For chef Erin French, a meal is about a lot more than the food on the table. Her new cookbook, Big Heart Little Stove, provides not only recipes from her family and famed Maine restaurant The Lost Kitchen, but also her philosophy for sprucing up a table setting or presenting a particular dish in a way that elevates the meaning of the entire experience. In today’s episode, French speaks with Here & Now’s Robin Young about the rocky road that led her to open her hit dining destination, and how the pandemic’s reduced hours changed the way she runs her business.
Hey it’s memp’s book of the day I’m Andrew limbong the thing about hosting in your home having people over for a dinner let’s say is that it’s only sort of about the food sure yeah that might be a main part of the evening but as Aaron French points out in today’s
Interview there’s a ton of these little steps you can take to show people you care and to make them feel special she’s the chef behind the heart to get into restaurant The Lost kitchen and author of the book big heart little stove and in this interview with here and now’s
Robin young she says that yeah she cooks the food but she thinks of herself less as a chef and more of a Hostess a title that’s often overlooked and downplayed but it is a role with a lot of power that’s after the break support for this podcast and the
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Family today learn more at scfederal.org insured by ncua if you’ve tried to get a reservation at Aaron French’s lost Kitchen restaurant in Freedom main you know it’s the toughest in the world right now you have to send a postcard in for a lottery a glowing CVS Sunday
Morning profile added to the frenzy and then there’s Aaron’s own show the lost Kitchen Next we’re serving a family style salad with bib lettuce French breakfast radishes peino shavings and fried Capers amazing just amazing or maybe you read aarin French’s inspirational Memoir finding Freedom a Cook’s story which has
Been optioned for a movie well if you want your seat at the table pull up a chair because we can serve up Aaron French herself she’s here in the studio to talk about her beautiful new cookbook book also a guide to hosting a welcoming table and home it’s called big heart
Little stove eron welcome hi Robin thank you boy what a story you have um do you mind if we do a little bit of the backstory first please okay so you are in Freedom Maine where your family once had a diner and we understand that your
Dad was a bit of a general in running the diner well I think restaurant worlds are are challenging and they’re long hours and so I think my dad had to be kind of that difficult guy and it’s not an easy job by any means yeah you leave
You have your own life but then have a child have a marriage you return to Maine and have an addiction to painkillers talk about that phase MH well I started running my own restaurant and I kind of fell into similar ways of seeing how my my dad was struggling and
Being in a difficult marriage and adding in a a difficult work life I found a major sense of lack of balance and I was looking for anything just to dull that pain that I was going through and to dull the struggle and I found that to be
The easiest way in that moment so how did you turn it around to where you are now it is a loving I mean part of your restaurant’s appeal is the kindness It’s loving still a lot of hard work but there’s a beauty to it and auty to your
Life how did you make that turn well I found myself in my first restaurant running it in that kind of typical restaurant way where I was running myself right into the ground and I mean I really crashed into the ground I lost the first restaurant I lost my first
Marriage and when I found myself picking up the pieces and brought myself back to my hometown I really wanted to look at my life and say what matters and to me that was Simplicity and starting a new restaurant starting a new life and saying how do I want my life to look and
How do I want my restaurant to feel and I don’t have to follow those typical rules it could be the restaurant of your dreams that didn’t feel like a restaurant that felt like you were coming to my home and describe what this dining experience is like how often is a
Meal served what is the approach to serving this meal that people are coming from around the world to have well it’s changed a little bit over the years and especially since Co it sounds crazy to say we serve dinner two nights a week just just on Fridays and Saturdays and I
Know I’ve had plenty of people who have come to me and said what are you crazy how does that work and what kind of business mind are you using with that and I mean for me it was about if I was going to run this restaurant in a
Meaningful way and do this for a long time and be able to pour my absolute love into this place there’s a point where you have to say how do I not burn my staff out how do I not burn myself out and after Co we never went back to
More than 2 days a week and that is how we have found the balance to continue to do this surrounded by female friends your mom uh working with you and from what we’ve seen because we’ve never been able to get in to Aaron French’s Restaurant uh but from what we’ve seen
You’re a part of it you greet people it seems to be a I don’t know it’s more than a meal it is and I am there start to finish I wanted this place to feel like it was in a restaurant I wanted it to feel like you were stepping into my
Kitchen for an evening a full evening that would turn into what would be a 5H hour dinner but at the end of it you felt like you had been here an hour and a half with your best friends time had slipped away right talk about what you’re trying to bring in the food
Experience and the recipes are here the food is extremely simple and for a while I I looked at myself and thought I wasn’t good enough because you know how could I be serving this simple food and why would would people want to travel from all across the country and bang
Down the doors to be here and then I I realized that that maybe what we were really craving was just a simple delicious meal and so the food is really based on the ingredients and we change the menu every day you know it’s all dependent on what we find for
Ingredients I never write a menu and then go shopping I always look at the ingredients first and then make a decision well you say simple I would say art a skillet of scallops with cedar Chito and lime garlicky minion steaks with caramelized onion butter honeyed beets with feta and toasted pistachios
Everything has a little dollop of something and then maybe a flour a little something special but if you if you look at the core of the recipes and the ingredients it’s really very much ingredient focused and you know this book is really about giving you that tool to add a little something special
That you can take something that feels ordinary and make it extraordinary and a really simple and meaningful way but in the book as well there’s a lot of extra there’s kind of how to have your life have a certain look to it it’s not about
A look it’s about how do you how do you make someone feel and if you think about a meal sure the food is the anchor that brings us to the table but it’s that feeling that you are creating around your space and being thoughtful and intentional whether it is the tablecloth
You chose to put down or if you found some vintage candlesticks or pieces of silverware that you love that you dot the table with I love anyone who has like me a slight obsession with moss as you write but you can use it as a bed alongside Frozen rocks when plating
Oysters you say I mean then suddenly you’ve got something special yes and that costed nothing and you make the oysters look like they’re the most impressive thing that you’ve ever found you have a chapter signatures what is that those little things that you can put on the table or those little extra
Moments that you can create that aren’t necessarily edible but they still evoke a feeling of entertaining what’s the number one thought you want to impart about Hospitality about imparting to people that feel that you want them to have I’ve always struggled to call myself a chef and I’ve always felt like
I was more of a Hostess which I think we downplay that word as you know that’s just someone who’s a little beneath but I think it’s such a powerful being to be that as a Hostess you have the power to give someone your utmost care and make
Them feel something so delicious it’s so much more than just food on the table you know if you go to a a nice restaurant you have a nice meal but the music is off yes or the lights are too bright or you know you can’t hear each
Other you can’t you know even touch each other’s fingers because the table’s too wide all of those little things can make something not feel extraordinary and so how do you pull the environment and the moment and the food and everything just right and for me I love love that
Feeling of capturing that as a Hostess creating that moment and and we should say a Hostess is someone who greets you at the door and gives you the menu which is an important thing what we’re talking about in your case is you are a guide through the whole evening you’re a
Dinner partner let’s listen to a little bit of CBS Sunday Morning which did a wonderful profile to give a sense of that Here’s To The Memories We Make in this room and I hope they last a good long time here’s to three more hours of eatting okay cheers guys Cheers Cheers
Guys cheers guys cheers so your story has been optioned you have a television show already you have you know people as you said siing their way uh up through Maine to get to the restaurant how do you stay centered with that or not worried about oh my gosh what do I have
To increase how do I change and grow how are you navigating that I do worry all the time I think that’s human and that’s part of what I think keeps me grounded and balanced is is constantly caring so deeply about you know where’s the next inspiration what am I going to do next
And I know that I’ll never have enough to feed everyone who wants to come to the restaurant so looking for these other ways and part of that was this book and being able to share and unlock those secrets and feelings I mean I started this restaurant on a four-burner
Electric stove in my apartment and that was a very ordinary extremely ordinary home Chef start and now I’m running one of the most difficult restaurants in the country to get in to so how do you unlock that for other people how do you take something ordinary and make it
Extraordinary and I think some of these recipes and some of these signatures in this book are exactly those things that I did that got me to this point in my career and to this place at the table and have brought me so much joy Chef owner Ain French her new book is big
Heart little stove bringing home meals and moments from the Lost kitchen Erin thanks so much thank you Robin all right before we wrap up the end of the year is coming up and we’re reflecting a bit here at book of of the day and we’re also looking ahead to everything we’ll
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