Chef and Author Pascale Beale: The Flavor of the Month

BY STACEY GUALANDI

For all of you cooks, recipe collectors and wannabe chefs looking to add a little flavor to your meals, look no further than chef, instructor and prolific author Pascale Beale.

Beale hopes to tempt your tastebuds with her just-released 11th cookbook, “Flavour, Savouring the Seasons: Recipes from the Market Table.” It masterfully collects the essence of spring, summer, autumn and winter into 150 mouthwatering and flavorful recipes.

The book is the eagerly awaited finale of sorts to her photo-friendly foodie series, which includes “Salade and Salade II,” “Les Légumes: Vegetable Recipes from the Market Table” and “Les Fruits: Savory and Sweet Recipes from the Market Table.” She also authorizes a multimedia book called “9’ x12’ Culinary Adventures in a Small Kitchen.”

“Everything I teach is about seasonal eating,” Beale says.

Based in Santa Barbara—by way of London and France—Beale’s early love for food was inspired by her French mother and grandmother, who taught her the traditional art of cooking.

She came from a very large family where everyone cooked. Ever since she was a little girl, she “grew up cooking lots of food.” It paid off. Now, the best-selling author is a multi-award-winning food columnist and photographer for Edible Santa Barbara.

Friendships with culinary icons Julia Child and Michel Richard motivated her to create Pascale’s Kitchen, a California-based cooking school, in 1999. Her mission is to “share her knowledge and passion for California-Mediterranean cuisine with all aspiring cooks.”

On a recent visit to Santa Barbara, I enrolled as a student of Beale’s and sampled “Flavour” first-hand.

You’ll not often find this rookie cook shopping at a farmers market. Still, it was exciting to follow along with our own personal chef (other more experienced students also joined) at the legendary Santa Barbara Farmers Market.

To start, we went shopping for menu ingredients for Honeydew, Green Tomato and Mint Salad, Ratatouille Shakshuka and Last-of-Summer Stone Fruit Galette.

Booth by booth, it was the perfect opportunity to help Beale select and find our list of optimum (seasonal) ingredients and interact with the local farmers, some of whom have been there since the 1970s.

“Know your farmer and know where your food comes from,” Beale insists.

In late September, stone fruits were on their way out while figs were moving in. I learned what a pluot (plum/apricot) and patty pan (squash) are, and we found the ideal mint for our salad. I wish you could smell it!

While preparing our feast in Beale’s official 9′ x 12′ kitchen, it didn’t take long to understand that when food is truly at its freshest, you can taste it as you eat it.

When Beale asked us, “What is the taste of summer to you?” We said melon, tomato or corn. But when she asked, “What is the taste of winter?” We named a dish, not the actual flavor. It made me think of what each season truly tastes like.

Once our work in the kitchen was done (we had a phenomenal meal, if I do say so myself), I sat down with Beale to ask what it’s like to be the flavor of the month.

Chic Compass: Had you planned this book all along?
Pascale Beale: I wanted to write a book on cooking with herbs, but one person on my publishing team said, “I don’t think I would buy that book.” After that conversation, I really thought about what would tie the Market Table book series together. All those books are ingredient-driven, and I always talk about seasonal eating. “Flavour” encapsulates all of that. It covers discovering the taste of every season. It was a year-long project.

Chic Compass: You created the recipes as the year went on. What inspires your recipes?

Pascale Beale: I’m inspired by art, markets and travel. One recipe, for example, was inspired by a walk through a flowery meadow in the Alps. I came across some edible flowers, and I suddenly remembered the picture I had taken standing in this meadow, which was unbelievable, with millions of flowers. I thought, “How do I create that on a plate?” You’ll find it in the summer section, called the Summer in the Alps Salad.

Chic Compass: With this book, are you trying to teach people to stop and smell, or in this case, taste the flavors?

Pascale Beale: At the beginning of each of the four sections is a two-page “tasting palette” called Summer in a Jar, Winter in a Jar, etc. Each has six seasonal things you can make and keep in the fridge, like an herb pâté, chutney or jam. These will be kept in the refrigerator for weeks and can be used in many dishes throughout the season.

Chic Compass: We love a good farmers market, but what if you only have a supermarket?

Pascale Beale: I look at what’s in the season that’s close to me. If it’s December and I see apricots in the supermarkets, I know they come from another part of the world because they don’t grow in this hemisphere in December. Inevitably, they’ve been flown halfway around the world. Just think about it. What’s that going to taste like?

Chic Compass: The less the food travels, the better…

Pascale Beale: Yes, because the fresher it will be.

Chic Compass: It’s also an excellent way to support farmers like those we met at the Santa Barbara Farmers Market.

Pascale Beale: Small-scale local farming is challenging, so supporting local farming communities rather than monocultures is enormously important. If you can access a farmers market and support local farms, that’s the way to go.

Chic Compass: Do people pay less attention now to buying what’s in season?

Pascale Beale: In many cases, we’re removed from the seasonality of produce because of globalized supermarkets where you can buy anything anytime. You can always buy tomatoes, but where are they coming from, and what do they taste like? If you’ve ever had a mealy tomato in the middle of winter, you know there’s no taste.

Chic Compass: Do you have a favorite flavor or season? Did you find yourself enjoying one season more than all the others?

Pascale Beale: That’s hard. There are things that I like in each season, but I always enjoy spring. Spring, for me, is a time of renewal. If you live in a cooler, colder climate, there are a lot of soups, squash, carrots, leeks and onions, which are things that are warming. When you get to the spring markets, there’s suddenly baby asparagus and all the spring peas that arrive; everything is bright green and bursting with flavor, followed by fresh strawberries. You get the sense of the new season, like the year starting fresh.

Chic Compass: Ultimately, you want readers to start cookin’! But what’s most important to you in writing “Flavour?”

Pascale Beale: If people can tune in to what is in season, you’ll get a sense of the rhythm of nature. It’s good for you. We all used to do this naturally because that was the only food that was available to us. Only in the last four decades have we suddenly had year-round access to all foods in most urban supermarkets.

Not that long ago, during the summer months and in the autumn, you could can and preserve food to have those things for the winter. Most people don’t do that now.

Chic Compass: I certainly don’t.

Pascale Beale: Ha! I make jams. I can tell you that in the depths of winter, if it’s a cold, rainy day and you open up that jar of golden apricot jam, it’s fabulous, and you get this ray of sunshine in a jar! This is a way of extending the flavors of the season.

Chic Compass: Are you already thinking about another book, or are you done?

Pascale Beale: I have another three books in my head right now. And I still hope to write a book about cooking with herbs!

Chic Compass: Thank you so much, Pascale. I’ll have you teach me how to cook anytime.

Here are two recipes to taste and enjoy!

Autumnal Vegetable Roast with Tahini Yogurt Sauce

Serves 8 people

One-pan dishes, such as this, are great for busy weeknights when you want to avoid having masses of washing up after cooking dinner. They’re easy to prepare. Chop up a mound of vegetables, drizzle them with olive oil (and your favorite herbs) and pop the entire thing in the oven. I make these vegetable roasts throughout the year with the seasonal vegetables I have on hand. This version celebrates autumn with glorious, sweet, earthy cruciferous vegetables and jewel-toned squashes.

For the vegetables:

• 2 lbs cauliflower — florets separated
• 1 Romanesco broccoli — florets separated
• 1 large sweet potato — peeled and chopped into 1-inch cubes
• 8 oz Brussels sprouts — halved lengthwise
• 11⁄2 lbs carrots — peeled and cut into 1⁄2-inch slices on a bias
• 4 leeks — root ends trimmed, cleaned and chopped into 1-inch pieces 1 honeynut squash — peeled, halved, seeds removed and sliced
• 1 red onion — peeled and cut into eighths
• Olive oil
• 1 tablespoon za’atar
• Coarse sea salt
• Black pepper
• 2 handfuls of small purple kale leaves
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped chives

For the yogurt sauce:

• 2/3 cup Greek yogurt
• 3 tablespoons tahini
• 1 finely chopped green onion 11⁄2 tablespoons olive oil
• 11⁄2 tablespoons lemon juice Pinch of salt
• 4 grinds of black pepper

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Place all the vegetables in a large roasting pan or sheet pan, except the purple kale and chives. Drizzle with olive oil. Scatter the za’atar over the top and season with 3 pinches of salt and 8–10 grinds of black pepper. Toss to combine. Roast for 40 minutes, turning the vegetables over once or twice to ensure they are nicely browned.
3. Remove the pan from the oven, add the purple kale, toss to combine, and return the pan to the oven to cook for 5 more minutes. Once cooked, scatter the chives over the dish.
4. While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the yogurt sauce. Place all the sauce ingredients into a small mixing bowl and stir to combine. If the mixture is too thick (it should have a pourable consistency), add 1 tablespoon of hot water at a time to thin it. Keep at room temperature while the vegetables finish cooking. Drizzle the sauce over the vegetables when ready to serve.

Grape Harvesters Salad with Parsley Pesto

Serves 4–6 people

This salad is adapted from a recipe in my autumn cookbook and came about because of the stunning grapes I picked from Cosecha Farming, whose stand is always one of the most visually tempting at our local farmers market. Deanna, the owner, produces exquisite food. The grape and pear recipes in this book feature her succulent fruit. Getting to know the farmers at the market has been a privilege, and I’m filled with admiration for their incredible hard work and tenacity. If you have ever spent a day picking fruit, you know how backbreaking it can be.

For the pesto vinaigrette:

• 11⁄2 tablespoons parsley, chive and raw peanut pesto (see page 141) or the pesto of your choice 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar
• 1⁄4 teaspoon coarse sea salt

For the salad:

• 11⁄2 lbs mixed baby gem greens, Castelfranco or Bel Fiore chicory 5 slices prosciutto or thin smoked country ham cut into thin strips 1 tablespoon finely chopped tarragon
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped chives
• 4 oz plain goat cheese — sliced
• 4 oz grapes — de-stemmed and halved if the grapes are large

Instructions:

1. Place all the vinaigrette ingredients in a small blender or food processor and run until you have an emulsion. Pour the vinaigrette into a large salad bowl and place salad servers over the vinaigrette.
2. Place all the remaining ingredients in the bowl on top of the salad servers. When ready to serve, toss well to combine.

Pascale’s books and recipes are available at her epicurean website at www.pascaleskitchen.com.