For a long time, Brooks Headley — the James Beard Award-winning executive pastry chef of Del Posto in New York, part-time veggie burger master and author of the just-released “Brooks Headley’s Fancy Desserts” ($30, W.W. Norton) — has led a double life. He started young, drumming in a succession of semi-obscure but revered underground bands down through the years, like Born Against, Skull Kontrol and Wrangler Brutes. Eventually he was also cooking at reputed restaurants, including Galileo in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles’s Campanile and Del Posto — the brightest star in Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s Italian-cuisine firmament — with an approach, not unlike his style of playing, that balanced precision and chaos. Headley kept these two sides of his life distinct, working full-time and slipping out of town on tour when he could. After Wrangler Brutes broke up in 2004, he focused primarily on cooking.
But as Headley’s culinary reputation has grown, journalists and fans have dwelled on his drumming background. Headley, however, rejects the sobriquet that gets bandied about these days, “punk pastry chef”: “I’d never call myself that. If anything, I always say I’m like a grandma.” Yet music still plays an important part in Headley’s life. In 2009, the year after starting at Del Posto, he and the guitarist Mick Barr founded Oldest, which Headley describes as his “no-pressure band,” perhaps because they practice and record but never play out. Two years later, he formed C.R.A.S.H. with friends in L.A. They perform whenever he’s in town, playing nontraditional venues like ice-cream parlors and Chinese joints. Since last summer, Headley has also drummed in Music Blues, led by the Brooklyn chef and musician Stephen Tanner. At the New York and L.A. launch parties for his cookbook (taking place Sunday and next month, respectively), Headley will bring together the disparate sides of his double life, playing with Music Blues and C.R.A.S.H. in their home cities.
To mark the release of “Brooks Headley’s Fancy Desserts,” T asked the chef to list some of the music that matters to him — a perfect soundtrack for preparing his Torta Caprese, the recipe for which is below.
Dionne Warwick, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”
“I love the spastic and frantic drumming in this song. Along with ‘Aurora Borealis’ by the Meat Puppets, one of my favorite things to listen to when driving on the 5 north from Los Angeles when it gets really flat and dusty.”
The Slits, “Vindictive”
“The Slits! Peel Session! 1977! Holy crap! This song!”
Run-DMC, “Down With the King”
“An underrated era of Run-DMC. On my first Born Against tour we listened to the Cassingle of this song over and over. It holds a special place in my heart.”
Sam Cooke, “Bring It on Home to Me”
“The live version of this song on the ‘Live At the Harlem Square Club 1963’ LP is so tight and the crowd is losing their marbles.”
ZZ Top, “Precious and Grace”
“This is a time when nothing but vinyl works. Don’t wanna ruin anything here, but the gatefold image on ‘Tres Hombres’ is one of my favorite pieces of art and hugely inspirational in my cooking career.”
Ex Hex, “Waste Your Time”
“A killer pop song from one of my favorite current groups. It’s like a perfect distillation of Dwight Twilley and Cheap Trick circa 2014. Plus there’s a vocal line about cops, which in any situation is always great.”
Sort Sol, “Boy-Girl”
“Ah, this song is so much fun. Lydia Lunch sings on it and there’s a really ridiculous video for it online if you search hard enough. From the ‘Dagger and Guitar’ LP, 1983.”
Alice Cooper, “Ballad of Dwight Fry”
“A really beautiful song. I saw King Buzzo cover it acoustic last summer and he played it like he WAS Alice Cooper.”
Ike and Tina, “I Idolize You”
“Tina’s vocal performance on this song is way in the red and threatens to engulf all the other instruments. No, wait, it does engulf all the other instruments.”
Dead Moon, “I Won’t Be the One”
“I know it’s a corny thing to say, but this song gives me goosebumps. Whenever I think I’ve done some cool stuff in my life I just think about Toody and Fred and realize I have accomplished very little. Great drums in this one.”
Led Zeppelin, “Out on the Tiles”
“My bandmate Stephen Tanner wishes he could get his hands on the entire Led Zeppelin discography with the vocals wiped off.”
Orthrelm, “OV”
“I used to live in a group house in D.C. when these guys were rehearsing this record in the basement,” Headley says of the 45-minute track. “It would make the entire house (and the house next to us) vibrate. I think it may have driven the neighbor insane. Mick Barr’s guitar playing is not of this world.”
Torta Caprese
Yield: 1 baking sheet worth of little squares
1½ cups bittersweet chocolate, very best quality, chopped
1¾ cups walnuts, chopped
¾ cup plus ¼ cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
⅔ cup, or 1⅓ sticks unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs, separated
Powdered sugar for dusting
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
2. In a food processor, pulse together the chocolate, walnuts, 3/4 cup of the sugar and the salt until you have chunks of chocolate and walnut that are not huge but not totally obliterated either. You don’t want a paste. Avoid that.
3. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a large mixing bowl. Add the butter and mix well with a rubber spatula. Add the egg yolks and stir to combine. Set this chocolate mixture aside.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the whip attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed, slowly adding the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beating continuously until the whites have a meringue-like texture. Do not overwhip.
5. Fold the whites gently into the chocolate mixture and pour the batter onto a baking sheet. Bake until golden, 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Let the cake cool in the pan and cut it into chunks. This also freezes beautifully, and will last for up to two months. Just thaw and serve. *Optional: dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Reprinted from “Brooks Headley’s Fancy Desserts: The Recipes of Del Posto’s James Beard Award-Winning Pastry Chef” by Brooks Headley with Chris Cechin-De La Rosa. Copyright © 2014 by Brooks Headley. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
