Meat Is a One-Night Stand, Vegetables Are a Marriage: Franny’s Cellar Series Celebrates Winter Vegetables

by Elizabeth Nelson

          “Vegetables are interesting, but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.”  - Fran Lebowitz

          If Ms. Lebowitz had come to Franny’s in Brooklyn the other night, she would have had reason to rethink her attitude toward the humble vegetable. The latest event in Franny’s Cellar Series, “Verdure d’Amore: A Love Letter to Vegetables,” set out to prove that even in the dead of winter, vegetables can be just as satisfying as meat—maybe even more so.

          The setting for this wintery exercise could not have been more appropriate: a blizzard raged outside, cancelling plans all over the city. Bundled-up guests came in from the cold, stomping feet and unwrapping scarves from cheeks pinched raw by subzero winds. Two long wooden tables were set in the wine cellar below. Franny’s general manager (former Babbo wine manager) Luca Pasquinelli poured glasses of fizzy wine and bowed to importer Yan D’Amore, donor of all the bottles poured.

          Yan, a vegetarian from age 14, told how his grandmother would sneak prosciutto onto his plate (“it’s not meat, it’s just prosciutto!”). It’s not easy being a vegetarian in Italy.

          Then the evening’s host, Tamar Adler, took over: Meat, she said, is food of the heart, food that must be fought and killed. Food for passionate people. Vegetables are intellectual, food of the mind—yet when our minds go, what do we become? A vegetable. Vegetables get a bad rap. (I’m paraphrasing because I was hungry and forgot my pen.)

          Winter vegetables, often neglected in favor of a hearty meat stew on a snowy night, took center stage in this meal and didn’t disappoint.

The super-salty olives were the hit of the fritto misto

          A fusillade of antipasti was a great socializer. Crostini with slow cooked onions and pickles. Fritto misto of radishes, fennel, olives and lemons. Roasted rutabaga with almonds and dates. Sweet potatoes with braised kale and yogurt. And cabbage and mushroom salad with hazelnuts, croutons and egg. An invisible egg. Seems it was hard cooked, grated and blended into the toss.

          The rutabaga’s sharp citrusy tang set off by crunchy nuts and sweet dates made it the crowd favorite. I wanted to wolf it down but offered the few remaining morsels to my neighbor. “I cook all these vegetables at home, but they’ve never tasted like this,” said the woman across from me. “What am I doing wrong?”

The barley soup tasted meaty enough to fool us

          Paula across the table told us she’d been vegetarian for over thirty years. She said when she went on business dinners in the 80s she sometimes had to order three salads and worried about offending her clients. Times have changed. 

          No one believed the purgatorio bean, barley and chestnut soup was vegetarian. I swore I tasted chicken stock, and someone else said there had to be a ham bone in there somewhere. But no, it was just the heartiness of the barley. Perfect blizzard food, we agreed.

 
Was this the serious wine or flirty wine?

          There was a new bottle of wine with each course and by the time the cannelloni al forno with salsa di noci was served, I couldn’t remember which wine was the serious, shy one with notes of leather and which was the flirty, joyful one. They all left my head happily spinning.

          Chef Johnathan Adler, Tamar’s brother, came out of the kitchen for our applause. He compared meat to a one-night-stand, and vegetables to a marriage. “Meat requires less of us,” he explained. “Vegetables require constant engagement and lifelong devotion.”

          Good for a blizzardy night, I thought, planning to try a BLT for my breakfast.  By the way, I’m just pretending to be a Neanderthal.  I didn’t miss meat at all. I was too busy eating roots and leaves I’d never tasted before.

Franny’s, 348 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-230-0221