Backstage at Emeril’sBy Todd A. Price
John Boutte walks onto the set of Emeril Live in New York City, tired and triumphant after a sold out show at Joe’s Pub the night before. Leonard “Doc” Gibbs, the percussionist and musical director for the band, leans over his percussion kit, still wearing sunglasses and sipping his morning coffee. He shouts at Boutte, “I heard you did good last night.” It was Boutte’s second time to play New York. The first time, four years ago, didn’t go so well. This time, the club scheduled him at 7:30 p.m. and didn’t expect much. Now, they want him to come back and play the 9:30 p.m. slot and a late show. Boutte’s manager Kimball Packard lined up the Joe’s Pub gig after Emeril Live booked the New Orleans singer as a guest. “The only way we could afford this was for the show to pay for travel and hotel,” Packard says. “But I think it will get easier to get up here now.” The Village Voice ran a glowing, full-page preview of the Joe’s Pub gig, calling Boutte “New Orleans’ best-kept secret and possibly its strongest voice.” The New York Times wrote, in a generally positive review of the show, that Boutte “steadily exuded New Orleans feeling: the bonhomie and pride along with the heartache and frustration.” Packard says write-ups in the New York press will help Boutte get more shows around the country. The segment producer, Suzanne Cornelius, tells Boutte and guitarist Todd Duke that except for a full song at the end, they only have to play a few seconds before and after each commercial break. “Whatever you want,” Boutte says, “my mama’s just going to be glad to see me on TV.” As the musicians discuss the songs, a couple of crewmembers finish breakfast at the kitchen counter seats where a few lucky audience members will sit and watch Lagasse cook later that afternoon. The food stylists prep the kitchen for the show, called “Back to New Orleans.” The menu today is Italian salad, a debris po-boy, redfish court-bouillon, white beans with shrimp and calas. One food stylist checks the refrigerator. It’s a bachelor’s fridge filled with nothing but a few vegetables and lots of Abita beer. The freezer is packed with carefully arranged rows of ice cream to be passed out during a break to every kid in the audience. Boutte and the band run through “Down in Treme,” and a few crewmembers bob their heads. A stylist preps a sandwich for a close-up. If not for the wrong bread, it would be a debris po-boy. She puts it on a platter with french fries sitting next to a pitcher of iced tea. The stylist adds a few dabs of mayonnaise as carefully as someone applying eye shadow. A cameraman swings in a crane-mounted camera and takes a shot for later in the show. Boutte, guitarist Duke and Gibbs’ five-piece band launch into a revved up take on “Didn’t it Rain.” By the end, half the crew is dancing and everyone claps.
Emeril Live, launched in 1997, was the Food Network’s first hit. Unlike other cooking shows, the model was more Johnny Carson than Julia Child. Instead of a patient cook behind the stove, an audience and a band stokes Lagasse’s energy. He looked more like a Saints fan at a home game than a proper chef in a starched white apron. “When I had the concept for Emeril Live, I was doing lots of Essence of Emeril shows,” Lagasse says, referring to his earlier, more traditional cooking show on the Food Network. “I was contemplating whether I should retire, and the [Food Network] said, what would you want to do? So I said, you guys know I have a strong connection to music, and I think what’s missing is a food show that uses music and that’s live.” At first, a changing roster of musicians entertained the audience while Lagasse cooked. One of those was “Doc” Gibbs, a jazz percussionist from Philadelphia who earned his nickname in 1977 when he cured Grover Washington, Jr. with herbal medicine. “Each time I came up, I developed more of a rapport with Lagasse on camera,” Gibbs says. “If there was dead time and they needed sounds to carry him from one thing to another, I did wind chimes or different sounds.” A few months after Emeril Live began, Karen Katz took over as executive producer. She hired Gibbs and keyboardist Cliff Starkey as the permanent musical foils to Lagasse’s high-energy cooking. “We were a struggling cable network at the time,” says Katz, “and it was just Doc and Cliff for a number of years.” The band now numbers five. Emeril Live tapes 90 shows a year, and nearly a third of those feature musical guests, ranging from up-and-comers to stars. “For me,” Gibbs says, “Chick Corea was a real special one, because he’s somebody that we all came up listening to. Buddy Guy was another—incredible spirit and energy. When he hit the first couple of chords, man, we knew we were there. And I would say Sammy Hagar was another big, fun situation, because that’s rock ’n’ roll and Sammy’s a ball of energy.” New Orleans and Louisiana musicians have always been part of the show. Those with a lower national profile, like Boutte, found that the national exposure boosted their careers. “I’m quite sure that it really helped sell CDs,” says Kermit Ruffins, who played on a barbecue episode last year. Pianist Henry Butler performed on Emeril Live in 2004. “I got emails from people that I certainly didn’t know,” he says, “I got phone calls from people that I did know every time it ran.” Lagasse always heavily promotes the CDs of guests. “Many of the people that contacted me are first fans of the Food Network,” Butler says, “and then they become fans of whatever musicians they are seeing.” Unlike Boutte’s manager, Butler doesn’t believe that appearing on a national television program directly leads to more work around the country. “I think getting gigs out of a show like that is kind of overblown,” he says. “I think people have to see you on a variety of shows in order for agents and talent buyers to contact you.” Musicians with a larger national following play Emeril Live more for fun than exposure. Los Hombres Calientes, led by percussionist Bill Summers and trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, like to play the show when they’re in New York. “I think the real kick for Emeril was to have Bill Summers on the show, and Bill loved doing it because the food was so good,” says Mayfield, “but it didn’t have any impact as far as an outlet for us.” Kevin Harris of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, which played the show before Katrina, agrees. “The people that enjoy Emeril’s food should know about this band,” he says. “We’ve been around long enough for them to know.” “The music part of it obviously is easy,” Lagasse says, “I just happen to love it. I want to support as many musical people as I can.” Since Katrina, Emeril Live has featured more Louisiana musicians than before. “We really feel it’s important to support the recovery of musicians,” says Katz, “because they’ve been so good to us.” Back on the set, mirlitons, jars of crab boil and mounds of live crawfish are set out on the kitchen counter. Food prepared in the Food Network’s next-door kitchen is wheeled backstage. The audience, nearly 250 people, most of whom waited a year for a ticket, files into the soundstage, which on other weeks becomes Rachael Ray’s retro kitchen or Iron Chef America’s Kitchen Stadium. Most people sit in raisers along the back, but VIPs—friends of Lagasse, the network or a sponsor along with kids on trips from the Make a Wish Foundation—sit at small, tightly packed café tables set with white tablecloths and candles. A few lucky guests sit at the kitchen counter, where they watch Lagasse cook at close range. According to producer Rochelle Brown, those special seats go to high-energy people pulled from the line of regular guests. She doesn’t say it, but all the young people in these seats are better looking than the average audience member. Warm-up performer Jane Campbell, a brunette who moves like Ellen DeGeneres, comes out and gently taunts the crowd. “A crew member told me that you guys look shy,” she says. “I told him no way.” The audience yells back to prove that they’re not shy. She whips them into a fury and then stands in for the host, running out onto the set and taking a lap through the cheering audience, as they practice Lagasse’s entrance. “If you felt a little self-conscious during that,” she tells them, “then you were doing it right.” Next, she runs down the rules for the day. Don’t point at the monitor if a camera catches you. No, not everyone will get food. If you do get food, don’t eat until after the commercial break and share with everyone around you. According to the schedule, Lagasse should already be at the stove by now. Campbell stalls by asking who is celebrating birthdays and anniversaries. Finally, she gets the word that Emeril Live is ready to begin.
On a video monitor, Lagasse introduces the menu for the day. And then, he walks onto the set, beaming, and the audience screams and cheers—just as they were taught. Talking over the crowd, Lagasse, his voice barely amplified, says, “New Orleans really seeps into your soul. It’s like nowhere else in the world.” Another video plays of Boutte leading a tour through New Orleans. Lagasse watches the monitors, grabs an escaping crawfish, and mutters “Oh Yeah” when Boutte describes the barbecue shrimp po-boy at Liuzza’s by the Track. The video ends, and in the minutes before the first break, Lagasse describes his first dish: an Italian salad. He’s wise enough not to mention that many New Orleans menus still list the dish as “wop salad.” The break begins, and a swarm of crewmembers descends on the kitchen counter, putting out pots, polishing them and bringing plates of prepped ingredients from backstage. In the middle of the commotion, Lagasse focuses on whisking together his vinaigrette for the Italian salad. He then greets the guests at the kitchen counter and takes their drink orders—“You want red wine, white wine or beer.” He ventures out to VIP tables and shakes hands with some audience members. And, after checking in with Gibbs, Lagasse returns to the kitchen counter and chops an onion for his salad as the crewmembers scurry behind the set. Rhoda Gilmore, the stage manager, starts a count down, 5 4—“For what?” Lagasse cuts in—3 2 1. Lagasse smiles and his energy level rises. Watching Lagasse during the break, when the cameras are off, it’s easy to see that his sprawling empire of restaurants, endorsements and televisions shows are the extension of two talents: his skill in the kitchen and his ability to charm. With a team of trained chefs on the set, Lagasse could have left the prep work to his assistants during the break. Instead, he keeps his hand in the cooking. He could have easily slipped backstage to catch his breath, but instead he makes the rounds of audience like a chef taking a lap through his dining room. Lagasse’s first trip to New Orleans was an interview for a job at Commander’s Palace. Ella Brennan needed a replacement for Paul Prudhomme, and a headhunter suggested a young chef from Massachusetts. “I said, well, I don’t want to talk to him, he’s too young. I don’t think he has enough experience. I just don’t think it’s necessary for me to interview this man,” Ella Brennan recalls. The headhunter was insistent and eventually flew Lagasse down to New Orleans. “He wasn’t here a very short time,” Brennan says, “and my brother looked at me and told me, ‘That’s our man, huh?’ And I said, ‘It sure looks like it to me.’” In Lagasse, Brennan saw “passion. Passion for food, passion for doing what he wanted to do with his life.” But first, she had to teach him about Creole cuisine. She fed him every Creole dish she could think of and took him to all the important restaurants in New Orleans. “Within a few weeks, he picked up on what I always call the taste,” she says. “If you’re a good cook, I could take you to China and get you in the kitchen, and in a few weeks you’d be able to get the message.” “Most of the restaurants in New Orleans at that time had the same menus,” says Brennan. Lagasse and Brennan, though, had been reading about nouvelle cuisine, a style that replaced classic French recipes with lighter sauces and fresher tasting preparations. Every Saturday morning, Lagasse and Brennan would meet and discuss how to update the food at Commander’s Palace. “We said, we’ve got to get with this,” Brennan says, “but we can’t change what our customers like.” Slowly, they used the daily specials to introduce new flavors, fish from beyond the Gulf and smaller, lighter portions. Gene Bourg, the food critic at the time for The Times-Picayune, reviewed Commander’s Palace when Lagasse was cooking there. “It was a real rave. Beautiful cook. The flavors were just perfect,” Bourg says. “At that time, I think he was at his peak. He injected a new energy and a new imagination into the food, just as Prudhomme had done before.” Later, when Lagasse left Commander’s Palace in 1990 to open Emeril’s Restaurant, Bourg remained impressed. “I thought, this could be the best food being done by an American chef today outside of the [Jean-Georges] Vongerichten crowd [in New York]. He was really cooking unbelievable stuff.” Bourg also saw the qualities that would make Lagasse a star at the first James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony in 1989. “It was on a boat in the East River, and Emeril was one of the chefs who cooked along with Charlie Trotter, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, all those people. Charlie’s food was little purses stuffed with something or other. It was so precious. He had all this contemporary stuff. Emeril had crawfish étouffée on biscuits,” he says. “And the line in front of Emeril’s table was about five times longer than it was at anybody else’s.” Over the years, Bourg saw the crowds of chefs, food writers and restaurateurs at the Beard Award galas gravitate towards Lagasse long before he taped his first show for the Food Network. “Emeril had all the qualities that a celebrity chef needed from the beginning. He got along with men, women—at that time he was younger and thinner, and they thought that he was very handsome,” Bourg says. “This guy was very, very good one-on-one and very down to earth.” Despite his affability, Lagasse wasn’t a natural celebrity. He was often too quiet. He had trouble getting his point across in interviews. And, like many cooks who spend their days hovering over plates and pans, he had what is often described as a “chef’s hunch.” Before he started his first book tour in 1993 for “New” New Orleans Cooking, Lagasse enrolled in a media-training course with Lisa Ekus-Saffer of the Lisa Ekus Group, a public relations firm that teaches chefs and cookbook authors how to deal with the media. “I loosen people up to find out what they do well naturally,” Ekus-Saffer says, “and that’s really what we worked on with Emeril.” On that book tour, Lagasse was spotted by a scout for the fledgling Food Network. Over time, Lagasse become more of a celebrity than a chef. “His focus is no longer on cooking; his focus is on his personality,” says Bourg. “Speaking strictly in culinary terms, I don’t think Emeril is today what he was 25 years ago. It’s because he, understandably, went for the money. If I slaved in a restaurant kitchen 18 hours a day, six days a week, and somebody said, ‘Hey, I can make you $50 million,’ I’d say, ‘Where do I go and what do I do?’” Lagasse’s famehas also made him a target of criticism from local and national media. The October after Katrina, Brett Anderson, restaurant writer for the Times Picayune, scolded Lagasse for not immediately returning to New Orleans while other high profile chefs such as Scott Boswell and Paul Prudhomme were here cooking for relief workers. “That Lagasse,” Anderson wrote, “one of popular culture’s great media masters, took a pass on the chance to put his own mega celebrity to good use at such an unprecedented moment is just one of many post-Katrina mysteries.” “For as much nonsense in the beginning, negativitywise, that was written about me,” Lagasse says, “I don’t know of any other single person who has done as much if not more for the city than I have.” Since Katrina, the Emeril Lagasse Foundation, which supports programs for children, has given more than $1 million to New Orleans-area organizations. Back in the Food Network studios, Lagasse cooks the rest of his menu, delivering big plates of po-boys, white beans and court-bouillon to Boutte, who once gets caught with his mouth full when he needs to sing. Lagasse pulls out some garlic, and someone from the audiences hollers, “Oh yeah.” He makes corny jokes as he stuffs roast beef with garlic slivers—“Hide the garlic, what a game.” Nothing is scripted, except for a few introductory lines at the start of each segment, which Lagasse generally ignores. And while Emeril Live may be as much about entertainment as teaching kitchen skills, Lagasse doesn’t soft-peddle ingredients some find unpopular. If a dish, like the Italian salad, uses anchovies, than he layers on the anchovies. “We don’t have any problem with that,” he says. At the end of the show, Boutte gets a chance to play a full song and launches into “Didn’t It Rain,” the same song that got the crew dancing during rehearsal. Lagasse grabs a kitchen towel and waves it in the air. Boutte pulls out a handkerchief, and the two start a second line through the audience. The friends that Boutte brought to the taping join in. It feels spontaneous rather than self-conscious, the way people dancing in New Orleans often do. Music and food. It’s the combination that makes Emeril Live so successful. It’s also, more than anything else, what sets New Orleans apart from the rest of country. “It’s the part of our culture that best represents who we are,” says Irvin Mayfield. “We have the only music where you’re required to be individual in a group. And we do the same thing in our cooking. No one gumbo is made like any other.” Emeril Live is built on Lagasse’s personality, but it’s also built on the personality of New Orleans. In the studio, the audience gets excited about food and can’t keep from commenting. Just like people in New Orleans. And Lagasse enjoys the music without restraint. Just like we do in New Orleans. For one hour during Emeril Live, in a studio in New York, Lagasse recreates the spirit of our city. “Once people get it and understand it,” Lagasse says, “they can’t wait to go to New Orleans.” Subscribe to offBeat and receive a FREE JazzFest CD! |
