Birk OHalloran - Eat ink: recipes, stories, tattoos

AVON, MASSACHUSETTS

Dedicated to those crazy souls who sacrifice their blood, sweat, and flesh to keep us full of fine food and art.

Michelin stars. TV show accolades. James Beard Awards.

The rewards of culinary success are great, but the path to the top is not for the faint of heartor the thin-skinned. In a world where careers are won and lost with the changing palate of the public, the kitchen is no place for a person who lacks passion. As such, the bodies of chefs are marked with burns from hot pans, scars from the slip of a bone-sharp blade, and marks from any sort of kitchen accident you can imagine. Many chefs wear their scars with pride, as badges of honor of a job well done and a career set on its way to the top. But the chefs youll find in this bookfrom Seamus Mullen to Dominique Crenn to Duff Goldmanare marked with more than these by-mistake memories of their time in the trenches. Instead, theyve marked their successes and failures with needles and time in the chair and have had their passions permanently inked onto their bodies.

Eat Ink tells you the stories behind these tattoos and shows you the talent of the tattoo artists who excel at their craft the same way the chefs profiled throughout excel at theirs. And, in case youve forgotten how these talented chefs got to the top, youll also find a recipe alongside each entry that highlights the chefs culinary point of view, a dish served in the chefs restaurant, or an ingredient that the chef cant cook without. With dishes like Gabriel Ruckers Beef Carpaccio, Broccoli, Oysters, and Wasabi Vinaigrette; Alina Eisenhauers Bread Pudding with Almond Brittle and Beer Jelly; and Rick Tramontos Gemelli with Chicken and Spring Herb Sauce, you can forget about ordering off the menu. With Eat Ink, you have unlimited access to the chefs table and beyond.

Different chefs create their dishes in different ways.

As you work your way through this book, youll notice that some recipes call for ingredients to be measured out by weight while others call for ingredients to be measured out by volume. To make sure you have the correct supplies on hand to make any of the dishes throughout, be sure to have a set of measuring cups and spoons at the ready to measure out cups, teaspoons, and tablespoons, as well as a kitchen scale to get an accurate measurement in grams or ounces. If you need to convert any of the measurements to the metric system, see the in the Appendix. Note that we have tried to format the recipes similarly for consistency, however just as each chefs ink is a form of self-expression, so are their recipes. We have tried to keep them as close to their original form as possible to give you the best understanding of their cooking style.

What I like about tattoos is its a piece of me, it becomes part of me. I know where I was, I know who I was with its a mark of time, its a passage of a place in your life.

Andy Husbands

Andy Husbands is the author of three cookbooks and the chef/owner of two restaurantsTremont 647 and Sister Sorelin downtown Boston, yet his culinary career started when he was just fourteen working as a baker after school. Andy graduated from Johnson & Wales University with a degree in food service management in 1993 and says, I loved it, every minute of it. Andy accepted his first sous-chef position in 1993 at the East Coast Grill, in Cambridge, MA. There, he worked under James Beard Awardwinning chef Chris Schlesinger and, in 1994, was appointed executive chef. Later, he took his motorcycle and traveled cross-country to work on a farm in New Mexico and apprentice in a few restaurants in San Francisco. His time out west later influenced his cooking, and he chose to focus on seasonal menus and bold flavors when he returned to Boston. In 1996, along with high school friend Chris Hart, Andy opened Tremont 647. The bistros new American cuisine centered around clean, classic grilling, but Andy pulled heavily from the spice rack as well and gained recognition for flavorful meals ranging from black bean soup to coconut jasmine rice. The combination of classic grilling with creative twists shows its longevity in Tremont 647s continued success sixteen years after its opening.

In 2000, Andy opened Sister Sorel, a second restaurant next door to Tremont 647 that still featured Andys signature bold and innovative style but was more casual in its concept. In September of 2004, after the success of his restaurants, Husbands released his first cookbook featuring his bold style, The Fearless Chef. In both 2008 and 2009, he was a semifinalist for the James Beard Awards Best Chef. In 2009, he competed on Season Six of Hells Kitchen, finishing eighth out of seventeen.

In between all of his successes, Andy started competing in BBQ competitions with his team iQue BBQ. He says, We just started doing it, me and my buddies. Its a weekend of cards and drinking and goofing around, but at some point we started getting really serious about it. In fact, they got so serious that iQue BBQ took first place out of 510 teams in the brisket category at the Kansas City Royal in 2007, and in 2009 they won the Jack Daniels Invitational World Championships in Tennessee. The experience inspired Andy and his coauthors to create his second cookbook, Wicked Good Barbecue, which came out in 2012. Today, Andy continues to compete with iQue BBQ at various competitions throughout the country.

As Andy was starting to get interested in cooking, he was also getting interested in tattoos. He got his first tattoo, the Led Zeppelin Swan Song logo, in 1987 and just kept going. In the mid-90s Andy started getting inked by Fat Ram of Pumpkin Tattoo, a well-known Boston tattoo artist who had one of the first legal tattoo licenses in the city. They worked together to come up with the piece that is now the medley of vegetables on his right shoulder, which is still in progress. However, not all of Andys tattoos were as planned out. He says, Sometimes Ill think long-term about [getting tattooed], like the one on my shoulder is a very serious piece. But, sometimes Im like, Ill just go get a tattoo. The tattoos of the pig, the cow, and the rooster down his right arm fall into that category. All three were done in separate settings and were spur-of-the-moment decisions to just get a tattoo. Today, Andy continues to enjoy the success of his restaurants, his desire for more tattoos, and his place among the best BBQ chefs in America.

Adapted from The Fearless Chef, Andy Husbandss first cookbook, coauthored with Joe Yonan in 2004.