John Platt
Claim to Foodie Fame: Co-owner/Operator/Executive Chef/Host/Waiter/Bookkeeper/Caterer/Marketer/Repairer-of-Broken-Things, St. Clouds (1131 34th Avenue in Madrona)
Quote: What I love is that every day is rich and varied. I love that I get to cook food almost every day, as well as serve food and interact with people around food. And eat food — which I love to do. On my day off, I like to cook food for my family too, happily. I don't get tired of it — I love it.
What are your earliest memories of cooking?
My mom was a wonderful cook. There were six children in our family, and she made dinner for us every night. The menu was different every day. She had specialties we got used to, but she wasn't a "Mondays we have this, Tuesdays we have this" cook — she was always trying new things, which was awesome. When I was about 14, a hungry teenage boy growing like crazy, one day she looked at me and said, "Look, I'm happy to cook you three meals a day — but the other five you're going to have to learn to cook yourself." And it set me off on an exciting adventure that started with things like Mrs. Paul's Fish Sticks with the make-your-own-tartar-sauce packet. So, I guess I started off by making tartar sauce. And those little French bread pizzas and those little "Chinese" eggrolls. And then it was onward from there. Not ashamed to say that was my start as a cook.
As an eater, my family would sit down to dinner every night and by the end of the meal, all the serving platters would be down at my end of the table. I was a big eater and I loved it all.
What is your idea of comfort food?
I would say it would be homemade pasta with a slow, long-cooked ragù.
Food or meal you would happily die eating, or, what is your last meal and testament?
Pork belly with a bacon-cream sauce. Double-down on the pork. If it didn't take me out then, it would down the road.
How did your family honor food traditions in your household?
It is very important to me that we have dinner together, as fractured as our lives can be. In our house, I'm famous for late dinner. I like to eat late and I like to enjoy the cooking — I don't like to come home and rush to have the meal ready in 20 minutes or an hour. For me, an evening's entertaining is cooking, so I'm never in a hurry to rush through that. What's so great in my family is the conversations that happen around dinner — meals are our chance to get it all out. I have a two-year-old son and a 20-year-old son, and with my older son, from the ages of about 12 to 18, he and I would have dinner at the restaurant every Wednesday night at about 9:00, when I would get done with my shift. Someone else would cook for us and serve us, so it became this relaxing time for us to hang out. My wife and I laugh, because it was like he'd sit down and we'd push a button and he would just talk about all the things that he was thinking and were going on in his life, and we would just look at each other and think how lucky we were that he felt comfortable.
With my two kids as far apart as they are and for how long I've been a parent, it is so clear to me: You've got to make eating fun. It was not where we were going to fight a battle. The whole idea and expression to the kids was: "We think this is fun and we're going to sit down together and eat. If you don't want that, it's fine, don't eat it." As it turned out, both kids are good eaters. We just tried to keep the tension out and the joy of being together in.
Who first taught you how to cook?
By and large, I am self-taught. I have taken cooking classes and courses over the years, but I have really been led around by my stomach. I was raised during a time when there was an explosion of different cultures of food that became available in our country and grocery stores. In 1970, you couldn't find ginger in the average grocery store, but by 1985-90, ginger was everywhere. I came of age in a time when so many different ethnic ingredients became available. I have enjoyed the chance to cook so many different things.
We do this homeless cooking project every month, and all these ingredients come in, and I, on the spot, have to figure out what we're going to make. Somewhere in my training, if you will, was this idea that foods from a certain place go together. So, I'm not as big a fusion guy. I learned to cook in "a culture," and then another and another. And that approach has made sense to me my whole life. For this homeless cooking, when I look at the ingredients in front of me, I think, "What else is Italian, what else is Portuguese, what else is German, what else is Brazilian," you know, whatever is in front of me, and I start ticking through what spices, what vinegars, whatever the things are that are native to that culture, rather than just fusing. I guess that must make me a bit of a traditionalist. At St. Clouds, the menu may be varied, but with each individual dish we try to be consistent and truthful.
If you could invite anyone to your holiday dinner — living, dead, or imaginary — who would it be?
In the context of a conversation about food, I would invite Jean-Georges Vongerichten. He is a chef who has restaurants all over the world, several in New York, the flagship being, of course, Jean-Georges. He has a knack for fusing French and Asian that I love. I love his food. I would want him to do the cooking.
The other option would be my mom and dad. My dad isn't living anymore and my mom lives in Rochester (New York), and I don't see her enough. I never see her for Thanksgiving, because it is such an awful distance to travel. Several years ago, they came out for Thanksgiving, and it turned out to be two months before my dad died. He passed from a stroke, very quickly and completely unexpectedly. At any rate, we ended up having Thanksgiving at the restaurant. We had a bunch of family in and I put my mom and dad to work in the kitchen. It was fantastic.
Does your family have any classic dishes that you prepare each year?
Our family Thanksgiving meal is totally traditional. Also consistent are these words from my mom's mouth: "The turkey is not ready yet — it's going to be a little while."
Talk a little bit about how you view the role of food in creating and sustaining community, maybe sharing a bit about the work you and the St. Clouds team do in Seattle/Madrona.
I love watching people come in and have dinner together. I get to watch all these families, because we have a ton of regulars. I know them because I met them when they were first dating, and then they're married, and then they have children. The restaurant has been around 11 years, so you can imagine I've seen a lot of growth in that time. I see families that are just beside themselves with this little baby, and then in a blink they have three children. It's really beautiful; it means so much to me to see people getting together around food. The uplifted spirits that come from it. And, in particular, it is so sweet to see these families that you can tell deal with all kinds of hell at all times, but for this time, mom or dad didn't have to cook dinner, nobody's got to clean up, and maybe mom and dad are having a glass of wine, and everybody thinks: this is just the way it should be. I really love that, and it certainly is what initially got me into this business. I can't solve the world's problems in any way, but I sure think that it is good for all of us to sit down together for dinner.
It's the same thing when we cook dinner for the homeless. They sit down and look at the food in front of them and say, "Wow, this is some really nice food." They come to understand that "someone made this for me." And a lot of these people don't have anyone doing anything for them, and there is a little bit of cherish in that moment of realization. They must feel, for a moment at least, that life is going to be okay. I like to imagine the families, the couples, the groups that come and sit down in the restaurant — that just for a little while, they think, "Life is good."
John Platt's Plum Delicious Recipe
There is a recipe in my family, and it is kind of funny how well-loved this recipe is — it's from a cookbook that I can cite, and it is called "Plum Delicious Casserole." It's not a "restaurant" recipe, but it is certainly a "mom's recipe" that is much-loved. Yes, it's lowbrow, but there wouldn't be a food snob on the planet who would turn it away. We ALL love it!
Adapted from a recipe in Kitchen Keepsakes, by Bonnie Welch and Deanna White
Ingredients:
1 lb. ground beef
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 can of water
1 handful of frozen peas
1 handful of frozen corn
16 oz bag frozen tater tots
Preparation:
Brown ground beef. Place in casserole dish, stir in peas and corn along with cream of mushroom soup diluted with half can of water. Top with frozen tater tots and bake uncovered for about an hour.
Photo credit: Seattle Times/Jim Bates
