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OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN Spice Rack Chef: Jason Hicks Discovering unusual spices and herbs, one jar at a time Residence: Larchmont Restaurant: The Peacock, The Shakespeare, Jones Wood Foundry—all in Manhattan [ Biber ]

Chef Speak e all chart a path; Jason Hicks’ runs from Cotswold lanes to “We’d come back with WMidtown mêlée, with con- bags of lima beans or sweet tinents for side trips. It’s taken decades, peas or Brussels sprouts—back brilliant— boning out pieces of but this English country boy, raised on then, I’d never eat Brussels meat, making soufflés. I was good farm and field, has found a home in sprouts unless they were my at it, just like in Home Ec.” Great, New York suburbs and purpose in New grandfather’s…That’s where except he’d neglected to tell them York restaurants. the seed was planted to he hadn’t graduated high school. aka... It’s not been easy. There was childhood become a chef.” He would be allowed to stay only Isot Pepper angst of divorce, moves, and delinquency, if he passed his upcoming exams. He the obsession to fit in. “My mom remarried and did, with “distinctions across the board. Flavor Strength we moved to Birmingham. And the rest is history.” Soon, That’s where I went off the there were hotel restaurant rails. I wasn’t trendy and the jobs (“they liked me but gave guys teased me. They had bet- me a hard time because I was mild pungent ter bikes and designer clothes. I this cocky kid”), banquet jobs, was a bit of a country bumpkin.” work in London, part-time in Bumpkin, maybe; victim, no. a Cotswold Michelin-starred Description: If you don’t like They had swagger, but he had kitchen, then borrowing mon- your chili peppers super-hot spunk—and the nascent resil- ey to open his own place in a than Urfa biber is the pepper ience that would come to serve pub’s spare room. He was 19. for you. Unlike most dried him well. “I was always good And then the world beck- peppers that are ground into flakes and powders, Urfa is at making friends, and when oned. First New Zealand, then not simply dried in the sun; it’s you’re in that environment, you Australia, cooking at a gold alternately sun-dried and then start to prove yourself.” And he Hicks outside his home in Pai, Thailand 22 years ago—a mine, on an oil rig, at a ski wrapped to preserve moisture, did, but to an extreme, pull- bamboo/grass hut. resort. There was Aboriginal which results in a rich purple ing pranks and getting kicked Bush cooking in the Daintree color, a smoky chocolate- out of school at 15. At 15? “You were trouble!” I splutter. rainforest, and later, curries cooked over fire in Thai raisin-aroma, and a fruity, “Yeah, but cute trouble,” he’s quick to correct. “I just did village huts. There was backpacking through Malaysia, peppery flavor. Urfa biber innocent, stupid things like knocking on teachers’ doors Singapore, and China. Ready to return home, connect- can be used in dips, sauces, and running away, or going into peoples’ orchards to ing for London at JFK, he phoned a New York-based stews, and braised meats, with nick their apples.” pastry-chef friend, made a visit, and never left. roasted and red Trouble, okay, but responsible, too. If he couldn’t go He spent 10 years at the Manhattan bistro La Goulue, peppers, and also in sweets to school, he’d go to work. Years before, he’d spent hours plus stints at Orsay, Aureole, and in Connecticut. He like brownies, chocolate cake, visiting with his grandfather in his garden. “We’d come married a New Yorker, had three children, and then the and ice cream. back with bags of lima beans or sweet peas or Brussels bumpkin returned to the spiritual country in the form of sprouts—back then, I’d never eat Brussels sprouts un- Jones Wood Foundry, the Upper East Side pub he built You Might Like To Know: Biber less they were my grandfather’s. It’s a family joke to this and opened in 2009. And, just this past December, his means “pepper” in Turkish and Urfa is a region in southern day. That’s where the seed was planted to become a chef.” British cuisine colonized the Grand Central neighbor- that borders Syria. He took work as a farmhand, driving tractors and baling hood with two restaurants in the regally intimate The hay, but had grander dreams. “I’d always loved cooking; William Hotel: the Foundry clone The Shakespeare; and Easy Recipe: Urfa Biber Chip at school in Home Ec, everything I made was always the refined, clubby multi-parlor The Peacock, with its Dip—1 cup Greek , 1 cup good. I made the best cakes.” melding of British classics and American modernity. “I mayonnaise, 4 oz goat cheese, He took a part-time job as a dishwasher and floor- remember my mum taking me to a club in the country- 3 diced scallions, 1 Tbsp of mopper at a local grill, and the seed blossomed. “The side for Sunday lunch, and these are the kinds of rooms crushed Urfa red pepper, and chefs were crazy and I enjoyed the energy in the kitchen.”. that were there,” he says “It’s nostalgic.” Nestled on a sofa salt and pepper to taste. Soon, it was off to a steakhouse as a prep cook, and then in this paneled Peacock salon, he’s clearly home. —JBT cooking school. “I absolutely loved it,” he recalls. “It was —Diane Weintraub Pohl

Sizzling… Heating… Fizzling… Butter Butter Peanut Butter

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