Armstrong, owner of Table 8 in Los Angeles and now in Miami, serves up Small Bites, Big Nights.
What's the biggest challenge in making restaurant recipes work for home cooks?
Eliminating unnecessary, complicated steps. Sometimes I get so involved when I'm cooking that it's ridiculous. I tried to tone it down for the book and make it realistic for home cooks. And in some cases I offer both my way and alternative shortcuts.
Which recipes in the book are Table 8 customer favorites?
Definitely the little grilled cheese sandwich with beef short ribs and onion marmalade. It's one of those dishes you can only get in the lounge or while you're sitting at the bar. People having dinner in the main dining room will go up to the bar, order it, inhale it and go back to dinner.
The book often mentions last-minute entertaining. Do you hope to encourage people to entertain this way?
Totally. I like to give people a range of options. At the restaurant they can have just casual bites at the bar or have a full-blown dinner. Entertaining can be like that. It can be easy and fun and still be creative without spending the whole day in the kitchen, although you can if you want to.
The organization of the book is different from most cookbooks—how did you decide on it?
It's organized by the way people might entertain. That's how I got started cooking—my mother entertained all the time and I would hang out in the kitchen. The foods in the book are pairedwith different occasions. And my food is ingredient driven, so I listed the ingredients first [rather than measurements].
Would you do another book?
This was an incredible amount of work, and I walked away thinking there's no way I'd do another one. But then I thought, now what? I might do a really detailed book on ingredients. I'd work with farmers, find out what they grow, then use their produce as ingredients at the restaurant.
