96 JUNE 2020
running the kitchen as chef de cuisine when Hamilton em-
barked on a lengthy book tour. He will tell you that the most
fundamental lesson he took from that experience was how to
simplify cooking so that food requires the least amount of
attention once it comes into contact with heat. (It’s the prin-
ciple that guided us through the writing of our new cookbook,
How to Dress an Egg.)
During that same time, he turned more and more to fishing
as a sanity-saving counterpoint to the frantic pace of a busy
Manhattan restaurant. In the fall, when game fish corral huge
formations of bait, he might catch half a dozen species. In
the way that the mercurial gods of fishing bedevil fishermen,
on the day that we shot this story, the sea was as calm as a
lake unruffled by even the memory of a breeze. There were
no signs of fish: no diving birds, no scrums of stripers,
mouths agape as they chomped their way through a school
of hapless menhaden. Undaunted, Baldwin took note of the
moving tide and followed it at a slow pace along the sea-
mounts and valleys where experience has taught him there
might be fish. Like the pilot of an aircraft flying on instru-
ments, he kept an eye on the sonar screen and advised the
rest of us to ready our tackle and bait our hooks with strips
of squid. Sure enough, from time to time, we’d pass over a
body of fish, and Captain Ned sounded the alert.
“Fish on the drop-off about 20 feet down.”
Hearing those hopeful words, the rest of our
party of four roused from our summertime leth-
argy and grabbed our rods as Baldwin, all 6’2” and
215 pounds of him, leaped onto the narrow railing
by the cockpit and steadied himself, taking up a
fishing station in the bow. He reminded me of a
grade school kid clambering up a jungle gym.
Concentrating on what was going on in the sea
below us, we hardly spoke as we bounced our bait
along the bottom. Tap-tap and then nibble-nibble
as a fish showed some interest. The trick, then, is
to strike at just the right time and drive the hook
home before the fish escapes with a free meal. At
each stop that afternoon, we picked up fish. On
one pass, we boated a few porgies—not a glamorous
game fish like striped bass but a nice size for grilling. Also
black sea bass, a plentiful and delicious native of local waters
that can be steamed, filleted, and pan-roasted, or grilled whole.
I got the feeling, as we motored home, that Baldwin was
dreaming up recipes as he guided the boat to its mooring.
With some anglers (me, for instance), my batteries are so
drained after a day of sun and fishing that I’m not in the
mood for an intense cooking session; just some foaming
butter in the pan and a seasoned fillet usually suits me fine.
Not Baldwin, though. It’s as if the thought of a cooler full of
the freshest fish gets his gastronomic gears in motion.
As we uncorked a few bottles of Pét-Nat to slake our thirst,
Baldwin cooked his way through the day’s catch. He glided
about the kitchen as smoothly as he handled his boat. Watch-
ing him, I thought, “Do we fish to eat, or do we eat to fish?”
In Ned Baldwin’s case, the answer, no doubt, is both.RIENT POINT, ON LONG ISLAND, New
Yo r k , juts into the ocean like the head
of a spear poised for a flight across the
wide Atlantic. A few miles offshore,
plumes of warmer water whirl off the
Gulf Stream, where they mingle with
the coastal waters, attracting fish of
every description. In autumn, they are joined by convoys
of ducks and geese, gaudy monarch butterflies, breaching
humpback whales, and leaping porpoises. Scientists have
told me it is the largest migration of wildlife on our planet.
And where there are fish in great numbers, you are liable to
find fishermen, among them chef Ned Baldwin. When he is
not behind the stove at Houseman, his widely praised New
York City restaurant, it’s a good bet you’ll find him at the
helm of his boat, the Hazel Ann (named after his daughter
and his wife). I think of it as the seagoing reflection of its
skipper: full-size, more steady than speedy, but adequately
agile. “When you get down to it,” Baldwin says, “it’s a float-
ing pickup truck: a 1985 Ford F-150 with a bench seat and
manual windows.”
Whenever Baldwin is on the water, his eyes sweep the
horizon for massed sea birds attacking hapless baitfish, often
a sign of bigger fish on the feed. At such times, Baldwin locks
in on his target and opens the throttle on his 27-foot boat.
As he nears the commotion on the ocean, in one brief and
continuous motion, he cuts the engine, grabs his rod as he
glides into casting range, and tosses a baited hook
into the mayhem. Depending on the tide, the
season, and a mix of luck and skill, he might
catch striped bass, bluefish, blackfish, sea bass,
weakfish, flounder, or porgy—all candidates for
the table at his nearby weekend home. A true
fishaholic, he thinks nothing of finishing dinner
service at the restaurant and driving over 100
miles to where his boat and tackle await, followed
the next day by something like this report he
texted me last September.
“Left restaurant in time to get out at midnight.
Slack tide was at 3 a.m. so caught the last couple
hours of the outgoing from the beach. Came
home, drank a Manhattan, cooked kielbasa with
something and something else that I wish I could
remember. It was weird and good. Slept two
hours. Up before sunrise and out on the boat chasing birds
all morning.”
Baldwin fell into cheffing almost by accident. He was a
struggling sculptor and furniture builder in the South Bronx,
trying to make it in a world where newcomers stand little
chance of breaking into the high-rolling gallery scene. One
afternoon while strolling through the Lower East Side, he
noticed a menu displayed outside Prune, Gabrielle Hamilton’s
celebrated restaurant. After one meal, Baldwin found his call-
ing. A year of persistent requests later, Hamilton took a shot,
offering him an entry-level job where his duties included egg
scrambling at Sunday brunch. By the end of his four years
with her, though, his natural talent and hard work found himO
How to Dress an Egg:
Surprising and Simple
Ways to Cook Dinner
by Ned Baldwin
and Peter Kaminsky
($30, Rux Martin)CO
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