Born in “East Philadelphia” (Pennsauken, New Jersey), Blank learned to cook at his grandmother Mary Blank’s apron strings, and food has remained a constant in his life. His foray into restaurateuring was inspired by a series of dinners with friends in the early 1970’s. Cooking directly from the 1969 Great Dinners from Life, Blank recreated every menu in the book. His guests’ enthusiastic claims that he should open a restaurant proved his first push from cook to chef. Great Dinners includes international menus such as Brazilian, Belgian and French and gives precise explanations of how and why dishes work, the kinds of scientific framing Blank still serves up when teaching his own recipes at his Philadelphia restaurant Deux Chemineés.
On going projects—stacks and piles of books, menus, articles and scrawled notes—mark most surfaces in the library. Here, a tentative menu for a Verdi tribute dinner; there, experimental formulae for firmer watermelon pickles; over there, a series of notes on gelling agents. Like a symphony maestro, Blank is at the center of this bustling research, comparing recipes in original languages, FedExing hot soup across state lines or taking notes on dishes for staff meals.
