The "kitchen staff" of 10 is a group of longtime friends, five married couples, who have been gathering every few months for an evening of good food and drink, lively conversation and enjoyable company for going on 18 years. At the end of the evening, they will sit down and enjoy the fruits of their labors.
By: Pat Tanner
At 7 o’clock on a Saturday night, Chef Daniel Stern gathers his kitchen staff of 10 around the six-burner Viking Professional stove to give final instructions for the four-course gourmet meal they are preparing. He soon has Joe Pettinati rolling out small balls of chocolate ganache for the chocolate beignets that, along with an exotic endive parfait, will comprise dessert. Barbara Macks is kneading dough for the fennel-cumin dinner rolls, while her husband, Paul, deveins blanched romaine lettuce leaves, which he will fill with a mixture of braised, pulled rabbit and roll up into wraps, as part of the "rabbit two ways" that will make up the main course, accompanied by a mix of spring veggies such as ramps, fiddlehead ferns, and morel mushrooms.
What makes this scene unusual is that it takes place in the home of Amy and Barry Rabner of Princeton, and that the "kitchen staff" of 10 is a group of longtime friends, five married couples, who have been gathering every few months for an evening of good food and drink, lively conversation and enjoyable company for going on 18 years. At the end of the evening, they will sit down and enjoy the fruits of their labors in the Rabners’ spacious dining room. Barry Rabner, who is president and CEO of the University Medical Center at Princeton, doesn’t cook, but excels, he says, at cleaning up.
For most of their get-togethers, the group cooks for themselves in each others’ homes, but on this particular spring evening they have invited Daniel Stern, who until recently was executive chef at Le Bec-Fin in Philadelphia, to give them a cooking lesson. The evening had started off with champagne and hors d’oeuvres that showcased the chef’s style, which he calls "American with international influences." These included squash and curry soup served in liqueur glasses garnished with whisper-thin slices of rhubarb, balls of lamb kibbeh with yogurt-cucumber essence, risotto fritters with truffle and parmesan, and sea scallops with pecans and horseradish emulsion.
The club was the brainchild of Robin Frankwich of Huntingdon Valley, Pa. "Robin had all of us as common friends," explains Paul Macks, who had come with his wife, Barbara, from Havertown, Pa. "Back then many of us were in health care, and Robin knew everyone either professionally or through school." Three of the 10 were working as recreational therapists at the time, including Barry Rabner, and the others Ms. Frankwich knew from her student days at Temple University.
The idea for a gourmet club occurred to her soon after she and her husband, Lou, became parents. "After a few Saturday nights in a row sitting in front of the television set watching ‘Love Boat,’" she recalls with a laugh, "we said, We’ve got to do something about this. Who do we know who likes cook and eat?" At this point her husband interrupts to clarify: "It was ‘Fantasy Island’ and we were eating big bowls of ice cream at the time."
At this, everyone breaks into laughter. The evening is characterized by lots of good-natured needling, especially about respective cooking skills. Barry Rabner is not the only one in the group who doesn’t cook, although Amy Rabner points out that, "In this group, the men are more the cooks than the women."
Helen Pettinati of Fairless Hills, Pa., calls herself a dishwasher. "What impresses me most is when the others cook right from a magazine," she says. Ms. Pettinati’s husband, Joe, and another member, Sue Micklos of Haddonfield, are unanimously praised for their desserts, although Ms. Micklos calls her husband, Ron Zucca, the better cook in the family.
Barbara Macks is the club historian, assembling photos, menus and other memorabilia into a big album. "It used to be we always had a theme," says her husband, Paul, "food of a particular country, say Ireland or Greece, or a region, like New Orleans, or something like comfort foods. Over the years, we’ve done less cooking and more going to restaurants, mostly in Philadelphia and New York. We have also scaled back on the amount of food." To this, everyone voices agreement, with someone pointing out that "we aren’t getting any younger or thinner."
The group used to assemble every two months, but that can stretch to four or five these days. For their 10th anniversary, the club dined in a private room at the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, N.Y. Other outings have taken them to the opera and the Barnes Collection. They even mounted a sleepover at the Jersey shore, where they feasted on seafood, cooked up a "giant" breakfast, and were serenaded on guitar by Lou Frankwich.
Says Paul Macks, "We have never had an evening we didn’t enjoy. We’ve had food we didn’t enjoy there was a Greek fiasco we still talk about but we always have a good time." The group clearly relished Daniel Stern’s food, which Lou Frankwich praised as "sumptuous." Among the favorites was the first course of seared black sea bass with quince puree and Japanese eggplant.
In addition, these 10 professionals also enjoyed "dishing" restaurant talk with the 33-year-old chef, who has worked with the likes of Daniel Boulud, Gray Kunz and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Mr. Stern plans to open his own restaurant in Philadelphia in early 2005. Meantime, he is doing guest chef sprints at area restaurants and teaching top executives to cook. "I enjoy cooking at home myself, as well as getting people together just to have fun. It’s a great way to meet people who appreciate good food," Mr. Stern says. He couldn’t have picked a better group.
To contact chef Daniel Stern about a private cooking party, email him at [email protected] or phone (267) 408-0293.
DANIEL STERN’S
CHOCOLATE BEIGNETS
For the ganache:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
For the beignet batter:
6½ tablespoons beer
1 envelope dry yeast, diluted in 2 teaspoons milk
½ cup milk
2 eggs, yolks and white separated
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1-2/3 cups flour
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Confectioner’s sugar
For ganache: Place chopped chocolate in a bowl. Bring heavy cream to a boil, remove from heat, and pour over chocolate, stirring until chocolate is melted and cream is incorporated. Put aside to cool. When cool, roll into 1/2-inch balls and freeze.
1. For the batter: Stir beer and yeast mixture into the half-cup of milk, then slowly add the egg yolks and the two tablespoons of oil. Place flour in a bowl and slowly drizzle in the milk mixture, stirring until batter is smooth.
2. When ready to serve, beat egg whites to stiff peaks. Heat a deep saucepan half full with vegetable oil to 350 degrees. Fold egg whites into batter. Take chocolate from freezer and dip each piece into batter, making sure to coat all around, and fry until golden.
3. Sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar and serve.
Makes about 30 small beignets.
Pat Tanner can be heard each Saturday morning on "Dining Today with Pat Tanner" on MoneyTalk AM 1350 and www.moneytalk1350.com from 9 to 10 a.m.