Alinea

As a fledgling, spring in the Swallow household was always a feast for the senses. In the Upper Peninsula, nature wakes from her slumber with a burst of colors and smells. Birds arrive from the south like great schools of herring in the sky. Huckleberry and cherries come back into season. But the moment of greatest anticipation was always when the ice melted and uncovered the family helium mine.

Copper Harbor is a small town. Naturally, being the only helium mine in town, it was the Swallow household’s responsibility to sell green apple helium balloons to the neighbors, and my mother's were renowned not just in Copper Harbor but also neighboring Calumet township and Houghton. I loved to watch my mother don her yellow hazmat suit to collect the helium. “Just 5 minutes without this protective suit would lead to irreversible, acute radiation poisoning!” she would warn me cheerily. 

When it was came time to fill the balloons, her fingers moved adeptly. Carefully, but with a chef’s purpose, she took the mouth of each balloon with her left hand and cradled the rest with her right. In one move, the balloon was on the spigot, filling and stretching before my eyes. Her right hand would then reach for the taffy string and tie the balloon closed.

Because I was an only child, I didn’t have to jostle with an older brother or sister, and though my mother always bemoaned me doing it (“there’s raw hydrogen in there!”), I felt I had her tacit approval to inhale the remains of the helium tank when the balloons were all filled. I yapped like a chipmunk for the rest of the day.

When I first heard Chef Grant Achatz was featuring the green apple balloon, i groaned. For too long I had hoped to recreate the experience of being back home in my mother's kitchen in Copper Harbor, but disappointment after disappointment left me jaded. Young chefs, in their zeal to prove themselves creatively frequently destroy dishes that have stood the test of time. Punching up the helium concentration, deconstructing the balloon, even switching to the savory (yet tannic) xenon gas, I have witnessed gastronomic heresy. When a friend reassured me that Chef Achatz was doing it right, the reader will forgive the Swallow if he remained skeptical.

Perhaps it is Chef Achatz's Michigan roots, perhaps his dedication to preserving time honored recipes, whatever the reason, Chef Achatz just gets it. Alinea (1723 N. Halsted St.) has been the first restaurant in the Swallow’s opinion to serve an authentic home-cooked green apple helium balloon. Achatz perfectly balances the partial pressures of helium and forty three vaporized green apples in his balloons. The taffy string has the perfect amount of sorghum and xanthan gum.

Achatz is from the old school. Rather than stray from centuries old, proven winners, Achatz serves up the classics, prepared like your mother (or grandmother) used to, and the helium balloon is just the start. Whether it is mom’s Malaysian Driftwood with pacific seaweed or just a classic exploding truffle, everything on the menu tastes like home.