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50Pases of People andiapasThat WiUOMrigeOur Lives.Witha , KeynoteEssay by PRESIDENT BILLCUNTON $3.00 esquire.com

Ways to

#28... W^ffl More Naomi Watts*

[ T H E C H E F ]

You want comfortfood?PSlfi Liebrandt is not your man. You

Andbringabbndrold

THE INGREDIENTS—lime blos­soms from Nice, ham from a Spanish pig fed exclusively on acorns—are odd enough. The fusion of those ingredients— eel with watermelon, scallops with chocolate—is still more peculiar. But that's not even the end of it. That's not even to mention the bizarre ways chef Paul Liebrandt's bizarre food has been served. Diners have been blindfolded, fed dessert soup through the nipple of a baby bottle, ushered into a smoke-filled room to peel jelly from the back of a naked woman. "Half of them didn't even realize it was a real woman until one guy poked her bum," he says.

These days Liebrandt—a twenty-six-year-old Brit trans­planted to New York—has renounced the flashier, Bunuel-ian performance art. But it's still a good glimpse into his technique: He toys with stimuli, taste, and texture to create new responses to food. Some­times his dishes are great, sometimes you'd rather eat nails, but his food is always fascinating and daring.

Liebrandt first turned heads at New York's Midtown standout Atlas, where he became a three-star chef at twenty-four years old before moving downtown to Papilion. He recently left Papil-lon and will open his own place in New York next year, but until then, try this, the perfect dish for Esquire men, he says. The Dover sole is a manly fish, yet el­egant and stylish: the Sean Con-nery of fishes. — M A T T C L A U S

Dover Sole with Vanilla andBlackTruffie

By Psul Liebrandt

24 oz Doversole (depending on size, either 2 small fillets or 1 large fillet)

2 cups duck fat salt and pepper 2 tbsp sherry vinegar 1/4 cup truffle juice 2 tbsp heavy cream I vanilla bean 1 oz black truffles, chopped 2 tbsp chives, chopped 3 oz black truffles, sliced

» Dice tire soj'e into very smaS pieces warm tiieduck far in a pan to IIS degrees, then add the sole. Turn off the iwat. outlet sit in the hot fat (or 10 to i? minutes. Then ren love sole from duck fat and let sit on a paper towel to drain oft excess fat Keep warm and seaso/ l with salt and pepper, set aside. »In a small pan on medium heat, reduce sherry vinegar and tivffle juice by one third, add cream, and reduce to a coating consistency. Split vanilla bean and scrape out vanilla. Add vanilla and chopped truffles. Let sit off heal for-I minutes to infuse flavor, then add chives. » Arrange solo in the cen-tei of a large warm plate. Driz/le the sauce over and around the fish. Lay the blacl. truffle slices on top. Serves 4.

T H E I M P R E S A R I O S

There'sa43 percent chanceyou'relis-teningto a song from the NeptUPIGS right now The pair producesevery-onefromNoDoubtto MaryJ.Blige— andmakestiiemsparkle.

I N T E R V I E W N U M B E R O N E with Pharrell Williams of ace pop-and-rap production duo the Neptunes is canceled be­cause he is having a house party. Interview two lasts approxi­mately ninety seconds, after which Williams says he has to go get some chicken and w i l l call back from the road.

The return call comes two days later. This is interview three, and it lasts all of seventy-five seconds, ending with "Hold on one second" and a promise to call right back. Interview four is quite spectacular: "I want to do this fucking interview," he says. First question: "What are you working on right now?" First answer: "Right n o w . . . hold on Can I call you right back?"

The truth is, in the time it takes to do an interview, Williams and his partner, Chad Hugo, both twenty-nine, could have creat­ed a number-one single. If it is a fact that at any moment four peo­ple are being born in the world, then at any moment at least four hundred thousand people are listening to a Neptunes produc­tion. Everything these two middle-class suburbanites from Vir­ginia Beach produce (and often write) seems to turn to platinum. Scan the dial yourself: You'll hear their trademark beats whether your station plays rock (they produced No Doubt), pop ('N Sync, Britney Spears), hip-hop (Jay-Z, Nelly), or R&B (Mary J . Blige, Janet Jackson). Which only makes sense, for they are the prod­uct of a channel-flipping culture themselves.

The charm and grace of their output is that it is not the messy kitchen sink of postmodernism but the sparkling, clean chrome kitchen of hip-hop futurism. Nearly every song car­ries the Neptunes' brand-name sound: a syncopated bouncing beat, seductive keyboard chord progressions, and an unfor­gettable yet oddball hook. It's a sound that comes from a re­markably broad swath of influences, among them Steely Dan, Steppenwolf, Afrika Bambaataa, Tears for Fears, Stevie Won­der, Ben Folds Five, and Stereolab, the British electronic-pop act that wrote a song that Williams, left, describes, in his fifth and final interview, as the best fellatio music ever. Why? " I f s the fucking chord changes, man." — N E I L STRAUSS

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