“My darling,” exclaimed the wonderful British actress
Coral Browne (at the time not long married to charming, funny, brilliant, kind
Vincent Price), “darling, if they served breakfast
at ‘Ma Maison’, I’d eat breakfast,” she concluded in her resonant rolling voice.
That was 1980. I’d
just returned to Los Angeles and was in the wine business. Soon thereafter I went in search of this
mythic establishment where the crowds could not be contained, so wild they were
for the ambrosial meals served by the wunderkind
Chef, Wolfgang Puck. It was mid-morning
when I went to my appointment to taste with owner, Patrick Terrail, Burgundies
from Bouchard Pere et Fils I was representing. I drove by the address a few times. Perhaps I had the wrong address? But on my fourth try I saw the sign. There was no restaurant du Luxe facing me. Perhaps
Coral was having one of her jokes? This
“Ma Maison” was a shack in the middle of a vast parking lot. There were no valets in uniform. Only a plastic duck stood guard, and the
canvas flaps that were the walls were blowing in winter’s morning breeze. But there, in the front, was a swanky vintage
Rolls Royce, so I figured the duck had already received one guest.
Just seeing how cute he was I understood Coral’s
infatuation. I was yet to taste the
cuisine of dreams, however. Wolfgang put
down a large spoon, introduced himself, and his sous-chef, and accompanied me into the restaurant-tent where I
would conduct the tasting. We chatted,
and, when Patrick arrived he bowed out, back to his waiting pianos.
I could not help but notice that, sitting in a slight gloom, with a few
plastic ducks around his feet, was Orson Welles. That was somewhat startling, but it
confirmed I was really in Oz-land, Hollywood; and that ‘Ma Maison’ was
decidedly part and parcel of California glamour.
Patrick Terrail himself was culinary royalty. He was nephew to Claude Terrail, proprietor and
host-extraordinaire at Paris’s Tour d’Argent. Once I heard that I understood the plastic
duck. Ducks, I should say, because the
presence of plastic ducks marching around the walls, the floors, guarding every
spot inside this plastic sheeted, astro-turfed haven of gastronomy called ‘Ma
Maison’, was impossible to miss.
We were about to
begin the tasting with Le Corton.
Wolfgang fortuitously arrived
bearing proper stemware and joined in. From
his first remarks I knew he knew wine. After
several such morning tastings, we three became friends. Ma Maison had many of my wines on the list,
so frequently I took business clients, and certainly my company’s brass when in
town, to Ma Maison. I was prepared at
my first lunch there to test Coral Browne’s assertion that if “they served
breakfast” she would begin eating breakfast. Coral was rarely wrong. But I was not the one who would prove her
right. You see, over the bar there hung
a sign which read: “Aimez vous le canard, ou aller vous faire voir;” “either you love
duck, or get out of here.” Every time I
went to Ma Maison to dine, Patrick took the orders at my table. And when he’d get to me, he’d pat me on the
shoulder, saying: “and, for you, the
duck.”
Fortunately for my gastronomic experiences, Wolfgang
opened “Spago” soon thereafter, and, over all these years I have gotten to
taste so many of the dishes he dreams up.
Wolfgang is ever innovative and bubbly of personality. While
he is a great chef, he also oversees a vast enterprise. Like Champagne he could not bubble so
constantly, dreaming of new worlds, if he did not have a very Champagne
personality: he allows all who work for
him to blossom, doing their best. And
therefore his empire functions in harmony.
Wolfgang remained throughout my wine and Champagne career
a supportive friend. He poured thousands
of cases of the Champagnes I represented, and we did many bubbly events
together. He even invited me to bring
Champagne Gosset on his TV program once, and served with it my favorite
Wolfgang dish with Champagne, his Smoked Salmon pizza. When he introduced his frozen foods at a
luncheon hosted by his friend, and mine, Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San
Francisco, I happily joined the celebration, bringing Champagne Henriot’s Cuvee du Soleil to add billions more
bubbles to this roof-raisingly joyous occasion.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Near me, pacing the floor as I type, is a nervous
General. He wants to know when I will
start saying more about him. “Soon, Caesar, soon.”
Madeleine.
The Night Julius
Caesar Invented Champagne.
12 12 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment