Five minutes after meeting for the first time, Anthony Ricco and Bal Arneson are convinced they must somehow share the same DNA.
He’s a youngish Italian guy who grew up in rough and tumble Brooklyn and is now the executive chef at one of New York’s most popular restaurants, the Spice Market.
She’s from a rural village in India and has transformed herself into the Food Network’s Spice Goddess and best-selling cookbook author.
When WE Vancouver heard Ricco was in town for a week to “heat things up” at Market by Jean-Georges, we invited them to go spice shopping at Granville Island Market, one of Arneson’s favourite Vancouver places.
“We might be twins,” Ricco says during their first stop at Duso’s. “All chefs share a gene,” Arneson concurs.
She’s just explained why she thinks a cardamom pod is the world’s sexiest spice. When you open it up, the aromatic burst is “like someone has proposed to you with a $20,000 Tiffany ring.” Spices are a rainbow spectrum of flavours, she says. “It’s a symphony,” he adds.
He mentions that he’s trying to lower his cholesterol and she instantly recommends adding paprika and turmeric to vegetable smoothies. (If he feels a cold coming on, add hot water to a mixture of turmeric, lemon, ginger and honey, she adds.)
One of the reasons Arneson loves the Granville Island Market is that you can get everything you need here, including the best cuts of meats, fresh vegetables and ingredients for cuisines from around the world. (Ricco is craving an apple. “In New York you can’t get a decent piece of fruit for nothing.”)
When they’re passing by Tenderland Meats, she’s curious to learn he uses a wine vinegar braise for his beef vindaloo. When he tells her how he trains chefs to make Spice Market’s signature samosas, she laughs and says, “You, a white guy, teaches people how to make samosas.... I love it.”
It’s even more of a stretch when you consider that Arneson says eating at the Spice Market — her go-to place in New York — “feels like you’ve visited your grandmother’s” and yet when Ricco was growing up, spicing things up meant opening up a box of Rice-A-Roni.
At the South China Seas Trading Company, Ricco asks Arneson’s help in sorting out those funny looking loonies and toonies so he can buy some fresh kalamansi, a small, green, kumquat-like fruit. He cuts the kalamansi in half and gives it to her before biting into his. He likes to squeeze it on barbecued stingray with pickled chilies and shallots.
Arneson realizes that they simply have to cook together one day. She’s in New York over Easter and suggests they get together for a special Spice Goddess addition to the menu. Meanwhile, she’s going to send Ricco her heart-healthy No-Butter Chicken recipe.
As they commiserate about all the demands on their time, Ricco mentions that in January, he and his wife discovered that she was pregnant with their first child. Arneson stops in her tracks. “At the end of the day, it all comes back to your family,” she tells him. “Having children constantly grounds me. My advice as a ‘seasoned’ mother is you’re going to be blessed with something so tremendous, it’s going to lift you up.”
Jean-Georges Vongerichten opened the Spice Market 10 years ago in the Meatpacking District, inspired by the street foods he discovered travelling throughout Southeast Asia. He opened Market by Jean-Georges five years ago when the Shangri-La in Vancouver started welcoming guests. From April 4 to 18, Market by Jean-Georges is marrying the Spice Market’s cuisine with chef de cuisine Montgomery Lau’s West Coast inspired dishes. This includes a $29 lunch prix fixe and a $68 five-course, 10-flavour tasting menu at dinner.
