March 3, 2011 |
Short Order
Monkish Chef Michel Bras Mesmerizes the Crowd at Knife-Slashing Demo
by Katharine Schub
Photo: Janette Medina
It can’t be all that easy to peddle your $2700 ten-piece knife set when you are missing the tip of your left ring finger. Unless you are the chefs’ own chef-Diety, Michel Bras. Thus Williams Sonoma became hallowed ground Tuesday night, as celeb foodies, star toques and knife aficionados came to venerate the slender monklike cook from remote Laguiole, France. And why not? Bras is charming, a perfectionist legend, and NYC marathon runner.
Bras performed his knife mastery at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle at a table strewn with artfully placed vegetables, fruits...and cookies. Grownup women (and men) morphed into rabid teenagers. New York Times writer Amanda Hessler cooed at every translation, while chef Chris Cosentino snapped pictures as if he were at a Beatles concert. Even Thomas Keller paid homage by stopping by to say hello.
No one voiced the obvious question: Which knife? But as Bras slashed away at an assemblage of vegetables and fruits, the chef himself was quick to explain. He cracked many jokes about his half finger, making it very clear that it was not the result of by a knife accident. It seems his wedding ring got caught on a ladder he was climbing, he slipped and that was it. Gone forever.
Bras compared cutting the tip attached to the flower off of a green bean, to poking a girls eye out. This man loves his sharp objects and vegetables. “I like cooking vegetables because they are alive,” he says. Live as meat and fish are not, I assume.
At one point of his demo -- slicing, dicing and grating zucchini, carrots and ginger -- Bras flung apple seeds into the air, proclaiming their unique flavor. The couple whispering behind me did not find that charming.
Naively I asked Bras if his new line of Japanese Laguiole fusion knives had inspired a deeper connection between French and Japanese cuisine. He scoffed at such pompous conceits: “I don't like sophisticated, fancy cooking. I like traditional cooking...it is the same everywhere.”
Williams-Sonoma 10 Columbus Circle between 212 823 9750