The Citiblog

Tailor by Andrea Strong
December 2, 2007, 9:30.23 pm ET

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I remember the first time I interviewed Tailor’s chef and owner, Sam Mason. It was in 2003, for a piece I wrote for Time Out New York on a wacky trend of savory ingredients showing up in desserts. At the time, the trend was in its infancy, and I was stunned by the random vegetables (parsnips, beets) and wild ingredients (coffee, chiles) Mason was tucking into panna cottas and cakes at WD-50, which had just opened at the time. (And what exactly was coffee soil?) As we talked, he explained that over the years he found himself reaching into the savory kitchen’s walk-in and stealing ingredients for the pastry kitchen because his mentor, the late Jean Louis Palladin, had encouraged him to use vegetables in different and often startling ways. “Palladin thought that vegetables should not be categorized as untouchable in the pastry kitchen,” he told me back in 2003. “And he was right. My thing is to change the perception that vegetables are for savory and fruits are sweet.” more


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