By any measure it has has been a great two months. I am sure most of you readers are aware of the recognition REPUBLIC has received recently. It has been a bit overwhelming and, to be honest, a bit humorous. It started with our James Beard Foundation Awards’ nomination, followed by our ascension to semi-finalists nationally. On the local level, we were awarded the first certified farm to restaurant in the State of NH, then on to the HIPPO PRESS’ BEST OF 2012 READERS’ POLL, where we seemed to run the table. Today, we were interviewed and over photo’d by Merrimack Valley Magazine for a feature article, and if that does not fill the dance card, a travel magazine based out of DC is coming on Friday for an interview and photo shoot. Man, now I know how George Clooney feels trying to fend off the paparazzi! Nothing like being a 30-year overnight success. Don’t get me wrong, this is great. It’s great for sales, for my staff that has worked their collective backsides off, and for all of my guests that have given their support and two cents, but in the grand scheme of things it is a bit overhyped

Since the advent of the FOOD CHANNEL, awards shows and cooking challenges where there are winners and losers have become the rage. Pitting one chef against another, or sending in a star chef/consultant to tell some owner how lame they are, or watching some poor wannabe chef try to come up with a great recipe for cuttlefish and watermelon only to be humiliated in front of millions of viewers, takes away from what we at REPUBLIC (as well as all the other hard-working kitchens) are doing every day. I have told my staff that the best and only recognition they should ever be concerned with are the people that poke their heads in the pick-up window (or say at the table), “Great job, thank you, WE WILL BE BACK!”

Objectively, a restaurant is the most unique of any manufacturing enterprises ever conceived. When an entrepreneur decides to produce a widget, it is predetermined through exhaustive due diligence that when the ON button is pushed what comes out the back end is exactly what was intended no matter how many zillions of them are extruded. Humans may or may not be involved in the varying levels of production and delivery.

In a restaurant the menu is the product offering, and the menu description is written to entice the diner to purchase. Once that order is placed into the black box you see the server stare into on your way to the restroom, production starts one dish at a time by trained, motivated and skilled workers.
When we at REPUBLIC are given awards and are singled out for recognition, Claudia and I are more than willing to accept them, but we do it for all of our staff. They care. They really care.

We have on occasion, as have all restaurants, received communications from guests that relay they either did not receive our best effort, or our production protocols were not followed. I can tell you without reservation that we put more weight on those communications than any award we may have been given.

On behalf of all at REPUBLIC, thank you! To be honest, it always feels good to be told, “You look marvelous!” even if it is because of good lighting.
See you this week for our current Mediterranean Passport port-of-call: MOROCCO

See you soon

Ed

“If you don’t have to eat what’s in the bottom of your wallet, it’s been a good year …” Mary DeMarco

This was the line we heard every New Years Day from my grandmother before the feast/food orgy would begin. Its genesis is an old Sicilian proverb, but I have come to find out that the words, in one form or another, along with the tradition I am about to describe, are common among the poorer southern Mediterranean cultures. The concern is poverty and hunger and the talisman is a lentil.

Every New Year’s, lentils wrapped in paper were distributed to all in our family by my grandmother. The women opened their purses, the men their wallets, and for us there was a jar that was kept in the kitchen cabinet. On cue each family member would empty his or her cache of last year’s lentils into a pot. Once all were accounted for, one of us tossed the contents of the pot out the door, new lentils were distributed, and the food frenzy would begin.

The origins (or so I was told) of the ritual are that for Buona Fortuna (good luck) you were given lentils, but you must have them with you at all times. If during the year you were fortunate enough not to have been forced to eat them, it was a good year.

So as not to break the “snide” (Mojo, in NY Italian) everybody cheated. My mother and her sisters and all the aunts would put their lentils in a bag they would put way back in the closet (I guess having it in you apartment counted as being with you at all times); the men in wallets they never use; and our jar was put on a shelf we could never reach. On occasion, after I moved from NYC to college, I would receive a letter with a check from my father and in the bottom – lentils from my mother.

Claudia’s family’s Southern tradition is a meal of cornbread, black-eyed peas, ham hock, and cooked-to-hell greens with hot vinegar. I’ve eaten this for going on 30 years now, although with various bouts of vegetarianism the ham hock was at times left off the menu.

Of course, this is superstition and family idiosyncrasy, but it speaks from which we came. Not just my family, but also to all of us. We look to the New Year with hope and for renewal. In China, there are vast migrations of people traveling for specific family gatherings on their New Year calendar. In Mexico, the entire population parades at Midnight. However and wherever we do it, the rejection of what has happened and the promise that the future holds is an endearing human belief shared by all.

So, on New Years Eve or New Years Day come by and check out our blackboard, or just have a flatbread and a glass of wine or farm fresh eggs for breakfast, but come by and join us. There will be a bowl of lentils for new and old friends to take at the front door and there will be a pot to deposit them for those of you who have been carrying the weight of last year’s lentils these 365 days.

Claudia and I wish you all very good health, fulfilling days and wonderful nights for the year ahead.

See you soon,
Ed

Traveling just ain’t what it used to be …

I remember the first time Claudia and I traveled out of the country. The cabin staff, with their charming accents and tailored uniforms, warmly greeted us and made us feel welcome. We were offered complimentary travel kits with eyeshades, toiletries, and even cool socks. Cocktails were offered (a true five-mile-high open bar), and with dinner a bottle of wine was left by the attendant for Claud and I to share. All this in coach! I could only imagine what the party was like in first class.

This is not a rant about the dismal state of air travel. I could, but it would not be at all original or even timely. This is about a culinary excursion we are leading at Republic. As a matter of fact, this blog is late, since the boat has left the dock so to speak.

We are planning to feature the foods of a number of countries that border the Mediterranean. It started two weeks ago when I featured the cuisine of Turkey. I’m sorry for the late notice and I know that I’m remiss, but life and business got complicated …
I will not bore you with my travails, but I will now try to make it up to you. Forgiven?

Here is what some of you may have missed: Claudia and Sous Chef Jenn (the woman with the big black hat behind the line) did a good amount of the menu research, along with the added input of a few good friends and loyal guests who have traveled to the country often.

We served Phyllo with creamed leeks, egg and tzatziki; Borek (a kind of dumpling) with ground lamb, cinnamon, sweet onion, aleppo pepper and pomegranate molasses; Turkish Taverna Chicken Pie with cilantro and allspice, served with Ajdar (roasted eggplant, red peppers and Harissa); Zucchini Fritters with feta, dill and stewed tomato; Monkfish fume with lemon, tomato, chili and sumac; and a Vegetable Stew with zucchini, eggplant, tomato and bulgur wheat, served with local yogurt and dill. For dessert it was carrot and coconut bars, along with rice pudding with saffron, raisins and pine nuts. If you have been in the restaurant recently you would have still seen a few of these ingredients and recipes on the blackboard. I fell in love with some of them and they are now part of my lexicon.

We will be traveling (please excuse this metaphor) around the sea and the next stop will be Greece; then Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt; then on to Italy (Yeah!); and finally over to Southern France and Spain. All this without a full body scan, those stupid 3 oz plastic bottles, and that jackass in front of you reclining his seat into the 14 inches allotted to you for the $800 ticket price. (I got my rant in anyway.)

In researching the recipes from all these destinations, I am finding out how similar the ingredients and cooking styles. Some of the ingredients, such as Aleppo pepper, saffron, grains of paradise and even salt, were at one time or another used as currency. This region has long been settled, conquered and reconquered. Peoples have migrated back and forth, intermarried, traveled and shared their cultures, both willingly and under duress.

I have been to some of these countries and look forward to seeing them all one day. Until then, let’s eat their food and make believe that outside the window of Republic is not Elm Street but Marrakech, or Athens, or Nice. I will try to come as close as I can to the truth of their cuisine while keeping our word to using as many local and regional products as I can get my hands on. Watch for our destinations in the Hippo and I will send out an email blast, so “don’t spam box me bro!”

By the way, if any of you have been to these destinations and have recipes or ideas for a dish, come by. If it is used I promise full credit on the blackboard.

Claudia, I, and the entire staff of Republic thank you for your support over the past two years and wish you all a very peaceful holiday. Eat well and share.

See you soon.

Ed

Nana sits at the front table of the restaurant just as you walk in the door. She sits under the no smoking sign, a large woman in her 60s with light hair, grey eyes that sparkle, and a pack of cigarettes next to the phone. Nana greets everyone with a smile and tells them to sit anywhere without getting up, to others she opens her arms and pulls you towards her and you get two kisses and a face rub.

Nana is the owner of Telly’s Taverna in Astoria NYC, and her restaurant has become an extension of my family’s home for 20 years. Telly’s Taverna is a Greek restaurant on a block of other Greek restaurants in the largest Greek neighborhood in the City. They are all basically the same, representing the food of southern Greece and the Islands. They are all set up almost identically with a long glass case in front of an exposed kitchen displaying a wonderful array of fresh whole fish that will be char-grilled and brought on a platter with lemon and potatoes. A variety of other Greek specialties are offered, and the menus of most of the restaurants on the block offer the same dishes. There is the usual debate as to the minor but important differences between one restaurant’s approach to a particular recipe, but in the end it is hard to differentiate, especially since they are all simply wonderful. Only one has Nana.

Over the years my family, and many others as well, have been hovered over by Nana. My visits to the family always require the mandatory dinner at Telly’s, and Nana invariably says she has something special she was saving and I will be the recipient of the freshest striped bass, or flounder, or whatever she was saving, along with the two-handed face rub. She stands over our table, at times participating in the family discussions, chiming in and taking sides. She then seems to offer the diner at the next table something”special” that she was saving while petting a baby at the table. She remembers what my father, a notoriously picky eater, always orders and that my brother wants hot sauce with everything.

I know that this kind of service is what good operators practice, but there is a difference here. Nana is sincere and her kisses are kisses of a loved one. Over the past year my family has visted Telly’s less frequently due to the health of my parents, but the dinners are still an important part of our family tradition. I pick it up and take our fish and green salad, gigante beans, and spicy garlic sausage home. Always an extra portion of sausage “For your Father” gets put in the bag along with the hot sauce for my brother. When I leave she kisses me and holds onto my face; she kisses me again and says ” For your Mother.”

Guests bond with restaurants for a variety of reasons. Chefs and menus stand out from their competitors through either the complexity or simplicity of the menu, but some restaurants transcend the commercial and become a part of the fiber of a guest’s life. They become dear friends with the owners and staff and the food becomes part of the family’s tradition. The restaurant table becomes the family table and the restaurant food the family’s sustenance.

Nana and Telly’s are a part of my family’s fiber and cannot be removed.  I count Nana as one of my greatest mentors as a restaurateur, but her contribution to making me a better person has been immeasurable. I have just come back from a visit and brought some leftovers back for Claudia. The smells from my back seat during the four-hour drive instigated a barrage of memories of my parents and family. I can only hope that we can connect to a few of our guests of REPUBLIC as I have  connected with Telly’s. I can only try to be as sincere as Nana, when I say that I am very glad to see you.

If ever you are in NYC let me know and I will give you the address.