But the real question for restaurant chefs is this: Can they translate their idiom to the home kitchen? For too many, the answer is: not really. Some lean heavily on prep cooks and dishwashers, forgetting that in most homes the cook is the prep cook and dishwasher (the server, too). Others forget that most home cooks have just one oven, and probably no terrine molds. And very few recognize the time constraints most of us work under, given that their kitchens typically get about a four-hour run-up on dinner, while we count ourselves lucky to get just one (even understanding that we have far fewer people to serve). And don't get me started on hard-to-find ingredients.
''Spice" suffers mildly from these afflictions, as a trial of four of its simpler recipes attests.
Carrot salad is a staple of the Middle Eastern table, but a few missteps can leave it soggy and oversweet. Sortun's Jerusalem-style carrot salad with goat cheese crottin, however, is bright with acid and herbs -- lemon juice, vinegar, parsley, mint, and dill -- and a generous handful of toasted pine nuts keeps the texture varied. The sharp and funky contrast of fried goat cheese comes just short of overwhelming the carrots.
Halibut cooked in milk with cinnamon, fried almonds, and spinach sounds fascinatingly odd and original. Have milk, orange juice, cinnamon, garlic, and fish ever kept company before? As it turns out, the combination makes a pleasing sort of sense in the mouth, but also a major mess in the kitchen (fry the almonds! clean the greens! blanch the greens! simmer the sauce! blend the sauce! simmer again!) that, in the end, didn't seem worth it.
