Vesper Martinis, Clam Linguine, and Mousse au Chocolat with Kathia Dang
“I don’t believe in cooking clams in cheap wine"
Hey, stranger.
Sit down, grab a drink, and get comfortable. Tonight is going to be an experiment across the board, from the food I’m making to the format of this newsletter. Sometimes a good palate takes a willingness to try new things, so I’ve heard. In the spirit of experimentation, I cooked with clams for the first time, tried to finish a full martini without wincing, and documented the entire night on film. Let’s get started, shall we?
This is Kathia.
She left Vietnam when she was 5, first living in Paris, then finding her way to Salt Lake City. She loves Alice In Wonderland and whimsical things. She is a messy cook. She does not like people who can’t let their hair down. She’s 5’2 but wears platform shoes so often you’d think she’s a whopping 5’4. She loves beautiful things. She makes incredible mousse au chocolat. She is fantastic at tennis. She will buy anything if it’s lilac purple.
This is me.
I asked Kathia to be my first guest because when I first met her, I was so unsure of my place in the world. In part, I wanted to share her with my readers to say a quiet thank you to her for supporting my writing, encouraging my growth, and showing a steadfast kindness to me. But the commanding reason I wanted to sit down for dinner with Kathia is because she has perfected the art of noticing. Noticing beautiful things, beautiful spaces, and people. Her heart is so big it can handle the weight of giving someone a shoulder to cry on, even when she needs that herself. It is a rare trait— and one I think deserves to be celebrated.
The first time I visited her home she took me on a tour and I was shocked at how much art hung on the walls. Art of all styles, all subjects, time periods. there is not a wall that goes without a painting. Tonight, while we cook, we face a still-life painting consisting of oranges falling off a scale, a paper bag with Chinese characters painted in black, and a Buddha statue. Both the frame and colors are quite dark which stands out amongst the white marble countertops. She points to it, “That is the first piece of art I ever bought. I remember paying it off bit by bit until I could afford it eventually,” she turns to the three close-up portraits of people at a cafe behind us, “Oh, and that is from a friend of mine.. and that piece was from…” She knows the story behind everything she owns. She has taught me how when you lead from the heart, things fall into place.
In moving to Salt Lake, I am often following behind her into restaurants and shops, a quiet observer, watching how people light up in her presence. It may be because she takes the time to ask how people are doing, or because she has built a reputation for herself of being generous and kind and good, or because she gives a smile to people without expecting one back. She is a constant. Tonight, as we sat twirling our linguine into our spoons, she tells me that she works hard to show up as her very best self, always. That effort— the ability to put aside your own stress to ensure you leave a lovely impact on people you interact with on the day-to-day— is admirable. I’d like to be that way, someday.
Kathia is the one who made, and coined the name for, the cocktail that inspired my blog evie en rose. Her bar is nearly toppling with every hard liquor imaginable. Often, in the evening, she’ll make herself a gin martini and set a bath. Like I said, Kathia is committed to the art of noticing, and curating, beautiful things. She’s quite the host but tells me, “I would still take the time to pour myself a cocktail, set the table, light a candle, even if it was just me sitting down to dinner.”
Tonight I thought it was fitting to make martinis, as an ode to Kathia’s favorite drink, unfortunately for myself. I can’t stand the taste. The sacrifices I make…
Vesper Martini
3 oz. gin
1 oz. vodka
1/2 oz Lillet Blanc
In a cocktail shaker, add ice, gin, vodka, and Lillet Blanc. Shake well, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
Twist a thin slice of lemon peel, for garnish.
Serve and enjoy! If you drink this pre-dinner, you’ll be sloshed.
Kathia is a caretaker, down to her bones. She takes care of her family, her friends, her workers, her buildings, her house, without question or pause. Beyond being a caretaker, though, she’s somewhat of the stage-handler to her development projects. She tells me that she prefers to organize and plan and set up the stage so that the rest of the party can sparkle. You will have a hard time finding pictures of her online even though she went from being a hairstylist to owning her first studio to designing clients’ homes to owning and restoring many buildings in Downtown Salt Lake City. It’s an impressive career, earned through consistent determination and talent.
I could write a whole newsletter just on Kathia’s work and its impact on people, though tonight is not about that. Tonight is about the food, and the woman sitting across from me.
One of her favorite stories to tell is about a 40th birthday trip to Las Vegas, with two of her best friends. They were standing in the line to a club, at the very back, when the bouncer came and ushered them inside to a center table. The three of them were gifted free champagne and food, showered with attention from young men who wanted to take them to an after party. The birthday girl declined for the reason of avoiding dismemberment in the back of a limousine. Naturally. Kathia laughs when she tells this story, and points at me and says, “See! This is proof that life doesn’t end at 30.” It is a common occurrence for her to remind me to enjoy my youth, but to look forward to all of the wonderful things waiting for me past my 20’s.
Kathia is a self-proclaimed messy cook, but I love watching her throw together a plate of ingredients in a way that proves even in busy moments, she makes an effort to arrange the plate nicely to make it beautiful. Her superpower is an ability to see the beauty in things, from the buildings she restores and transforms to a dinner table or even just an outfit. It’s not uncommon for her to look at something I’m wearing and disappear upstairs before coming down with a scarf to tie around my neck. Her love for beautiful things is what makes her so well respected in her work.
To offset the absolute horror that is drinking straight liquor and spirits, I thought I’d bring together a salad that has a nice balance of tangy balsamic with creamy burrata and avocado.
By the time Kathia and I sat down to dinner, we were ravenous. The salad was a godsend because of how easy it was to throw together once my stomach started growling. Midway through the meal I started eating it off the serving dish because my god, it was delicious. My favorite flavor combination is caprese— give me some form of basil, tomato, and mozzarella and I’m in love.
Arugula & Burrata Salad with Balsamic
1 bag of arugula salad
1 ball of burrata
1/2 of an avocado, sliced
2 heirloom tomatoes, sliced
2 to 3 tbsp of balsamic glaze
1 to 2 tbsp pesto
Pinch of flakey salt, to serve
Wash and pat dry the arugula before laying it evenly across a serving dishes or plate.
Distribute avocado slices evenly, followed by heirloom tomato slices (these should be as thin as you prefer).
Open the ball of burrata and either nestle chunks of it, along with the pesto, throughout the salad or leave it in the middle for display. The world is your oyster!
Drizzle as much balsamic as you’d like over the salad. I prefer a thick glaze opposed to a vinaigrette but you do you.
Sprinkle flaky salt over the top and enjoy!
The two of us sit down finally, right as it starts to rain. At this point the linguine smells so good I’m ready to start shoveling it in my mouth, manners begone. Kathia jumps up and positions the garden umbrellas above us and all of a sudden we are nestled underneath the canopy while the rain falls gently outside. It’s lovely, and quite cozy. I look across the table at her and we raise our glasses to a toast, making sure to keep eye contact throughout, as her family tradition decrees.
I come from a family that loves food. I mean loves it. When we get together, most of our conversation revolve around what we’re going to eat next. During breakfast we’re usually discussing lunch. Standing around the kitchen shucking corn and snipping green beans, while my mom and grandmother chop and sauté and bake is how many of my warmest memories start. So when I first met Kathia and she told me she’d make me clam linguine at some point… I knew I’d like her. Anyone who takes the time to make a meal with an ingredient that requires care and attention the way clams do is a lover of food in my book. I asked her to help me make this dish, partially because I am decidedly not a clam connoisseur and I’d be mortified if I made them wrong. But also partially because this is her dinner— I wanted to see what flavors she favors over others, how she cooks her pasta, and whether or not she uses enough garlic.
The lesson she imparts on me, immediately, is “I don’t believe in cooking clams in cheap wine. You should use a decent wine that you’ll also enjoy drinking, don’t ruin the clams.” She points a finger at me while she says this, and I nod, knowing full well you couldn’t pry my love for cheap wine out of my cold, dead hands.
Watching someone cook is so telling of the type of person they are. Kathia chucks ingredients in the pan and chops with a sort of abandon that suggests she doesn’t take life too seriously. What’s the point of measuring? This is how I like to cook, coincidentally, so I don’t mind in the slightest. In fact, Kathia’s approach to most things is from the heart. She wants more butter? In goes a spoonful. A space lacks color? She fashions a bright red vintage drum so that it looks perfect as a coffee table.
Sitting across from her, over the warm glow of the candles and the rain falling softly outside, we talk about our childhoods and realize, not for the first time, how similar we are. This is partly the reason we get along so well, as I remind her of a younger version of herself. We were both imaginative, insecure, romantic children. We both struggled with trying to please everybody. We both feel deeply for the people around us. She tells me that her drive in curating beautiful spaces comes from a desire to stir up the magic that happens when people feel safe and uninhibited. Over good food or good conversation, when they feel comfortable, people are at their best. Whenever she has shared her own writing with me, I am struck by her ability to bring a reader right up close to her heart. If she ever decides to publish any of her writing, you will be the first to know.
Clam Linguine
3 to 4 lbs littleneck clams, cleaned
1 lb linguine
1/4 cup olive oil, plus additional for serving
5 to 8 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, to taste
1 cup dry white wine, one you’d drink
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley, plus 2 tbsp for garnish
Flaky salt
Let clams soak in a tub of room temperature water for about 30 minutes. Then give them a good scrub and transfer to an ice bath, discarding any that have opened.
Cook linguine in a large pot of salted boiling water until it's very al dente.
While the pasta is cooking, heat olive oil and butter in a deep sauté pan. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until garlic is fragrant.
Add white wine, lemon juice, and clams, cover pan, and steam over medium-high heat until clamshells have opened, about 5-8 minutes.
Gently shake the pan occasionally, transferring clams from the pan one at a time to a holding bowl once they’ve opened (discard any clams that don't open after 10-13 minutes).
Reserve 1 cup of pasta water before draining the linguine. When all of the clams are cooked and removed from the pan, add the drained linguine to the pan, tossing to coat. Cook for about 2 minutes.
Stir the chopped parsley into the pasta. Season to taste with salt, additional red pepper flakes, and lemon juice, if needed.
You can either remove the clams from their shells and stir the meat into the pasta, or serve the pasta tossed or topped with the whole clams for people to de-shell (just give them an extra bowl for the shells). Garnish with whatever your heart desires!
Full of clams and balsamic and garlic, and not the least bit tipsy, it’s time for our final course. For dessert, I knew exactly what she would want before I even asked. This past winter I sat at her kitchen counter in Palm Springs when she hand whipped eggs and cream for her mousse au chocolat. Like all favorite foods, this dessert has love behind it.
Before giving me a lesson on how to make her recipe, she turns on a playlist and jazz seeps softly into the room. “The best part about cooking is putting on good music and drinking a glass of wine,” she tells me.
Growing up, Kathia was a chocolate fiend. She loved everything chocolate. But her mother was a single mom and their family rarely had dinners together. When they did, dessert was not present. According to her recount of that time, their house was sort of a revolving door of refugees. At one point, she lived with two uncles, an aunt, her grandmother, and their family of 5. One by one, eventually, people started to leave and it got very quiet. In the midst of the quiet, Kathia went to Paris after high school and again, was all alone. Except for some distant family. Her cousin’s uncle, Christian, spent time trying to teach her to be Parisian.
“We went to a restaurant in Les Champs-Elysées for lunch one day and I tried escargot for the first time. I’ll never forget that. When it came time for dessert, I told Christian I loved chocolate and he ordered mousse au chocolat that came in the largest glass bowl. At the time in France, you were able to serve yourself as much as you wanted from whatever was à la carte. The mousse was light, fluffy, perfectly creamy, with such rich flavor, and chantilly on top. I could never stop thinking about it.” She tells me this while I watch her beat the egg whites into a thick froth. Some host I am sitting here drinking and eating stray bits of chocolate while she does all the work.
Throughout her time in France, Kathia would frequent her cousin’s grandmother’s place near Belleville, where a lot of immigrants lived at the time. One evening she told her grandmother about her love for mousse au chocolat.
Kathia smiles while she recalls, “My grandmother, of course, had never made it before but started rummaging through the kitchen and with no recipe, whips up some random assortment of ingredients into a chocolate-esque mixture. We put half in the refrigerator and half in the freezer and waited with baited breath for it to set.”
Their excitement didn’t last upon trying the mousse. Apparently, the finished product tasted like melted, soupy chocolate. That day marked Kathia’s first attempt at the recipe, but some time would go by before she perfected it. Earlier this year, while hosting dinner and making beef bourguignon, Kathia decided to revisit her beloved mousse au chocolat instead of her usual go-to dessert: tiramisu. “I had a dream about that period of my life in France, the memory came back to me, and at 2 am I hand whipped a batch of mousse and it turned out perfect. You know, taste and smell have a memory. There I was, in the middle of my life, and I thought it a shame to have yet master the art of mousse au chocolat.”
Kathia’s Mousse au Chocolat
1 bar of dark chocolate
1 knob (2 tbsp) of unsalted butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup cane sugar
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Dash of Cognac
Dash of Grand Marnier
Melt the chocolate and butter in a microwave until just melted. Mix thoroughly and set aside to cool to room temperature while you prep the rest of the ingredients! You don’t want the chocolate to be hot or else it’ll cook the eggs (bleh).
Separate egg yolks and whites into two bowls.
Whisk egg whites until just before it forms stiff peaks, then add sugar and continue whisking until full stiff peaks form.
Add Cognac and Grand Marnier (alternatively you can use vanilla extract but Kathia loves any excuse to add alcohol) to whipping cream and whip until stiff peaks form.
Set aside 1/4 of your whipped cream to serve on top. Fold chocolate mixture into the rest of the cream until combined. Fold, don’t mix!
Gently fold in egg whites until combined. Once all ingredients have form a milk chocolate-esque color, it’s ready! Don’t over mix.
Pour your mixture into whatever serving bowls you’d like. This recipe makes about 4 servings. Or 1 serving if you have a concerning sweet tooth like me.
One of my favorite things about Kathia is her generosity. Even sitting here, teaching me her favorite recipes, happy to let me experiment with this newsletter on her, it shines through. In fact, I’m wearing her dress as I write this. Being generous is not something Kathia only extends to loved ones, but to everyone who she thinks she can help. I’ve legitimately never met someone as happy to give to others.
Speaking of, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on Kathia’s style. I already described her tendency to decorate from what she loves, but this shines through in how she dresses, too. At her construction sights, she struts around in designer shoes, not appearing to care if a bit of mud gets on them. She is often wearing colorful patterns, floral sets, platform shoes, intricate vintage jewelry. And my god, is she generous. She once packed an entire suitcase full of clothes to give me on a trip to Seattle. When we go shopping, she sends me into the dressing room with an armful of things to try on because she says I’m like a life-sized doll. Her clothes are often on other people, from friends to daughter-in-laws to nieces. Although I may be biased, I have to say that sometimes I‘ll see a photo of someone looking very stylish, and Kathia will smile and say “Guess where she got that dress?”
Thank you for coming tonight! I’m so full of chocolate mousse I might need to be tested for diabetes, so this is where I leave you. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Kathia and the wonderfully unique impact she has on her corner of the world. If you take anything away from tonight, let it be this: chase the things that make you feel like Alice In Wonderland, always be willing to give someone a smile, eat lots of chocolate, and surround yourself with beautiful moments and art and food. I’ll see you next month— don’t miss me too much.
Cheers,
Evie
If you’re in Salt Lake City, follow @milkblockslc on instagram for updates on Kathia’s current development that, if I do say so myself, is going to be so exquisite. Shop The Garden Store, drink coffee from Picnic, get seafood at Freshies, eat brunch at Manoli’s, and pay a visit to Basalt for a spa day if you want to support the other businesses that Kathia houses.
this was a beautiful read
Thank you for sharing about your special relationship- Kathia sounds like one of a kind!