O
B
S
E
S
S
I
O
N
S
30 NOVEMBER 2019
she and her husband call home, she sets the
hot seeds aside to cool while gathering the
prescribed garlic, parsley, oregano, lemon,
salt, and chile flakes. She blitzes them in the
Vitamix her mom bought her when Zauner
was in college, in which she blended smooth-
ies for breakfast that morning. Next, she
tosses in the seeds and pours in some olive
oil, whirs everything together, then slowly
streams in more oil until she’s reached perfect
pistou consistency. “This is fun, following a
white man’s recipe,” she says, laughing. “I’ve
never done that.”
Despite the significant differences in their
cuisines of choice, she and Devillier have
something in common: Food is a connec-
tion to their parents. In the introduction
to Devillier’s book, he tells readers that his
mother, who had a catering company in
addition to her day job as a health care pro-
fessional, “was a total kitchen workhorse,
plowing through prep,” and let him tinker
in the kitchen from a very early age, teaching
him vital life skills like how to make grilled
cheese and fried eggs.
When his parents divorced, young Devillier spent a good
deal of his weekends with his dad flipping through Paul
Prudhomme’s cookbooks. His Louisiana-born father had these
“not because he wanted to master the art of Cajun cooking, but
because he missed the food of his childhood.”
Once Devillier left home for culinary school, he got a job
at a New Orleanian–leaning restaurant, which, he writes, “I
specifically sought out because of my dad’s influence. We’d
gone to New Orleans to visit his side of the family when I was
a kid, and I’d always loved the Creole and Cajun food, rich in
French and Spanish traditions, but mixed with West African
and Southern influences.”
Today, he’s the executive chef of NOLA’s La Petite Grocery, the
restaurant he co-owns with his wife. There is nothing random
about his ending up in that city or his writing this cookbook.
Having become proficient in the techniques of the multi-hybrid
cuisine he fell in love with as a child, he wants a new generation
of home cooks to discover it and acquire those skills he first
began to pick up in the pages of his father’s books.
Your second clue that Zauner has thing for food comes as she
squeezes a lemon. Watch as she closes her bright green citrus
press on a halved section of the fruit and clamps down on it.
Just when you think she’s wrung as much
liquid out of that lemon as is humanly pos-
sible, she puts it back in its crushing device
and manages to tap it for more juice. This she
will add to the pumpkin bisque (made, today,
with butternut squash and lobster stock). “If
a dish doesn’t have acid, it’s inedible. I need
it to feel fulfilled,” she says.
The soup is found more than fulfilling;
it is, she announces, “the brightest bisque
I’ve ever had.” And this is the third clue: her
genuine excitement in discovering just how
bright a soup—and one she made, without
much effort—can be. Or how she thrills to
the thought of other applications for the
remaining pistou (which is also a knockout):
toast (ricotta optional) or “even in a spring
noodles dish.”
In The New Orleans Kitchen, Devillier
and co-author Jamie Feldmar have armed
readers with the necessary information—the
right details, clearly articulated. What the
book might lack in narrative or anecdotal
material, it makes up for in functionality. For
Zauner, food—and the act of preparing it—is personal, but she
appreciates Devillier’s cookbook for steering her repertoire
in a new direction and acknowledges that a story isn’t always
necessary, so long as the shrimp and grits or seafood boil (or
whatever it is you’re trying to reproduce) comes out the way it
should—and tastes good. Besides, Denny Culbert’s photographs
of the dishes and the city that inspired them are so evocative
that Zauner doesn’t miss the “sharing” on the part of the chef.
What Devillier does share is a technical warning about the
beignets, telling readers that this is one of the trickiest recipes
in the cookbook. Practice and patience are required. Zauner has
set expectations accordingly. Good enough to eat on its own
as a rich crabmeat salad, the filling is bound by mascarpone,
a revolutionary idea as far as the musician is concerned. She
is surprised people don’t put it into other things.
Although she knows she should wait a few beats, she can’t
resist tasting the fritter only seconds after it has left the hot
oil. The beignet, she says, is like “a cross between a crab cake,
arancini, and a takoyaki, kind of.” Only someone who spends
a lot of time thinking about and eating food would find refer-
ences to Italian rice fritters and a Japanese ball of octopus in
a New Orleans classic. “I think we did an above-average job,”
she says, grinning.
The New Orleans Kitchen
by Justin Devillier
and Jamie Feldmar
($40; Lorena Jones Books)
Musician Michelle Zauner
performs under the name
Japanese Breakfast. She
is also the author of a
forthcoming memoir.
PH
OT
OG
RA
PH
Y^ (
FR
OM
TO
P)
:^ E
BR
U^ Y
ILD
IZ,
CO
UR
TE
SY
O
F^ P
EN
GU
IN
RA
ND
OM
HO
US
E
