Ferran Adrià spoke twice in Manhattan yesterday about the dwindling hours of elBulli and the phoenix scheduled to rise in its place in 2014, that is, the as yet not-wholly-definable elBulli foundation. Accompanying him was writer Lisa Abend (Time Magazine), invited to discuss her new book about a yeoman's life in most famous kitchen in Roses, Spain, The Sorcerer's Apprentice: A Season in the Kitchen at Ferran Adria's ElBulli. Watch the video below if you'd like to familiarize yourself with Ferran Adrià and his restaurant.
Ferran was joined at the Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at NYU by Spain's minister of Industry, Tourism and Commerce, Miguel Sebastián. The iconic chef has just been named Spain's Tourism Ambassador, and Sebastián shared his vision of a sunny future for tourism in Spain, whose visitors last year outnumbered residents, and which came in third among most visited countries, following France and the United States. The tourism minister revealed two new slogans touting Spain's total package: "Made for/by Spain" and "I Need Spain", both of which can only hope to go down in Spanish pop history as the latest in a long line of kitschy national promo slogans: such as Made in Spain and the beloved, though much riffed-upon Spain is Different (other iffy anglicized Spanish slogans include Madrid's PR bid for the 2016 Olympic games: "I Feel it in My Bones").
Author Abend, whose book on the elBulli apprentice experience was released Tuesday, began her short presentation by detailing her first encounter, on her way to interview Adrià, with two regimented lines of blue-aproned stagiers (which she defines as the technical name for kitchen slave), plucking pine nuts from sappy green pine cones in the kitchen of elBulli. After an hour's interview, she passed back through the kitchen, where the same bent heads, seemingly fixed in place, continued to form two parallel lines over still more sticky green pines cones.
As it turned out, the pine nuts would be used in that season's (elBulli only remains open for 6 months each year, and so each half-year is referred to as a "season") take on risotto, a dish that each year comes with a different component. This year that component was pine nuts, meaning that the "risotto"consisted of the seed of the pine tree, instead of rice (another year it was made with cucumber seeds, yet another it was made with the small seed inside a kernel of raw corn-- to the collective agonized groans of many a stagier). Abend went on with a little math: enough pine nut risotto to fill a small bowl, times 50 servings (elBulli famously only served 50 guests per night; the restaurant is closed for lunch)…equals mucho trabajo.
Luckily for those who have been able to attend one of the 140 "concerts" (dinner at elBulli, according to Adrià) given each season, elBulli currently counts with about 35 unpaid volunteers (up from the much smaller number in the early 1990s, when Abend's book contends that Adrià once begged people on the street to come and work for him). Abden pointed out that the tedium is not for everybody. Even though 3000 applicants fight, borrow, beg, and steal (or at least lie about their Spanish language aptitude) for a spot in Ferran's kitchen each year, not everyone walks away glad—although many do use elBulli as a stepping stone to great success and even fame, apparently some do just walk away at the end of their 6-month stint.
Later that afternoon, after a reception flowing with Rioja wine and cava at NYU, the Astor Center hosted Adrià and Abend et al in a more intimate panel discussion. The panel included former elBulli stagier and brand-new restaurateur Katie Button, who's just opened her own tapas place, called Cúrate ("feel better", or "heal", in Spanish) in Ashville, North Carolina. The Adrià brothers' faithful interpreter was in attendance, and as usual, mostly stuck to translating for the audience's benefit, since Adrià seems to have a pretty strong ear for English (but is a perfect clam when it comes to speaking it).
Watch the video for a brief discussion of the creative process at elBulli, and a mention of a new documentary on the topic, due for release this summer.
Adrià made several references to the spirit of elBulli, so that it nearly began to materialize in the room. In sum, the spirit seems to translate to generosity in all things, but especially in the minute sharing of information about the elBulli system and methodology. A video detailed plans for the new research and learning center, which appears to have benefited mucho from its collaboration with Spanish telecomm giant Telefónica; in short, it's an architectural knockout. Several allusions were made throughout the day to the University of Harvard, where Adrià often gives lectures, and whose leadership in academics he perhaps looks to as a model for his own foundation.
07 ideario from Cloud 9 on Vimeo.
Generosity also sums up the spirit of the next elBulli book, The ElBulli Family Meal, to be published in October 2011. "The family meal" is what a kitchen "brigade" calls the daily staff meal, and the book of the same name will feature 31 menus tried and tested in the elBulli kitchen by the lucky staff of about 45. Each menu is designed to provide tasty, top-notch, simple cuisine (Adrià insists that each menu can be prepared within one hour), and to meet a price-point of about $10 per 2-person pop, since Adrià points out that most households just house two. $10 doesn't seem so bad for two people to share a three-course meal, and as the most important chef of our time says, it was sometimes difficult to shop within the set guidelines (the task of shopping on a 6 euro budget was given to a stagier each day). As a result, even though he'd love to be able to throw himself behind the organic movement, when most people in Spain earn a monthly salary of 1500 euro, he says he can't afford to, with a very characteristic shrug.
The talk also lighted on some interesting topics presented by Adrià: for example, how can one maintain a high level of creativity and at the same time just be happy? He thinks he's found the answer in the new low-maintenance Tickets, the tapas bar he's just opened with brother Albert, in Barcelona. Anyone got an extra plan ticket lying around?
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