Celebrated chef Charlie Palmer once told Scott Haas, a clinical psychologist who moonlights as a food writer, that he likes to spy on diners from his kitchen, watching for that moment of satisfaction to light their faces. “In what other profession can you make people happy that quickly?”
Cooking is one of the world’s oldest professions, but just in the past two decades have chefs because media stars. In his new book, “Back of the House: The Secret Life of a Restaurant” (Berkley Books, $16), Haas captures one chef on the precipice of celebrity — and of becoming a brand — and explores what drives him.
Perhaps he explores a little too deeply: The chef in question, Tony Maws, is the ambitious, mercurial, micro-managing owner of Cambridge's acclaimed Craigie on Main, whose seasonal New American menu is hailed for his confit and roasted milk-fed pig’s head served Peking duck-style. And he was not happy, Haas says, with his free-of-charge insights.
Haas, who grew up in Plainfield, always had a great curiosity about food, in part because his Bavaria-born father brought to the United States a deep-seated distrust of highly spiced food and would often complain about the quality of the bread, the cheese and the beer available here. (To be fair, this was Central Jersey in the 1960s, hardly a hotbed of haute cuisine.)
Haas spent more than a year in the kitchen of Craigie on Main, both as a fly-on-the-wall observer and as a cook, and writes insightfully about the push-and-pull that comes along with any success, regardless of profession. Haas talked to the The Star-Ledger this week about cooking, management styles and why he may never eat dinner at Craigie on Main again.
Q. Which came first, the psychology or the food writing?
A. I have been a writer since day one. Psychology, in many ways, follows the writing. The food writing sort of coincided with both of them. It’s fascinating to me how people can connect on the basis of food. When I travel, or when I move to another city, it’s a great way to meet friends, to establish connections with people.
Q. How did the concept of the book occur to you?
A. I’ve been trying for many years to integrate psychology and food. There’s something about chefs that really intrigue me. When you think about it, whether it’s a fancy restaurant or a family-owned restaurant, people put in massive numbers of hours, 16 hour days, five or six days a week ... Think about the concern, maybe the anxiety, when we have four or five people over for dinner. What is it like to cook for 300 a night? What motivates people to take care of others like that, put themselves out there in such a way?
Q. What does?
A. Everyone has their own reasons. [Restaurateur] Drew Nieporent, of Nobu and Corton, he always had a great desire to make people happy. As a psychologist, it’s pretty rare for me, as it is for others, for a patient to come in a room and to leave feeling happy and satisfied. At a restaurant, it’s a marvelous feeling . . . There’s really a sense of accomplishment for a lot of chefs and a lot of cooks. They weren’t particularly good students. Many didn’t fit in 9-to-5 lives. They couldn’t live a straight life, and they’re finding a niche in the restaurant world, where their ability to anticipate other people’s needs and meet them is gratifying
Q. What is your relationship with Tony like now?
A. He was shocked when he read the book. He was completely shocked. When he first read the book in November, the uncorrected proof, he immediately sent me five or six extremely angry e-mails. He was shocked by how he had been described ... He is someone who created this kind of public image for himself, a cool guy with an open kitchen and all that. But he has serious problems keeping staff on for long. He has a real issue with anger management. He is not a good manager. He is not a good teacher.
Q. What’s the appeal here for people who aren’t foodies, who couldn’t care less about pig’s tails or pistou-dashi broth?
A. My wife, who is a family doctor, has told me that the most difficult thing, in her opinion, is managing people. If you’re a writer at a newspaper, if you’re a psychologist at a hospital, if you’re a bus driver, the issue is not whether you can drive the bus, write the story, treat the patient. The issue is how you handle problems. The shift has ended. The guy who’s supposed to replace you isn’t there. Do you scream and yell and end up getting fired? What do you do? What do you do? How do you get along with your co-workers? How do you manage your job? How do you manage stress is really what the book is about.