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May/June 2002 - Number 59 She is known simply as Ingrid in restaurant kitchens. At the French Laundry in the Napa Valley, for instance, shellfish aren't simply lobsters and scallops; they're "Ingrid's scallops". Jean-Georges Vongerichten was so interested in Ingrid's crab that he visited her at her island home in maine to see its source. "She talks to the lobsters before shipping them," Vongerichten says. "She's amazing. She cares. She teaches me about fresh fish; I learn about fresh fish in America from her." Eberhard Müller chef at Bayard's (and formerly at Lutèce), was so impressed by the scallops Ingrid Bengis sent him that he wrote a note of thanks to the man who caught them. "They're the best in the country," Müller says. The 20 restaurants receiving Bengis's wildlife from the nutrient-rich archipelagic waters surrounding Deer Isle and the fishing village of Stonington, Maine, are arguably America's best: not just the French Laundry, Le Bernardin, the Inn at Little Washington, and Vongerichten's Jean Georges, Vong, and Jo Jo, but also Charlie Trotter's and Wolfgang Puck's places. What few folks in these kitchens find a need to concern themselves with is the fact that fishmonger Ingrid Bengis has recently been a Fulbright scholar at the Saint Petersburg State University in Russia, where for the past six years she's taught 20th-century American literature to Russian students. How does she balance that life with the one in coastal New England? It's simple: Bengis's business is seasonal; she works in Maine from May until September. If the lives overlap while she's teaching in Russia, her business manager, Sue Buxton, handles the chefs' orders. Bengis is used to this professional juggling act; her résumé lists stints as taxi driver, art-class nude, secretary, and author, in 1972, of Combat in the Erogenous Zone: Writings on Love, Hate, and Sex (Alfred A. Knopf), her groundbreaking response to the sexual revolution of the early 1970's. She has just completed a new book, set in Russia, a work that her mentor the grande dame of literary criticism Elizabeth Hardwick says is "very, very good", adding, "She's a remarkable person and a very good writer who should write more." Bengis's unlikely work as fishmonger to top restaurants, though is not separte from her work as a writer and teacher but is rather a part of the whole, an anchor for her far-flung soul. The business-the actual demands of gathering the fish, packing it, and shipping it, keeps her connected to the corporeal world, she says. The daughter of Russians who immigrated to Manhattan, Bengis wrote Combat when she was just 26 years old. The book meditates with "fierce, almost embarrassing honesty" (according to the New York Times Book Review) on the subjects of sexuality, feminine sensibilities, and the author's own sexual experiences, beginning at age 12, the day a man lifted her dress and molested her on a jammed subway car. The book launched Bengis violently into literary celebrity; she was besieged with requests to speak to groups, on radio, to the press--to be a voice of her generation. Bengis was shell-shocked by the attention and as a result abandoned the city for rural Maine. She wrote a novel, I Have Come Here to Be Alone (Simon & Schuster, 1976), but published little after that, subsisting on odd jobs-window painting, temping--in hand-to-mouth years made more difficult after she adopted an 11-year-old girl named Lori, the child of a neighbor. After a few years of scraping by, Bengis decided she needed a stable job. "I'm not New Age," Bengis says. "It wasn't like I said, 'Oh, I'm going to do some spiritual job.' I had no money, I had a daughter about to go into university, I had to pay for her university, I had to figure out how to do it. And I was picking mushrooms." SUBJECT: chanterelles; year: 1985. Bengis telephoned Balducci's in Manhattan and asked whether they wanted to buy the ones she'd foraged. Balducci's said yes and, because she happened to live in Maine, inquired whether she could also send them some lobsters. Since her friends were lobstermen and Bengis was broke, she said, "Yes, but you'll have to wire me the money to buy them." Thus, with one call she had become a purveyor, and she quickly began to research what else she might sell in New York City. Unable to find a reliable delivery service, she carried fish on the twice-weekly People's Express airlines flights that went from Portland to Newark. From there she caught a bus to the Port Authority terminal, then hailed taxis to take her to the restaurants--though taxis often refused because of all the boxes she was carrying. Within two months she was offering Maine lobster, cod, halibut, crab, and mussels to Chanterelle, The Odeon, One Fifth, and Café de Bruxelles. Quickly and almost by coincidence, the reputation of Bengis's seafood began to grow, and she became further affiliated with the best chefs in the business. For example, during one flight in 1986 she read about a new seafood restaurant opening in Manhattan and, having an extra gallon of scallops, stopped by the restaurant. It was called Le Bernardin. During this same era, Bengis also developed a relationship with Jonathan Waxman, then of Jams (see also page 93). When Waxman did a Meals of Wheels benefit with Wolfgang Puck of Spago, held in Los Angeles, Bengis flew west with him-and her scallops; she harvested, cleaned, and sorted. Bengis likes to help with the work and to chat with her friend about his Tightrope Sea Farms, where he raises small, exquisite bivalves, or about opera (they both sing.) As she sorts mussels in the salt pond where they grow on long ropes, she tries one raw but expels it into the water with a nasty face. Paul picks a mussel off the conveyor belt and says, "See that yellow line? That means it's dead." That's the one I just tried," Bengis says. She remembers the tide and the fact that she hasn't picked today's seaweed, in which she'll pack more than a hundred lobsters, checking and caressing each one to ensure it's lively ("If he doesn't snap back at me, he's not lively enough," she says). She also occasionally speaks to them as she nestles them into the seaweed. "Talking to your lobsters makes a difference," Bengis explains. "I don't mean in a flaky way, but you have to message them." On the rocks where Paul picked her up in his skiff, she ambles down to the water. Today she's squatting in a baggy T-shirt, shorts, and dime-store flip-flops, tearing hunks of seaweed to reveal peeky-toe crabs hiding inside; she'll fill two buckets before heading off to see Tina and pick up 46 pounds more crab. As she sorts, Bengis ruminates on St. Petersburg. Though she loves it, it's not perfect: "I'm 57," she says. "Winters there are hard." If all goes as planned, she will soon reenter the literary firmament with her latest work, According to Dostoyevsky, a historical fiction that is set in Russia between 1991 and 1996 and involves the exploration of politics, friendships, and love during that period. But she won't stop selling fish; if you're dining at the French Laundry, or Spago, or Postrio, or Charlie Trotter's, or Jean Georges, chances are good you'll get a taste of the mind of Ingrid Bengis, who makes few distinctions between literature and the art of fishmongering. Eberhard Mueller's lobster a la nage, which Bengis first ate at Lutece, is one of her favorite presentations of her seafood, she says. Recipe LOBSTER A LA NAGE Serves 4 EBERHARD MUELLER has been preparing lobster this way for 20 years, at restaurants including Manhattan's Le Bernardin, Lutece, and Bayard's. 5 tomatoes, cored 6 small yellow onions, peeled 6 medium carrots, peeled and trimmed 6 ribs celery, trimmed and chopped 6 small leeks, trimmed and washed 2 branches rosemary 2 branches thyme 1/4 tsp. black peppercorns 12 coriander seeds 6 whole cloves 1 bay leaf 2 tbsp. sugar 1/4 tsp. cayenne Salt 3 cups dry white wine 1 1/2 cups white vinegar Fronds from 4 branches fennel 2 sprigs basil Leaves from 1/2 bunch mint Leaves from 1/2 bunch tarragon 1/2 bunch chervil 1/2 bunch chives 16 tbsp. (2 sticks) butter, cut into small pieces 4 1 1/2-lb. live Maine lobsters 1. Coarsley chop 4 of the tomatoes, 4 of the onions, 4 of the carrots, 4 of the celery ribs, and four of the leeks and put into a stockpot. Add rosemary, thyme, peppercorns, coriander, cloves, bay leaf, sugar, cayenne, and 8 quarts of water, season to taste with salt, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer until vegetables are soft, about 1 hour. Add wine and vinegar and simmer 1 hour more. Remove pot from heat, add fennel fronds, basil, and 10 of the mint leaves, and set aside to steep for 5 minutes. Strain stock (nage) into a large wide pot, discarding solids. Season to taste with salt and simmer over medium heat. 2. Peel and chop the remaining tomao and set aside. Thunly slice the remaining 2 onions, 2 carrots, 2 celery ribs, and 2 leeks, and add to simmering nage, and cook, stirring often, until just cooked through, about 5 minutes. Transfer vegetables with a slotted spoon to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap to keep warm and set aside. Keep nage warm over low heat. 3. Finely chop half the mint, tarragon, chervil, and chives, then put half of the finely chopped herbs into a small pot, setting the other half aside. Add 1/2 cup of the nage to pot with herbs, and heat over medium heat. Whisk in butter, a few pieces at a time, until mixture is emulsified. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into another small pot, discarding solids. Stir in the remaining finely chopped mint, tarragon, chervil, and chives. Keep herb butter warm over lowest heat. 4. Bring nage to a boil over high heat. Kill lobsters by plunging the tip of a large kitchen knife into back of lobster's head. Add lobsters to the nage and boil until cooked through, 10-15 minutes. Transfer lobsters to a cutting board, split lengthwise, remove head sac, and crack claws. 5. To serve, arrange lobsters, cut side up, in 4 deep oval warm serving dishes. Scatter the reserved vegetables and chopped tomato over lobsters, then ladel 1/4 cup of the nage over each (save remaing nage for another use). Coarsely chop the reserved mint, tarragon, chervil, and chives and scatter over vegetables. Pour some of the remaining herb butter over each.