Monica Pope

in response to albiston, i agree and agree. in certain parts of our country, this simple, seasonal and sustainable cooking isn't understood. most americans are conditioned to be oversated after a restaurant meal and expect the WOW factor if they are going to pay money for a meal out. one of our manyambitions, starting with boulevard bistrot 11 years ago, was that we walked a fine line of everyday dining and destination dining. my customers may not always know that is going on. alot of people were begging for "clean food" by way of insinuating that my food was too "ethnic" or flavor driven i think; alot of customers now say to me as a compliment, that this is the way they cook at home or the way they like to eat. many times, in these food as entertainment extravaganza, one leaves not even being able to remember what they ate. until recently, i didn't feel i could cook or combine ingredients so simply because the ingredients weren't as good. in answer to your feeling that there might be foodies or gastronauts out there you don't appreciate what i do, absolutely. dining at t'afia is more about a deep, intimate relationship with us on any level you choose; it is not the one night stand, if you know what i mean. i didn't get into science in high school or culinary school so i'm never going in the molecular direction ever, but i think the main thing we can all learn from these chefs or the raw food trend is that it is all about flavor--get how and where you can but get it. if something is just for effect or WOW i don't take it anymore seriously than when my 2 1/2 year old daughter sobs and whines that so and so hit her ......yesterday just to see if we care; we pretend concern. p.s. i find prejudice on every level of what we created at t'afia and it saddens me to no end that people are incapable of opening their minds to all different expressions of life.

in response to pan, well i didn't set out to be the most authentic cuban restaurant in houston; i set out to be the most passionately local houston restaurant in houston and from that intention every decision flows. we have more embassies than any city in the country, second only to nyc in theater seats, the third largest artist population. and world-class museums, what we're known for is tex-mex, bbq, beef and everything texas-sized--the largest liquor store, the largest ikea, ...houston is influenced by all of its population; so my menu reflects them and my travels, my familial origins. my mother's mother and father came from eastern europe and ended up in kansas; we all come from someplace else, but food comes from a place. i wanted my food source to come from houston through the farmer's markets, from ranches and cheesemakers and winemakers from texas. our restaurant was designed and built by local artists and artisans. i wanted to show our community and the world that we can and do have wonderful things other than the items you noted. the world has a view of us that isn't totally undeserved or negative, but there is a whole wonderful quality of life that is under most of the world's radar and i would like to see us get some notice of these things in the future.

in response to mayhaw man, thank you so much for trying to explore the texas wine situation. you are right there are a number of texas wineries, but not all of them grow their own grapes or even purchase texas grown grapes for use in their wines. some of these "texas wineries" often purchase chilean or californian juice, bottle it, and call it a texas wine. we do not carry any of these wines. the texas wines on our list are from wineries that grow their own grapes or purchase texas grown grapes exclusively. we only purchase texas wines we like. in addition, they are very food friendly and are all terroir driven, making them a perfect match, "what grows together, goes together", for the local market tasting menu. they sell very well once they are exposed to the discerning public and their misconceptions and prejudices are undone. some that stand out are: everything from McPherson vineyards especially their rose of syrah, Flat Creek Estate especially their Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, and the really hard to get La Cruz de la Comal wines of Lewis Dickson, lawyer turned winemaker, especially his Troubadour.

in response to rebeccaT, thank you for asking about PLUM. we made a decision to refer to anything we did offsite as its own entity. i came up with plum because i love plums, because our work at PLUM makes your lives "plum easy", and it happens to be my name backwards. hence, farmer's market products/pantry essentials, box lunch program, small, intimate events offsite like the one we're doing tonight falls under PLUM. essentially anything that does not happen in the t'afia dining venues is PLUM. Currently, it is approximately 10% of our revenue so it's no small side business and we hope to grow each aspect in the next two years. as for cooking classes, i do most of my teaching at sur la table (in combination with a farmer's market tour, scones, coffee, demo at sur la table and lunch) or a store tour at central market where some of our farmers and artisans provide product. it's difficult to do demos in my kitchen because i don't have 20 peelers or 20 of anything so the involvement can be restricted. i also do some for charity at people's homes for less than 8 couples, but these can be challenging if you're not familiar with people's equipment, etc. currently, we're working on a cookbook which i hope will reach a wider audience and force me finally to get more organized!!

in response to tetsujustin, you're right on all counts; it's like we don't exist down here and yet in every sector of food, fashion, art, politics, design we drive this nation. we just happen to do it in those other cities. the ones who came back not because we couldn't make it anywhere--scott tycer, bryan caswell, dylan murray, claire smith...--but because it is home and family and community to us have gotten acknowledged, but can we impact the city enough to get the city acknowledged or noticed. i believe our new mayor white is working in a very forward-thinking way. the negatives of this city seem to always trump the positives. i am hopeful we can push the positives in the future. as far as houston' clientele is concerned i am at times discouraged. it is the third largest city in this country. we lack density and people's lifestyle choices dictates their dining choice. i've met old school friends who have lived all over the world, tramping the streets of nyc eating out every night or exploring the markets of amsterdam as a way of life, but when they decide to move back home and start a family they buy a house in one of our suburbs like sugarland, pearland or the woodlands and apologize because they haven't been to t'afia yet or the farmers' market. it will be a one off, not a way of life, a part of their life. the size of this city has hurt the heart of this city. we are in the heart of this city, but we must get people to leave the burbs, get a babysitter and take a "daytrip" to houston. they are a quite captive audience closer to home and no qualms about spending money. a chef friend who consults for a fine dining steak house and grill concept says "we looooove the suburbs" and they have built an empire in sugarland , clearlake, champions forest, woodlands,...you could fit 20 t'afias into just one of these restaurants, but who has influenced this city more in the last 13 years and you will impact this city more in the next 15 years. houstonians are conditioned to see huge plates of food, order by pound not ounces and do look for value, read cheap. houstonians eat out more than any city and they can eat out pretty inexpensively. sometimes the clientele can't discern the value of 6 oz. of hormone free beef, locally grown, simply prepared vegetables, organic grits or potatoes just plucked from the ground and lots of flavor from quantity quantity quantity and that wonderful stuffed to the gills feeling they are conditioned to feel. it has caught up with them and some of them are reconditioning themselves to eat seasonally, sustainably, and locally. think globally, act locally is permeating our culture to a point. houston will be last to get to the new party. there are a lot of exciting times ahead. i am, on a good day, optimistic that will see a sea change.

in response to pan, each establishment sort of creates their own customer base. although we all experience some of the same issues, my customer base over 13 years is overall extraordinarily supportive and enthusiastic about what we do. my new staff always comments on how wonderful they are in comparison to say a place they used to work. i was a line cook or a dishwasher in other restaurants in other cities and wasn't on the pulse per se of their customer bases. i was just trying to execute my job well. if i were to work in any other city, i always think of san francisco, but the reality is i don't want to live and work with those unhappy people. my ultimate goal is to not have to work at all at some point. i don't think about cooking anywhere else ultimately. i love cooking in houston.

The difference is that a ratafia is fortified with a spirit, in our case Texas vodka.

in response to zeitoun, thank you for your question. it is more typical to do a stage in france especially or spain or italy, but i didn't go to Europe to do a stage or i would have picked some very particular places to work in. i ended up in greece because most of a traveller's dreams include an island in greece and i decided to pick a livable (read agricultural) island, the largest island in the cyclades, Naxos, where i ended up at Ellie's Restaurant at the island's western point with the Apollo ruin and the sun setting between its sculpture as if on cue at 5:30pm, with tables being added every month from 100 seats to 400 by August and the craziness escalating in direct relation to the number of chairs. I had some entrepeneurial dreams there even then and i would have done really well but i had always intended on coming HOME. I always do what i intend so i try to intend what is honest and right. Ellie's was the childhood island home of ellie. who was a lawyer in Athens half of the year; she ploughed Budapest for antiques in the winter and found a German chef to execute her eclectic cuisine for the summer i worked for her. I don't remember her lasting (the German chef). She only did Greek food in July when her mother came to visit and then her mother did the Greek cooking. In March. when we got to the island, it was very windy and we struggled down the paralia (the boardwalk), to find a room and a meal (the story of my life) which we did. We found a room and then found a well-lighted restaurant where you walked into the kitchen and pointed to your food. I saw large white beans in tomato sauce, a greek country salad and lots of pita, i knew this town was for me. The bakery you could find by smell and walk out with a hot loaf and the afternoon "frappe" of instant coffee, sweetened condensed milk, shakened, not stirred, instantly goes against all of my currrent values, but is part of what the place is about. Trash mounds along the beautiful roadsides of hillside villages reminds me of Marins' problems along Tomales Bay. The fact that my 2 90 gallon trash containers haven't been picked up since Monday remind that everything we do has a consequence and that consequence can be considered in the creative scheme of things; if it's not, it's not worth it because it will ruin paradise. Greece taught me alot. We are all islands and we must deal with our little world, or microcosm. And we can be a mixture of our influences, our travel even on a small island. It was the most unique place on the island, Ellie was a native, but she also wanted to share her experience of the world.

in response to chris, thank you for getting to the meat of the real issue, which is how does one manage business and creativity. i just read a short article about U2's manager and how they met when they were teenagers and how no matter how democratic they tried to be, Bono always ended up in the front seat and how they decided early on that it wasn't worth being creative if they didn't manage themselves with good business sense. By luck, they find themselves with the same manager after 25 years. Not all of us have that luck or that acumen. I have been punished by risk and what i've realized of late is that i've been punished by my insistence on not compromising on levels that i can't compromise myself. We GIVE food away and we still CAN'T GIVE FOOD AWAY! Fear factor, the unusual, the unfamiliar, the conditioned person. The space we chose, the name we chose, the food we chose etc. all adds up to risk taken and success sweeter. But it isn't easy easy. In hindsight, i could see franchising Boulevard Bistrot, easily (even without total compromise) except in the 10 years i had the Bistrot, all sorts of bistros opened, even a Bistro Hair Salon; it would be money-driven and as much as i obsess about money and don't let money dictate how or why i do something; it's a very fine line, I know. It was not our choice to leave 4319 Montrose, but at some level we were yearning to get out of the "bistrot box" as it were and we're not big proponents of transferring success in one location to another location by just putting a name on a building; as a fellow neighbor businessman says, "that was the coldest (read courageous) move he'd ever seen" and on some level i know it inspires him to make his next move. I decided if we were going to move we were going to move forward, with lots of experience behind us. and we were finally going to be the restaurant we were striving to be for 13 years--a restaurant truly and passionately expressive of its place in the Houston landscape.

in response to fifi, thanks for starting the conversation, especially about the "market situation" as it will forever be known. yes i believe the reason is the crux of all of the bafflement about our city. our city is 50' below sea level, sub tropical weather, mostly concrete existence, air conditioned constantly, strip malls and skyscrapers and driven by oil & gas business. our claim to fame is we are the "chemical coast" with not much redeeming value other than its people, its spirit and its passion for art and culture. But it's the third largest city in this country and it's treated like it's inconsequential. We have always resisted joining the union if you know what i mean, but we are a part of this country and the country is going the way of farmers' markets, small agricultural communities, small artisans and in some way Houstonians are supporting the three certified markets that exist. I am encouraged by the viablility of these three markets so far, but everybody's question is "will they grow". Houston is a city about growth. Texas is a state about size--the largest liquor store in the world, the Texas-size IKEA, etc. Can we (the markets) stay small scale and high quality? Or will Houstonians demand it become as overwhelmingly and to be honest embarassingly abundant as the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Francisco. Remember, it has gotten going and Mayor White did push the law through to get us certified to actually do it legally (that took 2 years) and he does appreciate the tremendous amount of value to the community as a whole and there will be incremental progress. Just wait and in the meantime, SUPPORT!

in response to elie, thank you for taking some time to chat. i appreciate your fascination with our ingredients and our techniques demonstrated at t'afia. My main goal in returning to Houston after my "travels" for years was to be able to express all these styles i had been introduced to by all the countries and the cuisines i had been exposed to. Back then, some 15 years ago, people only could grasp one focused cuisine, if that, and they could not comprehend a "patchwork" or a "quilt" of cuisines on one menu. Ingredients equal flavors and that's all i care about really. Ingredients are not for ingredients' sake, but for flavors' sake. Local ingredients put flavor first. Distance, shippability, monocropping doesn't have to be in the equation, shouldn't be in the equation. What's in the equation is the best varietal that can grow in the place and be brought to the consumer and appreciated is the shortest distance between two points and makes the most sense. Our cuisine at t'afia is best described as "passionately local"; passionately place-driven. You should taste terroir; you can eat where your food LIVES! Where you food is ALIVE! I don't particularly appreciate truffles no matter the season--it somehow seems driven by supply and price rather than experience. I'm interested in surprising people by the simple or even mundane; i shun high technique mainly because i'm not a high tech person. if it takes a machine, i'm not that interested. egullet is as high tech as i've ever been probably. if it takes days to prep, i lose some interest along the way. this week, people have been raving about the squash carpaccio with dandelion greens and as much as I kept thinking we could do more, people are blown away by the thin slice of the baby squash and the combination of the bitter dandelions chiffonaded and salt and pepper. It is surprising and satisfying. It is enough.

Thanks so much for loving t'afia and our ratafias, the seasonal fortified wines that we make at the restaurant (and for which the restaurant is named). Restaurants in other countries make fortified wines that are infused with fruits or vegetables (it is more common in France) but it is not that popular here in the US (although there are restaurants that do it, like Chez Panisse). We made a few at Boulevard Bistrot and, as we were developing the concept for t'afia, it all just clicked. I was reading Michel Bras' The Notebooks of Michel Bras – a beautiful little book on desserts, mostly, and he had a number of ratafia recipes that inspired us not only to make them at the new place but to name the restaurant after them. (by the way, t'afia -- the shortened version of the word ratafia – also is a toast that means "to your health" and "the deal is done;" so while you are drinking your ratafia, you can toast with it, too!) For the most part, my partner Andrea (General Manager and "wine guy" at t'afia) comes up with the ratafias but she always gets input from me and our staff. It's been 1 1/2 years and I don't think we've made the same ratafia twice! So, we treat our cocktails (and wine program) like food - we care about the ingredients we use, how we craft them, how we garnish them -- so that you are having a unique drinking experience. We make a white wine ratafia and a red wine ratafia (sometimes a rose ratafia) that starts with a good, crisp, dry wine, herbs from our garden or fruit or vegetables bought from the local growers at the farmers market, Wholesome Sweeteners organic sugar (from SUgarland), organic vanilla beans and Tito's Vodka (made in Austin). THe ratafias are put up in our walk-in and allowed to steep for 3-4 weeks. The flavors are amazing. Sometimes, we simply serve them over ice or with champagne because you don't have to do much to them. But sometimes we make cocktails that are a little more complex. Some examples of ratafias we've made are: rosemary & muscadine grapes; tomatoes & basil; fig & lavender; peaches; lemon verbena, lemon balm & lemon basil with satsuma oranges; cucumber & mint; celery & walnut. Here's a recipe for you so you can make them at home, too. RATAFIA RECIPE 1 cup organic seasonal fruit or vegetable or herb (if an herb, crush a little; if fruit or vegetable, cut open) ¼ cup organic sugar ¼ organic whole vanilla bean (cut open) ¼ cup Tito’s vodka (made in Austin!) or any clean-tasting vodka 1 bottle Crisp white wine or dry red wine Mix together to dissolve sugar. Put in refrigerator for 3-4 weeks (stir well every week). Strain and discard solids. This will yield about 4 cups of ratafia after straining. These ratafias can take 4 weeks to make but there is a way to make them go a little faster. Instead of cutting the fruit or vegetable in half and leaving it in the mixture, you can juice the fruit or vegetable and add the juice to the mixture, as well as the remaining citrus pulp/rinds. thanks so much!!!

WOW! What wonderful market photos!! I am very excited about next week's upcoming chat. I am EXTREMELY low-tech (read no-tech), so a forum like this is very new to me but it is extremely exciting and invigorating. I look forward to participating in a lively, spirited discussion next week. All the best, Monica

FENNEL & CHESTNUT SOUP WITH APPLE CIDER & FENNEL POLLEN Serves 6 as Soup. 1/4 c Texas honey 2 c apple cider 1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced 1 Spanish onion, thinly sliced 1 c organic heavy cream 4 c organic vegetable or chicken stock 2 c peeled chestnuts 1 tsp kosher salt 1/2 tsp black pepper (whole black peppercorns in grinder) Place honey and apple cider in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the fennel and onion and cook for 3 minutes. Add the cream and cook until the onions are caramelized and the liquid is reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Add the vegetable or chicken broth and chestnuts and bring to a boil. Add salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth. GARNISH: We use a touch of cream as well as fennel pollen (available at Central Market) and cranberry salt (made by Coastal Goods available online at www.coastalgoods.com) to garnish. Keywords: Appetizer, Vegetables, Soup, Lunch, Main Dish, Dinner, Easy ( RG1261 )

FENNEL & CHESTNUT SOUP WITH APPLE CIDER & FENNEL POLLEN Serves 6 as Soup. 1/4 c Texas honey 2 c apple cider 1 bulb fennel, thinly sliced 1 Spanish onion, thinly sliced 1 c organic heavy cream 4 c organic vegetable or chicken stock 2 c peeled chestnuts 1 tsp kosher salt 1/2 tsp black pepper (whole black peppercorns in grinder) Place honey and apple cider in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Cook for 5 minutes. Add the fennel and onion and cook for 3 minutes. Add the cream and cook until the onions are caramelized and the liquid is reduced by half, about 20 minutes. Add the vegetable or chicken broth and chestnuts and bring to a boil. Add salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste. Transfer to a blender and process until smooth. GARNISH: We use a touch of cream as well as fennel pollen (available at Central Market) and cranberry salt (made by Coastal Goods available online at www.coastalgoods.com) to garnish. Keywords: Appetizer, Vegetables, Soup, Lunch, Main Dish, Dinner, Easy ( RG1261 )