Advance Reviews for

Salt & Pepper Cooking

July 29, 2015, Kirkus Review: “With these funny stories, an award-winning chef reflects on the formative roles of food, family, and friendship in his life.

“Former executive chef and owner of Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s Blue Strawbery restaurant, Haller (Vie de France, 2002, etc.) grew up during the Depression, a poor kid in a Chicago suburb. His working-class extended family and Old World neighborhoods inspired a fascination with eclectic food combinations. Whether watching his Grandma Hazel dispatch a barnyard chicken by spinning it overhead “like David with his sling” or splashing “a little Benedictine Brandy on fried eggs after I heard Betty Grable order eggs benedict between dance numbers,” it’s clear that his insatiable curiosity about food began early. A young Italian girl, Louisa, became Haller’s childhood friend and introduced him to cannoli, which easily eclipsed his grandmother’s tapioca and butterscotch puddings. Growing up with many rural relatives, Haller paints a vivid picture of a bygone era with recollections of dinners fit for farmhands and the “womenfolk” preparing massive harvest feasts. His financially strapped, city-dwelling parents had more pedestrian palates, favoring “hot dog and beans…hamburgers, meat loaf, sloppy Joe’s…creamed chip beef on toast…or my mother’s tuna casserole.” His mother’s long hours waitressing required young Haller to prepare family meals, spurring a lifetime of culinary adventurousness, as he dished up string beans with pumpkin pie spices and lime and grape Kool-Aid baked into angel food cake for unwitting loved ones. Wit à la Ruth Reichl in Tender at the Bone (1998) invigorates these anecdotes throughout. Haller left for New York to make it as a writer and actor, often waiting tables to get by and eventually opening the Blue Strawbery in New Hampshire with some enterprising pals. Character sketches of family and friends here are as keenly observed and beautifully depicted as the food—the author’s self-effacing humor a fantastic leavening agent.

“Flavorful serving of hilarious, poignant memories that will leave readers wanting seconds.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“Chef Haller’s inspiration and techniques have turned a small town in New Hampshire into a culinary destination. He is truly the Father of Cooking in Portsmouth, NH, it is an honor to know him as a chef, author, friend… . Salt & Pepper Cooking is such a good feeling book — it left me with an ear-to-ear comforting smile on my face. I loved reading about how so many of his memories of food are always a reminder of the day or person.”

— Jethro Loichle, Executive Chef, Ristorante Massimo, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

“The most inspiring chef our region has ever seen has written a book so inspiring that it was impossible to put down until every last sentence was read. Chef Haller paved the way for all of us cooking here now, and it was an incredible pleasure reading tales of his life and inspiring moments throughout his years.”

— Matt Louis, Executive Chef and Owner of MOXY, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

“These charming vignettes of a young boy who learns sitting in his grandmother’s kitchen with eyes wide open, that food can equal love and that creativity in the kitchen knows no bounds. They tell the story of how James Haller, a great chef, found inspiration at a very young age. I read Salt & Pepper Cooking in a single sitting. You won’t be able to put it down.”

— Kathy Gunst, a James Beard award-winning food journalist, Resident Chef for NPR’s Here & Now, and author of Notes from a Maine Kitchen.

“James Haller is a legend who should be regarded in the same breath as his better known contemporaries. In 1970, while California cuisine was just being born, Chef Haller was creating a courageous style of New England cuisine that had no peer in the American restaurant landscape. The menus of his fabled restaurant, Blue Strawbery, drew inspiration from what was on hand, but also from the rich heritage of Haller’s childhood kitchens. This book gives readers a chance to peer into the mind of a developing cook, sharing the wide-eyed wonder that comes with the most creative minds. The details and dialogue in these anecdotes will make you wish you grew up alongside “Buddy,” buoyed by family and friends as he navigated the difficulties and conquests of youth. He reminds us that, when times are tough, a love of food can keep us going. I am honored that my restaurant, Black Trumpet, lives the legacy of Blue Strawbery every day, and when I cook in the kitchen of 29 Ceres Street, I keep in the back of mind a pledge, that I will do my best to make Chef Haller proud.”

—Evan Mallett, Executive Chef and Owner, Black Trumpet Bistro, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

“The storytelling is wonderful.”

—Gregg Sessler, executive chef, Cava, Portsmouth, NH

“A revealing memoir of both Chef Haller’s formative years and and evocative tableau of an American landscape though past, is still part of a continuum of both his life and ours. Full of the author’s personal and infectious enthusiasm for food and cooking. Chef Haller deftly equalizes down-home and haute cuisines: from Mr. Bronstein’s flattened (perfect) grilled cheese sandwiches to Chef Haller’s own Cornish hens in sour cream, mushroom port sauce, the author refuses to play favorites among life’s culinary bounty. Salt & Pepper Cooking, like Chef Haller’s food, leaves the reader/diner wishing for more of that rich and flavorful goodness!”

— Matthew Sharlot, Chef / Owner, The Wellington Room, Portsmouth, New Hampshire

BOOKS BY JAMES HALLER

Cooking in the Shaker Spirit (with Jeffrey Paige)

The Blue Strawbery Cookbook, or Cooking (Brilliantly) Without Recipes

Another Blue Strawbery, More Brilliant Cooking Without Recipes

What to Eat When You Don’t Feel Like Eating

Vie de France: Sharing Food, Friendship, and a Kitchen in the Loire Valley

(Soon to be republished with a new title: A Little Kitchen in France)

Simply Wonderful Food: A Cookbook for Men with Prostate Cancer

Praise for Vie de France

to be republished in 2016 as

A Little Kitchen in France

“A charming narrative … Perhaps we can’t reproduce these dishes exactly, but anyone with a feel for food can undoubtedly come close. As the few remaining days in Savonnieres tick away, we’re left to wish that the clock would stop …”

— The Union Leader, Manchester, NH

“James Haller makes the reader feel like a welcomed, coddled, and well-fed seventh guest during his dream-come-true stay at Savonnieres in the heart of the Loire Valley.”

— Susan Simon, author of The Nantucket Table

“… a beguiling tale of a month in France when the living was easy, the friendships warm, and the food superb. An elegant tribute to friendship and joie de vivre that France still offers. Refreshingly, Haller is as much intent on celebrating friendship as the good life abroad.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“The key to this uplifing biographical month is how important friendship is to the human condition … an inspirational toast to the stimulation of camaraderie that is a human need in order to live precious life to the fullest.”

—BookBrowser

© 2015 James Haller. All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced for any reason in any form without express written consent from the author. The scanning, uploading, or distribution of this book by any means without the permission of the author is punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Softcover ISBN: 978-1-938394-17-1

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-938394-18-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015949003

published for the author by

Great Life Press

Rye, New Hampshire 03870

greatlifepress.com

cover design and layout by Grace Peirce

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Haller, James, author.

Salt & pepper cooking : the education of an American chef / by James Haller ; John Byrne, editor.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-938394-17-1

ISBN 978-1-938394-18-8

1. Haller, James. 2. Cooks--United States--Biography. 3. Autobiographies. I. Title. II. Title: Salt and pepper cooking.

TX649.H3445A3 2015641.5092

2015949003

I dedicate this book with love, respect, and gratitude to

Stephanie Voss Nugent

Who had the insight to recognize the value in these

essays

And the courage to put them on the stage for

ACT ONE

at the West End Studio Theater

in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Thank you, Stephanie

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chocolate

The Grilled American Cheese Sandwich

Egg Plant and Angel Food Cake

Milk Soup and Kluskis

The Kentland Cafe

Kuchen

Waldorf Salad

Cannoli-Filled Wedding Cake

Cooking Directions

Pierogi

Red Sauce

Life Upon the Wicked Stage

Cream of Watercress Soup

Peanut Butter Sauce

Ceres Street

Epilogue

Preface

When I was a baby my mother worked as a waitress in Mrs. Hinemann’s Tearoom in Oak Park, Illinois. As a single mother she had little money for day care, but Mrs. Hinemann was good enough to allow her to bring me along to work with her. I was put into a high chair in the kitchen where the cook could keep an eye on me. I’m told he would give me food to play with: carrots, mashed potatoes, pieces of bread. Food has been a toy ever since.

I simply love to cook. Whatever else is happening in my life, anger, disappointment, even sorrow, when I go into the kitchen that love of cooking is always there. I start with an idea of what I want the taste to be and then work backward until I have the first step. Sometimes the outcome is very different from what I expected, which to me is the cooking loving me back.