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Secret chefs rock the house at artful dinner

Posted: Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008

Kathleen Purvis - Food Editor for The Charlotte Observer.

I've had strange dinners and wonderful dinners. This one was strange and wonderful.

Cassie Parsons of Grateful Growers Farm is always thinking up something. Last year, she came up with the idea of bringing Slow Food doyenne Alice Waters to her farm. At the time, I bet the odds were against it and I lost. But I also won, because I got to cover the day Waters visited Grateful Growers.

This time, Parsons asked me if I would go to a dinner, but she wouldn't tell me where, why or what it would be.

One morning last week, she called and told me to be at Green Rice Gallery in NoDa at 6:45 p.m.

When I got there, the door was locked and there was no movement inside. More people wandered up – local food activist Christy Shi, chefs Mark Hibbs and Jim Noble, farm market managers Lynn Caldwell and Mary Jane Leach, food writer Heidi Billotto, Patricia Del Bello of Johnson & Wales, several friends of the farm. Pretty soon, 12 of us were on the sidewalk, wondering what was going on.

A few minutes after 7, Cassie and her volunteers came to the door, dressed in black and wearing masks. They silently gestured us in to a table set with gray silk.

It felt a little off-balance. Funny how silence can take you out of your comfort zone.

The courses started coming, starting with a plate of four amuses, or small bites. It was quickly obvious the food would be special.

There was a shot glass of pale green arugula mousse topped with squares of tomato gelee and bacon brittle. A spoon of duck hash was topped with a poached duck yolk.

Parsons' partner, Natalie Veres, came out and finally – blessedly – started to talk, leading a discussion of local food.

For the next two hours, we ate and talked about the meaning of food and the need to get local food into institutions like hospitals and elementary schools. We talked about our fears of seeing “local” get stripped of meaning and become a marketing tool.

The food got better and better, rivaling the best I've eaten across the country. There were touches of molecular gastronomy, the science-meets-cooking that is fascinating chefs, things like beads of mint “caviar” and vinaigrette transformed into a sheet draped over a salad.

One course featured a chicken just killed the day before. Its feet had been used in the broth, its breast was braised and silky. On top, there was a crostini topped with the liver and a bit of cooked cock's comb.

Finally, Parsons took off her mask and introduced the chefs. The science had led some of us to guess Paul Verica, the talented chef at the Club at Longview. But I hadn't guessed the others with him – Paul Malcolm of Johnson & Wales, Kyle Krieger of Noble's and Ramon Taimanglo of Rooster's, assisted by Ash Evans and Jonathan Batts of Longview.

So why all the drama? Parsons said the setting in a gallery was part of showing that food is art.

And here's what she said was her point:

“Four years ago, people were saying, ‘There's not enough chefs in Charlotte who can rock it out' and ‘There's not enough food here that really rocks it out.'”

In eight courses, she wanted to show that Charlotte's local can also be Charlotte's best – and to challenge us to pay attention to it.

“I want you to be brilliant. Keep it remarkable.”