GREAT HOME COOKS : A Cultivating Cook
Jorge de la Cal lives a civilized life in Silverlake. For one thing, there are always flowers--flowers in the yard, flowers in the house, flowers in the food. For another, he cooks and eats seasonally, regionally and well.
And he’s never bored: His garden is too big and demanding. There’s always something to harvest, something to cook, a recipe to find, adapt, devise. . . . He must, poor soul, spend one full day a week in the garden just to keep the profusion in check.
The garden in question is in the narrow, steep back yard of the hillside townhouse de la Cal shares with his partner Les Sechler. Four years ago, there was nothing there, it was a “clean slate,” as de la Cal puts it, except for a useless sprinkler system and a lot of wild fennel, a plant, de la Cal recalls ruefully, that has enormously long tap roots. Today, the only wild fennel in sight is in other people’s yards, and the former clean slate is now a series of terraces, each tier burgeoning with healthy, often exotic plantings. De la Cal, who is a soft-spoken man with a quick smile, says with evident relief: “We’ve gotten to the point where we don’t need to put in any more plants--we just need to manage the ones we have.”
An architect, De la Cal mixes living spaces with plants in a most inviting manner. At the base of the garden is the patio, where he and Sechler dine and entertain all summer long, a place surrounded by gardenias and flowering vines--clematis, plumbago, a Barbara Karst bougainvillea that seems determined to swallow the house.
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Above the patio is a wide-open bank of gray-green lavender, its serrated leaves and long purple spikes emitting a wonderfully sharp, soapy scent. And above that, beds burst with roses, penstemon, scented verbena, anemones, delphinium, geraniums and rock primrose. Vines and climbing roses cover the fence, creating privacy, insularity, the sense of a separate, blooming world. Finally, way, way up at the top of the lot, in the fullest sun, de la Cal cultivates his vegetables and other edibles.
On a fine day turned stormy this spring, de la Cal and I climb up to the food zone, pausing to admire the city view and the gathering clouds. Patches of sky are pale-green; the light, thick and golden, also has a green edge. The wind is whippy. Plants are beginning to thrash. Betty, de la Cal’s happy Aussie-mix dog, is energized. Clouds turn the color of lead. Over tree-plumped hills, we see the skyscrapers of downtown and from this perspective, it looks deceptively as if the whole city sits in a garden.
Up among the vegetables, it’s a bit muddy and in transition--de la Cal is installing an irrigation line. One gets a sense not only of what once was, but also what’s to come. Leaf lettuce, cress and French dandelion greens, which provided de la Cal and Sechler lavish salads all winter, are on the wane, and the chard is bolting. Youthful tomatoes, started from seed indoors, are just recovering from the big transplant into garden soil, as are a variety of peppers. Parsley curls out of cinder blocks set on their sides. A mature bronze fennel is dark, burnished and looks like an enormous bird with soft, exotically burnished plumage. A lime tree is laden. There are zucchini, cucumbers, all kinds of herbs. On the fence, a grape vine leafs out, with leaves so tender and green, they’re translucent--and perfect for stuffing.
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Over the four years de la Cal has tended this ongoing work in progress, experience has taught him a thing or two. He has learned, for example, from planting and cooking with many varieties of the herb, that French thyme is the most delicious.
As for tomatoes . . . he’s learned to keep it down: The first year, he planted way too many; his kitchen, he said, was full of bowls mounding with tomatoes: At first they looked pretty, but soon, they became a problem. Not every difficulty has been solved; de la Cal has not yet managed to get enough decent, full-sized ears of corn to justify the effort and space required for a crop. But that’s OK, there are plenty of other things to try: sugar cane, borage, tomatillos. . . .
The one thing that is not so civilized about de la Cal is his kitchen, which though tidy and well equipped, is small, pitifully small, for a serious cook and most especially because de la Cal is himself a residential architect. He has plans, he says, to make the space more workable, more open, more appropriate to his needs. In the meantime it’s definitely a one-man show. Sechler, luckily, does not yearn to cook. “I’m the in-house busboy,” he says. “I get to pour the wine, pick the flowers, clean up. Occasionally, I get to clean a mushroom.”
When he cooks, de la Cal exhibits a careful, precise attention to small details; vegetables are beautifully chopped, ingredients carefully measured, set out ahead of time for easy assembly. De la Cal acknowledges his precision with a laugh: “Yes, architectural training is hard to get over.”
Also, he cleans up as he goes along, every step of the way. “I have to,” he says, “three dirty dishes, and that’s the end of my counter space.” In addition to his precision and diligence in the kitchen, de la Cal is also intrepid: willing and ready to experiment, even on his guests.
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Such fearlessness has always characterized his cooking. De la Cal began cooking in high school. His mother, who prepared only Cuban food, “except for her lasagna,” he says, let him come in and take over the kitchen whenever he wanted to. She didn’t offer any instruction and de la Cal didn’t seek it. In fact, he has never cooked one of her dishes.
Instead, de la Cal taught himself to cook by diving straight into “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child. “I made elaborate dinners,” he laughs. “I cooked for special occasions. The more elaborate the better.”
His sister Mayi Brady, herself a professional cook, laughs when she recalls those days her brother commandeered the kitchen. “Veal Prince Orloff!” she exclaims. “That was the first thing he ever cooked.”
De la Cal frowns: Is this true? He can’t really remember his first dish.
Brady insists: “Who could ever forget food called Veal Prince Orloff?”
They both remember the first artichokes he cooked. “We didn’t really know what they were and had no idea how to eat them,” says de la Cal. “I kept boiling them and boiling them, waiting for the petals and barbs to soften.” Now, of course, there are silvery artichoke plants growing and bearing in his own back yard.
De la Cal will tell you that his elaborate days are over, but that may be a matter of opinion. On this Friday night, the menu is sorrel soup, turkey galantine with rice, honey-glazed carrots, mixed green salad with edible flowers, berries with cream. And when he gives us some of his favorite garden-inspired recipes, simple is not a word that comes to mind: Chicken is cut in strips, marinated in stages, spooned into individual servings and folded into neat little corn husk packets for cooking on a barbecue grill. It may not be Veal Prince Orloff, but it is a far cry from slapping on a steak.
Even if he’s just grilling vegetables, they are tossed first in de la Cal’s own scented oil (he takes a good olive oil, adds tarragon and pepper to one portion of it, roasted garlic to another, chiles to a third).
Elaborate? Maybe not. Civilized? Absolutely.
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Those who have chard in their gardens will know the challenge of finding new and novel ways to present this perpetually producing vegetable. The following is a faintly curried treatment adapted by de la Cal from “Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian Cooking. “
BRAISED SWISS CHARD 8 cups rinsed, stemmed and chopped Swiss chard Salt 1/4 cup oil 1 tablespoon whole black mustard seeds 4 cloves garlic, minced 1 dried chile crushed Freshly ground pepper
In pot blanch chard in lightly salted water. Drain completely.
Heat oil in large pan over medium flame. When oil is hot, drop in mustard seeds. As soon as seeds begin to pop, add garlic and stir until pieces are light brown. Add crushed chile and stir few seconds. Add chard and stir to mix.
Reduce heat to medium-low and cook 6 to 8 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Makes 4 servings.
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This recipe makes inventive use of the corn husks used to wrap tamales. (Check step-by-step photo instructions to see how to make the packets.) De la Cal got the idea from his friend Cheryl Carrington, who wraps just about anything in a corn husk and throws it on the barbecue to unfailingly good effect. The husks trap the steam and cooking juices as well as impart their own delicious, roasted-corn flavor.
CHICKEN IN CORN HUSK WRAPPER 1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast, cut in strips, or skinless, boneless thigh, cut in strips 3/4 cup herb and garlic marinade 1 tablespoon lime juice 1 small bunch cilantro Lime slices Corn husks soaked in water, 1 hour minimum Tomatillo Sauce
Cover chicken with herb and garlic marinade, 2 hours minimum. During final hour, add lime juice and turn pieces.
Make pocket of moist corn husks and place 6 to 8 chicken pieces inside, sprinkle with cilantro and add lime slice. Turn pocket ends over and tie with strips made from dampened husks. Place on grill when fire has died down. Cook 30 to 40 minutes turning often so husks don’t burn. Open packages and add Tomatillo Sauce. Makes 4 servings.
Tomatillo Sauce 6 to 8 tomatillos, paper husks peeled 1/2 red onion 2 chipotle chiles 1/4 cup beef broth 1/2 tablespoon salt
Chop tomatillos, onion and chilies in food processor. Add broth and salt.
Pour into saucepan and reduce over medium heat until mixture has consistency of thick sauce, about 1/2 hour, stirring occasionally to keep from burning. Makes about 3/4 cup sauce.
