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Charlotte Silver remembers Cambridge restaurant UpStairs at the Pudding

G Force

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 18, 2012|By Glenn Yoder

WHO: Charlotte Silver

WHAT: In her debut memoir, ‘‘Charlotte Au Chocolat: Memories of a Restaurant Girlhood,’’ the 30-year-old daughter of Deborah Hughes, the co-owner with Mary-Catherine Deibel of UpStairs on the Square, recounts an earlier era for the restaurant and Harvard Square, when UpStairs was located above the Hasty Pudding Club. The book is coming out next month.

WHERE: On Feb. 28, Silver will read at the Harvard Book Store (where she once worked), 1256 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, 617-661-1515.

Q. When and why did you decide to write this book?

A. I wrote the first draft when I was a senior in college at Bennington. It only dealt with UpStairs at the Pudding and not the newer restaurant, UpStairs on the Square, after the Pudding closed in 2001. I put the book aside and only came back to it a couple of years ago. I actually think that with the book, which is kind of nostalgic in tone, waiting to publish it and revisiting it now that the Pudding has been closed for 10 years, that to me is an appropriate cast to the story. The book is kind of a period piece, about a certain era that doesn’t exist anymore, a pre-Food Network world. It’s a portrait of a Boston and, specifically, a Harvard Square that doesn’t exist anymore.

Q. How has Cambridge’s restaurant culture changed?

A. Practically speaking, there’s probably a lot of better food now. More fashionable, more sophisticated people, not just in Cambridge, but in the country. To me fashionable food is not of interest. Although I come from a rather rarified food background, and have had the privilege of eating very luscious and wonderful food all my life, and for that I am grateful, I’m not interested in eating fashionable food. I don’t care about things that are trendy. In terms of Cambridge, I miss the rather scruffy, kind of old preppy particularity of Harvard Square.

Q. What have we lost?

A. I think we’ve lost the kind of restaurant that was festive and beautiful - restaurants that have no ego other than to make you happy. The Pudding was that kind of restaurant. It was a beautiful room, beautiful lighting. I love that experience, being feted in a sumptuous way without the waiter having to spend eight minutes telling me where everything in the appetizer comes from. You know, local foods and so on. I have no objections to local foods, but I don’t want dining to be complicated in the way that I think it has become.

Q. The late Julia Child was a regular at the Pudding.

A. She loved my mother’s roasted red pepper soup. It was a sexy and voluptuous soup. It had lots and lots of heavy cream and lots of butter. Those, of course, are Julia Child staples.

Q. Did you feel any pressure to go into the family business?