Entertaining with Flair: 1980
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Entertaining with Flair: 1980 In this relentlessly changing world, friendship and the art of dining still unite as a peerless buffer against present-let alone future—shock. And whether here or abroad, the ancient impulse of hospitality continues to build bridges even over what may appear to be the widest of generation gaps. This year, Food & Wine’s' Fall Entertaining observers have alighted in Paris, Milan, and New York to gather ideas and recipes from a markedly diverse group of hosts and hostesses. The common thread that binds them, you’llfind, is their ability to filter tradi tions of their native backgrounds through the meshes ofpersonal interests and tastes. PARIS: Nela Rubinstein ENTERTAINING/NEI.A RUBINSTEIN continued are few places I love as much as a farm. The dining “Every evening I make a fresh vegetable soup that room was always the center of activity for me as a takes all of ten minutes to prepare. I sauté cubed celery, child,” she reminisces, “and so it has been with Arthur carrots, potatoes, and leeks, a cup of each, for a few and me, especially when our children were young. We minutes in butter. I then add two cups of water and would have luxurious, long meals, two hours or more, cook the vegetables three minutes in a pressure cooker. taking us often into teatime, and we would play games When it is ready, I add a bouillon cube. Then I add and amuse ourselves around the table. Arthur smokes more water, depending on how thick I want the soup to long cigars and we would always keep him company be. I serve it with chunks of vegetables, or I purée it all until he finished, and that would often be another hour. in a blender and sometimes add a little heavy cream. It’s Sometimes we would play Scrabble, cards ... and years easy. You can’t ever go wrong with a soup. I have an ago, the children would sit and draw. enormous repertoire of them, including a kidney soup “At holidays like Easter and Christmas we would have and many variations of borscht. an orgy of cold veal and hams. Homemade mazurkis “I often make my own pasta, wide-noodle lazanki, as (flat, square cakes with a variety of crusts, topped with we call it in Polish, that I serve with chopped chocolate, orange preserves, etc.), or babkas, for dessert. mushrooms and onions. We start with iced Polish vodka And every day a copious breakfast—honey, jam, milk, and caviar and perhaps end with fresh fruit or cheese, coffee, cheese, salami.” or on special occasions a crème brûlée. Described by the press as “one of the world’s greatest “You may say I specialize in Polish-French- hostesses," she takes her compliments in stride. Her International cooking,” she says ebulliently. “For daughter Eva recalls: “With two small, electric portable example, in Marbella, I grow my own onions, garlic, burners and a minute table-top oven—which is often all potatoes, tomatoes, green and red peppers (I finally my mother has in a hotel suite—she can produce three- learned how to understand them), dill, tarragon, chives, and four-course meals in no time flat. Her efficiency is basil, rosemary, and even my own cantaloupes. I amazing, especially her ability to keep meals hot. My perfected a gazpacho Andaluz, but I often serve chlodnik. favorites are her dumplings, tarts, and other pastries, instead, a delicious, cold Polish soup that most people which she whips up in a kitchen as small as a closet.” have never tasted before. In Spain, I often prepare local For years Nela has been thinking about a cookbook dishes—chicken with garlic and wine, fresh local fish, which is now scheduled to be published by Alfred paella. Our evening meal is frequently “clabber milk,” Knopf. For this she has needed help. “I found someone sour milk which is like a custard; it tastes slightly like to follow me around, through each step, because to yogurt, and it’s made with raw, unpasteurized milk write everything down is complicated for me. I do not which we get down the road. I serve it with boiled measure when I cook. I go merely by the look and feel potatoes topped with skwarki—chopped bacon and of the food. And often I prepare something someone has onions fried together." served me the night before; it’s a challenge to guess at Every Rubinstein suitcase is crammed with mementos: recipes, and I find I have a sixth sense about ingredients. stuffed animals, drawing pens, good-luck objects of every The charming Rubinstein home in Paris is in a size and shape. What’s more, Nela brings dried Polish secluded square in the sixteenth arrondissement, next mushrooms from Italy to France, olives stuffed with door to a house lived in by Claude Debussy. There is a anchovies from Spain to New York, and Sapsago green colorful garden in front, and geranium-filled boxes line cheese from Switzerland to Spain. “I keep the cheese in the terrace of the second-floor balcony. Inside, Nela’s a wet piece of paper. It’s delicious with bread. And a touch is everywhere. A large Steinway is topped with particular favorite of my grandson, Jason. I sometimes photos of friends and admirers—Albert Einstein, Pablo mix the Sapsago with butter and make a paste.” Picasso, Albert Schweitzer, Arturo Toscanini—and green, A sense of humor pervades every Rubinstein Venetian glass ducks collected for every member of the discussion of food. “Sometimes there are near disasters,” family. A Chagall rests over the fireplace. Nearby, a smiles Nela. “In Beverly Hills, years ago, I gave my Pissarro, a Toulouse-Lautrec, a Picasso vase. There is an largest sit-down dinner. It was for fifty-four people, and awesome and happily-cluttered mix of objets d’art and my servants left the day before the party. I was memorabilia, and a wall-to-wall library of rare editions. devastated. So I rolled up my sleeves and made clear Off the adjoining, gold-draped dining room with its borscht, the carp en gelée, several sauces, pot roast with satin-covered, gray theater chairs is a white kitchen with mushrooms, and vegetables which I ground to fill two yellow tiles. It is sans decoration. “Some women may hundred crêpes, served au gratin with Béchemel sauce, like to receive Tiffany jewelry as gifts,” says Nela, “but I as well as crème brûlée and raspberries for dessert. It prefer rolling pins, pots and pans, knives, you-name-it. I worked out just fine. have cooking equipment everywhere I go—in New “My advice to busy women who enjoy cooking is to York; in Marbella, Spain, where we have a house; in keep everything unpretentious. That is the secret.” Switzerland, where we keep an apartment; in California, And Nela Rubinstein—who could toss off a list of where I visit children and friends.” celebrated guests as quickly as a salad—heads for her Her mode of entertaining varies but Nela prefers to simple, undecorated, white kitchen—past the Chagall, invite eight to ten people for dinner, and it is often the Picasso, the Steinway. Something in a plain, black-tie. “We have had after-concert seated dinners for inexpensive aluminum pot resting next to her pressure up to twenty people—light suppers—but I dislike big cooker is simmering on the stove. crowds. Our major meal is always at lunchtime. And you can bet it deserves a bravo. □ 34 food & WINE PHOTOGRAPHS/BARBRA WALZ Entertaining with Flair: A RedpeTortfolio 2 dried bay leaves Nela Rubinstein 10 dried juniper berries (optional) 1 cup diced, cooked ham Bigos (Polish Hunter’s Stew) 1 '/2 cups sliced Polish sausage This dish is usually served with baked or steamed potatoes accom 2 Tablespoons sugar panied by sour cream to which some Fresh, chopped dill has been l/2 cup dry white wine (optional) added. The stew can be reheated several times—in fact, its flavor improves upon reheating. 1. Preheat the oven to 250°. Season the pork shoulder with salt and pepper and place it in a small baking pan. Add Vi cup cold SERVES 6 waler to the pan and roast the pork for 1 hour. i'/2 pounds boneless, lean pork shoulder Sall and freshly ground black pepper 2. Cut the onions into quarters and. alter the pork has roasted for 3 small, yellow onions, peeled an hour, add them to the baking pan. Increase the oven tempera 3 pounds fresh or canned sauerkraut ture to 350° and continue to roast the pork until tender, about 1 1 */2 cups diced slab bacon hour or slightly more. Remove the roast from the oven and set it 2 medium-size apples, cored and sliced aside to cool. 1 can (2-pound, 3-ounce size) lialian-style whole tomatoes 3. Rinse the sauerkraut thoroughly in cold water to remove most '/2 pound mushrooms, sliced of its acidity. Drain it well. 2 beef bouillon cubes or 1 cup canned condensed beef broth 4. In a large, heavy saucepan or pot with a lid, layer the diced 10 whole black peppercorns bacon, then the sauerkraut, the apple slices, the tomatoes with 40 FOOD & W INE their juice, and, finally, the sliced mushrooms. If you are using The Sauce: bouillon cubes, dissolve them in 1 cup hot water and add it or the Pan drippings (see step 5) canned beef broth to the stew along with the peppercorns, bay 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter leaves, and optional juniper berries. Cover the stew and cook for Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste 116 hours over low heat, stirring occasionally after the first half 1.