Southern charm
SUPER HOST ALEX HITZ OFFERS A VALENTINES DINNER OF ‘AN UTMOST APHRODISIAC SORT’
Alex Hitz was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. How else to explain his journey from a privileged childhood in Atlanta, Ga., to an awardwinning career as an event designer, chef, and author of two cookbooks, the last of which, “The Art of the Host,” hit bookstores just months ago.
Summer sojourns in France, and studies at the posh boarding school, Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Conn., are part of the answer as are meeting and greeting some of Atlanta’s elite society at his mother’s table as well as luminaries of the classical music scene and divas in the opera orbits of his stepfather, Robert Shaw, a world-famous symphony conductor and Grammy Award winner.
Yet that silver spoon did not lead to a career in diplomacy or even the art world, as one would expect. It was food. Hitz’s life trajectory took a serpentine road that began in the grueling kitchen of a restaurant when he was still a teen, and then, with college behind him, he skirted life as a Broadway producer, movie producer, clothing designer and real estate developer. But it was the love of cooking and hosting elegant lunches and dinners that tugged at him.
“My mother grew up in a home where all the women never cooked or wanted to,” Hitz says, by way of explaining his journey. “She was educated in France and brought back to Atlanta all the things that she observed in food and entertaining. … At a very early age I became accustomed to the tradition of hosting and serving guests who had a sense of quality, fun and humor.”
Following stints at Le Cordon Bleu and Peter Kump’s Cooking School, Hitz quickly ascended the ladder to culinary success and events planning. He became a popular lecturer — three times in the last few years at the Round Hill Club in Greenwich—and added magazine columnist to his extensive CV. It was an astonishing detour, all of which is detailed in his recently published second cookbook, “The Art of the Host.”
Part entertaining memoir, part practical advice, the book embraces 100 recipes with hyperbolic headings: Absolutely-PerfectEvery-Time Thanksgiving, SuperSwanky Christmas Dinner, a Big Wow of a Buffet Lunch for Boxing Day, and the Quintessential Summer Dinner. And then there is Valentine’s Day of “an utmost aphrodisiac sort” which begins with the words “succulent, sexy, easy, delicious” to describe a steak au poivre preceded by chocolatedipped strawberries and scalloped oysters. Sauté the filet mignon steak and he promises that you will be praised by the love of your life for “your incredible culinary acumen, your immense sense of style, and your worldly continental élan.” I can’t wait.
Hitz’s repertoire borrows heavily from the the food of Charleston and New Orleans while embracing a bit of the “cream and butter food” of the French canon. And he makes no bones about what he likes or can’t abide. Salted butter is absolutely, positively, without equivocation, the butter to use!
And bourbon in the liquor cabinet. “It’s the moonshine of the South, honey,” he quips on his cellphone while cruising down to Tennessee. “If you don’t have it, you better run out and get some.”
“I am not the person to call … if your predilections in dining indicate an affinity for drab gray walls, unstructured piccolo concertos, austere and oddly shaped tableware, ‘relevant’ menus, deconstructed food, kombucha, quinoa, kale or cold-pressed grapeseed oil, and I simply will not apologize for it,” he writes in the opening pages of “The Art of the Host.”
There are similar splashes of his quick wit and sense of humor throughout the book. For example, in describing Oscar week in Los Angeles (where he has a home besides one in New York), he says that Angelenos follow the complicated food fad of the moment…or “they eat the old lettuce leaf every other Tuesday, drink some coconut water, work out and call it a day.” He dubs Oscar week in LA “a tsunami of hobnobbing.”
Dubbed “the very best host in the world” by the “Wall Street Journal,” Hitz earned a reputation as “the Ralph Lauren of food and wine.” As a matter of fact, he could have been a model for that fashion house. He is in demand on both continents earning a particular honor this past June to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles at the Palace of Versailles. Hitz oversaw the event attended by 700 people.
If Hitz seems unflappable that’s because he is. He lives by his mantra: Do everything ahead of time and keep smiling, even faced with what he calls “screw ups.” One time he made cold corn chowder and strained it “like 700 times through a chinois. All of a sudden, the chinois tipped and chowder for 36 people went down the drain.” Quick thinking he sent one of his crew to buy the best avocados he could find, and Hitz served cold avocado soup instead.
“The only thing you have to worry about is if the hostess freaks out,” he says.
Well, honey, just give her a shot of bourbon. And keep smiling.