Arroz con Pollo

My wife, Gloria, loved arroz con pollo, a recipe traditional to Latin American cuisine. Gloria was born in New York City, but her father was Cuban and her mother Puerto Rican. Following Gloria’s advice, I make a version of arroz con pollo that her mother used to make. I sauté chicken pieces (sometimes I use only the wings) with spicy sausage and lots of chopped onion and garlic. I add a pinch of cumin, a few drops of sriracha, Italian seasonings and chopped fresh tomatoes. These ingredients go into a saucepan with rice and chicken stock. I cover it and cook it on the stove until the rice is done and the liquid absorbed. The key is using the right amount of rice for the liquid, which can require a bit of tinkering. Diced tomatoes and onions add their own moisture as they cook, so you have to adjust the amount of stock accordingly to achieve the desired moist, creamy and slightly sticky consistency. Gloria liked regular long-grain Carolina rice in arroz con pollo. Before serving the dish, I add some more hot sauce and shower it with a good fistful of chopped cilantro.

And yet for this esteemed chef, his day-to-day life comes down to two things: food and art. “Cooking and painting complete me; both are the expression of who I am, and they connect in my life,” Pépin confides in Art of the Chicken. He elaborated on this notion during our conversation, telling us what he decides to paint often comes down to the specific day: “A lot of it depends on your mood. If it’s summer or winter; if it’s hot or cold. You’re in a good mood or a bad mood. There are moments in cooking where you follow your whim, and painting is the same way.”

More and more, Pépin is drawn to creating abstract works — a complex matrix of shapes and patterns, where plates of food and glasses of wine often work their way into the compositions. “The abstract paintings are the hardest ones to stop; you can go on and on,” he says. “It’s the same with food. If you work on it too much, the whole thing disappears. Just like painting — too long and all of a sudden you’ve destroyed it. I always say a painting is never finished, just abandoned.”

Over the years, Pépin’s art studio has become his creative refuge. Set up inside his home, it’s full of stacks of colorful canvases, both finished and unfinished. He used to work at an easel, but since his shoulder injury, he finds it easier to work on a table. And while his cooking is based on years of technique, his artwork relies more

I’ve been painting since the early sixties, and I can look at those works today and I would not know where to go to do this,” Pépin muses. “It’s not the way I think now. It’s not good or bad, just different. I would love to be able to taste the food I made 60 years ago. I’d probably say, ‘Wow.’ Food is very reticent. You eat it, and it disappears. But the painting remains, and you can look at it. So there is a difference.”

Throughout our interview working in the background and sometimes chiming in is longtime colleague Tom Hopkins. For nearly 40 years, he’s been the chef’s photographer and curator, even setting up a website to sell his paintings. Pépin is known for his frugal approach to cooking, often freezing discarded chicken skins for later use. Turns out, he’s just as thrifty with art supplies. “I used to paint five or six times on the same canvas, but now Tom won’t let me do that anymore,” Pépin smirks.

Surrounded by friends and family, the master chef has simplified his life, summing up and savoring. He is poetic in describing his lifetime with food and how memory colors our everyday existence. “Certainly the food you have as a child is very visceral,” he remarks.

“Those tastes stay with you, and at some point, they become more than the taste of food. They become love, security. Those foods will stay with you for the rest of your life.”

Maybe that’s why Pépin is paying homage to his beloved chickens. In a sense, the prized birds of his childhood set him on a course of culinary excellence. And he’s loved every minute of it. “Really the secret to life is simple,” he concludes. “If you can make a living out of something you love to do, then you never have to go to work.” Spoken like a true bon vivant.

Recipes excerpted from Art of the Chicken published by Harvest Books (2022)

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