Occasions to Celebrate | Alex Hitz
Intro: Welcome to the number one cookbook podcast, Cookery by the Book with Suzy Chase. She’s just a homecook in New York City sitting at her dining room table talking to cookbook authors.
Alex Hitz: I'm Alex Hitz and I'm here to chat about my latest book, Occasions to Celebrate, Cooking and Entertaining with Style.
Suzy Chase: Welcome to my simulcast podcast on both Decorating by the Book and Cookery by the Book. I am dying to kick things off with the fact that you've been dubbed by the Wall Street Journal the very best host in the world.
Alex Hitz: We've heard worse, don't you think?
Suzy Chase: We sure have. Wow.
Alex Hitz: That was when my first book came out and the person who wrote that article had come for dinner in California and a couple of different times. One was a small dinner for eight people, one was a big dinner for 300. And anyway, it was very exciting and flattering and heady to be called that, and I have played that up as much as I can for all these years now. We've heard worse.
Suzy Chase: Let's kick it off with the story of you looking for a recipe for Moussaka that Alice B. Toklas had given to your mother in Paris in the 1950s.
Alex Hitz: So that was for my last book, the Art of the Host. And let's ... how do we say this? I was defining what my food DNA was. And one of the seminal events of my mother's early development was going for lunch in Paris at Alice B. Toklas, the apartment that she shared with Gertrude Stein for more than 50 years. Gertrude was dead by the time, but Alice had still had the same apartment.
The walls quite literally covered from top to bottom in Picassos. And my mother was sent to interview Alice for the school newspaper, 1956, she was 20. So Alice, who was by then a very famous cookbook writer, gave mom lunch, which was Moussaka, crusty bread, an herb salad, and [inaudible 00:02:09]. And it was so indulgent and full of flavor and everything should always be.
And mom said, "Okay, this is really good place to start." That's how it all started in my consciousness, lunch at Alice B. Toklas that I never went to. And so for my second book, which came out three years ago, I went looking for that recipe and instead unearthed ... of course, I didn't find the recipe until the 249th box, but I found 250 boxes of archives of both sides of my family dating back as far as 1817 and everything they did and wore and went to, planned for and all that stuff. So it was a treasure trove of memories that I didn't ever know.
Suzy Chase: In the boxes there were photos, your stepfather's installation as a Kennedy Center honoree, Thanksgivings, christenings, black tie events on the town. Had your family ever brought this up to you? Did this was all sitting there?
Alex Hitz: I had no idea. I knew that my mother kept photo albums and things like that, but I had no idea that everybody in the family kept every rubber band, paper clip, souvenir from any trip. The things that were really interesting were the trips to Europe and the ocean liners, the Queen Mary and the Rotterdam, and the SS France, my father's maiden voyage, and the most glamorous ocean liner that ever lived, the SS France. All those wonderful things that I unearthed. It was like a complete treasure trove that told a story of unusual lives well lived and failing, that they could have earned a permanent spot on Hoarders or Buried Alive.
Suzy Chase: So your mother came from a family where none of the women knew how to cook or wanted to, and she was educated in Europe, fell in love with food, and brought back those French traditions, standards, and taste to your kitchen in Atlanta. How did your mother learn to become a great hostess?
Alex Hitz: I think that's something you don't learn. You can refine that, but you don't really learn that. You have to start with a generous spirit, which is what she had. And she liked parties. She liked being a guest at parties, and she liked her own parties best of all. I think she learned on the job as a hostess. I think her mother was a great hostess, even though she was not a great cook, and she refined her craft as she went on through her life.
It's a little bit like decorating. I have this wonderful friend who was one of the great decorators in the world, François Catroux in Paris. And he would say to all these people who would go to decorating school, he'd say, "Well, you can go and refine the craft, but you cannot learn it. You're born with it and you can't learn it." And you're either born with the inclination to do something well and care about it or you're not. And if you're not, you won't have the passion for it and you'll never soar to the heights of it.
Suzy Chase: So this book is about celebrating every day. But right now, most of us are focused on the holiday season. In the Serve It Forth chapter on page 231, you set us up to have a good party with three service styles and six helpful tips. Could you please share those with us?
Alex Hitz: The three styles of service that are the most elegant at home are family style, where all the food is put on the table and people pass and pass and things like that. Buffet, where it's on a side table or in the kitchen or somewhere else, people get up to go. Or if your pocketbook allows, French service with a waiter serving. Plated food should be saved for restaurants only. It's not the most graceful option at home. That is a matter of refinement that many people don't understand, but just trust me when I say that.
Suzy Chase: So what's your go-to?
Alex Hitz: Depends on the occasion. It depends on the time of year. It depends on the guest. I think they're all ... I've done them all many, many, many times. And you can't go wrong with any of them, except for plated.
Suzy Chase: Yeah, and that's the no, no.
Alex Hitz: That's for the restaurants.
Suzy Chase: Could you share your six helpful tips please?
Alex Hitz: Number one, keep all of the wines on the table. Okay? Put the wines on the table. If you are lucky enough to have waiters, there is nothing worse than to wait for the waiter to pour the wine. Just go ahead, let the waiter deal with the food. Let the waiter refill your glass, but keep the wine on the table and go from there.
Consider always where your guests are going to be seated, even if you don't have place cards. They must have a proper place to be. If it's a buffet, they can sit all over the apartment, the house, whatever, it's fine, but they have to have a designated place. It can't be, "Oh, just sit somewhere on the floor." They can't do that. So always have a place for them to be. Everything requires planning and forethought. Then, turn the lights down. Please understand that no one came over to bear witness to a root canal or toe surgery. Turn those lights down.
Suzy Chase: Amen.
Alex Hitz: Number four, make an effort, a huge effort. Sweat all the small stuff. Otherwise, why are you bothering to have guests? No one, but no one has a gun to your head to entertain. So if you do it, please be all in or not at all, but just do everything before your guest arrives so they don't see you sweat. Nothing, trust me, nothing can ruin a party quicker than watching the host straining to get the job done or being a martyr. Parties are worth the effort, but they must look seamless and simple, although they never, ever are.
Number five, have candles and flowers, even at special holiday lunches. Although Emily Post says, "No candles during the day," I have candles. There's so much else to offend our sensibilities now. I think perhaps, dear Emily, we can just let that one go. And remember, anything can go wrong and often does. Nothing's perfect no matter how hard we may try, but a party will always be successful, regardless of what happens if you keep smiling, don't punish your guests by making them wait too long to be served and don't starve them by offering skimpy portions. Plus, if your humor's intact, your intentions are spot on, and you have plenty of wine and those lights are down, even if your oven goes out and you've got to send out to KFC, your party will be a great triumph. Never stop smiling.
Suzy Chase: There is so much preparation to do for a holiday party, and I think number one is the planning of the menu.
Alex Hitz: The secret to me for everything, not just the holidays, but for any kind of entertaining, is to do everything three days ahead of time, because when it screws up, you have three days to fix it. And as an added bonus, the flavors are always so much better when you cook everything ahead of time. People really make that huge mistake by doing everything at the last minute, that it's not, they think it's better, it's not better. It doesn't taste better, and it gives you a stress. So do everything ahead of time and heat it up.
Suzy Chase: For me, the makings of a good party start with delicious hors d'oeuvres, as you said, dim lighting, candles flickering, and good music. A glorious recipe I want to make for Christmas is on page 42 and it's Deeda's Oven-Baked Potato Chips with Crème Fraîche and Caviar. Could you please describe this recipe and talk a little bit about Deeda Blair.
Alex Hitz: Well, Deeda Blair is a very dear old friend of mine, and she has a book out now also that's called Food Fantasy and Flowers or something like that. And so I asked her for two recipes for this book, one for Lacquered Duck and the other for the Oven-Baked Potato Chips with Crème Fraîche and Caviar. She would only give me the second one because she was publishing the Lacquered Duck in her own book. So you've got to get that book too, because that's a magic wonderful recipe.
But anyway, Deeda lived in Washington for many years. She was a famous hostess, very politically connected. They were ambassadors to somewhere under the Kennedy's, et cetera, et cetera. And Deeda is glamorous, she has wonderful taste, she serves the best food, and she is a perfectionist beyond. When I asked her for this recipe, she even sent me the drawing of how it is to look on the plate, so I published that.
Suzy Chase: I love that.
Alex Hitz: And I do too. It's so great. And her handwriting and everything, she drew it, everything with stencil, it's fabulous. Anyway, it's all here in this book. This would be an exception of something plated as a first course. I guess you can get away with something plated as a first course. This is a magic recipe.
Suzy Chase: I also love your recipes for shrimp tartar and cucumber cups, which looks beautiful. So clever.
Alex Hitz: Yeah.
Suzy Chase: And Liz's pimento cheese.
Alex Hitz: Any easier and Liz's pimento cheese would make itself. This came from my friend Liz Smith Robinson in Baltimore after I had spoken several years ago in Baltimore, and we were sitting in her kitchen and I said, "I'm starving." And she said, "Oh, did you give me two seconds." And she whipped up the pimento cheese and I ate four or five pounds of it, 10 pounds. I don't know what I ate, so much. I said, "It's so good. I just can't stop."
Suzy Chase: I am a huge pea lover. And Wendy's pea salad on page 101 is incredible. I get a version of this at this restaurant here in New York City. You might have one on the Upper East Side, it's called Westville, but they leave out the mayo. Could you please talk a little bit about this recipe and who Wendy is?
Alex Hitz: Well, first of all, if they leave out the mayo, take your own and put it in there. Okay? Just let them leave out whatever they want, you just take your own, because it really does need that. Wendy is the granddaughter of Fanny Brice, the one who they made those movies and shows about called Funny Girl. Her father was a big Hollywood producer, Ray Stark, The Way We Were, et cetera, et cetera. This family is what we would call Hollywood royalty.
And Wendy would give wonderful lunches at Malibu in the summer with big buffet buffets and barbecues and things like that. And this pea salad was always, always, always on the table. And it was like a family tradition. Wendy's pea salad, which was really Fanny Bryce's pea salad. I always loved it and I love the story about it. Any easier and it would make itself.
Suzy Chase: And I think what you really talk about in this book is the feeling that you're being taken care of.
Alex Hitz: That's exactly it. As a guest, you have to feel that you're taken care of. You have to feel that someone thought about you. Any personal touch that they make is amplified exponentially. That's the key to being a good host, is feeling that something personal is being given to you.
Suzy Chase: For a holiday main dish, what would you recommend out of this cookbook?
Alex Hitz: There is a fantastic, wait a minute, let me find the page ... you're good at the pages, Suzy, but I'm not so good at the pages. Hold on. Yeah. Okay. Page 154 and 155, Karen's Spoon Roast and Superb Sauce. This is a ... and by the way, it makes exactly six servings. Okay? You might have a few left over, but I doubt it because it's just so good.
We're accustomed to seeing in restaurants and things like that braised short ribs as individual pieces. This is a whole rib roast that's braised itself. So it's seared and braised to the point that by the time you go to slice it, it's tender, you can cut it with a spoon. And that it's just so delicious and fantastic and easy to do. You can do it three days ahead of time and heat it up and it's just going to be that much better, just like everything else. And there's this wonderful sauce, it sort of makes itself in there.
Suzy Chase: Something that fascinates me about cookbook authors is how they organized the cookbook. You came to a crossroads when you were organizing this book, and I'd love for you to talk about that.
Alex Hitz: This book started as a party book. And then I realized that after looking through all those boxes and after considering all those recipes and using recipes of friends of mine for big special occasions, or just another Tuesday, that it wasn't a party book, because every day was the time to celebrate, make every day a special occasion. So I thought, we can't make it a party book. We have to make it a book about recipes that are special enough for a party, but could be used every single day.
Suzy Chase: In this book, there are more than 100 recipes that are inspired by traditional southern fare and French culinary fare. Talk a little bit about developing some of the recipes and also gathering others from notable figures.
Alex Hitz: So the thing about developing recipes and which is what I think people respond to in my books, is that they are painstakingly tested. It takes forever, and I'll do it as many as ... for the perfect roast Turkey, for the Thanksgiving, for the last book, I think I did 30 turkeys, and they have to be spot on and right.
I will not stop before I get it right for you. And my big test of, and how I know it's finished is when I can't stop eating it, so that's a whole other thing. But that's when I know it's a successful recipe and when I know it's right, how many times it's been tested. And I think that's what people respond to in these books, is that they know that if they do what I tell them to do, they're going to have a successful, delicious recipe every time. It's not going to fail them.
Suzy Chase: I think all of your recipes are so luxurious, but also easy to make at the same time.
Alex Hitz: Sounds like a winning combination to me.
Suzy Chase: Yes, I love it.
Alex Hitz: In the 1960s, Julia Child revolutionized the American kitchen and she was a goddess in every single way. But it was a very different style. It was a very different time. And while her books are the gold standard of French cooking in America, there are recipes that are very complicated and very ... and descriptions that are very complicated and things that are needlessly complicated.
And that was the style of the time, France to America. So having been weaned on all of those conceits, having been trained in France, and I kept steps that I thought were essential, and I truncated and streamlined other steps that I thought were not totally necessary. So I think mine are simpler, for better or for worse, mine are simpler.
Suzy Chase: I think you bring that philosophy to your Bûche de Noël on page 192.
Alex Hitz: That's a work of art and it's a bit of an opera, but not too much of an opera. If you can make a cake in a jelly roll pan and do it ahead of time and then stuff it, you can do this. And it is such a big wow. People just go, "Oh my God, I can't ... look at this. I can't believe it. I can't believe it."
Suzy Chase: And if you don't have the time for that, you can turn the page and make your insane and easy cheesecake. Top it with raspberries and dollops of whipped cream for a holiday treat.
Alex Hitz: Super easy, any easier and it would make itself.
Suzy Chase: Okay. So would you please quickly describe an easy holiday tablescape? And I'm dying to know what you think of the word tablescape, because I'm actually not too fond of it.
Alex Hitz: Tablescape is the lowest word I ever heard.
Suzy Chase: Thank you.
Alex Hitz: It should be relegated to the lexicon with brunch and we can name other ones, whatever.
Suzy Chase: And invite.
Alex Hitz: Invite. Oh, how about, no, no, not invite. And what about instead of, is the party, is it going to be a seated dinner or is it going to be a buffet? And they say it's a sit-down. No, no, no, no, no. Come on, come on. This is a whole other podcast.
Suzy Chase: It is.
Alex Hitz: We've got to get on ... this would take hours. We've got to get on with this.
Suzy Chase: Okay.
Alex Hitz: But to make a festive holiday table is so easy. If you have silver, and if you don't just get a glass bowl. But if you have silver, nothing looks as beautiful as just a bowl full of super Red Delicious apples in the center. And then I always used to in Los Angeles, and I got this from Caroline Roehm, who is the most stylish, has the best taste of anybody in the world.
She would do smaller silver cups of carnations. Yes, carnations and variegated in different shades of red. They last forever. They look so festive in the holidays. And it's just so easy and inexpensive to do something that's like that. You can call the florist and spend a zillion dollars or you can make it really personal. It's up to you.
Suzy Chase: And what about the candles?
Alex Hitz: They should be tall. They should be really tall. They should be the kind that are so tall and skinny that they come from the Ecclesiastical Supply House.
Suzy Chase: So how many candles do you usually put on a table?
Alex Hitz: Never enough. A lot.
Suzy Chase: Okay, so more is better.
Alex Hitz: Yeah. I put a votive at every place. And then for a table of say eight, a long table of eight, I'll probably have six more tall sticks.
Suzy Chase: And then chargers, yay or nay.
Alex Hitz: I use silver service plates for the first course that are removed for the second course. Charger is, that's either a dodge car or something that sounds really expensive too. I think that's going to have to go on our list of words we don't like.
Suzy Chase: Okay.
Alex Hitz: For the next podcast, Suzy.
Suzy Chase: I've added that one.
Alex Hitz: Okay. Invite.
Suzy Chase: Oh, don't get me started.
Alex Hitz: No, no.
Suzy Chase: It's a verb, it's not a noun. Where can we find you on the web and social media?
Alex Hitz: At Alex Hitz on Instagram. Alex Hitz Facebook. I have a TikTok, but I'm too old and irrelevant to do it, so somebody does it for me. But I think it's Alex Hitz and AlexHitz.com.
Suzy Chase: This has been wonderful. Thank you so much for coming on this simulcast holiday podcast on Decorating By the Book and Cookery By The Book. And happy holidays, Alex.
Alex Hitz: Thank you so much, Suzy. Can I ask one more tiny thing in case I didn't make my point? Just one more tiny thing.
Suzy Chase: Of course.
Alex Hitz: Did I mention to do everything ahead of time, because if I didn't ...
Suzy Chase: You did.
Alex Hitz: I want to mention that ahead of time too. Okay.
Suzy Chase: Thank you.
Alex Hitz: Thank you, Suzy. Thank you so much for having me today. Thank you.
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