You, of course, know about our weekly podcast, EarBurner. Last week, our guest was Brian Luscher, owner of the Grape and Luscher’s Red Hots. We got to talking about “sports cries.” I confessed that I’d shed a tear or two when Joey Gallo, having just nearly hit for the cycle in his first game as a major leaguer, embraced his dad on the field after the game. I asked Brian when he last cried, and he couldn’t immediately recall. But he spent some time thinking about it and sent me this email, which I thought was pretty awesome:
About four months ago, I found myself with a Friday night off. Kid was at grandparents, wife was at work. Nobody knew where I was. The night was all mine. I was at home, in some comfortable loungewear, with a freshly popped cork of a stellar bottle of red Burgundy from the Cote de Nuits, looking for something engaging or, at the very least, indulgent to watch on TV. I gave in to the amassed episodes of PBS’ The Mind of a Chef on the DVR.
I binge-watched about six episodes or so, while consuming the wine. I found myself growing bored of the droning by Edward Lee, who had been the chef the series was focusing on in the episodes I watched. But the gears shifted when, in the next episodes, the series put its focus on Chef Magnus Nilsson. A couple of episodes with him and I was fully engaged. I got into the episode called “Winter.”
The episode featured a clam that was hand-foraged by a free-diver in ice cold winter waters of a fjord. Or something like that. It might just be my romantic vision. Chef Nilsson took this exquisite clam and handled it with such reverence. He opened it and sliced the raw bivalve and served it on some insanely delicate custard, with some fermented cabbage leaves, some rose hips, and a couple other ingredients he had been hording and aging in his cellar — and I lost it. Niagra Falls. Giant, hot tears coupled with sobbing, wistful sighs. I knew I had never, nor would I ever, source or create, let alone serve, something so respectful, thoughtful, delicate, simple, complex, so pure as that dish. It was sad and beautiful at the same time.
So, kind of like a sports cry? A chef’s cry?
