CT Magazine: “At 87, Famed CT Chef Jacques Pépin is Garnishing His Culinary Legacy” [*]
“When Jacques Pépin is asked how he came up with the concept for his most recent book, Art of the Chicken: A Master Chef’s Paintings, Stories, and Recipes of the Humble Bird, he doesn’t answer. Instead, he stands up from the table in the kitchen in the Madison home he’s lived in since 1975 and walks to a shelf of books, pulling down a large black book with no cover.
Inside this book and other companion volumes scattered throughout his home are the menus of every major dinner Pépin has prepared for friends and family over the last 50 years. Alongside these menus are paintings he made to commemorate each evening, along with the signatures of his guests.
As he flips through the pages, it’s clear that to Pépin this book is more than a collection of meals he once cooked. It’s a celebration of memories and moments in time, a testament to long-ago parties he and his wife Gloria — who died in December 2020 — hosted during their half-century together.
“These books are my whole life,” he says softly, his words bearing the accent of his native France. “I have my mother in it, my two brothers are in it, many, many people who are gone.”
*Quotation above is taken directly from the website cited and is the property of that source. It is meant to inform the reader and to give credit where it is due.
More from the Connecticut Magazine Article [*]
“When you’ve lived as long, and done as much, as Pépin, time is a strange thing. He was born in a household without a telephone and became a social media star during the pandemic, attracting hundreds of thousands of new admirers on Facebook and Instagram. Even with a career that has made him a living legend and included numerous TV appearances and every other accolade one can think of, his knives are still sharp and he’s still adding new ingredients to his story.
In December, he celebrated his 87th birthday at a charity event at Stone Acres Farm in Stonington to raise funds for the Jacques Pépin Foundation and the Yellow Farmhouse Education Center, located at Stone Acres Farm. The food was prepared by Connecticut chefs Renee Touponce (Oyster Club and The Port of Call in Mystic), Chrissy Tracey (a plant-based chef in New Fairfield) and Emily Mingrone (Tavern on State and Fair Haven Oyster Co. in New Haven). Earlier that same month, Pépin received a lifetime achievement award at the CRAzies, the annual awards presented by the Connecticut Restaurant Association. He also remains active with the Jacques Pépin Foundation, which provides culinary training to people displaced from the workforce.
And then there’s his most recent book, which was released this past fall and is one of his most successful works to date. This, despite the fact that his publishers initially didn’t find the idea appetizing.
Pépin killed his first chicken when he was 6 or 7. He held the bird down on a stump in his family’s backyard while his brother chopped off its head with a kitchen knife. When the chicken began to struggle, young Pépin panicked and let it go. True to the old saying, the headless chicken took off, spreading blood across the yard — a real-life culinary horror show. ”
*Quotation above is taken directly from the website cited and is the property of that source. It is meant to inform the reader and to give credit where it is due.
