BEST MADE PROJECTS

Tools of My Father: by Alex and Lulu Kalman

(with illustrations by Maira Kalman)

Lulu:

I have hazy memories of grilled chicken legs and zucchini and Hungarian sausages cooking on a kettle grill upstate.

And I have hazy memories of strawberry ice cream from a hand crank machine that we all got to take turns with.

But I have a clear memory of veal shoulder. From a recipe by Marcella Hazan. A galley kitchen. A stained t -shirt.  A New York view. A bread crumb crust.  Oil splashed forearms. Pink framed eye glasses. My father.

And this hammered casserole. It’s called a Majestic. We have had it forever and I’ve braised in it occasionally over the years that I’ve been cooking. The pot now lives on top of the kitchen cabinets  above the stove in the apartment that my mother still lives in. Where my father lived when he died.

I consider the pot his, still and always. And when I look at this pot, or I hoist it down from its perch, I think of him at this one moment in time. A moment so terrifying. So passionate. I stood pinned to the far end of our long kitchen. My father stood over this pot, his hands, deep into it, gently wrapped around a veal roast—trying to turn it to get the crust just so. I remember him lifting it—barehanded—hot, oiled—I was awed. The roast peeped over the edge of the pot, turned cooperatively in my fathers hands, and then dropped. The crust broke. My father cursed maybe. Shouted out. I was 8.

And 8 years later he was gone.

And the pot is still there and when I look at it I think of him.

Of his love.

And of the food he loved to make for us.

Alex:

I remember my dad sitting hunched over a table with a pencil in his hand. He always had a pencil on him; in his hand, in his pocket, behind his ear, or sometimes, between his teeth. He believed there are no restrictions or rules when it comes to a pencil. It is the starting point, the part of the project or the idea that could go in any direction.

He preferred pencils to computers because at that time computers could only draw straight lines (which he thought were boring). A crooked line, made by hand was much more interesting. It is also easy to make mistakes with the pencil, and what could be better? He believed that the best ideas came from mistakes.

When you use a pencil - your brain is very connected to your hand which is connected to the pencil which is making the line on the paper. So your brain is very close to the illustration of its thoughts. With a pencil you can sketch, write and doodle freely. Tibor would fill dozens and dozens of pages at a time with ideas. They were ideas that would lead him to other ideas,  that would lead him to questions, to jokes-and eventually-sometimes-maybe-hopefully-to a great idea.

Lulu Kalman was born New York City. In August. To parents who enjoyed food and art. She has lived in Rome and Tel Aviv. After studying literature she attended the French Culinary Institute in NYC. Currently she is a chef for Danny Meyer’s Union Square Events.

Alex Kalman was born and lives in New York City and is the founder of Red Bucket Films and My Block NYC.