Edible golden oldies

Jonathan Adams is in the upstairs kitchen at Pub & Kitchen, the gastropub at 20th and Lombard, fiddling with his second batch of practice crepes.

The first batch had come out like pancakes, not a good look for Crepes Marcelle, plump with cognac pastry cream.

It is 12:23 p.m., and he is alone, save the wail of the Stones' '70s classic Sticky Fingers.

As a hip, cutting-edge chef (at Salt and Snackbar) Adams, 32, was better known as "Jonny Mac," a master of methylcellulose and edgy molecular gastronomy.

He has retreated here - "cooled my jets," he says - offering fish and chips with "mushy peas," steamed mussels, and old-school deviled eggs.

But this is different. On the counter this particular Wednesday - March 31 - he has The New York Times Cook Book, the 1961 classic by Craig Claiborne, his text for the first in a series of Retro Cookbook Dinners ($40).

He has been seized by the same sentiment that launched the Julia Child revival, and an Oscar nomination for Meryl Streep.

You can find it at Butcher & Singer, the pointedly retro steak house on Walnut Street that sees itself as a salute to old Hollywood, "when women donned full red lips," and Lobster Thermidor was served with a side of Perfect Manhattans.

An even harder-core example? Step down off 18th Street near Sansom. This is subterranean Franklin Mortgage Trust, named for a speakeasy of yore, and rigorous about retro: No cartoonish martinis here. In fact, no vodka. Martinis are gin! No olives, either. Just twists.

The stylistics are unswervingly, devotedly - almost peckishly - pre-Prohibition.

Adams isn't planning to go that far.

But he isn't flinching, either.

He reaches a tattooed arm out for a paper doily, sliding it under the practice ramekin of Potatoes Duchess, grinning at the discordance of it at a corner gastropub, in Philadelphia - in 2010.

The first dinner, in fact, is one week away, in this case Wednesday, April 7.

Adams is sweating the small stuff, eager to pay homage to the vintage cookbooks that, he says frankly, he misses.

At a list of $250, the gorgeous Big Fat Duck Cookbook he bought last year is heavy on art and philosophy, he says: "But you can't cook out of it."

The kitchen-friendly Claiborne collection, of course, is the opposite, perhaps the reason why it has sold, over a 40-year lifespan, three million copies.

Still, Adams says, he does not intend to be a slave to the text.

He won't boil the watercress for the olive-green Potage Cressonniere soup for 15 minutes; a few minutes will do.

Nor is he inclined to use sirloin for the buttery-sauced Steak Diane; a New York strip seems a better choice ("and it's The New York Times Cook Book").

The overly thick crepe batter needs correcting.

And the roasted pear he has halved to complement the crepe seems to have an overwhelming bulkiness to it once he sees it on the plate.

"The pear is too big," he says.

And so it is, quite obviously.

By 7 p.m. show time, on Retro night, the next Wednesday, Pub & Kitchen is already packed, bustling and noisy.

Of the 170diners that Ed Hackett, the managing partner, estimates the place will serve, about 30 are for customers who've reserved for the Times cookbook menu. (Future dinners will draw inspiration from cookbooks by Jeremiah Tower, Wolfgang Reichert, and Marco Pierre White.)

Flutes of champagne cocktails are delivered past regulars eating fish cakes and hoisting craft beers.

One retro-dinner couple is Sally Simmons, 64, and her husband, Charles Thrall, 68: "This is a cookbook we both had when we met," Simmons says. "There were a surprising number of things I found out from [Claiborne]."

But the hook is the menu itself: "Trout Meuniere, Steak Diane, Crepes Marcelle," she said. "When was the last time I had them?"

Another table has come partly out of attraction to "the style of the era." Some tables share entrees, just to get a retro taste.

In the upstairs kitchen, Adams is sweating in a black T-shirt, expediting the cookbook dinners: "It's not comfort food," he says. "I'd call it 'satisfying food.' "

Along 20th Street, the street trees are full of white blossoms, their trunks wrapped in strings of white lights.

Susanna Foo, dining on the sidewalk at Meritage across the street, comes over to chat with a friend, lamenting that $15-burger lunchers have despoiled the hallowed tables at Le Bec-Fin, once the bastion of formal French.

The Potage Cressonniere is, indeed, fresher-tasting than would have been the case had it been boiled its full 15 minutes.

The trout is moist and unfussy, served over haricots verts with almonds and classic brown butter.

The Steak Diane is retro, all right, the steak seared and tender and sliced down, the cognac-sherry-butter sauce understated and civilized.

As for the Crepes Marcelle, Adams has added three ounces of extra milk to the batter, thinning the crepes to their proper thickness.

They are lightly glazed and inflected with orange zest, their cognac pastry cream unapologetically lush and heavy.

The previous fatso of a pear?

Poached and roasted, it is fanned in four delicate slices - a subtle garnish now, waving good night.

Makes one serving

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1 10-ounce sirloin steak

1 1/2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon cognac,  heated

2 tablespoons sherry

1 tablespoon sweet butter

1 teaspoon chopped chives

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1. Trim the meat well and pound very thin with a mallet.

2. Heat 11/2 tablespoons butter in a chafing-dish platter. Add the steak and cook quickly, turning it once.

3. Add the cognac and flame. Add the sherry and the sweet butter creamed with chives.

4. Place the steak on a warm platter and pour the pan juices over it.

Per serving: 1,041 calories, 72 grams fat, 35 grams saturated fat, 271 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram carbohydrates, 85 grams protein, 329 milligrams sodium, trace dietary fiber. EndText

Makes 6 servingsEndTextStartText

6 brook trout

Milk

1/3 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pepper

Peanut oil

2/3 cup butter

Lemon slices

Chopped parsley

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1. Clean the trout, remove the fins, but leave the heads and tails on. Dip in milk and drain well.

2. Mix flour, salt, and pepper. Roll fish in mixture.

3. Heat enough peanut oil in a skillet to cover the bottom to a depth of about 1/4 inch. When hot, add trout and brown well on both sides. When cooked, remove to a hot serving platter.

4. Pour off the fat from the skillet and wipe well with paper towels. Add the butter and cook until it is hazelnut brown. Pour the butter over the trout. Garnish with lemon and parsley.

Per serving: 664 calories, 78 grams protein, 5 grams carbohydrates, trace sugar, 35 grams fat, 277 milligrams cholesterol, 455 milligrams sodium, trace dietary fiber.EndText

Makes 6 servingsEndTextStartText

Pastry cream (see note)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons orange juice

1 tablespoon grated orange rind

1 tablespoon cognac

2 macaroons, crushed

6 crepes (see note)

Confectioners' sugar

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1. Prepare pastry cream as for crepes.

2. Stir in vanilla, orange juice, orange rind, cognac, and crushed macaroons. Spoon the mixture down the center of the crepes and roll. Place the crepes on an ovenproof platter and sprinkle with confectioners' sugar.

3. Place the platter under a hot broiler and broil until the crepes are lightly glazed.

Notes: To prepare the pastry cream: Mix 2/3 cup sugar, 3 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Scald 2 1/2 cups milk and pour over the dry ingredients, stirring constantly. Place the mixture in a saucepan and cook over very low heat, stirring, until the mixture thickens. Cover and cook 10 minutes longer. Add, stirring, a little of the hot mixture to 3 egg yolks, lightly beaten. Add the yolks to the remaining mixture and cook over hot water, stirring, until thickened, two minutes.

To prepare the crepes: Mix 3 cups of sifted flour, 4 eggs, and 4 additional egg yolks with a wire whisk. Add 1 quart of milk, 2 teaspoons of sugar, and 1 teaspoon of salt, and beat until all the ingredients are thoroughly blended. Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a small container and skim off the foam. Pour off and reserve the fat, or clarified butter. Discard the sediment in the bottom of the container. Heat a skillet and brush it with the clarified butter. Pour in 1 tablespoon of the batter and tilt the pan immediately so the batter spreads over the entire bottom of the pan. Cook the crepe quickly on both sides. Repeat the process until all the crepes are cooked, stacking them on a plate as they are finished. Cover with waxed paper until ready to use.

Per serving: 637 calories, 23 grams protein, 91 grams carbohydrates, 43 grams sugar, 19 grams fat, 408 milligrams cholesterol, 768 milligrams sodium, 2 grams dietary fiber.EndText

Makes 6-8 servings

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1/4 cup butter

1 clove garlic, minced

2 cups chopped onions

1 quart thinly sliced raw potatoes

1 tablespoon salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup water

1 bunch watercress

1 1/2 cups milk

1 1/2 cups water

2 egg yolks

1/2 cup light cream

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1. Heat the butter in a large saucepan. Add the garlic and onions and saute until tender, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the potatoes, seasonings, and 3/4 cup water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer 15 minutes or until the potatoes are almost tender.

3. Cut the watercress stems into 1/8-inch lengths. Coarsely chop the leaves.

4. To the potato mixture add all the watercress stems, half the leaves, the milk, and the 11/2 cups water. Cook 15 minutes. Puree in blender or put the mixture through a food mill. Return to the saucepan and reheat.

5. Blend together the egg yolks and cream. Gradually stir into the soup and cook, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened. Garnish with the remaining watercress leaves and serve immediately.

Per serving (based on 8): 242 calories, 7 grams protein, 29 grams carbohydrates, 7 grams sugar, 11 grams fat, 81 milligrams cholesterol, 292 milligrams sodium, 3 grams dietary fiber.EndText