Downey's to Dish No More

I had the great opportunity to sit down with John Downey a few weeks back and discuss, as he and Liz are shutting Downey's down after 35 years in a matter of weeks. (They're keeping the last night a bit of a secret to avoid a rush.) Alas, it was impossible to include everything we discussed in the Indy article I'm about to link to, but here's some of the extra info that I couldn't work in to that.

What's next?
"At 68 I find this really physically taxing. I know I look 40, say it," and he pauses for his very English joke to land, "but I beat the undertaker. I never wanted to be carried out from behind the line feet first."

Despite his jokes about mortality, one way he has stayed in shape over the years is hiking, including conquering Mt. Whitney. "I definitely have one Whitney left in me," he insists. "One of the retirement goals is to be in the eastern Sierras in the fall. For 35 years I haven't been able to be away from the restaurant that long, especially that time of year."

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So here's the start of the Indy article:

“When we knew we were going to close, we thought we’d just disappear into the sunset,” John Downey said about his recent announcement to retire. “Liz [his wife and stalwart in the front of the house] and I thought after a week people would say, ‘Downey’s, didn’t they used to be on State Street?’ Instead the outpouring of support has been overwhelming; we’re honestly touched by it. We take it as a validation of our work the last 35 years.”

If you want to read the rest, you know the drill, go to the Independent's site.

Up the Downey's Showcase

So that's a bad iPhone photo of a very good dish, round one at Downey's recent Celebration of Summer dinner.The rest of the meal was magnificent too--this is Downey's after all--and I'll jump to dessert in a bit, but right now I'd like to linger with this scallop. Yep, just one, but round as a Kennedy dollar (remember those?), and perfectly cooked--this is Downey's after all--translucent but done in the center and completely, evenly seared tan on the outside, but then cleverly sliced across its middle to make two perfect discs and divvy up that delicious sear into more bites. You will bite small, as you want it to last, as you want to taste, as you want to get a bit of the watercress, exactly dressed so each leaf is moist not dripping, and perhaps a sliver of endive too. The sprinkling of pine nuts, and how do they get each one toasted so similarly?, adds something crunchier plus that lovely, wispy forest floor flavor. And then there are the peaches--what a summer for peaches it's been here in Santa Barbara, and these, semi-dried, fight back a bit more with their chewiness, and therefore last more. Wash all that down with some Dragonette rose and you could go home after one dish sated with the essence of edible summer.

Let's then skip ahead to dessert, and the joy that is Persian mulberries. I've had some mulberries that seem, well, muddled--a bit more about the taste of the land than bursting fruity goodness. That's not the case with any John Downey ever serves, though. Here's they are made into an ice cream that's part of the world's most elegant ice cream sandwich, with the cookie part an almond dacquoise, surprisingly firm yet flaky and pleasingly crunchy. More crushed almonds are toasted around the circumference of this puck-a-licious blast of not-too-sweetness. I want another.

A Pretty Meal Is Like a Poem-ody

I guess you never quite escape your past, especially if it was verse than your present. For 14 years I stopped writing poetry for a slew of reasons that I'll reduce to my favorite glib one: You can only write the "language is a tool that fails us" poem so many times before you have to at the least convince yourself. Then in November 2011 the last SB Poet Laureate Paul Willis tricked me into writing one by inviting me to take part in a response to an art show. Still, one poem didn't mean that much.

Of course, it's hard to escape poetry in my house, given my wife is the new SB Poet Laureate. She keeps teasing me with assignments, and I can't help but respond as the hack I am--tell me what to do, when it's due, and I do. I'm thinking of it as poetry as journalism, but you can make the facts up.

All this is an intro to my first poem publication of the 21st century. The online food journal (and you knew food was going to show up, didn't you?) Alimentum had a call out for "menupoems" (they print it as a portmanteau), so I decided Downey's was as good a place as any to write my ode about.

You can go read "More Simple" here, about a third of the way down the page. Don't forget to tip your waitresses.

The Apple of My Eye

Downey's always leaves me thinking the old adage: Simple is not always best but the best is always simple.* And so, somehow after their Autumn Chef's Dinner earlier this month, and after all the other fine courses (including a homemade pasta with a light--yes, really--cream sauce and chanterelles, the pasta rung by kale, well, I could have had plates of that), I keep thinking of the dessert above, for which my iPhone photo does little justice.

Basically it's apple pie a la mode, isn't it? Well, I love my mom, but she sure didn't do this. For every element seems to have been labored over as if it were the only element, and you add all that care up and you get an apple dessert that will ruin you for any other. That crust, flaky and crisp, buttery but not so much it seems to ooze from your pores afterwards. Balance. Same with the apples, halved, perhaps, and then baked to the point you chew through without problem, but they still hold together--it's fruit, not sauce you're enjoying. That ice cream, vanilla and cream and enough (nothing worse than a la mode that a-la's away too soon). And then the caramel sauce, here importantly not too much--it's like a spice for the other elements that shine enough they only need a wisp of burnt sugar.

There is a reason we gave John Downey the 2011 Independent "Izzy" Award for Lifetime Achievement. The man can cook.

*Note: I do not always believe this, no way, nohow, as a lover of the Bradbury Building, Ulysses, and Phil Spector (producer, not murderer).