Full-Flavored Recipes With Taste and Texture

June 5, 2008 — -- It feels like a first date gone terribly "right." An open bottle of wine sits on the kitchen counter while heat from a simmering pot of risotto and a warm, very earnest voice — one that would make your mamma proclaim, "Marry him!" — fill the kitchen.

"Patience," Michael Anthony, executive chef of Gramercy Tavern, instructs me. "The perfect risotto requires at least 20 minutes of observation because you have to cook the rice from raw to doneness in one shot. But the payoff is a simple, traditional dish that shows off the beauty of almost any ingredients. The taste and texture sing."

Blink, blink. Whatever you say, Brown Eyes.

Chef Anthony stirs; I consider the fine line between business and culinary pleasure as I ladle thimble-size quantities of vegetable stock into the par-cooked rice.

The usual half hour that's needed to plump and cook the Carnaroli rice — with the springtime addition of lemon zest and celery — just won't suffice. I want more time with one of America's top chefs, the man who put local seasonal dining on the New York culinary map. Really, how many chefs can claim that they're equally inspired by Japan, France and the Union Square Farmers Market?

Our foodie faux date can't end now.

"A dish like this has a conviviality about it. It connects you with your kitchen, it connects you with your ingredients …"

"It connects you with your date?" I ask, my smile as transparent, rather, as translucent, as the onions we sweated for the risotto.

"No, this is too dangerous for date food. If you really like the person, you could become, um, distracted, during the process, and dinner might be destroyed."

Spooning a delicate portion into a shallow bowl, Chef Anthony declares that the risotto he's made with me looks near-perfect. The consistency is more that of a thick soup than a porridge, and bits of lemon confit and slivers of celery crown the chubby grains.

My spoon attempts to make a move.

Chef stops me.

"When I have a relationship with the farmer, when I'm acquainted with the soil that produces my food, I like to close my eyes so I can really taste the ingredients." His lids flutter.