San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Cooking with a podcast
Chez Panisse vet combines stories, studio ... and journalism
You might expect a former Chez Panisse chef to rocket on up to the head of his own restaurant. But Cal Peternell, who left the Berkeley restaurant in 2017 after 22 years of service, has gone in a very different direction.
Several directions, really: This spring, he launched a new podcast, Cooking by Ear (available via iTunes and Stitcher), whose first five episodes have brought him into the kitchen with the likes of actor Frances McDormand and musician Big Freedia. William Morrow is publishing Peternell’s third cookbook — “Almonds, Anchovies and Pancetta” — in September. And he has joined StudioToBe, a co-working space and production facility for journalists, which recently moved into an airy, brickwalled space at 906 Washington St. in Old Oakland. There, he’ll be opening a casual restaurant.
Where is Peternell’s trajectory headed? We chatted with the chef about his unique path and what he hopes to accomplish with it. (Interview edited for space.) Q: How did you get connected with StudioToBe and come up with the idea of Cooking by Ear?
A:
My wife works at Creative Growth in Oakland. The director of the program is married to Joaquin (Alvarado). At the time, he worked at the Center for Investigative Reporting in Emeryville. We just became friends. We were at a friend’s wedding, and they were out of booze, and so we went out for a beer run.
While we were out, we started talking about podcasts, as well as how it takes him 10 hours to make a pot of dal.
I said, “I can teach you how to do that.” He said, “That’s a podcast. People need to learn how to cook, and they can just learn it
from you. And you have a good voice” — both the sound of my voice and my demeanor around teaching. We settled on this combination of cooking lesson and interview, and found a team and a producer.
Because my partners Joaquin and Ken (Ikeda) wanted, in an effort to save journalism in some way, to have a space where journalists could work together in parallel but also in collaboration. This is that space. It just needed a little love to make it as nice as it is now. We do our work here for the podcast, though because the recording facility isn’t here yet, we do some postproduction recording at a studio in Richmond.
There are journalists in here working now. There are more facilities in the works for them, such as recording studios. We’re in the process of getting the permits and licenses we need to open the space as a bar and restaurant.
Q: With the podcast, is there a reason you’re focusing on guests who are in the arts?
A:
That’s what we’re attracted to, because those are interesting people. But we thought we could also invite scientists or authors. Frances McDormand was a connection through the restaurant. She loves to come and eat at Chez Panisse. The poet Tommy Pico was someone whom my producer Kristina Loring went to school with. He’s from the Kumeyaay Nation and grew up on the reservation in Southern California. Then he went to school and started writing poetry, and now he’s living in Brooklyn. (Director) Mira Nair was here because she was adapting her movie into a musical. She taught me how to make chai and I taught her how to make fattoush. She had fallen off the stage, and broke her leg, so we sat there and picked herbs.
I was going to New Orleans for the Prospect Art Festival, and I thought, if I’m going down there maybe there’s some way we could work the podcast into it. Kristina found Big Freedia and she was into it. She taught me how to make Booty Poppin’ Potatoes.
She also taught me how to twerk, which I failed, even though I had tried to stretch. I couldn’t get low enough. I told her, just tell me what to do. She said, “OK. You put your hands on your knees and you arch your back, put your booty in the air and you twerk it like that. Wait a minute — y’all just gave me a new hook!” She got very excited. She was wonderful.
Every time I do one of these, I’m reminded that not only does food and wine set people at ease and help them open up, but
the act of cooking does a similar thing. There’s so much value on (the idea that) to have a good conversation you need to have direct eye contact. But direct eye contact can be a little intimidating. When you’re facing the same way — you’re on a walk, or you’re sitting next to each other shelling beans or picking herbs — the pressure is off a little bit and the stories can flow. You don’t need to be constantly checking the other person’s reaction.
Q: A lot of people have used Chez Panisse as a launchpad to open a restaurant. Why take this path?
A: I’ve always been a fan of storytellers. One of the things I love about writing cookbooks is the little stories that I can fit into the introductions to chapters and recipes. I find that food becomes a mnemonic device that helps me access memories about other things.
I’ve also spent my adult life working in restaurant kitchens. I wanted to see what it was like to get away from that for a while. When and if I open a new restaurant, including this one, I want it to be more accessible to more people, and where my friends could afford to eat, or where I tend to eat. I find myself at places like Vik’s, or the taco trucks, or Cosecha — where it feels more natural and a little more democratic.
Q: If you do open the StudioToBe bar and restaurant, when you say “more democratic,” what are you envisioning? A: I’m modeling this after a place I love in New Orleans called Bacchanal. It’s a wine bar and garden, but you come into a wine shop and so the bottles are all there. You don’t have to worry about looking at a wine list and someone looking at you while you’re looking at the list. You pick out what you want, you go sit out in the garden, you get your own silverware, they bring you cheese you chose on a plate with toasts and some condiments. You can just chill. Here, there will also be prepared food, but it’s counter service.
The thing that my partners and I are all hoping will happen is that StudioToBe will become the watering hole for the journalists who are working here to stay here and hang out afterward and share stories. And there can be a crossover between the journalists who are working here and the people coming here for a bottle of wine. It’s also a big enough space that we can have events.
Q: Are there any other roles you’re playing with the collective?
A: We’re really trying to grow it out to other cities, because there are lot of midsized cities that have lost their newspapers, and therefore have lost a lot of journalists. We’re working on a project in Fresno and also beginning to look at Seattle, and there may be other cities beyond that. We’re attaching the food and drink part to the journalism part because we feel like you’re always going to need good food and drink, and the important after-work stuff can happen in those in-between times.
“Frances McDormand was a connection through the restaurant. She loves to come and eat at Chez Panisse.”
Chef Cal Peternell, pictured beldow at Chez Panisse in 2014