After years of running in circles, chef Eben Copple is finally getting out of his own way.

By Scott Edwards

Eben Copple has experienced a kind of love-hate relationship with cooking over his young lifetime. Then again, he’s scrutinized to death just about everything he’s passionate about at one time or another.

His is a story of true self-discovery, though, admittedly, it feels forced at turns. There were moments where he simply seemed determined to derail himself when he was on an almost sure path to greatness.

But at 33, the executive chef of The Yardley Inn finally appears cozy in his own skin and with his future prospects.

The geek shall inherit the earth

“I’m a nerdy Midwestern boy who was always interested in science-fiction and fourth-dimensional physics,” the Kansan says. That’s a loaded statement. Not as loaded as this, though: acting was his first love coming out of high school.

In person, Copple lives up to certain aspects of the image just shaped. He’s a large man, both in terms of physical stature and presence. He’s also knowledgeable on a wide breadth of subjects and articulate.

Copple enrolled in theater school upon graduation — and realized soon after that it wasn’t for him. But something positive grew out of the experience: he started cooking along the way. It was interesting work, but it was still, largely, work.

Nonetheless, it stuck. Culinary school, he decided, would be his path to redemption. In pursuit of the experience and mentor necessary to enroll in a regional institute, Copple eventually latched on to a prominent restaurateur in Kansas City, Lidia Bastianich, who owns six restaurants, four of which are in New York City.

When Copple actually started taking classes three-and-a-half years later, two thoughts became immediately apparent to him: first, it was redundant. He learned everything while he was rising through the ranks in the real world. Second, his future was set. If he stuck with Bastianich, his promise would eventually be realized in a big way, likely in a New York kitchen.

The first frustrated him, the second unnerved him. He quit, school and cooking.

At 23, a somewhat-hardened Copple found himself surrounded by a bunch of virginal-looking 18-year-olds in a freshman physics class at the University of Kansas.

What’s frugal about fish sauce?

The origin of Copple’s love of cooking is so innocent it’s almost embarrassing. At home on Saturday afternoons as a boy, usually by himself, usually in the course of flipping through the available 13 channels, he’d land on PBS and “The Frugal Gourmet.” He credits the show with not only sparking his interest in cooking but in the history of it as well.

“I’m a fan of the trivia of cooking,” he says. “And that’s one of the things that really drew me in.”

Copple became adventurous after enough episodes and looked to mimic the show. “The first time I tried fish sauce, it was just, like, a disaster,” he says. “I had no idea what I was getting into. I was probably 13 or something like that. I went to the store, bought fish sauce, smelled it and thought, Oh my God! This can’t be right. And I threw it away.”

He was beginning to discover all that was within his reach in the kitchen. A point Copple revisited nearly 15 years later when he returned to cooking professionally. He graduated from Kansas and went on to work in the university’s physics department, all the while accumulating “massive” debt. Copple, in no position to refuse, accepted an offer to be the sous chef at Lidia’s Pittsburgh.

While the love was always there, his re-entry into the culinary world seemed to come with a newfound focus and determination. His sights were set on New York and the “four-star experience.”

Lost in pursuit

As a chef, you know you have arrived when you’re running your own kitchen in New York. But Copple was, at the restaurant Jovia, his first and only stint as executive chef prior to coming to The Yardley Inn in 2007, and it wasn’t enough. He left, he says, because the odds were stacked against him — and just about everyone else.

The Yardley Inn was the manifestation of a long-held dream by Copple to be the chef of a destination restaurant. The problem was he didn’t know Bucks before he arrived here, didn’t know it’s not exactly the country. And, for that matter, he didn’t really know the inn. It’s not a destination restaurant. It has a devout following of food savvy locals, many of who have long-running relationships with the restaurant, its staff and ownership and even particular aspects of the menu — the Marguerita salad, for one, comes to mind. It was a steep learning curve for Copple, but he adapted, and he continues to today.

“Everything’s an evolutionary process,” Copple says. “I want to take my time and, hopefully, after a while, we’ll have a great love affair.”

Lately, Copple began thinking his greatest contribution may come outside the kitchen. In helping to eliminate factory farming, he would have a hand in turning cooking with fresh, locally grown, seasonal ingredients into a more common practice. The emerging popularity of organic produce and farmers’ markets is, he says, a positive trend. A big hole, however, remains for the restaurateur: properly handled, locally raised beef.

Copple is working to cure that by arranging for large companies — with far more resources than the individual farmers — to buy animals whole from local beef producers, then process them as they need to be processed, dry age them for at least 28 days and then utilize their current distribution networks. It’s very much a steep wall Copple is attempting to scale considering the current industry standard is for the slaughterhouses to age the beef for a minimum amount of time, about 14 days, according to Copple, and freeze it.

He got back into cooking with the grand ambition of some day presenting his own style of food. As a chef, Copple says he’s as delightfully unfocused as ever and may never achieve it. As an advocate for local farmers, though, he may be nearer than even he realizes. A little misdirection, apparently, does Copple’s soul well.

JERSEY SALAD

¼ cup 8 Brix red verjus (www.minus8vinegar.com)

1 gram gum tragacanth (www.amazon.com)

4 baby golden beets

¼ lb. triple crème goat cheese at room temperature (use either Coach Farms triple crème or Nettle Meadow Kunik)

8 perfect raspberries

1 tbsp. Villa Manodori 30-year-old balsamic (www.williams-sonoma.com)

4 baby white icicle radishes

1 side of smoked trout, cut into 4 equal portions

¼ cup picked basil leaves

1 small bunch fresh chives, cut into 3-inch lengths

¼ cup picked Italian parsley leaves

1/8 cup picked mint leaves

1/8 cup picked chervil leaves

½ cup pea shoots and leaves

1 tbsp. grape seed oil

4 snow pea pods, blanched

Salt and pepper

Put the verjus in a blender set to a low to medium speed. With the blender turned on, slowly add the gum tragacanth. Blend the mixture until it thickens to the consistency of pudding. Put it in a covered container and refrigerate overnight. This will allow the air bubbles in the verjus to settle.

Clean the baby beets, removing their tops but keeping the root end intact. Place them in a small baking dish and cover it with foil. Roast them at 375 degrees for at least 45 minutes. You be able to easily insert a knife into the beets. Allow the beets to cool enough to handle, then slip their skins off, making sure the “tails” remain intact.

Clean the radishes thoroughly, removing any discoloration by scrubbing them with a rag. Then cut the tops off. Next, whip the goat cheese with a wooden spoon until it’s light and fluffy, then set it aside.

Heat the smoked trout in the oven just long enough to get it warm. Then, toss the herbs and pea shoots and leaves with the grape seed oil and season to taste with salt and pepper.

To assemble, place about two teapoons of the thickened verjus at 10 o’clock on the plate. With the “tail” sticking up, put a beet in the verjus and draw it to three o’clock.

Fill the hollows of the raspberries with the balsamic. Then place on raspberry at seven o’clock and another at two. Drizzle a line of balsamic between them.

Put a dollop of goat cheese at eight o’clock. Then place a radish in the cheese with the uncut end sticking up.

Place a piece of the trout in the center of the plate and then a small mound of the herb salad on top of it.

Last, pull the snow peas apart and lay the halves over the herb salad.

Serve with a sprightly white wine.

Serves 4.

1. I ate at the Yardley inn last month (june 2010) It was one of the worst meals I’ve ever had. The food was ugly at first. There was no form to anything we ordered, it looked like they threw it onto the plate from across the kitchen. Seasoning was non-existent. Aside from the food, our server was rarely seen and snide. I actually apologized to my friends for bringing them there. I didn’t even have the heart to talk to a manager and complain.

   Posted by C. Hasson | July 25, 2010, 5:13 pm