Escoffier Questionnaire: Mark Malicki

Mark Malicki the CASINO, BODEGA

Mark Malicki has been cooking in Sonoma County since 1985. Since then, it has always felt to me like he’s the cook doing the most interesting thing. Mark was cooking in a sort of truth-or- dare with the seasons long before it was the price of entry, working only with what is on offer at the farmers’ market. He cooks from feeling, riffing off memory and cinema and culinary camaraderie. Mostly, he seems to just cook exactly what he wants to cook—and that is kind of glorious. Stop in at the Casino in Bodega on the weekends and ask him about the stories we couldn’t print... Mark has written his own script in life, and it seems fitting to let him tell his own story here. So, here it is, in Mark’s own words:

I’m from New Haven, Connecticut. It’s pretty horrible. Not as a kid, I guess, but looking back. My mother worked in the curtain corner of a lower-echelon retail store and my father was a gunsmith. We didn’t have guns, but once a year—out of some sense of mid-century masculinity—we would get out of bed early on a Saturday morning to go hunting with my Uncle Jimmy. Which I hated.

My mom died when she was only 37. My dad was very much, like, “I got it right once.” He became super melancholy, which makes sense. He was pretty young, too. He said, “I don’t do what your mother did [take care of the home, cook, etc.]. I go out and make money. So, unless we want to eat McDonald’s seven nights a week, we’re going to have to figure something out.” Not right away, but I started cooking.

My father was very encouraging. He was kind of experimental and curious about food. He would make fried chicken with Tang in the flour. It was actually good. My uncle is a commercial fisherman in Long Island, and sometimes my father would help out and bring home lobsters as pay.

I went to Catholic school. In the classroom, there were five rows with the really good children in the first row, and so on. They made a sixth row for me. But it was nice next to the window. I would just be daydreaming. It felt good.

I went to a public trade school for high school. I was very drawn to the cooking program and they had a job placement program. At 15 years old, I was able to leave school halfway through the day and work.

My very first job was for Sirio Catering Service. Anthony Sirio Sr. wore a giant chef hat at an angle and a scarf. At the time it was, like, “Hey, you can get a quarter more an hour at that other place!” Hell, I’d go over there right away and take that quarter.

After high school I moved to Manhattan. I was ready and I had a couple of friends there. I moved there on a Sunday and was working by Tuesday. Work was never a problem. I worked at River Cafe, and in tiny little cubicles at Tavern on the Green, doing crazy stuff. I was cooking at Munson’s, owned by twin brothers Paul and Richard Garcia, who were also models, when a studio manager came in and liked the food and asked me to cook lunch the next day. There were probably 10 people—models, art directors, stylists, photographers, assistants. I made more money cooking that lunch than I would make in an entire week in the restaurant. It just blew up from there. At one point I was working for 40 fashion photographers, including Richard Avedon.

Everything was cash then. Andre Leon Talley, then working for the New York Times, was paying me for a $200 breakfast when he dropped the money on the floor. He said, “Oh, honey, just keep whatever’s down there.” It was $700. It didn’t matter. That’s what things were like. We were just kids, and everybody was kind of nobody.

It was a lot of cooking by the seat of your pants. I look back at a lot of menus in horror, like, “Did I really cook that?” But it’s good. A lot of the male models were firemen and I would have to bring three times the usual amount of food because they ate so much. There was Carol Alt, Janice Dickinson, Linda Evangelista, Andie MacDowell.

Then things really consolidated and the business changed. New York is so tied to money, and it comes and it goes. My ex-wife and I moved to California. When we drove one of her parents’ cars from Southern California to Sebastopol, I fell in love with the area.

I had a restaurant called Truffles for a few years. I know... Then Joy Sterling asked me to cook during harvest at Iron Horse Vineyards—I stayed for 13 years.

I worked at the Bohemian Grove for 21 years, for 17 days each year. I got that gig from putting business cards on the counter at the Downtown Bakery in Sebastopol. You do see kind of surreal things at The Grove. I remember looking into a camp and Henry Kissinger is onstage with David Rockefeller and they’re playing mariachis and wearing big sombreros. You’d be walking and hear a Dave Brubeck song and then you realize “Oh my God, that’s actually Dave Brubeck.”

After Iron Horse I opened Cafe St. Rose in Santa Rosa. I miss that place. It was 504 square feet and could seat 13 people. Once it became popular, my rent went from $1,000 to $4,000 overnight. So, St. Rose moved to Sebastopol and went from 13 seats to 90. I’m not that guy. It only lasted a couple of years.

After that, I just bounced around for a while until I saw a commissary kitchen for rent on Craigslist—the Casino in Bodega. I’d never been to the Casino before. I thought it was going to be a biker bar, but it’s more like a community center. It’s a bar, but it’s been there for 72 years and it’s the only place in town. Evelyn Casini has owned the bar since she was 21 years old.

One recent Saturday, somebody hit a power pole and the power was out from Freestone to Annapolis. I kind of liked it. Five lamps and candles in a 150-year-old building. There’s a lot of adaptation that goes on and it’s challenging, but it’s fun.

I was talking to Moishe [Hahn-Shuman, owner of Ramen Gaijin and Thom Loi] and he said, “I love making the same thing over and over until it’s perfect.” I can’t make the same thing two days in a row. I make menus and I post them on social media, but I change them, too.

I’ve learned the most from farmers, ranchers and fisherpeople. They are so attuned to nature and often have this multigenerational knowledge. And I’ve learned so much from my mistakes. I’ve screwed up restaurants, for sure. I’ve been dreaming up a different kind of restaurant. I really feel like if I could pay everyone $32 an hour and be closed on the weekends, people would want to work there. Everyone is equally important in getting food on the plate. All the jobs are hard.

Edible Marin & Wine Country: What was the first meal you made that you were proud of?

Mark Malicki: It wasn’t a meal per se, it was a cake. A lamb-shaped cake I made when I was 13. It was a kit, which came with this metal mold of a lamb, pastry bags and tubes. It’s silly, but I was proud. Honestly, it was pretty lopsided and I think I used every pot, bowl and utensil in our kitchen, but I always remembered how encouraging my dad was.

What was your favorite food as a kid?

Lobster rolls from Glenwood drive-in in Hamden, Connecticut. They were the type that were just lobster and butter, as opposed to mayonnaise and celery. The split-top hot dog bun was dipped in melted butter and placed on a flat-top griddle. Served with onion rings and a birch beer. Or any pizza from Frank Pepe’s.

What food do you wish you loved?

Greek desserts. I love honey, I love pistachios, but I kind of hate phyllo.

What food do you love unreasonably much?

Vietnamese food. I really miss Charles Phan’s food.

What is the most difficult cooking technique to do well?

To prepare raw food. You take something you’re doing so little to, wanting to bring out the natural flavor of it and not mess with it too much. It isn’t always the easiest thing.

What are you exploring in your kitchen now?

Pay equity. I think it is the most important aspect in restaurants; 45 years has taught me that no position is more important than another.

What non-culinary influence inspires you?

Coco Chanel. I was always impressed with what she said: “Never a button without a buttonhole.” I think that can be a metaphor for most things in life, especially cooking.

What is your idea of a very healthy meal?

Walking through the Marin Civic Center farmers’ market and putting together a meal based on whatever is at the market.

What is your favorite ingredient?

Wow, I would say salt. I think it is the most essential. Cooking food bereft of salt is pretty gross. I really love cardamom and ginger, too.

What is your favorite hangover meal?

I have one or two drinks a year, total, one being a White Russian, the other a gin and tonic. It’s not enough to ever give me a hangover.

What restaurant in the world are you most dying to try?

Septime in Paris, France

What kitchen utensil is most indispensable to you?

They’re all equally important. I don’t really have any favorites. Maybe a really, really thin spatula.

Whom do you most like to cook for?

Cooks. I’ve always heard that when comedians tell other comedians a joke they don’t laugh, they sort of nod their heads and break down the joke. Cooks have a similar thing, tasting something, breaking it down. It’s super flattering when you go to their place a week or two later and see a similar mash-up on their menu.

If you could do one other job, what would it be?

Hairdresser

What is your favorite midnight snack?

Cereal

What most satisfies your sweet tooth?

Dim sum desserts

What would you eat at your last meal, if you could plan such a thing?

Something that would take a really long time to finish

What’s your favorite place to go for (and what is your favorite thing to order) for … … a splurge meal?

Masa Sushi in Novato. My favorite thing to order is nothing. I walk in, sit down and Taka starts making me things. I leave it to his discretion and enjoy a beautiful, splurge-y meal.

… breakfast?

Sour cream pancakes from the Tea Room in Petaluma

… pastry?

Anything at Brickmaiden Bakery in Point Reyes Station

… a late-night/after-work meal?

Cheeseburgers at Nopa in San Francisco

… a cup of coffee?

Latte at Stellina Pronto in Petaluma

… a greasy-spoon meal?

Are there still greasy spoons? God, I wish.

… groceries?

Berkeley Bowl, Good Earth, Oliver’s Markets

… kitchen equipment?

The back lot at M. Maselli & Sons in Petaluma

… ice cream?

I really miss Three Twins Dad’s Cardamom

… chocolate?

I don’t like chocolate; it makes me sad. If I have to, Bernachon in Lyons.

And lastly but not leastly … what is your favorite local wine or beer for the season?

Anything that Chad Hinds makes at iruai wine.