Linda and Fred were kind enough to invite me into their home. Over a bottle of wine, delicious homemade olive tapenade and fresh tomatoes right from their garden, we talked about Cleveland, food, traveling, cooking and a variety of other topics. I couldn’t get over how warm and genuinely nice they both were. It was a real treat.

Where does your passion for food come from:
From my marvelous maternal grandmother in New Haven, Connecticut, who cooked three meals a day until she had a massive stroke until she was 88-years-old. She even made bread several times a week. It was therapy, I think. I’m sure that as arthritis hit her so hard the thing that kept her body moving was probably making bread and having family gatherings and reasons for cooking for more people. I know that holiday gatherings were really important to her. She made soup every day, even in summer.

Favorite cookbook:
That changes all the time. I really don’t have a favorite. Craig Claiborne was one of the most influential writers because I taught myself how to cook from his first New York Times cookbook. He loved seeing that my copy of that book had lost its binding when I asked him to sign it. When I cooked for him, I actually had the confidence to feed him some leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner. We turned the turkey carcass and some of the stuffing into a sensational soup. That was pretty funny. I’ve always gotten a kick out of that.

I love reading Bud Trillin’s food pieces. I also enjoy the fact that I first met him when he was a college kid at Yale. He writes about visiting at Bill Horowitz’s house in Third Helpings. He roomed with the guy who married Bill’s daughter. I dated Bill’s son. My aunt and uncle were neighbors and close friends. The world is so small. But Bud and Alice have been close friends of close friends of ours so our paths also crossed in New York and Provence. Alice’s death is a huge loss for him.

Can Cleveland ever be thought of as a culinary destination? What obstacles do we have to overcome:
Nope. We’ll never stop trashing ourselves, I’m afraid. Also, I worry that too many people will continue to bitch about spending too much money for food. Like the grumping on the Food Forum and the complaints that $65 per person for an all-inclusive dinner at Tapawingo in Northern Michigan is too much money. It would be the same thing here. Even if it would include double rib lamb chops.

For example, Carrie Cerino’s. Dominic cannot change the look of the place because his regular crowd had fits. It has to look exactly like it did in grandma’s day. Can you imagine?

His brother fights him on every menu change, because the old-timers will complain. So, he has two menus, one with the regular menu and one with all of the specials. We have helped to bring a huge new constituency into that restaurant, but he still has the old group as well. So the menu has several pages. It’s actually rather funny. But, the place looks like 1964, just a clean 1964.

Look at Lolita and the number of times, now, that Michael has changed the menu. People don’t want to pay for good food and good ingredients. They don’t want to pay for high quality pork. Heritage pork is double the cost of what I would consider to be inedible pork at the supermarket. It costs so much more to handle them. No antibiotics. Pigs range free. But you also have to make certain that they get good feed. It is a very costly operation and they are rather fragile. The whole curing operation is time-consuming, itself. Actually, Armandino Batali (yes, Mario’s dad – he has a place in Seattle that Jamie and I are visiting in October, can’t wait) encouraged Dominic Cerino’s interest in curing when he and Marilyn came to Cleveland for our Terra Madre Benefit at Dominic’s invitation. Armandino just loved the idea that Dominic was the third generation doing that restaurant. They decided to stay for five days, in fact, and we arranged for them to stay at Baricelli Inn, which they loved. They spent several days exploring Cleveland and really became fans. They loved Little Italy, even though it is pretty small. They were astonished by University Circle, of course. Fred and I spent an evening with them in Tremont. They really had a very good time and they are great people. They are very well educated, as well. It is easy to understand where Mario gets his love of life.

Favorite one-tank trip:
Ann Arbor. Going to Zingerman’s, the deli, then the bakery, too, and being able to have a great meal at the Roadhouse. Also having a very long conversation with Ari Weinzweig who is the main creator of all those and who has been my friend for almost 20 years. But we will also have dinner with dear friends who have donated their personal culinary collection to the William Clement Library at University of Michigan. Jan Longone had been curator of the culinary collection there, but she and Dan had long before been dealers and collectors of both wine and culinary books. Jan has been well respected as a culinary historian for decades. And she has also been one of my mentors throughout my food writing years. I love going there and sitting on their basement floor and pouring through books that they have found. My own collection is for research, no value to anyone but me. Books can be held together with tape and many are.

Why do you think there are so many chain restaurants in Cleveland, and do you fear the influx of chains will continue to hurt locally non-chain restaurants:
I think they keep coming because people keep going to them. They run me nuts. Most of the money leaves the area. Food is of average quality but people are comfortable because the food isn’t threatening. They know they are the same as what they saw in Fort Wayne or in Reading…in any mall anywhere. Blech.

How can we get more people downtown to eat, or do you feel that’s not a problem:
People are afraid of people who look different from them. Clevelanders have never become comfortable with different neighborhoods and different kinds of people the way other Midwesterners have. Like those in Chicago or Minneapolis.

Favorite red/white:
Summer – I’m drinking pink! Whatever, from Provence, nice and cold. And good barbecue wine. A rich syrah from Provence or something interesting from Spain. I’m loving some of the wines made by young Spanish wine makers but have always loved Rosé wines in the summer. One of the problems since breast cancer, I have cut way back in wine. I would normally drink wine every night. I don’t any more. I’d be drinking lots of Loire wines in the summer. White ones, that is. Reds in the winter, the ones from Piedmont are my favorites – awfully costly now. The dollar has been worthless and I’ve not been adding much last two years. Too bad.

Top 5 spices every home chef should have:
Cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, cloves & coriander

What is your favorite restaurant in Cleveland:
That’s like asking me who my favorite child is and I have no favorite. Are you kidding me? I have a group of favorites and I will tell you that I learned back in November of 2005 just how marvelous it is to be somewhat part of the restaurant community in Cleveland. I’ve never felt so loved in my life. And really, I wasn’t in danger. My life wasn’t threatened at any time. But I really was so well cared for. The phone calls and the offers for help were just amazing. All the way through my treatments. Heck, I ran a benefit from my bed, for gosh sake. And I really mean this from the bottom of my heart…the food prepared by the following chefs, is really the food that I love:

Jonathan Bennett, Zack Bruell, Dominic Cerino, Matt Harlan, Doug Katz, Paul Minnillo, Michael Symon, Rocco Whalen and pastries by Cory Bennett & Todd Mueller.

Favorite and least favorite thing about Cleveland:
All of the carping about how bad it is here.

Favorite and least favorite thing to make:
Veal stock is a pain in the ass and I don’t do it any more, but I miss having it. I used to do it in my old house. I still make chicken stock, but I guess I no longer get the kick out of doing it. It’s work.

Fred and I used to cook together all the time, but since we started doing our cookbooks, Fred really stopped doing much cooking. I created all of the recipes for all but our first book; those came from chefs and were mine to make work and to put into one voice. For all of the other books, unless I happened to ask a chef friend for a recipe, they are all mine or from my family. I do all of the recipe testing. Sometime Fred helps, but rarely.

When I was getting chemotherapy, he didn’t do the best job cooking. One day I stood in the kitchen and I screamed at him that I was going to starve to death if he didn’t try harder to feed me.

Then I picked up the phone, called Jan Ross, and asked her to please make a few meals for me. She and John took over and fed me for a week. Then I could cook for the following week. Then another friend brought a pot of spectacular pea soup made from fresh peas. That really took care of me for a whole week. It was fabulous. And then I got through another week. And then I was fine, because I was finished with the drug that made me so sick.

Really, I had turned down so many offers and that was my stupidity but I thought that certainly Fred could take care of me. But he was too involved emotionally – I didn’t realize that. When my shoulder surgery happened this summer he was fine and he cooked. He isn’t as good as I am – I have been spoiled. (LOL)

Well before I started this blog, I’ve been fascinated with the food scene in Cleveland. I pay attention when places open and close. I try to support the independents as much as possible versus the overflow of chains in the area. It’s not that I’m totally anti chains; it’s just that I believe I’m getting a better quality product from the independents. Plus I like to support Cleveland and keep my money here.

As I’m writing this, many places are preparing to open in the next few months or have just opened. I’m scared for these owners and chefs. According to Zack Bruell, “…there is a 90 percent failure rate in this city for a restaurant within the first six months.” Battuto is the latest casualty in a string of wonderful dining options to close its doors. From this blog and from getting to know the behind-the-scenes people a bit better, I’ve gained some insight into why some of these places fail to succeed. While only a few really know for sure, a few insights include: the kitchen doesn’t know what the front of the house is doing, staff isn’t trained properly, the chefs egos are too big and become unwilling to give customers what they want, people don’t market themselves, inconsistent service/food, etc. Not to keep going back to Zack, but I think he said it best when he commented that “…the cooking part is easy, knowing how to run a business is not.”

It’s frustrating to me as a fan of many of the places that shut their doors that they just don’t seem to get it. I just heard a story about Paladar where the server couldn’t answer a question from a patron about the rum menu because they themselves don’t like rum. And this is a restaurant that has been highlighting its rum bar and extensive offerings of rum? Wouldn’t you properly train your servers on rum if this is a specialty? And I love the story about Battuto where the chef refused to provide fresh bread for people to soak up the sauce because that’s not how they do it in Italy. The list goes on. But one thing about all of these stories and learnings is the same: the kitchen doesn’t monitor the staff, chefs have too big of egos for our beloved city, people don’t market themselves properly if at all, etc.

If I owned a restaurant, I would spend just as much time training my staff as I would on the food. After all, they become the face of the restaurant and next to the food, are responsible for the customer’s experience. Good experience equals happy customer and positive word of mouth. When that person has a negative experience, believe me they will tell even more people and it becomes that much harder to overcome those negative perceptions. Why not stride to make each and every person that comes through your door your personal evangelist? And why not listen to what your customers are telling you. Seek out feedback. Learn from it. And if someone wants bread, give them bread! Finally, I would study from those that have made it work and seek to find out why others did not. There is a big talent pool here and a lot of successful stories. Don’t let egos hold you back and allow one of them to become your mentor.

Like I said, I’m not an expert and certainly have never been faced with the challenge of running a business. Hats off to those that do – I give you a lot of credit, especially in this market. These are just one customer’s thoughts, so take it for what it’s worth.