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.

“Call me Ishmael,” without question the best opening line of a novel (“It was a dark and stormy night …” not withstanding). Moby Dick, a story about a great fish and the madman who stalked it, is a wonderful tale. Imagine, the entire industrial world was for a time made bright by the oil of boiled whale blubber. I now want to talk about fish as well. I do not have the gall to compare this missive to Melville or any other great seafaring epic, but the story of fish in our time is a topic we should be made aware of.

We all know the big picture. The stocks of popular fish are being depleted. The oceans are being mined by fleets both vast and small. Large industrial vessels that catch, process, and package at sea compete with regional small fleets that are manned at times by our neighbors. Together they are emptying the sea, putting an entire industry at peril and instigating, at times, draconian regulation.

Aquaculture, an industry that is only a few decades old, is a booming business, and rice paddies all over China, Southeast Asia as well as Central America are being turned into shrimp and tilapia farms. The coastline from Nova Scotia to Maryland is peppered with salmon pens. The Atlantic Ocean all along the Eastern Seaboard is GPS mapped into sectors and its waters are now leased out to local fleets like timeshares in Fort Lauderdale. So, what are we as consumers and chefs to do? We are told, and rightly so, that seafood is a major component of a healthy diet, but if we continue to buy fish are we not just hastening the inevitable decimation of the stocks? There is no singular course of action.

Let me give you some information that may help and also enlighten. First, let’s talk marketing: Its all about how the message is relayed, not the facts. The message starts with: Fish is an essential part of a healthy diet – TRUE. Salmon will help develop the good cholesterol in our bodies – TRUE. Buy farm-raised Atlantic Salmon – FALSE. With a few notable exceptions, farm-raised salmon is analogous to eating corralled beef. The fish are packed side by each and simply hover in the water. The image of salmon soaring over cascading waterfalls is simply Hollywood. Fact: For every pound of salmon two pounds of fish protein is required. That means anchovies and other small fish, the backbone of the food chain in the oceans, are being fed to farmed salmon at the expense of the wild predatory species. The white line you see in the flesh of farmed salmon is fat. Tastes good for sure, but all fat tastes good, and that fat comes from the inactivity of the fish. When wild Alaskan salmon is made available in the stores, look at the color. It is blood red and no fat. FACT: Most farmed salmon are fed corn just before harvest to fatten them, and then food coloring is added to make the fish look as expected by the consumer. Antibiotics are also added to the feed to stave off infections that would come with the overcrowding of the pens.

SHRIMP: Shrimp are called the pork of the sea since they are raised in almost the same conditions. Their waste is noxious and the fuel needed to transport the product, both jet and truck, is massive. So what to do? First, be knowledgeable and do not believe what is on the package.

CHILEAN SEA BASS: FACT: Its true name is the Patagonian Tooth Fish. I believe that the same guy that changed the name of Rose to White Zinfandel was at that meeting. The minute it hit the market it exploded in popularity. In less than a decade it is now practically extinct. Be sure to ask when the menu says “Sea Bass,” as there are many local varieties.

SALMON: There is organically-raised farmed salmon. Most are available frozen and that is fine, since freezing fish is not an issue, in fact is can be preferable. The issue is how it is thawed and stored.

SHRIMP: Wild-caught shrimp from Maine and the USA Gulf Coast are available. As with the organically raised salmon, the shrimp will be more expensive, but you do not need 8oz of salmon in a dish nor a dozen shrimp in your pasta. At REPUBLIC, I use only wild-caught Maine or Gulf shrimp and never Atlantic salmon. At the MILLTOWNE GRILLE (our restaurant at Manchester/Boston Regional Airport), our chef uses only wild-caught, frozen-at-sea USA salmon.

Next look for BYCATCH. What is that? Bycatch is any fish that is not MARKET (i.e. commonly available seafood such as cod, haddock, swordfish, scallops and tuna). Since the local fleets can no longer toss back any mature fish (all count as to their allotment), seemingly unfamiliar fish are coming to market. On my blackboard you will see Hake, Red fish, Monkfish, Skate, Poggy, Scup, Spanish Mackerel, Bluefish and Sardines. All these species are North Atlantic fish landed in Boston, Portland, Gloucester or Rye, and delivered that day. I try to pair a market catch with a bycatch on the board as often as I can. It sustains the local economy and the fish taste amazing. Mussels, oysters, lobsters and clams are also a good choice and easy to prepare at home. Throw a few oysters on the grill, close the cover and wait ten minutes. Squeeze a lemon and slurp away.

When Claudia and I were developing REPUBLIC on a European model, we both knew that seafood would be a center point of our menu. Each European bistro has a specialty and we decided that seafood would be ours. I only buy for the day and only East Coast seafood with the occasional exception of Gulf shrimp.

As a consumer you have choices and your choices make a difference. Price to portion size is a consideration, as well as choosing sustainable fish stocks. Be adventurous!! Ask where your food comes from and manage your protein to vegetable balance. Also, be a bit suspicious when your seafood is married with bacon. Bacon excites all the tastes buds at one time, can cover an “off ” flavor, and makes fish that is not quite right taste better.

I love seafood and admire fishermen. I want both to be around for a while.

See you soon

Ed