Kitchen Sink Cooking
One of my VIP guests/clients (yeah, I know they are all VIPs, yeah, but not really) recently read a novel by Stephen King, which makes mention of Brunswick Stew. He had to try it. Outside of our soul food kitchen, you can’t find Brunswick Stew anywhere else in Tel Aviv or Israel, at least not that I’m aware of. So, I’m the address for this dish.
Which is weird. In fact, my client wrote to me after the fact using the very same language: “It’s weird that it works,” he writes. “But it really does.” I think I know what he means. Virtually everything else on our menu focuses on a single ingredient, highlighting or at least trying to highlight, the complexities of that one ingredient: Watercress Soup, Gravlax, Baby back ribs, the list goes on and on. Pretty much the one exception to our practice is the Brunswick Stew, which has the whole kitchen sink thrown it if you order the full monty: okra, tomatoes, corn, potatoes, onions, celery, bell pepper, garlic, jalapeno, chicken thighs, sausage, bacon, shrimp. OK, you get the picture. I even threw in some chanterelles I had lying around because I thought they could add a bit more flavor, go figure. He loved it. That is not always the reaction I get I should say.
Brunswick Stew reminds me of when my (ex) wife was pregnant with our soon to be #2. I found it incomprehensible to imagine taking the love I felt for our daughter and somehow dividing it with this newborn. It doesn’t work that way. The love simply expands., grows, with the addition of a new family member. That’s part of what Brunswick Stew is to me — ever-expanding love. Brunswick Stew for me is hardcore childhood Savannah: in-your-face, unadulterated, good-to-the-last drop goodness. It is either one of the crudest dishes you will ever taste or one of the most complex. But I don’t really give a fuck to put an adjective on memory and longing. What I will say is this: Sometimes, in a lifelong quest for simplicity, distilling the very essence of something to its very core, we find ourselves on a journey into the messiest of stews, where nothing is neat or tidy or beautifully compartmentalized. And that, to my mind, is the essence of Brunswick Stew.
