Bryan Calvert - Brooklyn rustic: simple food for sophisticated palates

Eating with the fullest pleasurepleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignoranceis perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world.

WENDELL BERRY

W ITH THE RIGHT APPROACH , anyone can turn an average meal into an inspired one. Thats what this book offers: a straightforward way of cooking that makes your food more flavorful and your time at the market and in the kitchen more rewarding.

I call my approach Brooklyn Rustic because it mixes country simplicity with urban complexity. If youre like me, you love the food that youre familiar with, but you seek a little adventure in your life. My recipes show you how to begin with familiar ingredients and dishes and easily make them intriguing with the hint of something new, fresh, or different thats often right under your nose. This is old-world cooking that comes to life with modern ingredients.

I cook this way in Brooklyn, but you can and should cook this food anywhere. These recipes are built on staples that are available nationwide and use simple techniques that anyone can master. (If you want proof in a single recipe, try my tomato salad .) I tested them in my home kitchen using modest equipment, and backed those tests up with the experiences of friends and family.

I also include practical tips on approach, technique, and presentation to give you confidence, as well as essays about why I make the choices I do. Simple habits like shopping thoughtfully, taking a minute to finish a dish, or setting up your kitchen in a sensible way can make a big difference in your food and how much fun you have preparing it.

Because cooking and eating are so central to our lives, I also encourage you to think about the role of food in your world. For me, cooking the Brooklyn Rustic way actually means living the Brooklyn Rustic way: finding ways to listen to the rhythms of the natural world amid the tumult of a big city. That juxtaposition feeds me creatively and generates energy and ideas.

Ive cooked in four-star kitchens and over campfires in the woods. What makes a great meal is not technique or formality. Its the experience of sharing something handmade and witnessing the pleasure it brings. This is why I cook. With this book I return to the true purpose of preparing a meal: to fill your belly and to give something you created to people you love.

When I moved to the Prospect Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn in the mid-1990s, I thought Brooklyn was where you lived only if you couldnt afford Manhattan, not a destination of its own. I was wrong. Brooklyn has always had an attitude of independence, and exploded with a community of artists, craftsmen, and chefs seeking relief from the formality and expense of Manhattan.

I landed here after traveling around as a culinary journeyman, living out of my backpack as I bounced from the city to the countryside. I loved how the beauty and tempo of bucolic life contrasted with the energy and diversity of the city. As a cook in Manhattan, I didnt get to experience big skies and fresh air, but I soon discovered Brooklyn was a mash-up of those urban and rustic pleasures.

Around the same time, talented chefs began drawing attention to unique nooks on unheard-of avenues in Brooklyn. Untethered from high rents and demanding investors, they found the freedom to cook what they wanted. Farmers markets sprang up. Community and rooftop gardens sprouted in industrial neighborhoods. The pioneer spirit took root.

My moment came when the restaurant I was living above went up for sale. I knew it was time. (It had been a bodega with bulletproof glass surrounding the cash register a few years earlier.) I had opened restaurants before, but with deep-pocketed investors, veteran restaurateurs, and teams of experts. This time it had to be mom-and-pop stylepersonal and hands-on. It was a daunting undertaking. But one day, poking around the new space, I discovered an original tin ceiling from the turn of the century hidden under a cheap drop ceiling. It was perfectly preserved, and at that point I knew everything was going to be all right.