it’s too simple to say that i simply know stacy pearl. i was kicking away on her a few days before my birth, and we met earthside when i was a few days old, so i am lucky to have known her my whole life. stacy and my mother became friends in williamsburg - the place i was born, where my parents thrived, and where stacy owned and operated her famous diner. pre-manhattan-era-williamsburg, but as part of a fleet of artists moving wildly through a “defunct” part of town. stacy gifted her employees shiatsu massages from my mother, who was practicing out of our old loft on south eighth and bedford, and their friendship permeated through to me, and the gratitude i have for both of their guidance is constant.
mrs. pearl’s career spans years of artistry - in the kitchen and in the studio. her earliest memories from the kitchen are centered around her father, a magnificent man with a love of food. they started cooking together when she was eight years old, buying weird gourmet foods - such as kiwis, which at that time were first introduced to the grocery store - and experimenting with flavors together, recreating the french classics of julia child on pbs, recipes from her father’s orthodox jewish-hungarian mother’s years of cooking, and from the foods they would eat out in the world. stacy says of her father, “[he] had an amazing ability to recreate any flavors he had tasted.” and they played with food together - experimenting and taking risks. the two of them would cook the food for her parent’s dinner parties, and she recounted fondly cooking duck à l’orange for forty people when a guest asked for no dark meat, and stacy’s eleven-year old self retorted that “all there is is dark meat.” her father, however, was not a baker and stacy turned to cookbooks to teach her everything about pastry, and cites the better homes and garden cookbook - “the red and white checkered [one]” - as the material she learned from and something she trusts today. thus, the chef was born. she studied art throughout her childhood, and travelled to museums across america and abroad, so while her culinary sense was growing, so was her desire for other creativity.
at eighteen, she left long island and started working in a commercial kitchen in the east village of manhattan “filled with artists, painters, actors, poets, and [the] general fringe all cooking and prepping so they could make their art...it was a fascinating environment. there were also heroin addicts and whores in the same kitchen.” it was a big change of venue for her, but this was the environment that birthed the skill, passion and creativity for stacy to flourish as a chef and as an artist herself. she also spoke to me about how much this industry has changed, how kitchens have become so corporate with its inhabitants having graduated from “bogus” culinary schools - “no more weirdo artists need to apply.” enter: stacy’s diner.
“my father and i dreamed of owning a restaurant together.” after returning from chicago, stacy moved to williamsburg - “a two story loft on the south side on a shitty block at the base of the [williamsburg] bridge. the whole place rattled when the empty j train went by” that looked out on a defunct diner that had closed four years prior and was owned by a police officer. soon, she and her father would rent the place with all its original fixings - cups, dishes, glassware, coffee service, salt and peppers, sugars, and even the pots and pans. there were the remnants of santeria rituals in the corners, and a pay phone which made all international calls for free. a wonderful man from guatemala named carlos was hired to help her “degrease” the place, which took a month for the two of them to do, but revealed a sixteen-foot long pink granite bar, white walls and ceiling, and octagonal white tiles on the floor. the tables, chairs, and booths stayed the same and stacy’s was born. stacy described the menu as “simple good food with a little twist, a little jewy, a little exotic, a bit innovative, and mostly homemade.” (stay tuned for a classic recipe down below). bread and ingredients were bought locally, and all the employees lived in the neighborhood - a family was quickly born as stacy’s became the center of budding williamsburg. the menu was seasonal and stacy took requests, as well as catering events and hosting street parties. the reviews were pouring in, including a rave in the new york times. in her own words, “it is something i am very proud of, but would never do again...in retrospect i was about seven years too early.” the opening, preparing, writing and tasting, buying equipment and designing the place was so much fun but it was very hard, even with the support of her parents. eventually, stacy’s would close, but stacy reflects on this and says “i also find it insanely lovely that to this day, recently at an artist reception in ridgewood, people come up to me who lived in williamsburg and told me how much they loved the restaurant and how many great times they had there.”
with every great stride stacy made in her career as a chef (including forty years of chef-jobs and a large presence in santa fe as a radio host and food writer - have i mentioned mouth of wonder enough?), stacy grew as an artist, studying all over the world and constantly finding ways to be creative - “i see being an artist and a chef as the same thing. they both involve creativity and problem solving, just using a different palate of ingredients. i take into consideration composition, relationships, textures, and...flavor. the chef part of me has led to improving my painting techniques because i am now more methodical...i approach food, specifically my current research into alternative ingredients to meet specific dietary needs of my clients, as an ongoing experiment (which is how i view my paintings), but then switch modes and try to create works of art on each plate.” her newest project is titled meaningless paintings, which is her response to the exhaustion of searching for meaning in art, and turning instead to the “opposite game,” one of taking the swath of images the internet can provide and replicating them on canvas in combinations that are “based on intuition and composition, with a touch of humour or irony if i’m lucky.”
to end this conversation, i asked stacy to talk about some of her favorite museums in the world, from the perspective of a global traveller and brilliant creative: the guggenheim museum bilbao, in spain, for its remarkable design by frank gehry, great collections, and the divine local basque cuisine: moma manhattan, two renovations ago when they never moved any of the paintings and she knew where they all were - the amazing permanent collection included the masterpiece guernica: the cooper-hewitt for its interactive exhibits and the mansion it lives inside of: the tate modern for the most grand entrance gallery and its unique special exhibitions: and finally, the matisse chapel in the south of france - a tiny white chapel covered in matisse drawings and stained glass panels, where photos are forbidden and nuns will scold you if you break the rule.
this piece would not be complete without a recipe, considering that is, oddly, what this newsletter is all about. so please find below a classic recipe from stacy’s, the best diner that ever was. her perfect muffins are sweet, tender, juicy, and delightful - “simple good food with a little twist.”
perfect muffins with fresh strawberries
makes 12-14 muffins
ingredients:
454g/ 1lb organic strawberries, washed and hulled
113g/ ¼ lb (1 stick) unsalted butter
300g/1 ½ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
300g/ 2 cups all-purpose flour
6g/2 tsp baking powder
a large pinch diamond crystal kosher salt
120g/ ½ cup heavy cream
4g/ 1 tsp vanilla
recipe:
using an electric beater or stand mixer, cream the butter and 250g/ 1 ¼ cups sugar until light and fluffy. add the eggs one at a time, and beat until fully incorporated. sift together flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl. add flour mix alternately with cream to the butter and sugar mix. add vanilla and fold in fruit. if you are using strawberries, 1 basket cut in quarters will do it. be gentle! blueberries, chopped apples, cranberries or any old fruit will work. take the remaining 50g/ ¼ cup of sugar - which i trust you remembered to save - and sprinkle it over the top of muffins before baking. bake in buttered or paper lined large muffin tins at 375℉ for 30 minutes. let cool and eat!
original recipe courtesy of stacy pearl. original photographs. all rights reserved by author.
this author pays respect to all exterior works and authors presented.
a downloadable pdf copy of the recipe can be found here.
I am deeply honored by this beautiful article.Love you forever!
Best diner ever!