James Peterson Autobiography

After college, in the early 70s, I went to India to find a guru and after having worked a year to save money, set off one summer morning for Tokyo. Over several months, I worked my way west to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Rangoon and, finally, Calcutta. India was filthy, deeply poor and so hot, that feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass, I escaped by steam train to Darjeeling, at the base of the Himalayas.

The crazy trip ensued—Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and, finally, Europe.

In France, something took hold that didn’t let go for almost 40 years. In Paris I stared hungrily (funds had run low) in restaurant windows at people having lunch. In America, where we were lucky to cram down a cheese sandwich at our desks, the French really had lunch. Diners, many alone, sat at linen-clad tables, half-bottles of wine in view, eating something hot and real—a trout, a sole, a kidney.

Having come from a culinary desert (America in the 70s), the effect of this was tectonic. Oblivious to future hunger, I took the rest of my money (with just enough left over to take a cheap flight to New York) to have lunch in a “serious” restaurant. After some research, I hitchhiked to a famous restaurant in Burgundy, Chez La Mère Blanc. On my way, I met a young woman who, liking the sound of my quest, joined me. The incredible first courses--foie gras and mousse de foie de volaille (chicken liver mousse) were followed by a Bresse chicken poached in cream and scented with tarragon. I had never seen anything so elegantly presented or tasted anything so delicious (except the wine). Poor as we were, we shared a bottle of Batard-Montrachet.

After coming back to San Francisco to save money to return to France—in those days, there were no schools in the United States where they taught the subtle sauces I wanted to learn—I was finally back in Paris. It took six months of persistent begging and battling with bureaucrats to find my way into what was one of the most respected restaurants in Paris and in France.

If the government had found out, I would have been deported. But after working in a maison sérieuse, landing jobs became easier. My next apprenticeship was at Georges Blanc, once Chez La Mère Blanc.

After two years I left France begrudgingly and returned to New York. The jobs were horrible. New York is (or was) hotter than Paris and the kitchens were stifling with the red-hot plaques used on the stoves. The restaurants were stuffy with pretentious over-wrought food. I worked under enormous pressure and put up with lots of abuse. After much struggle and a stroke of serendipity (I had no money), I finally got my own place, French of course, Le Petit Robert, in Greenwich Village where I could work out my own ideas and experiments. One reviewer, for Gourmet magazine, said that Le Petit Robert might have been the most creative restaurant in New York. A famous wine critic said that he ate at Chez Panisse when he was in San Francisco, and at Le Petit Robert, when he was in New York. But after four years, the extravagance—truffles, foie gras, and lots of Champagne--did the restaurant in. I was desolate. I had no work and couldn’t imagine working in someone else’s restaurant.

I found a job teaching at The French Culinary Institute in SoHo where, for four years, I worked in a small windowless office writing the advanced curriculum. The writing was fun and came naturally. Other people liked it too; I was encouraged.

But breaking into a career writing about food was never going to be easy. When serendipity struck again, I was approached by a publisher to translate some French pastry books into English. The process was collaborative and took over a year. When finished, the president of the company said that if I ever wanted to write a book of his own, I should let them know. Bingo.

I had long wanted to write a book about sauces and after submitting a long proposal, I was offered $5000 on the spot. I said no, I wanted $25,000. After much wrangling, I got my money.

When Sauces won best food book of the year from The James Beard Foundation, everything changed. Where once I couldn’t get an editor to answer the phone, that night I was surrounded by seven of them, hands extended, each holding their card.

After writing for 25 years, publishing 16 food and wine books, and winning seven James Beard Awards, I felt I had put on paper everything I had to say. (To learn more about my food and wine books, check out jimcooks.com. There are pictures and text from the inside of the books and a food blog.)

As the writing was winding down, I saw a reference to ambergris in a 15th-century Italian text about health and eating. Ambergris is thrown up by whales and floats on the ocean for an indefinite period of time, likely years, before landing on a beach, where it gets found by lucky beachcombers, sometimes with their chums, ambergris poodles, trained to smell it out.

Desperate to get some, I scoured the internet. When the ambergris arrived from New Zealand, it looked like an ordinary rock; the only difference was that it felt light.

All of this pulled me inexorably into perfumery. Having never been excited by perfumes since my mother put them on in the 1950s, soon I had acquired an impressive collection of rare and exotic essential oils and absolutes. Naively, I was determined to concoct perfumes as they were made in my mother’s generation when she would come home after a party, stinking of natural musk.

Working with these lovely substances, some formulations smelled so good, I wanted to share them with others. All of this led to Brooklyn Perfume Company.

BPC’s first perfume was Oud. In those days, I thought the best way to make an oud perfume, was simply to incorporate an extravagant amount of very fine oud. The first edition of Oud got nominated for a Hammer Museum award, but since it had been on the market two weeks before the year in question, it was disqualified. The nomination seems almost inevitable considering how much real oud it contained. Few suspected my method–it was just too expensive and impractical. The second edition, of which there is little left, contains an oud that now sells for $800 for 3 grams, less than a teaspoon. The third edition, on sale now, is packed with wild ouds from Laos and Vietnam and is just a little sweeter due to some balsamic substances.

BPC has developed a line of eaux fraîches, based entirely on the natural substance on the label with the addition of nothing else except pure drinking alcohol. They’ve been critiqued because they don’t cling to the skin, but they—vetiver, neroli (distilled orange blossom), violet leaf, and galbanum—are so distinctive and so delicious that some spray them just to smell them or to scent a room.

Many wonder why Brooklyn Perfume Company’s perfumes are not more costly considering what goes into them, but money is saved by not spending much on advertising, promotion, or a cumbersome bureaucracy. I also have to consider how much someone is going to pay for a perfume from a new and unknown company?

Don’t try perfumery without considering a second mortgage. I’ve spent a literal fortune. BPC’s perfumes aren’t all natural, but contain synthetics when they make things smell good. Most commercial perfumes are all synthetic and contain few if any of those naturals that contribute mystery, deep appeal, and finesse. BPC’s perfumes, on the other hand, are dominated by these natural ingredients. Brooklyn Perfume Company’s perfumes are sold on this site as well as on brooklynperfume.com.