Food

New New England goes to old New York

by Sam Pfeifle

At the Cape Neddick Inn, nestled in on the shore between York and Ogunquit, Chef Michele Duval is grabbing some serious spotlight. She has received an invitation to travel to New York's Greenwich Village on September 13, and cook for the James Beard Foundation, the preeminent culinary institution in the country. She is the first woman from our fair state, and one of only a handful of Maine chefs, to be selected for the prestigious visit. (Melissa Kelly at Primo has been invited, and is a James Beard award-winner, but she wasn't working in Maine at the time.)

James Beard was one of America's most prolific cookbook authors, and is often hailed as "the father of American Cooking." After his death, in 1981, a group of chefs bought his Greenwich Village townhouse, famous as the birthplace of hundreds of Beard recipes, and established the Beard foundation to foster the culinary arts in the US. The brownstone remains the only federally-recognized culinary historic landmark, and the foundation's annual awards are the Oscars of the cooking world.

"When you get an invitation to cook for them," says Duval, "it's the real deal." Other Mainers to receive invitations include Sam Hayward at Fore Street, and Clark Frasier and Mark Gaier of Arrows in Ogunquit.

Duval "was recommended by someone on my program committee," says Beard Foundation Executive Director Mildred Amico, "and I was driving along the highway and saw the Cape Neddick Inn, and I thought `Now why does that ring a bell.' " Amico later stopped in, liked what she saw, and decided that Duval made the cut. "Plus, she was a woman chef, which we like to celebrate," says Amico. "So I invited her to be part of our `Women in Wine' series," which has been running for the past 10 years.

Duval will will be accompanied by Debbie Baldwin, co-owner of Justin Vineyards of California. Duval sees their eclectic selection as a perfect fit with her "New New England" cuisine.

"Justin intrigued me," she says, "because they think out of the box."

As an example of their equal feats of culinary derring-do, she will pair her Yankee pot roast with pan-seared Maine scallops and bone marrow (!), with the 1997 Justin Isoceles. And for desert, she will join her venison mincemeat cranberry-apple pie with the 1997 Justin Obtuse. "I decided when I go to New York I'm going to cook Maine," says Duval, "I'm not going to go to New York and cook New York."

Duval is definitely breaking new ground. After being graduated pre-med from UNH, she found her true calling at the stove, and has made her way to the top completely without formal culinary instruction. "All the great chefs are self-taught," she notes with a self-reverential nod. She says she's also excited to be participating in what she sees as an unheralded renaissance in New England cooking.

"There's a whole new New England cuisine," she says, "that the national scene isn't aware of. They talk about the `New Southwest,' and the `New New Orleans' [think Emeril], well there's a `New New England,' too, which is really exciting and what I'm trying to showcase."

Amico has yet to be fully converted, "What, you mean it's not just chowder anymore? I would say that what you're looking at here is people using their natural resources in contemporary ways."