Chasing Pirosmani and egg sandwiches

There were three hectic, marathon days of prepping and shopping. Almonds were blanched and peeled one at a time until they filled a great bowl, staring back up at me like pearls. Tiny plums called alucha were sampled in the store, sour as hell (in a good way) comparing the local ones and the more expensive ones from Turkey, understanding the local ones tasted better. The fattiest pork shoulder, the juiciest knobs of ginger, baby cauliflower, radishes, tarragon, mint, and chicken liver so fresh it smiled up at me from behind the case. This was all leading to a five course meal for fifteen guests, paired with a slew of wines from one of my favorite makers, a young woman, a mother of two, and a world-traveler. She makes pet nat and still wines, all natural - grown on her mineral rich soil in a quiet corner of land to the East. Her wine is often the first sip I have at a festival, setting the bar very high from the start of the day.

And then the day arrives, and I have slept for maybe five hours. Before I even have coffee, one of the three different doughs is pulled from the fridge, buoyant and ripe, ready for a final rise in the shokupan loaf pans before it becomes a sort of crumpet loaf that is crispy on the outside, and dense inside yet crammed with bubbles. Later, some naan dough will be mixed in that same massive bowl.

There are new boxes strewn across the living room table. I killed the food processor the day before, and had a replacement rush delivered in the middle of the night. I was grinding chicken livers at two AM, keeping everyone awake. Splashing in brandy, cold cubes of butter, passing it through the seive not once but twice until it became more cloud than food, smoother than smooth, then tucked into the fridge.

I do not forget to use both the red and green szechuan pepper corns in the filling for the Sheng Jian Bao (Shanghai style pan friend pork buns), not that the classic recipe calls for them but we are in Georgia, the crossroads of spice, drinking wine from the oldest traditions and methods, and the citrusy perfume they give is the right ticket to take the right train to a rare place that awaits. For once my feet are on the ground, and I am not second-guessing anything.

Everything is in its right place.

Then, packing up half of our kitchen and trundling the bags and boxes downstairs to the car like the Joad family travelling West. Huffing and puffing, sweating through a clean shirt, we roll off. And then bringing it all inside, setting up in a narrow back closet with one light bulb, and windows that open onto a courtyard where children play long into the evening, and laundry hangs, all black and faded and limp in the cool Spring breeze. This is the chef life that I get to visit on good days, a life outside of a desk and client comments on Slack and frame.io, outside of software and image files, outside of fonts and brand color palettes. This is the world of people that eat and drink the good stuff, and I am in the hot seat - it is time to wow them, to tease them, to surprise them, and ideally satisfy them. I have been an artist my entire life and I cannot say any of my art has done that, not by a long shot. If I knew the future involved TikTok and Youtube, I doubt I would have gone to film school. The world is going to be changed by a kickass egg sandwich way before an indie feature does that.

The night is a rollercoaster, bright shining faces both familiar and new, tongues rolling around the chili crisp I try to include in every menu, with some 20 ingredients that go into it. Roasted cauliflower that is glazed in white miso, harissa and tamarind, dressed with every fresh herb, my preserved lemons, and that bread made just this morning with the chicken liver mouse spread thick from great spoons, and an ice cold white gazpacho, garnished with sour and crunch and fragrance, eventually leading to a fresh pasta - tonnarelli, cut on my chitarra, with a deep tomato sugo that cooked from nine this morning, splashed over garlic and calabrian chili and anchovy that sizzles in good oil, finished with a handful of breadcrumbs, as poor and salty and hearty as it gets, the spirit of Palermo transplanted here, gobbled up by guests that are drunk in the best way.

At one point a tiny man appears. There are always oddballs that present themselves. He looks like a lopsided raisin, dressed all in black, his face withered, a handful of teeth left in his mouth. I know he has not paid for anything, and will drink for free, it is normal. I see him sneaking a plate of pasta that is not his. I also see him poking around the garbage bag pinned to the window that hangs in the darkness behind me. He eyes me and I eye him. He only speaks Georgian so it is hard to say anything but at one point someone translates for him. He is telling me my pasta is undercooked, that it must be very soft. I explain that I cook tonnarelli like they do in Rome, al dente. He does not back down, but in an act of pure generosity, he tolerates my free toothy pasta in the name of diplomacy.

There is a Georgian painter from the late 18th century (he died in 1918) named Pirosmani. He lived from day to day, performing odd jobs, and could not afford canvas and sometimes painted on the scraps of wood he found. He paid for meals with these paintings in many places, and in a classic stroke of irony, they ended up being quite valuable. I tried to see the little raisin man in this light. He went to shake my hand a few times, and his palms were ice cold. He could not grip my fingers, his hand like a limp, dead fish. There was a lot of nodding of heads.

He did remind me a few more times that pasta should be cooked until it is very soft, he could not let that one go.