THE NEWYORKER, APRIL 13, 2020 9PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC HELGAS FOR THE NEW YORKER; ILLUSTRATION BY JOOST SWARTE
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TABLESFORTWOChefs Take to Instagram
The other day, the chef Tom Colicchio,
whose four restaurants in New York are
currently closed, posted a short video on
Instagram, demonstrating how he was
using leftover roasted Brussels sprouts
and carrots to make lunch. (Or was it
breakfast? A fried egg was involved. The
hours, and the meals, have begun to blur.)
He started by drizzling some oil into a
pan. “Does it matter what oil?” whispered
the person behind the camera. “No. Right
now, nothing matters!” Colicchio re-
sponded, chuckling.
Emma Bengtsson, the executive chef
of Aquavit, in east midtown, filmed herself
preparing an easy meat sauce for pasta.
She had ordered a tripod online, she said,
but it would take two weeks to arrive; in
the meantime, she was using a head of
broccoli to prop up her phone. She would
normally add green olives to her sauce, but
her grocery store had been cleaned out.
Eric Ripert showcased a smoked-
salmon grilled cheese and an incredibly
simple butternut-squash soup, the likes
of which you would never find at his
restaurant Le Bernardin. In one caption,
he included a warning to would-be de-tractors. “If you are a great Chef-Cook,
a purist and have access to... abundant
diverse ingredients, great equipment etc,”
he wrote, “I am very happy for you and if
my cooking methods are not interesting
enough for you ... don’t bother following
and posting negative comments.”
In the wake of their restaurants clos-
ing, many of New York’s most prominent
chefs are agitating on behalf of their des-
perately strapped industry by organizing
employee-relief funds, writing op-eds, and
urging constituents to call their represen-
tatives to demand government aid. In the
moments in between, many are taking to
the Internet to share tutorials, tips, and
glimpses of what they’re up to in isolation.
Their posts are, on some level, meant
to inspire. But what I like best about them
is how forgiving they are, how they let the
home cook off the hook. If you want help
making sourdough bread—a finicky and
time-consuming project, just the sort that
many are seeking right now—you can find
it in spades. If you only have the time and
energy to focus on feeding yourself (and
not a needy levain starter) with limited
resources, look to restaurant chefs, who
are usually so busy cooking elaborately
for other people that they’ve developed a
special shorthand for cooking for them-
selves. You can learn it, too.
“The microwave,” declared David
Chang, of Momofuku, in a recent post, “is
a machine from the future here in present
day. If you think a microwave is bad for
you ... throw away your smartphone.”
He used his to “hammer” (kitchen slang
for “overcook”) some sausage with oliveoil, garlic, onion, and chili flakes. Then he
boiled orecchiette, adding “old broccoli
rabe” and turnip and radish tops to the
water at the last minute, and mixed every-
thing together with MSG and fish sauce,
because he didn’t have Parmesan cheese.
“This is not how you cook in a restaurant,”
he wrote. “Who cares ... tasted great.”
Christina Tosi, the force behind Milk
Bar, has launched a baking club on Insta-
gram Live; prior to each meeting, she
posts photos of piles of various ingredi-
ents, informing her followers that they
need only one item from each array, Mad
Libs style. If you don’t have all-purpose
flour for cutout cookies, you can grind oats
in a blender, or even use Bisquick pancake
mix. If you don’t have a rolling pin, you can
use a wine bottle or a foam muscle roller.
Rita Sodi, the chef behind I Sodi and
Via Carota, offered a recipe for humble
potatoes, fried with sage. Natasha Pick-
owicz, of Café Altro Paradiso and Flora
Bar, posted dreamy doodles of cakes and
galettes. For months, Frederico Ribeiro,
who co-owns Té Company, a West Vil-
lage tea shop and restaurant, with his
wife, Elena Liao, has been using Insta-
gram Stories to document how they eat
at home, in a charmingly deadpan se-
ries he calls “Chez Fred.” Recently, while
making breakfast sandwiches, he noted
that he’d forgotten to rub garlic on the
bread before he spread it with mustard,
“so I’m just gonna rub the garlic around
the bread.” “Seriously?” said Liao, off
camera. Later, she sighed deeply. “Oh,
what a stressful time.”
—Hannah Goldfield