I sold out of my big restaurant company in 2000. It really wasn’t very big compared to McDonald’s but it was large enough, as it included Fog City Diner in San Francisco, Buckeye Roadhouse in Marin, and Mustards Grill in Napa Valley. I’d had it with the three- and four-hour commutes from Napa Valley to San Francisco and Marin. Then one day I got caught up in a thirty-six-car pileup on Highway 101, and had a really close call when a car flipped up in the air, sailed over me, and landed on the car behind me. That was it! A clear sign for me to make some changes!
I sold my interests in the Bay Area restaurants to my partners, Bill Upson and Bill Higgins, and took over as the sole owner of Mustards Grill. Mustards was close to home, and I had been managing it since it opened in 1983 anyway. It was a perfect solution.
It was lucky for me that the Jacinto brothers, Erasto and Pablo, stuck with me through this changeover. I first met these two young men in 1984 when they came into Mustards looking for work; fortunately I had the good sense to hire them both. Over the years they have taken on more and more responsibilities, to the point where they can run things on their own. Erasto has never left Mustards, and he is now chef-partner of that restaurant. Pablo did leave Mustards after a while, but he came back to work for me when I was doing the Buckeye Roadhouse. Then, when I gave up Buckeye, Pablo stayed with me and helped me develop a new restaurant in St. Helena. He became chef-partner there.
This restaurant, the Miramonte, was the first one I’d ever done without my former partners, the two Bills. It featured Mexican and Central and South American food. Unfortunately, to put it bluntly, it wasn’t a big hit. People in the wine country want wine-friendly food, and although the food was great and actually did go well with wine, people were intimidated by it.
Within a couple of years, funds were running low, and we needed to do something in a hurry. Pablo and I put our heads together, and once we’d made our plans, we turned Miramonte into Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. A complete makeover in just sixteen days—it was quite a feat, and it worked! We kept the Latin dishes that we loved and couldn’t part with, but gave most of them new Anglo names; then we added a few unintimidating, wine-friendly dishes to the menu, and we were off. The new restaurant’s name told people that we were off the main drag and that we were serving up the kinds of dishes we had been known for in the past. (Regarding names, there’s no doubt they make a huge difference: after Pablo’s Oysters Raza became Oysters Pablo, that dish tripled in sales.)
Looking back over the years, I can see how our focus has changed. Back in the mid-1980s, we were doing foods from the Pacific Rim and from Italy. Gradually we broadened our horizons to include all of the Mediterranean countries, with a heavy emphasis on foods from Spain. At the same time, food from Mexico and Central and South America became more important. We also went less for fusion, and concentrated more on authentic techniques and culturally accurate dishes. In recent years, Erasto, Pablo, and I have traveled to Oaxaca, their home state in Mexico, and to New York and Spain, and what we learned on those trips influenced our work in the restaurant kitchens.
There are a million things that get our creative juices flowing. Travel does it, of course, but closer to home there are always the daily specials we need to work up, or the pastry chef may say we’re in a rut, or someone may come in with a new cookbook, or an old recipe they’ve just rediscovered. It’s a combination of all that, plus where we’ve been recently, or what’s in season, what’s in the walk-in refrigerator or in the garden. I have to admit that we are very ingredient-driven, which is why certain ingredients make repeat appearances in this book.
In the 1990s, a movie came out called Mermaids. In it, Cher played the part of a mom who knew how to do only appetizers. As a chef, this just cracked me up. It also made me want to do a book about our own appetizers and small tasty dishes. It took a while to pull that book together, but it’s probably a good thing. I’m a much better cook now than I was back in 1990, plus I’ve learned so much from cooking with the Jacinto brothers over the years. Most important of all, because Erasto and Pablo were standing by running the restaurants, I was able to steal away enough time to work on this book.
As I’ve said before, it’s tough for chefs to write a cookbook, as we hardly ever measure or take notes or, for that matter, make the same dish the same way twice! If a dish is good enough to go on the menu during one of our seasonal menu changes or was developed for a special event, we usually have some written record, but I could kick myself for all the dishes that have slipped through our fingers. Still, there were plenty in our files, and we re-created or reinvented several more. So here it is, a collection of the small plates the three of us love to eat, cook, and share with family and friends.
First, a few words on how to use this book: All the recipes are “small plates,” and you need to put three or four of them together to make up a whole meal (or what I call a “small-plates meal”). The dishes are meant to be shared, so that each person can enjoy a few bites of this dish, and a few of that, and not come away feeling stuffed. When the recipe yield says “Serves 6,” it means it will serve six people as part of a small-plates meal. If this thought is confusing to you, try one or two of the suggested menus for a start.
If you want to stick with a more traditional meal plan, you can double any recipe, which will yield entrée-size servings. (You’d cut down on the number of dishes served, of course.) Most of the dishes can be served as passed hors d’oeuvres, too. Just cut the food up into bite-size pieces so your guests don’t have to do a juggling act. For cocktail parties, I often place the messier items on tables around the room to get people moving, and to give them a place to rest their drinks while they attend to the more serious business of eating.
All the recipes in here are “small plates,” and you need to put three or four of them together to make up a whole meal (or what I call a “small-plates meal”). The dishes are meant to be shared, so that each person can enjoy a few bites of this dish, and a few of that, and not come away feeling stuffed.
You will notice that in a lot of these recipes, I’ve called for a quantity range for certain ingredients, rather than specifying just one amount. This means you should use more or less of something according to your taste. For example, in the Chile-Garlic Peanuts, you could use more or less dried chile depending on how much you like chile. Or, in the Sunday Supper Burgers, the patties will be a tiny bit bigger or smaller depending on the amount of ground beef you use. The recipes will work either way, so trust your own instincts and taste buds!
When it comes to cooking, the little extras make a huge difference, so sweat the details. Otherwise it’s just airline food, and you know what has happened to that! Always stick with produce that is in season and at its peak of flavor, and spend an extra minute or two to make each plate of food visually appealing. Look for interesting serving platters, bowls, dishes, spoons. I almost called this book Life Off a Long Oval Platter because small bites of food look so good on them!
Whether I’m entertaining or just putting today’s dinner on the table, I think everything tastes better when I cook surrounded by friends and family. Even better, I like a congenial atmosphere where I can eat and cook at the same time, and prepare each new dish as people are finishing the previous one. That’s why I love small plates. From the Stuffed Piquillo Peppers to the Oysters Pablo (my personal favorite) to our Rabbit Tostadas, I can satisfy everyone with a small-plates meal.
Another reason I love small plates is that they look so beautiful. With just one main ingredient per plate, they lend themselves to a variety of pottery and silverware, and other novel serving options. They are also a great way to feature the freshest in-season ingredients.
When I think of small plates, I think of variety and flavor. Fresh meats, poultry, and seafood; salads made with fresh, locally grown, organic produce and seasonal vegetables and herbs from Mustards’ garden—all uniquely presented with flair and style. And when you’re dining with friends or family, how cool is it that these dishes lend themselves perfectly to sharing? Then, when the small plates are all gone, you still have room for dessert. For me, the two words small plates represent one simple thing—fun, fun, fun!