 4 cups water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes and then pour the contents into a non-reactive container that is narrow and deep enough to keep the pork tenderloin submerged. Let the brine cool completely in the refrigerator. Once cool, add the pork and let cure overnight or for up to 2 days in the refrigerator.
2. Place the sweet potatoes and garlic head in a medium saucepan and cover with water by 2 inches. Add a good pinch of salt and bring to a simmer. Cook until very tender, about 30 minutes.
3. While the sweet potatoes are cooking, place the bacon in a sauté pan and cook until crisp, about 8 minutes. Set aside. Drain the sweet potatoes, then purée them through a food mill or ricer. Return the purée to the pan and add the bacon and its rendered fat along with the extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Stir vigorously to combine. Keep the potatoes warm.
4. Preheat the oven to 425° F.
5. Remove the pork from the brine and pat dry. In a heavy, ovenproof sauté pan, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over high heat and sear the pork on all sides. Place the pan in the preheated oven and cook until medium (internal temperature of 145° F), 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to rest.
6. Brush the baguette slices with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and toast in the oven for 5 minutes.
7. Spoon a little sweet potato brandade on top of each crostini, spreading it evenly. Slice the pork thinly and arrange a few slices on top of each crostini. Allow the colorful brandade to show along the edges by folding the pork slices for an attractive presentation. Garnish each crostini with a few sprigs of cilantro and a grind or two of black pepper and serve.