Orange County Review inSIDEr, March 10, 2011 inSID

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TThe name came to them one night when Sarahand Paul Deigl came home drop-dead tiredfrom work. All they could muster was take-

out. "Paul would say, 'do you want pizza?'""And I'd say, 'No.'" The 'no' trails off forlornly."Chinese?""No.""Mexican?""No," sighed Sarah, exhausted and exasperated.

"I just want some real food.'"Not that pizza, Chinese or Mexican are fake food;

anything but. But she just wanted something sim-ple… and comforting …and healthy… and, for thatmatter, interesting. You know…real food.

"Basically it starts out, what do you want to eat nextweek?" Sarah Deigl describes the creative process ofdesigning the weekly menu at Real Food. "Like literal-ly, what does Paul, Brian and Sarah want for lunchnext week?"

First, they look in the fridge to see what needs to beeaten up. Then they knock ideas around, pairing asoup to a salad, a sandwich to a soup. "I'll get it madeon Thursday or Friday, or I'll come in on Saturday andfinish it up," says Brian Whiteside of his prep work.Brian is an experienced pastry chef himself and gradu-ate of NECI. He just showed up on the Real Fooddoorstep one day and more or less refused to leave.

Paul scrapes a platter of roasted onions into a potfor one of next week's soups. This weekend he won'tget much time off because he has a luncheon for 40 tocater on Sunday. "I try to get a day off every fewweeks. It'd be nice to have one day off per week,but…." He lets the sentence dangle because makingreal food is time consuming.

Sarah remembers in the beginning asking, "Are peo-ple going to want to eat this kind of food, or are wegoing to have to dumb it down." They chose to stick totheir guns: nothing permanent on the menu; no stan-dard fare, no chicken salad sandwich unless Paulwants to make one, which he does every now andthen. They remember their first menu featured aVietnamese sandwich called a Banh Mi with all kindsof pickled veggies and jalapenos and stuff, "the bestsandwich ever," sighs Sarah dreamily. "The second daysomebody came in and ordered seven of them," chor-tles Paul.

If it sounds like they make these dishes up as theygo along; they do. "Yes," confirms Paul without amoment's hesitation. "That's it. Absolutely…It's veryhaphazard." In fact, are you ready for this, he keepsmost of his recipes in his head!

Occasionally he will refer to the 'Old' and 'NewTestaments' of what they call the 'Bible,' two note-books full of stained, spotted, and dog-eared handwrit-ten recipes that Sarah has collected over the years.These are the tried and true, the ones that, "work sowell and are so perfect that I just want to keep them inone place." Once Paul made a notation in the 'Bible.'"And we had a fight," snaps Sarah. "I was like, 'Youdon't write in the Bible. I'm the only one who doesthat.'" She purses her lips. "So now he asks permis-sion."

Could the 'Bible' be a cookbook in the offing? "No,"she says definitively. Paul tried to start a 'Bible' of hisown, "but it's too much trouble to keep up with." Andyes, she confirms, "He makes everything up. He neveruses a recipe, almost."

This remarkablenews flies deliciouslyinto the face of the newultimate cookbook,“Modernist Cuisine:The Art and Science ofCooking,” by NathanMyhrvold. It just cameout. At $650, this six-volume set, totaling2,438 pages and weigh-ing 43 pounds, leavesnothing to the imagina-tion in the kitchen.

Whatever happenedto the art of real food?"There's a lot of back-lash now to that molec-ular gastronomy.People are saying it'ssoul-less," confirmsSarah. "But," hastilycautions Paul, "if youknow those basics, youmake far fewer mis-takes when you arebeing creative.Cooking, part of it isintuitive, but part of itis science…and youhave to know a little bitabout that."

Developing a sensefor cooking happens"by eating a lot, read-ing a lot," says Sarah,who devours CooksIllustrated cover tocover every month. "And practicing. Yeah experiment-ing," fills in Paul. "And things that are in season at thesame time have a natural affinity for each other, andbringing in all the things that make a good dish, whichis sweet and salty, crunchy and soft," follows up Sarah.

She points to one of the salads on today's menu.Blood oranges, goat cheese, and pistachios are vari-ably sweet, salty, crunchy and soft. "It's just a processlike that. Balance is the key to successful cooking."Take pastries for example. "You need texture, you needtemperature and you need balance in the flavor. Yourapple pie; you want your warm apple pie with your

cold ice cream. You want your crisp crust and your softapples. You want your tart apple flavor with earthy cin-namon. All those things in balance, in harmony witheach other, that's what makes a great dish."

"And sandwichescan be just like that,"points out Paul.

Any tips for makingthat perfect flakey lightpie crust? "Honestly?The key is vodka,"bomb-drops Sarah.Vodka??? "You usevodka in place of partof the water; ice coldvodka instead of icecold water." Sheexplains the alcoholprevents gluten fromforming. Gluten makesbread chewy. Vodka"allows you to putmore moisture into thecrust making it morepliable and easier toroll out and dealwith…In pastry, youwant as little gluten aspossible…Vodka piecrust?" she snaps herfingers and grins agame-winner, "It'ssweet."

Here's another tip."When he says 'tastethis,' the first twothings we always sayare 'salt and acid.' Andacid could mean itneeds a little vinegar, itneeds a little lemonjuice." For home cooks,"that's one of the

biggest leaps: seasoning and learning acidity. You don'twant it to taste sour, but getting the right amount ofsalt and the right amount of acidity just opens up thewhole."

Today, Paul is making "a very rich, smooth" roastedonion, cheese, cream and garlic soup. The last thing hewill do is add "a few drops of some vinegar." He thinksback to when he was teaching a cooking class and hehad everyone try an un-doctored soup. "And everyonewould try the soup. Then I would add the few drops ofvinegar, mix it in, and we'd all taste again. And theywould just go, 'Wow, that's a different soup.'"

PHOTO FROM THE REAL FOOD WEBSITE: WWW.REALFOODVA.COM In addition to the lunch stand and catering business, Real

Food is also a custom bakery, producing one-of-a-kind cakes.

On a Friday, Paul Deigl is already working on next week'sroasted onion, cheese, cream, and garlic soup. Soups are

Paul's specialty.

“Lightning in a Bottle”

It's only three of them: Paul and Sarah Deigl with Brian Whiteside in the window.Parking and seating is cramped. They aren’t listed in the phone book. They don't take

credit cards, and their sign is a painted bed sheet. That's the way they like it.

Cooking: science or art? “That's a different soup!”

Orange County Review inSIDEr, March 10, 2011 Orange County Review inSIDEr, March 10, 2011

"Like what I would cook for myself, but I was tootired to make. Fresh, healthy, homemade, not fried,"she elaborates. "What we're doing was what I waswishing for."

She refers to their tiny lunch counter and cateringkitchen on Rt. 15 south of town. "It's interesting whatpeople expect when they come in. People will say, 'realfood,' what do you mean by that?' And sometimes peo-ple are expectingdown home, soulfood, I think."

But Real Food issomething decidedlydifferent. Although itis located where theLunch Box Grill usedto be, a place thatthree years ago wonthe “Best BaconCheeseburger inOrange County”award (see InsiderJuly 10, 2008), today,you can't get a ham-burger, award winningor otherwise, here.But…on occasion youwill find what chefPaul Deigl claims is,"the best lentil burgerin Orange County."His sidekick, BrianWhiteside rolls hiseyes. "It's the onlylentil burger inOrange County." Paulgrins like a kid caughtwith his hand in thecookie jar.

Actually, don'tknock a lentil burgeruntil you've tried it. Itis a delicious veggieoption to a hamburg-er, vastly superior tothe usual (shudder)soy substitute. If youcan't quite make thatstretch, how about a bison flank steak, charred onion,Dijon, and arugula sandwich on Ciabatta breadinstead? Or a blood orange, pistachio, goat cheeseand greens salad with a blood orange vinaigrette? Ora Thai green curry and beef soup? That's what was onthe menu a couple of weeks ago. Monday, it'll be dif-ferent because the menu changes completely everyweek. You could eat lunch here five days a week formonths and never have the same real food twice.

Sarah listens to her customers. "Sometimes they'llleave and say, 'You know, you're right. That is realfood," she muses. "I don't know exactly what lightningin a bottle we've got here, but it's great."

Real Food is further defined by what it is not.Located on an odd little triangle of land past which theRt. 15 traffic fairly whizzes, it is not a traditional restau-rant by any means. It's too small. "By permit we can

only have 12 seats,"says Sarah, proudlypointing to her diningroom suit of onedozen chairs and fourtables she found at Dand J Thrift Shop.

Parking iscramped, nigh untoimpossible for full-sizevehicles and duallypick-up trucks. Theirphone number is notlisted in the directorynor is it available fromInformation. They'renot in the YellowPages, and they don'ttake credit cards.They're only openfrom 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.Mondays throughFridays, and theydon't advertise. Theirsign, draped over a12-foot long rusticwooden bench, isessentially a hand-painted bed sheet.About the only mar-keting tool they haveis their barebonesweb site and blog,which, by the way, isrefreshingly devoid ofpop-up clutter.

They don't havelegions of staff; it's justthe three of them:Sarah, Paul and

Brian. And, "we have zero debt." When vendors deliv-er, the Real Food folks write a check on the spot,spurning offered credit. "The thing I really love aboutthis, and sometimes we have to remind ourselves of it,is that we are the owners of this business and we cando whatever we want," says Sarah defiantly. So, if Pauldoesn't want to make chicken salad, he's not going to."We're trying really hard to stay true to what we wantto be and at the same time be really embracing to what

the community wants us to be." Real Food is actually three enterprises: the publicly

visible lunch spot, a catering company that operatesout of the commercial kitchen in back, and Sarah'scustom baking operation. The Real Food philosophyapplies to all three branches.

For Sarah, getting into the food and beverage busi-ness started when she would bake cakes for her highschool friends. She remembers half joking to herself,"I don't want to go to college, I should just go to culi-nary school." And in fact, after a brief stint at Virginia,"The University and I mutually decided to part ways."That naturally led to "what everybody who doesn'thave any marketable skills does, which is get a job ina restaurant."For her it wasHot Cakes inCharlottesville,"and I showedup every dayand was rea-sonably com-petent, whichis not alwaysthe case withsummer work-ers. And by theend of thesummer theyneeded abaker, and sothey said, 'Doyou want tobecome abaker,' and Isaid, 'Sure.' Itwas total on-the-job-train-ing."

Meanwhile,Paul wasundergoing asimilar experi-ence. Abandoning the idea of getting his masters fromJMU, he had moved to Charlottesville and found workmaking sandwiches at a local restaurant. From there,he moved up the ladder to line cook to manager. Oneday he was thumbing through some cooking schoolbrochures when Sarah peered over his shoulder andsaid, "'Hey, maybe I should go to culinary school.'"

Thanks to what she gratefully refers as "very sup-portive" parents, Sarah attended the New EnglandCulinary Institute (NECI) in tiny Montpelier, Vermont."Everything you do in the school is to be consumed byreal world patrons, which I really liked. I liked the ideaof hands-on learning."

Later she served internships in this area with Craig

Hartman at Clifton Inn and again at Hot Cakes, whilePaul worked for two high-end restaurants inCharlottesville before settling in at Hot Cakes himself.Eventually, Paul and Sarah wound up working differentshifts at Meander Plantation; he doing the dinners, shethe pastries and breakfasts. "After two years, it just gotto be more work, more work, back and forth, laterhours, an hour and a half in the car every day," grum-bles Paul. "And we had a young child at that point, andwe wanted to buy a house," chimes in Sarah.

They moved back to her hometown, Orange. Paulstarted a personal chef service, cooking everythingfrom cozy suppers for two to dinner parties for 50 inhis clients' kitchens. And so Real Food was born.

When theLunch BoxGrill spacebecame avail-able, they sawit as a way toexpand thecatering busi-ness, not opena restaurant.And evenmaking thatdecision wastough. "We'revery slowmovers," saysPaul laconical-ly. "'The com-mitment is justtoo much. Idon't want tobe locked intoa lease,'" her e m e m b e r sp r o t e s t i n g ."She browbeatme into doingit," he asides.

The sand-wich shop idea sprouted in September 2009, when afavorite lunch spot on the other side of town closed forgood. "And there was no place else I wanted to go,"grouses Sarah. She turned to Paul and said, "'Weneed to open for lunch.'" She had always joked, "I'mgoing to make pies, sell pies through a window."

Later, they were approached to establish a sit-downrestaurant at 110 East Main, where the Light Well istoday. It was their dream come true. But, to their cred-it, Sarah and Paul felt that their kids, Rhew and Averyshould come first. "We realized very suddenly that wewere not ready for that kind of additional commitmentof time. That was the biggest thing. We have these twolittle kids who already are starting to feel like 'why can't

you come be the chaperone on my field trip. Howcome everybody else's parent is there and you guysaren't?'"

It was a tough decision. "The worst day of my pro-fessional life was the day that we had to tell Dan(Gregg) and David (Perdue) that we were backing out,and they were incredible businessmen and gentlemenabout the whole situation, for which I will be forevergrateful," says Sarahreverently.

"I felt like a realjerk for awhile," saysPaul, "but right nowthe kids are at an agewhere we cannot doanything else big. Ilike them too much.Everybody keepssaying before youknow it, you're goingto turn around and beshipping them off tocollege, and Iabsolutely do notwant to miss whatleads up to that."

Besides if they hadbecome a full-servicerestaurant, theywould have lost con-trol. "It's me and Pauland Brian, and we allget along really well,"says Sarah. "And ifwe get bigger wehave to find morepeople…And stayingthis small allows usthe obsessive level ofcontrol that we bothactually crave, whichis we have our handin every bit of foodthat goes out thedoor. And the totallyunexpected partabout this is howmuch fun we're hav-ing meeting all the customers." Like the line in the'Cheers' song, "Where every-bo-dy knows yourname," the folks at Real Food recognize just abouteveryone who walks through the door.

Take Jim and Shirley Webster for example. Theycome in here at least three times a week, after theywork out in a local gym. "I'll tell ya, the food makes youfeel good afterwards," says Jim. Sarah points out thatalthough they don't exclusively serve organic or local-

ly grown food, "We do as much locally as makessense, which means if it is available and we can affordto use it."

Another good thing is that after so many yearsworking different shifts, Paul and Sarah are now work-ing together. "It's great," says Sarah unhesitatingly. "Ilove it," echoes Paul. Married 13 years, they spargood-naturedly. "Can you believe it, I stuck with her,"

he jokes. "I stuck withyou!" she counters.Her mother, PageSullenberger, justrolls her eyes.

Asked if Paul is, asmany chefs are, anegocentric tantrum-throwing ogre in thekitchen, Sarah calmlyresponds, "He is theleast chef-like cheftemperamentally ofany you will meet. Heis incredibly easygoing." She adds,however, "occasional-ly," he can be some-what particular.

"Occasionally???"scoffs steady-eddyBrian in mock sur-prise.

In his own defense,Paul says, "I…I…If Iwant something cut acertain way, that'show I want it cut, andthat's the way itshould be cut."Everybody nods. Paulis also a stickler forcleanliness. "I'm toomessy for him,"shrugs Sarah, "whichdrives him crazy."Everybody nodsagain.

It's Friday after-noon. "There's noth-

ing left," announces Paul. "There's no blood orangesalad, there's no bison, there's no lentils." He pullsdown the menu and starts cleaning the place up."Wow, this has never happened before. We have runout of everything," exclaims Sarah delightedly.

Real Food will be back Monday, fully stocked with acompletely new menu, as it does every week: threenew soups, three new salads, five new sandwiches…but every morsel of it, real food.

Brian Whiteside prepares a bison flank steak, charred onion,Dijon, and arugula sandwich as Sarah Deigl looks on. The

menu at Real Food changes completely every week.Sarah Deigl refers to her collection of tried and true recipes,

known fondly at "The Bible."

Real Food is actually three enterprises: the publicly visible lunch spot, acatering company that operates out of the commercial kitchen in back, and

Sarah's custom baking operation.