Foodies celebrate
four days of Big Island fun at
'Cuisines of the Sun'

By Catherine Kekoa Enomoto
Star-Bulletin

KOHALA COAST, BIG ISLAND -- Gras, the French word for fat -- do you take yours with mardi, or do you prefer yours with foie? Monday night, attendees at the eighth annual Cuisines of the Sun celebrated a lively off-season Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) hosted by television chef Emeril Lagasse, preceded by a wine tasting starring Chicago chef/restauratuer Charlie Trotter and his elegant interpretation of foie gras, or goose liver.

Lagasse and Trotter are two premier American chefs, both nominees for 1997 James Beard Foundation Chef of the Year honors.

By Cynthia Harte, Special to the Star-Bulletin
Chefs Emeril Lagasse and Charlie Trotter matched wine
and wits at "Cuisines of the Sun" at the Mauna Lani
Bay Hotel andBungalows.

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The four-day Cuisines series brought up to 365 gourmands at a time to the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows for 11 culinary happenings. Events ranged from an 11-course Moroccan feast presented by Atlanta chef/restaurateur Rafih Benjelloun, to a 50-plus-item beachfront brunch prepared by isle chef/restaurateur Alan Wong. The latter featured creative Thai-style loco moco, delectable roseapple jam and silky Kona estate coffees.

Nowhere was the ecumenism of cuisine demonstrated more visibly than in the contrasting styles of Lagasse, the ragin' Cajun with three hotels, including Emeril's New Orleans Fish House in the monolithic MGM Grand at Las Vegas; and of Trotter, a political science graduate turned chef superstar by way of an exclusive restaurant in a renovated Chicago brownstone.

Lagasse holds a doctoral degree ("My dissertation was on being happy, happy, happy") from Johnson and Wales University. He makes everything from scratch, including his own Worcestershire sauce, which he demonstrated at Cuisines. And, he is the rambunctious host of "The Essence of Emeril," the Television Food Network's most popular show.

Trotter's restaurant, the self-named Charlie Trotter's, is among a handful of establishments honored with both the Mobil Five Star and AAA Five Diamond awards. The Wine Spectator magazine named the restaurant one of America's best, and the James Beard Foundation cited it for Outstanding Wine Service. Trotter has authored three coffee table cookbooks at $50 each; the latest, "Charlie Trotter's Seafood," just came off the presses.

Then, there's the matter of their styles -- they're both physicians of a sort. Trotter works like a surgeon, his kitchen like an operating room. The atmosphere is quiet and hushed, with assistants lined up on two sides of a long table, six to a side. He shows them how to plate hors d'oeuvres, scooping a bit of avocado here, sprinkling greens there and dusting crisp-fried shallots over all.

He stands at the end of the table, inspects each plate and comments in a soft, businesslike tone, "Kim, it's too much sauce, 2 ounces or 1-1/2 ounces ... The bowl needs to be a little bit more flush left ... And, away we go."

Trotter's hands move constantly, touching, arranging, tasting, feeling, adjusting. He wears small, round, metal-rimmed glasses and looks like a slender rock star, a culinary John Lennon.

"Putting together food and wine is an experience, not an exercise. It's more sensual, it's not an exact science. It's not about mental, for me it's more in the gut."

By Cynthia Harte, Special to the Star-Bulletin
Charlie Trotter serves Hawaiian Blue Prawns
layered on fresh fruit and topped with Cilantro-Chile
Vinaigrette and Spicy Persimmon Sauce.

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One appetizer offers a slice of caramelized Maui onion tart, topped with spiced and seared foie gras, covered with fresh purslane (an herb) and drizzled with vinaigrette.

Lagasse resembles another kind of practitioner -- casting a New Orleans spell. Whereas Trotter's venue is muted, Lagasse's is carnival-like: A five-piece Zydeco band flown in from New Orleans strikes up "When the Saints Go Marchin' In."

All the Cajun/Creole stops are pulled, starting with Lagasse hurling Mardi Gras necklaces into the crowd and everyone waving terry-cloth face towels as they go marchin' up to nine food stations bulging with every sort of edible.

Stations offered gumbos, seafood, barbecues, oysters, beignets (fritters), savory seafood/meat pies, etouffees, cochon de lait (side dishes) and desserts, plus beers, wines and champagne, and coffees, teas and Emeril's cigars.

Highlights include spicy chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, flaky Natchitoches meat pie, catfish beignets with green onion tartar sauce, and scrumptious banana cream pie. Lagasse says he prepared for two days, about 14 hours per day. He now mans two cauldrons filled with boiling seafoods and vegetables, and takes swigs from a tall glass of beer in between stirring the pots with a long aluminum paddle.

No "wham bams"; just, "That's good, they're not eating a lot," when stirring in a half pan full of shrimp, or pointing out, "That's my 15-year-old daughter over there, dishing up desserts at the dessert tent, next to the chef."

While Trotter's arrays are precise, structured and sculptural, Lagasse's centerpiece is a huge, jumbled mound of goodies -- steaming red lobsters, luscious sweet crawfish, whole potatoes, corn on the cob, asparagus, artichokes, onions. His style is dump the raw shrimp into the pot, dump the cooked potful onto the heap.

Television has documented Lagasse's modus operandi; the reality is more workmanlike, with respectful interaction with workers.

The two chefs huddle for a tete-a-tete during the festivities and Lagasse says of Trotter, "He's one of my best friends."

Trotter said he had "pulled back" in deference to Lagasse's announced, inclusive menu. Nevertheless, Trotter's style appears restrained, understated and deferential to the wines, to the foods and to his peers.

In contrast, Lagasse's finest moment is at 9:38 p.m., when everyone is completely satiated after 2-1/2 hours of grazing and he leads a Mardi Gras snake dance around the poolside venue.

He is dancing, prancing, sweating. The band is belting out "When the Saints." The parade of face-towel-waving celebrants is in a frenzy and he yells, "Pick it up!"