Some people think about leaf peeping when fall rolls around. Chef Frank Brigtsen thinks about satsumas.
“There’s always something in season here,” says the 71-year-old James Beard Award winning chef. “Often, we think seafood. But our citrus season rocks. When the World Series comes around in late October, so do the satsumas.”
What’s his favorite way to use what he dubs “the perfect peel and eat fruit?”
“You can’t beat the raw product,” Brigtsen says. “We take the tomatoes off our house salad and put the satsumas in, along with spiced pecans and our cane vinaigrette. Navel oranges are next — to me the best oranges in the world. Growing up as a kid, especially during the holiday season, my father would keep a case of satsumas in the bay window by our dining room table. Such a treat.”
Provided photo
The recipe for Brigtsen’s house salad with the vinaigrette is on page 69 of the chef’s just published legacy cookbook, “Frank Brigtsen’s Color of Flavor — Recipes and Recollections from a Creole Chef.” With stunning photography by Romney Caruso, the book spotlights 150 recipes that mirror Brigtsen’s 52 years in the kitchen, with dishes both classic and modern.
It’s a deeply personal book, full of stories. Throughout its culinary narrative, the chef radiates his love for his city, the students he taught over the decades and above all, his wife and partner Marna.
“We go together like red beans and rice,” is one of the Frank-isms that pepper the book’s pages, written in a font that mirrors his own handwriting. “I’ve always had good penmanship, since the second grade,” Brigtsen notes.
The 361-page, oversized cookbook was underwritten by his friend Richard Thomas, the owner of Blue Runner Foods, a six-figure investment Thomas calls a win-win.
“I just couldn’t believe Frank hadn’t done a book yet,” Thomas says. “If people stopped eating red beans and rice, we’d be out of business. It just made sense to partner with Frank on this project. He may be the last real Creole chef. Every now and then God smiles on you, and you do the right thing. This is one of those times.”
Oysters are another one of the chef’s favorite fall foods, and they get a lot of action in the book. He loves them on the half shell, but there are recipes for oyster soup with spinach and brie, oysters Rockefeller soup and baked oysters.
“Oysters spawn in summer, when there is more fresh water in the marsh,” he says. “Makes them kind of milky. Then, as the river drops, the water gets saltier and oysters start fattening up. I’m already thinking about oysters.”
Another fall seafood favorite is white shrimp, which reach their peak plumpness as the weather chills.
“They’re about 10 per pound in the fall,” he says. “Good for boiling, barbecue shrimp, shrimp remoulade.”
But the chef’s all-time favorite autumnal dish is Franksgiving gumbo, one of four chronicled in “Color of Flavor,” which by the way, Frank says, is brown.
Last week Brigtsen spent a day with chef Emeril Lagasse, preparing the turkey-flavored gumbo for Lagasse’s Thanksgiving edition of his “Emeril Cooks” show.
“It couldn’t have gone better,” he says. “He cooked; I sat next to him on a stool. We just talked. We made the whole gumbo from start to finish in 28 minutes.”
Brigtsen says soups and gumbos are his favorite dishes to prepare, stemming from his love of Thanksgiving and making the stock with his mother.
“If I could make soups and gumbos all day and then go home, I’d be a happy man,” he says. “I love the whole process of Thanksgiving. It comes from my mother. She’d buy the turkey necks and wings on Sunday, on Monday start making stock and vegetable sides. The gumbo just extends the enjoyment of all that good Thanksgiving flavor.”
Cooking at home was just the beginning for Brigtsen. A fourth-generation New Orleanian with Norwegian roots, he grew up in River Ridge, the son of a brick salesman. His mom was an outstanding cook who trained as a nurse and took care of the family.
Brigtsen studied fine arts at LSU and worked in restaurants to earn spending money. When he left LSU after five years without a degree, Brigtsen came home and worked as a prep cook.
Tips from Frank Brigtsen
-If your food is well-seasoned, you’re halfway to good flavor.
-Rule No. 1: Follow the recipe.
-Rule No. 2: If you think you can change the recipe and make it better, see Rule No. 1.
-Classics are classics for a reason. Just because something is old doesn’t mean it’s not good anymore.
-We always have time to do it right.
-The beauty of food is in its diversity.
But it was his next job that set his course for life. He answered a newspaper want ad that said, “Commander’s Palace Now Hiring Creole Chefs or People Willing to Learn Creole Cuisine.”
Chef Paul Prudhomme hired Brigtsen in 1978 and mentored him in a way that was better than any culinary school. Brigtsen then followed Prudhomme to his new restaurant in the French Quarter, K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, in 1979.
He went out on his own seven years later, with Prudhomme’s full support. He opened Brigtsen’s in a cozy Victorian cottage at 723 Dante St. in the Riverbend. With his wife Marna at his side, Brigtsen reinvigorated New Orleans’ culinary lexicon, interpreting each dish with both reverence and vision.
That vision hasn’t dimmed. Because he has chronic arthritis in his back, cooking at the stove is difficult, but he wants to start teaching again.
“I can’t stand at the stove like I used to, but we have an amazing team in place to keep Brigtsen’s moving forward for years to come, without us here every day,” he says. “I’m not retiring.”
Passing on his hard-earned knowledge and training new chefs in the Creole ways are as important of a legacy as the recipes in his book.
“These dishes will live on,” Brigtsen says.
Dining and Cooking