A Chef Who Hates Soup Gets Served Fish Stew
She does not like soup, except for clam chowder, and she was not sold on grocery-store fish cubes.
Freakonomics Radio Network · Why Chef Hillary Sterling Trusts Her Senses Over Science | Better in PersonThe stew was hot and ready when she walked in, full of fish and little potatoes, and smelling good. Stephen Dubner had been excited to share it, because she had fed him so well and so generously at her own restaurant that he wanted to cook for her in return.
Hillary Sterling, the executive chef at Ci Siamo, a live-fire Italian restaurant in New York, took one look and started laughing. Dubner, who had made the stew, wondered if it looked terrible, if she was not hungry, if she did not like fish, or if she was insulted by stew.
It was simpler and worse than that. "I have this thing about soup," Sterling said. "No, I don't like soup."
This is an awkward thing to tell a man who has just made you fish stew, which is soup. Sterling softened it a little. She said she was okay with clam chowder. Dubner tried to recover. He said his stew was like clam chowder, except with fish.
Then came the fish. Dubner admitted he had bought it from Fresh Direct, which sells what it calls fish cubes. "You're not selling me here by any means with fish cubes, too," Sterling said. She was not convinced.
Dubner promised a very small serving and told her she did not have to finish it. "I want to make sure you get a little bit of fish that's not too cubist," he said. Sterling peered at the bowl and asked about the little potatoes. Were they canned potatoes, or regular potatoes he had cooked himself?
He was insulted. "This is made deeply from scratch with total love," he insisted. The only thing he had not done, he said, was find out how much she hated soup. Sterling laughed. She said her mom used to serve canned potatoes all the time.
She took two bites and declared that two was good, and that three bites would be sufficient. Then she took a third bite anyway. "It actually reminds me of something that my grandmother would have totally made 100%," she said. She said she loved her grandmother very much. She only realized later that she had never liked the soup.
Dubner started to clear the bowl. Sterling stopped him to say it again. "It was delicious. Thank you," she said. "I had a third bite."
Questions people ask
What kind of restaurant is Ci Siamo?
Sterling runs Ci Siamo, a large restaurant in Manhattan that cooks Italian food over live fire and presents Italy as many distinct regions rather than one cuisine. She has said she spent about 15 years trying to correct the American idea that Italian-American food is the same as food in Italy.
What are fish cubes?
They are exactly what they sound like, cubes of fish fillet sold portioned for convenience. Many chefs prefer to buy whole fish or large fillets because they can judge freshness by smell, eyes, and texture, and because cubes can cook unevenly and look uniform.
What was the whipped garlic on the table?
It is toum, a thick Middle Eastern condiment made by whipping raw garlic with oil, lemon, and salt until fluffy and very pungent. Dubner had put some on the table with bread, and Sterling, who dislikes raw garlic, found it powerful.