Homage to the spring harvest

David Drake remembers the smells that changed his life. He was working a menial job in the kitchen of the Inn at Phillip’s Mill in New Hope, Pa., when he picked up the aroma of garlic butter being prepared for esgargot.

By: Jeff Milgram

Stage House Inn Chef David Drake’s menu for Princeton University Dining Services included smoked salmon and potato galette; duck leg confit with French lentils; roast venison with wild game sauce; mahi-mahi with braised fennel, mushrooms and aged balsamic vinegar; seasonal vegetables with fiddlehead ferns — and that was just the beginning!

   The smell was heavenly.
   Then he noticed the smell of real French onion soup. Magnificent.
   Before that, Mr. Drake mused Monday afternoon in the lobby of Princeton University’s Forbes College, he had not really liked food.
   After that, he would not like food ever again. He would LOVE food — especially French food.
   Today, Mr. Drake, a self-trained chef, still loves to cook the classics of French cuisine. His restaurant, the Stage House Inn in Scotch Plains, was named the third best for food by the readers of Gourmet magazine in 1999.
   Only now, Mr. Drake calls the food at Stage House Inn "new French."
   "I definitely have my roots in France," Mr. Drake said. "When I travel with my family it’s either to Disney World or France."
   But on Monday, Mr. Drake and his general manager, Lee Chasalow, traveled to Forbes College to oversee the preparations for a dinner prepared by Princeton University Dining Services using his recipes.
   The meal was duplicated Tuesday night at the Center for Jewish Life and the Graduate School; on Wednesday at Butler and Wilson colleges; and on Thursday at Rockefeller and Mathey colleges.
   In all, 3,000 students would sup on the likes of Mr. Drake’s homage to the spring harvest: smoked salmon and potato galette; duck leg confit with French lentils; roast venison with wild game sauce; mahi-mahi with braised fennel, mushrooms and aged balsamic vinegar; seasonal vegetables with fiddlehead ferns; and lemongrass ice cream.
   It is all part of the University Dining Services Garden State Series, which brings top chefs from New Jersey restaurants to the Princeton campus each year.
   And that’s not all — the menu also featured lobster bisque; peasant salad with baby greens, crisp French beans, walnuts and Parmesan cheese; roast French-cut chicken breast with baby vegetables; zucchini with a vegetarian stuffing; spaetzle; lemon curd and Jo Jo’s chocolate cake.
   If any Princeton student bemoaned the absence of "mystery meat" they were not complaining out loud.
   Mr. Drake is enjoying Princeton, touring the campus, lunching at Prospect House, visiting the Frist Campus Center and seeing the physics lab once presided over by Albert Einstein.
   The series gives the university’s chefs and cooks a chance to learn new techniques and recipes from top flight food professionals, said Stuart J. Orefice, director of the Dining Services. "They don’t get this all the time," Mr. Orefice said. "It’s helpful when the visiting chef is here."
   The university chefs are big fans of the Garden State Series.
   "It definitely gives the chefs an opportunity to flex our muscles," said Robert Harbison, the executive sous chef at the university.
   Mr. Drake was busy sampling the lobster bisque — the first batch didn’t have enough butternut squash and the color wasn’t quite right. He told the server not to be so stingy with the pumpkin seed oil dribbled over the bisque.
   Like a kid, Mr. Drake test sampled the lemongrass ice cream. It was creamy, he said, but the taste of lemongrass wasn’t very pronounced.
   Mr. Drake has won rave re views from The New York Times and New Jersey Monthly and a rating of 26 out of 30 from the Zagat Survey of New Jersey Restaurants.
   When meeting Mr. Drake it is impossible not to notice that he is missing his left hand. He is not overly sensitive about his hand, or lack of it, but he doesn’t want to be defined by it, he said.
   At 14, Mr. Drake lost his hand while playing with homemade firecrackers. He admits he was scarred by the loss of his hand until he went to Temple University.
   "At that age it’s bad enough when you have pimples," he said. "I tried to hide it."
   His first restaurant job was at Chez Odette’s when he was 16. He worked because his father taught him that if you wanted something in life, you had to earn it.
   Strangely, it was what he learned about contrasts and composition during a photography course at Temple that helped define his cooking later on.
   Mr. Drake worked two stints in the kitchen of The Frog and The Peach in New Brunswick, the restaurant that brought progressive American cooking to New Jersey in the early 1980s. He later went to work at Tacquet’s, outside Philadelphia, and made desserts at the Ryland Inn in Whitehouse.
   In the early 1990s, he went out looking for a restaurant of his own. He found Stage House Inn, a 17th century building in Scotch Plains.
   "It’s a very simple building," said Mr. Drake. "I don’t want people to think they’re in Scotch Plains. I want them to feel that they’re in France or in some inn in Maine."
   At the restaurant, Mr. Drake produces plates of seasoned dishes that are beautiful compositions.
   "Taste always comes first, but [presentation] is right up there," Mr. Drake said. "When you’re doing four-star dining, everything has to be at the same level."
   He likes to experiment with flavors and spices, developing his own mixture of curry powder, and he loves to cook with fresh, seasonal produce and unglamorous fish like cod and skate wings.
   For fun, he prepares exotic European fish like dorade, wolf fish and John Dory.
   What he doesn’t like are big plates of food. Mr. Drake wants Americans to take the time to try five-, six-or even seven-course meals of small portions.
   "People need to slow down," he said.
   The Stage House Inn is at 366 Park Ave., Scotch Plains. For more information, call (908) 322-4224 or see www.stagehouseinn.com.