By Marcia Vanderlip, Columbia Daily Tribune
June 17, 2009
On Thursday morning en route to the Sycamore Restaurant, 18-month-old Harry Odette yawned in his car seat. His dad, Mike Odette, took it as a good sign, hoping Harry might sleep when Mike got to work in the kitchen and he could get his prep work finished without much interruption.
Harry Odette tries some celery his dad, Mike, gave him in Sycamore's kitchen.
But the restaurant’s executive chef was mistaken. At 10 a.m. Harry was wide-eyed, jabbering, churning his plump legs in his high chair as he downed fresh strawberries. Meanwhile, Dad stood close with one eye on Harry and the other on the peppers, celery and onions he was chopping for Saturday’s employee lunch of red beans and rice.
An hour before lunch service, the kitchen at 800 E. Broadway was buzzing as lunch cooks prepared tart crusts, soups and sauces. Harry watched the show and fiddled with kitchen tools. Among the kitchen accoutrements on the shelf above the dishwasher was a bucket marked “Kid Stuff,” though many other kitchen items double as toys.
“Everyone knows which kitchen utensils are appropriate for Harry,” Odette said, handing his son a rubber-tipped spatula, a favorite, along with metal sauce cups. The elder Odette’s favorite “toys” include the pasta roller on the kitchen mixer — because it saves time — a bench scraper and a little Swiss peeler. “It costs about $3, but I use it to peel everything.”
Both of Odette’s children are getting early cooking lessons. Daughter Elizabeth was sitting in carrier next to her dad’s prep table at 3 months. She will be 3 in September. “She loves to cook. She likes making pizza,” Odette said.
Odette’s wife, Amy Barrett, also a good cook and restaurant partner, is an engineer with the Columbia Fire Department. She works 10 24-hour shifts a month. So, Odette is generally on kid duty three days a week. On those days, Odette takes Elizabeth to the Children’s House in the morning and brings Harry to work until 3 p.m. “I try to spend half a day here and half the day at home.” His habit on kid days is to “make a prep list every night and get that done in the morning” — if all goes smoothly with Harry.
Mike Odette chops peppers while Harry hangs out in his high chair in the Sycamore kitchen.
In January, Harry, who started walking in April, will be old enough to join his sister at school. The couple decided that keeping the kids in day care before they were old enough for Montessori school was not affordable, and “we aren’t keen on being away from the kids all the time,” he said.
Sycamore’s staff has adjusted to young visitors. Co-owners Sanford and Jill Speake have two sons, Sam, 10, and Jack, 8. Both boys have been around since the restaurant opened four years ago, and both were in the restaurant with their dad on Thursday. “When school is out, we are here a lot,” Sam offered.
Odette himself spent time in the kitchen as a young boy with his mom, a home economics teacher in Sedalia. Her influence rubbed off. Odette, who is 44, moved to Columbia at age 21 to go to engineering school. When that didn’t work out, he focused on cooking — which he described as similar: Both are “all about processes.”
“I lied my way into my first real cooking job,” he said, laughing. Actually, “I embellished my experience to get a job making salads and appetizers. My love of food, cooking and the idea of the convivial table was born at Café Europa.” Odette cooked at the former European style restaurant in 1988. He then worked nine years at Trattoria Strada Nova and five years at Booche’s. For many of those years, he and Sanford Speake dreamed, planned, plotted and finally fleshed out with their wives what became Sycamore.
“It did not come without effort,” Odette said. “You can’t get away from” the restaurant, “and you can’t do it for the money,” he said. “The best part is being around other restaurant people all the time. It’s a shared experience, getting through a dinner service. You come together at the other end, having survived it.”
Even on the busy days, Odette appears to glide through on an even keel, rarely raising his voice. His skill, creativity and effort has turned heads, both locally and nationally. He recently was a semi-finalist for a prestigious James Beard Foundation Award in the best Midwest chef category, though it’s not something he dwells on.
Odette handed Harry a piece of salami and watched the toddler chew it for a minute, smiling at the boy’s willingness to try it.
The menu selections for the evening included roasted rack of lamb with pea and mint risotto, morels and lamb jus and wild Copper River sockeye salmon steak with tasso jambalaya, crawfish and blue cheese butter, and sautéed chard with spiced pecans.
On the on the menu at the chef’s house: peanut butter and jelly and fruit, or perhaps tortillas topped with cheese and scrambled eggs. Also in the refrigerator at home, Odette confesses: condiments, restaurant leftovers, juice, milk, beer and wine.
Odette imagines he could use a little alone time for Father’s Day, but he probably won’t get it. “I’ll probably spend the morning with the kids.” By afternoon, he’ll golf with some of his buddies. “I play once a year, on Father’s Day. I’d hate to play more than once a year. I might get too good.”
Odette provided a couple of recipes that the whole family enjoys at the Odette/Barrett household. The cookies are from his mom.
MOM’S MOLASSES COOKIES
6 ounces butter, room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark molasses
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1-1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.In an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy. Mix in the yolk, vanilla and molasses. Sift together dry ingredients and add to butter mixture, mixing only until incorporated.
Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll each ball in sugar and place on a cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Using the flat bottom of a water glass, smash each ball into a disc 1/2-inch thick.
Bake for five to eight minutes, or until edges are slightly brown.
Makes: 4 dozen.
CRAB CAKES
1 6.5-ounce can special white crabmeat
1 6.5-ounce can claw crabmeat
2 eggs
3/4 cup panko crumbs
3 tablespoons melted butter
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
1 green onion, sliced thinly
1 tablespoon minced shallots
1 teaspoon Cajun spice
1 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce
2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
1 teaspoon salt
Extra panko crumbs for coating, as needed
Gently mix all ingredients (except the extra bread crumbs) in a bowl, being careful not to break up lumps of crab. Form the mixture into 12 patties, rolling each in panko crumbs to coat.
In a large skillet, sauté crab cakes, turning only once, until both sides are nicely browned.
Servings: 6
