Guilty Pleasures: Debbie Gold
BY OWEN MORRIS
Debbie Gold is originally from Chicago where she worked at Charlie Trotters. She came to Kansas City in 1994 to work at The American Restaurant and in 1999 she won a James Beard Award for Best Chef in the Midwest. In 2001 she left the American to open 40 Sardines in Leawood. When it closed last year she decided to return to The American, where I interviewed her and asked what she eats when no one is looking.
Whenever I go home, it's pretty simple. Just cheese, crackers and a bottle of wine. You get a Camembert or a French cheese called P'tit Basque. I like the hard cheeses and a good water cracker. Open up a good bottle of Pinot and just have a little French country meal by myself. All I'm missing is the picnic basket and the French countryside...I might do it a couple times a week. Always after work. Cheese and crackers, sometimes cured meats. I get that and then I like old movies so I turn on an old movie and I sit there.
I could stay up all night watching those old movies.
I like movies from the thirties and Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracey. I used to watch them when I was in high school. Obviously it wasn't until I got older that I incorporated the wine and cheese. Now I go home, my kids aren't there and it's just me. After a day of work, I can't go to sleep and so I have a glass of wine and wind down.
I'm not a big eater during the day. I don't eat a lot while I'm working. I don't fit the classic fat chef profile. I don't sit down and eat. So when I go home I just grab something. Eating cheese, meat and crackers. It is not a good thing to do at midnight.
It's better to stick with a red wine when it goes with cheese. I know a lot of people don't think that but sometimes even a port. For me it's not necessarily pairing the food and the wine. It's having a bottle of wine I really like just to sit back and sip on. I'm not looking for a total combination when I'm by myself. It's like, "What am I in the mood for?"
I like the hard French cured meats but I have to admit, a good hard beef kosher salami is good too. But that’s it. A little red wine, some cured meat and some cheese and just kind of sit back. Maybe it brings me back to my French days. Just something simple. Besides my kids like to eat it. They like the cheese and the crackers. They eat exactly what I eat. Except the wine. Yet."
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