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H o l i d a ySlope Chef Clinches Top Culinary HonorsBY VIRGINIA CAREY AND LINUS GELBERThere%u2019s more lo flambe than blaze and brandy, and more to braised beef than beef and braising, as any chef will be quick to tell. If you%u2019re in doubt, ask Park Slope food aficionado Salvatore Petrolino, who just became the first American over 73 years of culinary history to capture the cream de la creme of prizes; this year, he was crowned Chef of the Year by the Chef De Cuisine Association of America.At 44 years, Petrolino is the youngest chosen for the vaunted title, and it was no little doing that got him there. All 350 members of the Chef%u2019s Association are constantly vying for that position, and actually beating out the competition is no piece of cake, speaking figuratively.Petrolino steps into his spot from a life based on cooking and learning the skills therein. His Associate Degree in the preparatory arts is from the CIA, which doesn%u2019t mean that he blended bizarre poisons into exotic dishes to lure unsuspecting spies to death, but rather that he attended the well-known Culinary Institute of America in New Haven, Connecticut (since then, the CIA has moved its headquarters to New HydePark in Upstate New York). He cut his teeth on summers away from school at Massachusetts%u2019s Harborside Restaurant in Martha%u2019s Vineyard. moving on after he graduated to a post as %u2019tourant' at the Plaza Hotel, where he rotated through different stations in the kitchen to learn the ways and wares of the whole operation.From there, it%u2019s a story of flitting from classy restaurant to stylish eatery to luxurious retreat, designing, catering and cooking for the rich, famous and incidental ranging from the upper crust in expensive hotels through President Kennedy, who used to hold a room at the Carlisle Hotel whilst Petrolino was cooking there.Nowadays, he is the food manager at the Morgan Guarantee Trust Company, where he supervises and oversees the food that is sent out to 6,000 executives and employees there daily. His executive post%u2014you must be in a position of command to join (he Chef%u2019s Association%u2014gives him not only mileage with the food itself, but also places him in charge of the surrounding aesthetics of ordering, as he must hit a viable mix between quality and quantity, Problems arise, he notes, because the restaurant industry is a %u201c now%u201d job, which confronts the problems ofChef-of-the-year Salvatore Petrolino displays roastsuckling pig.supply and demand on a minutebv-minuic basis: when there isdemand, there must be supply, or else there will be disgruntled patrons who, more like as not, could't give a hoot about ailing chefs or bchind-thc-countcr mishaps.Petrolino says lie specializes in soups and sauces, the base of all cooking, although he is adept at all manners of creation. He constantly works and refines \his own, \hamburgers to roast pigs to Coquc Vin.\encroach on the ralnis of art and take lime away from Petrolino%u2019s actual oven time, but he manages to keep a grip on the skillet at home It) \business.%u201d Still, he insists, the real artist is his wife Nina, who prepares the meals in his Carroll Street home for Petrolino and their twt) children, aged 15 and 19.Finally, for Philistines who may consider dinners a \run\wise words. \cuisine,%u201d he muses. \instill their own personality, own ideas, own seasons into their cooking.\bite: you may be glossing over the work of a pro.Cranberry: Is It A Fruit Or A Street?BY IRENE VAN SLYKEYou may have wondered how Brooklyn Heights came to have a Cranberry Street sandwiched between those Pierreponts, Joralemon%u2019s and Middagh%u2019s. Certainly that part of the Heights had no bogs nor cranberries.Nobody really knows if it was bogs or the people who owned the land who gave Cranberry street its name. But there is a choice of \about the origin of the name. The most popular one is that Miss Middagh resented the custom, then prevalent in the village of Brooklyn, to name streets after the landowners of the farms they crossed. There was already Henry, Hicks and Furman Streets at the time the North Heights was surveyed and she might have thought the custom quite boring or possibly the owners note quite worthy of immortality.In any case on daily rounds in her carriage, that took her past the handful of streets in her part of town, so the story goes, she would knock off offending street signs with her umbrella and replace them with more pleasing horticultural designations such as Pineapple, Orange and.... Cranberry.Clay Lancaster, the author of %u201cOld Brooklyn Heights,%u201d states flatly that the Hicks brothers named the three fruit streets. Other accounts say that the explanation lies in .he fact that the Hicks brothers owned the land but also were merchants and may have been dealing in fruits.But how did Middagh Street get its name? Lancaster notes tnat tne street might have been called after Aert Middagh or his son John, or again it might havebeen named by the mysterious Hicks brothers who were related to the Middagh family. No mention of Miss Middagh by Lancaster.After a fruitless search of the Brooklyn literature for the definitive word on the origin of Cranberry Street, it was back to the bog theory. Did or did Brooklyn not have any bogs? Experts at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden think not. It is unlikely that Cranberry Street was named after plentiful bogs in Brooklyn. Bogs they saidarc commonly found on Eastern Long Island around Riverhead or in the Pine Barrens in New Jersey, but in Brooklyn %u2014no.Nancy Tim, Associate Curator of the Botanic Garden says, though, that Brooklyn soon will have its very own bog and%u2014ncxl year%u2014cranberries. The Garden is creating a Native Flora Section in an isolated area of the garden not yet open to the public.The bog is slowly forming in a concretefoundation about 40 by 30 feet and 2 feet deep. It is filled with peatmoss, water, sand and decaying matter to make for an acidic consistency cranberry shrubs just love. Next year Iim thinks the. hqg will he ready for cranberry plantings and if the Garden finds enough money, the area with Native Flora will be opened to be admired.So how did Cranberry Street get its name? Take your pick of the theories. We like the eccentric Miss Middagh%u2019s militant campaign best.Bearing Fruit Of The YearsBuying cranberry jelly in cans takes away the romance of this tiny fruit and deprives a cook of the experience of a unique taste treat which is very easy and quick to create.Cranberries are so plentiful, growing wild with little or no care and they can be stored for long periods of time, but they are still cheap and beloved by health food advocates for the amount of Vitamin C they contain.Knowledge about the value of cranberries is nothing new to Native Americans who mixed the fruit with melted fat and pounded it into dried meat to create an unusual cured taste. Or. long treks across the countrvside these cured meats provided protein and vitamins in a wholesome food that needed no preservatives.Colonists found that the wild berries were pientifui and dir only nuiis tuai didn%u2019t spoil during the lorg winter months providing a welcome .real from otherwisemonotonous winter fare.Now, in the 20th Century, horticulturists call it Vaccinium macrocarpon in the North, or erythrocarpon in the South%u2014a creeping evergreen, peat-loving undershrub with boxlike leaves. Propagation is by division or by layering and the plant has pink flowers in clusters that develop into scarlet berries ready for picking in September.An %u201c industry%u201d handbook says that more than 200 million pounds of cranberries are harvested each year in the United States, with 30 percent of the crop sold as fresh fruit in clear, one pound bags, 24 to a carton.S o m e R e c ip e sOne of the greatest things about this tiny4%u2019- . . I * iUnix < t If 4f> m n l n i in i n u o O r%u00bb Hinteresting dishes with it. Here are a couple of popular recipes:SPICED WINE1 cup cranberry juice; 1 fifth burgundy wine; lemon or orange peel; 1 stick cinnamon; 1 pinch of cloves and nutmeg; sugar to taste.Mix cranberry juice and spices and bring to boil, add wine and heat, serve hot.CRANBERRY SAUCEIn a blender add: 1 cup orange juice; tablespoon orange rind; 2 cups sugar; 1 diced apple. And as the blender runs, add 2 cups washed cranberries, blend until minced.OTHER IDEASInstead of making a quick banana bread substitute cranberries and a cup of buttermilk to add moisture.Cranberry relishes can be made by blending cranberries with pincannles. apples, celery, raisins and nuts adding cloves, nut met as spices.November 15, 1979, The PHOENIX, Page 9