October 17
In honor of Jeff Cranmer, my friend who has taught me the magic of hyperbole, I am going to very briefly stray from my usual stance of not recommending restaurants on this blog and say that Ozone in San Francisco serves the best Thai food I have had in the United States.
I'm doing that because America needs it. Because I'm tired of mentioning Ozone to people and having them shrug and look at me like I just offered them a plate of ram testicles preserved in sour whey.
"Never heard of it," they say. I don't care if you've never heard of it. I don't care if Citysearch comments on it describe the fast delivery and friendly staff. They've missed the point. Ozone has obscure northern sausages like sai-ooa that taste like you could be eating them in Chiang Mai. They have roasted pork neck and fluffy catfish salad. They serve foods with flavors that we don't think of as being part of the Thai culinary palate -- earthy, rich dishes meant to counterbalance the hot-sour stuff that have won the hearts of American diners.
Jeff and I met in Bangkok, where the first thing he said to me was that he should give me five dollars for a particular restaurant review that I wrote (I was a critic at the time). That left me utterly confused and irrationally irritated, but I soon learned to appreciate Jeff's poetic use of language. His need to declare a good plate of khao man gai to be the best thing on the planet, to address his friends as King. It's just his way, and it's a way that glories in life's simple pleasures, that rejoices in a pleasant song or a tasty glass of scotch in the way that such things should be rejoiced in.
We met at Hemlock, a bar near Ozone, for beer before heading to Ozone, where we had more beer and I started ordering food like a crazy person.
"I think two appetizers is enough," he said.
Thai food in New York cannot compare to Thai food on the West Coast, you see, so I get carried away.
We had the sai-ooa and roasted pork neck. Jeff, who spent time in the Northern city of Chiang Mai, told the waitress in northern Thai dialect that the sai-ooa was delicious, but I guess she's from the central plains, because she didn't know what he was talking about.
Then things got blurry because of the gung chae nam pla. I don't remember what it was called on the menu, but it's shrimp marinated in fish sauce and then dressed up to be sour and spicy. Our waitress asked how spicy we wanted it, and not realizing that they would take me seriously, I said "very spicy."
So they served it very spicy by Thai standards and I might have lost consciousness. I know I babbled incoherently for awhile, trying to tell amusing anecdotes to Jeff while drinking beer and water and eating rice to kill the pain.
Still, I enjoyed the honey-roasted duck and the chicken in roasted chile sauce that followed.
"Are you all right?" Jeff asked.
I was exhilarated
Friday, October 19, 2007
Absinthe
October 17
So much food, so little time. I'm in San Francisco for just a couple of days, so I went straight from the airport to Absinthe, an old French bistro with a new chef. A young woman originally from New York's Upper East Side, Jamie Lauren, Scorpio, age 29, took over the kitchens in June and since then has been working to revamp the place (that’s her, on the left). She greeted me after I had lunch wearing a faded red Adidas cap, arms decked out in tattoos. She didn't like the Upper East Side, but is having a good time in the City by the Bay, which it seems to me is having a bit of a romance these days with Middle Eastern food. Or maybe it's just what I've been ordering. I had Jamie's Little Gem lettuces with pomegranate, shaved red onion, creamy dill dressing Persian cucumbers, mint and sumac. Middle Eastern -- at least the pomegranate, Persian cucumbers, mint and sumac. Well, and onion and to a certain extent dill.
Then I had the Croque Madame, which isn't Middle Eastern at all.
Jamie also sent me a soup of Jerusalem artichoke, spiced walnut oil, kaffir lime and micro cilantro. I had all of that with a couple glasses of Viognier.
Jamie's also buffing up Absinthe's cheese selection, so I had one of her sheep's milk selections paired with something light and Alsatian.
I had a cocktail for dessert, since cocktails clearly are a priority at the restaurant.
I chose the Java Islan: Espresso, Batavia Arrack, agave nectar and angostura bitters, chilled and served long over ice.
So much food, so little time. I'm in San Francisco for just a couple of days, so I went straight from the airport to Absinthe, an old French bistro with a new chef. A young woman originally from New York's Upper East Side, Jamie Lauren, Scorpio, age 29, took over the kitchens in June and since then has been working to revamp the place (that’s her, on the left). She greeted me after I had lunch wearing a faded red Adidas cap, arms decked out in tattoos. She didn't like the Upper East Side, but is having a good time in the City by the Bay, which it seems to me is having a bit of a romance these days with Middle Eastern food. Or maybe it's just what I've been ordering. I had Jamie's Little Gem lettuces with pomegranate, shaved red onion, creamy dill dressing Persian cucumbers, mint and sumac. Middle Eastern -- at least the pomegranate, Persian cucumbers, mint and sumac. Well, and onion and to a certain extent dill. Then I had the Croque Madame, which isn't Middle Eastern at all.
Jamie also sent me a soup of Jerusalem artichoke, spiced walnut oil, kaffir lime and micro cilantro. I had all of that with a couple glasses of Viognier.
Jamie's also buffing up Absinthe's cheese selection, so I had one of her sheep's milk selections paired with something light and Alsatian.
I had a cocktail for dessert, since cocktails clearly are a priority at the restaurant.
I chose the Java Islan: Espresso, Batavia Arrack, agave nectar and angostura bitters, chilled and served long over ice.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
hungry, so very hungry, at Irving Mill
October 16
I like Hall Company parties. The publicists always manage to get a fun crowd and they keep everyone well liquored.
But they don’t feed them.
You’d think if you managed to draw a nice group of influential media types into a restaurant, understanding that it might be the only time they’ll set foot in the place, you would want them to sample the food.
Now, any self-respecting food writer understands that you can’t judge a restaurant by the food it serves at its opening party, but you can at least get a vague idea of what the place is all about.
But only food writers with the greedy, grasping hands of travel writers would have gotten much to eat last night, at the opening party of Irving Mill.
More than one person at the party asked me what I thought about the space, which until recently was the restaurant Candela.
I shrugged. I don’t know from space. It seemed fine. There was lots of freshly stained wood, and, you know, tables and chairs. A bar. I don’t know, and if I did I wouldn't have the words to describe the design features. Hanging from the ceiling were these round lamp things that I don't think were chandeliers. “Wagon wheels?” someone suggested. It might have been Josh Ozersky, but I can’t really remember because I was drinking Prosecco without eating.
My colleague, Sonya Moore came, too, and I introduced her around to some people, including Katy Sparks, a chef-consultant who was there with a new business partner. We took a tour of Irving Mill’s private space and chatted with executive pastry chef Colleen Grapes.
Executive chef John Schaefer was popping in and out of the dining room, going back into the kitchen clearly to cook something. He seemed really nice. I can’t tell you anything about his food except that he has been cooking at Gramercy Tavern for the past dozen years.
So there was no food, but it was a great crowd, with an unusually large number of celebrities. Benjamin Bratt was there for practically the whole night. He got there shortly after I did and was still there when I left, chatting with John Leguizamo and that actor who played the scary Irish-American prisoner in Oz. You know, the one with the brain-damaged brother. He also played a cop on Homicide: Life on the Street, but only very briefly, until his character murdered his ex-girlfriend or something like that. You know the guy.
I looked it up: Dean Winters.
Tom Colicchio was there, too, clearly to support his young protégé. People were commenting on how much thinner the Top Chef head judge looked in real life. I figured that was because cameras add 15 pounds, but I mentioned it to Tom and he said that he had, in fact, lost 15 pounds recently because he had been cooking on the line at his new Los Angeles unit of Craft.
So I guess if you’re chef, being on TV really does add 15 pounds.
What I finally had for dinner:
A barbacoa fajita burrito from Chipotle with red tomatillo salsa.
I like Hall Company parties. The publicists always manage to get a fun crowd and they keep everyone well liquored.
But they don’t feed them.
You’d think if you managed to draw a nice group of influential media types into a restaurant, understanding that it might be the only time they’ll set foot in the place, you would want them to sample the food.
Now, any self-respecting food writer understands that you can’t judge a restaurant by the food it serves at its opening party, but you can at least get a vague idea of what the place is all about.
But only food writers with the greedy, grasping hands of travel writers would have gotten much to eat last night, at the opening party of Irving Mill.
More than one person at the party asked me what I thought about the space, which until recently was the restaurant Candela.
I shrugged. I don’t know from space. It seemed fine. There was lots of freshly stained wood, and, you know, tables and chairs. A bar. I don’t know, and if I did I wouldn't have the words to describe the design features. Hanging from the ceiling were these round lamp things that I don't think were chandeliers. “Wagon wheels?” someone suggested. It might have been Josh Ozersky, but I can’t really remember because I was drinking Prosecco without eating.
My colleague, Sonya Moore came, too, and I introduced her around to some people, including Katy Sparks, a chef-consultant who was there with a new business partner. We took a tour of Irving Mill’s private space and chatted with executive pastry chef Colleen Grapes.
Executive chef John Schaefer was popping in and out of the dining room, going back into the kitchen clearly to cook something. He seemed really nice. I can’t tell you anything about his food except that he has been cooking at Gramercy Tavern for the past dozen years.
So there was no food, but it was a great crowd, with an unusually large number of celebrities. Benjamin Bratt was there for practically the whole night. He got there shortly after I did and was still there when I left, chatting with John Leguizamo and that actor who played the scary Irish-American prisoner in Oz. You know, the one with the brain-damaged brother. He also played a cop on Homicide: Life on the Street, but only very briefly, until his character murdered his ex-girlfriend or something like that. You know the guy.
I looked it up: Dean Winters.
Tom Colicchio was there, too, clearly to support his young protégé. People were commenting on how much thinner the Top Chef head judge looked in real life. I figured that was because cameras add 15 pounds, but I mentioned it to Tom and he said that he had, in fact, lost 15 pounds recently because he had been cooking on the line at his new Los Angeles unit of Craft.
So I guess if you’re chef, being on TV really does add 15 pounds.
What I finally had for dinner:
A barbacoa fajita burrito from Chipotle with red tomatillo salsa.
Friday, October 12, 2007
A balloon decorator and a gelato salesman walk into a bar...
October 12
I figured I wouldn’t stay long at the open house at 49 Grove, a lounge and event space in the West Village, especially after the bartender gave me a look indicating that he was something between forlorn and annoyed when I asked him to pick the mixer for my vodka.
“Orange juice? Cranberry?” he suggested. He wanted nothing to do with me, and it’s not like the bar was crowded.
But there is a time and place for putting yourself in the hands of a bartender, and an open house at which only the sponsoring vodka and rum are being served isn’t it. I really should know better.
I sipped my vodka and cranberry and ended up talking to Jeff Hershkowitz, who calls himself a balloon decorator. He doesn’t decorate belloons, however, he decorates with balloons. He does balloon drops and balloon sculptures. He set up the "balloon tree" at the open house — a symmetrical cluster of helium filled balloons that kind of resembles a tree. A cluster of 10 is about $20.
He inherited the business, which was started by his parents about 30 years ago. If you order a fair amount of balloons in New York City, chances are you’re getting them from him.
I switched to rum and for some perverse reason asked the bartender if he had ginger beer.
“You mean ginger ale?”
“Never mind.” I had my rum on the rocks.
And I struck up a conversation with a gelato salesman named John Koenig, who works for one of the popular restaurant suppliers.
Guess what his company's most popular gelato and sorbet flavors are?
I’ll give you a hint — they’re not vanilla and lemon.
I figured I wouldn’t stay long at the open house at 49 Grove, a lounge and event space in the West Village, especially after the bartender gave me a look indicating that he was something between forlorn and annoyed when I asked him to pick the mixer for my vodka.
“Orange juice? Cranberry?” he suggested. He wanted nothing to do with me, and it’s not like the bar was crowded.
But there is a time and place for putting yourself in the hands of a bartender, and an open house at which only the sponsoring vodka and rum are being served isn’t it. I really should know better.
I sipped my vodka and cranberry and ended up talking to Jeff Hershkowitz, who calls himself a balloon decorator. He doesn’t decorate belloons, however, he decorates with balloons. He does balloon drops and balloon sculptures. He set up the "balloon tree" at the open house — a symmetrical cluster of helium filled balloons that kind of resembles a tree. A cluster of 10 is about $20.
He inherited the business, which was started by his parents about 30 years ago. If you order a fair amount of balloons in New York City, chances are you’re getting them from him.
I switched to rum and for some perverse reason asked the bartender if he had ginger beer.
“You mean ginger ale?”
“Never mind.” I had my rum on the rocks.
And I struck up a conversation with a gelato salesman named John Koenig, who works for one of the popular restaurant suppliers.
Guess what his company's most popular gelato and sorbet flavors are?
I’ll give you a hint — they’re not vanilla and lemon.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
all Aquavit, all the time
October 11
I’ve been to Aquavit restaurant three times this week. On Tuesday, Atlanta chef Shaun Doty was in town, because his restaurant, Shaun, was named one of the 20 best new restaurants by Esquire magazine (another Atlanta restaurant, Trois, was, too; that's a terrific showing for Atlanta). There was a celebratory dinner at Anthos the night before.
Shaun and his publicist, Liz Lapidus, wanted to meet me for lunch. They were headed to DB unless I had a different suggestion. Feeling selfish, I suggested Aquavit, which is around the corner from my office (it's on 55th between Park and Madison, NRN’s offices are on Park between 55th and 56th).
We ate in the café, not the main dining room, which has a more casual (and cheaper) menu. I had the daily husmanskost special. From what executive chef Johan Svensson explained to me years ago, that literally means "houseman's cooking," or traditional Swedish home cooking. But, I mean, this is Aquavit, so my Oxbringa – brisket, root vegetables and mustard broth — was cooked at a lower, slower pace than it would have been in a Swedish home. It came with a mini Prinsessbakelse for dessert, which is a sponge cake layered with whipped cream and raspberries and served under a marzipan shell.
We talked about the Atlanta restaurant scene (a big-name Atlanta chef is apparently looking at real estate in New York) and the gutsy meal that Anthos chef Michael Psilakis had served the night before (his restaurant was on the Esquire list, too).
Then last night I went to a launch party for yet another damn vodka. This one actually tasted a little bit different from other vodkas, which is cool if you want to drink it straight. But since most people will have it in Cosmopolitans anyway, I’m not convinced that it makes a difference.
Still, it was good sipping vodka, and I did, in fact, sip it as I ate many permutations of herring and caught up with Darrell Hartman, recently of Travel + Leisure and now a freelancer — a shift he apparently intended to make. I mentioned a promising job opening in food-related editing that I heard about recently.
“Full time?” he asked. I nodded. He shook his head. So that’s cool.
After the vodka party, I headed to my own neighborhood of Park Slope and popped into Brownstone Billiards, which used to have a fascinating karaoke night on Wednesdays, but no longer. It turns out that it drove out the pool players, costing the place a lot of money. The place has a new bartender whose name I didn’t catch. He’s an actor who just moved from Philadelphia to seek his fortune. He said Brownstone’s default vodka or Cosmos is a high-end French one, which I asserted made no sense. He agreed with me, but, I mean, the bartender”s supposed to agree with you.
Then today I stopped by during lunchtime because chef-owner Marcus Samuelsson was launching a line of cookware. So I caught up with him, and with Beverly Stephen from Food Arts and Jennifer Leuzzi, recently back from what was apparently a fabulous vacation.
I have no plans to stop by Aquavit tomorrow, but you never know.
I’ve been to Aquavit restaurant three times this week. On Tuesday, Atlanta chef Shaun Doty was in town, because his restaurant, Shaun, was named one of the 20 best new restaurants by Esquire magazine (another Atlanta restaurant, Trois, was, too; that's a terrific showing for Atlanta). There was a celebratory dinner at Anthos the night before.
Shaun and his publicist, Liz Lapidus, wanted to meet me for lunch. They were headed to DB unless I had a different suggestion. Feeling selfish, I suggested Aquavit, which is around the corner from my office (it's on 55th between Park and Madison, NRN’s offices are on Park between 55th and 56th).
We ate in the café, not the main dining room, which has a more casual (and cheaper) menu. I had the daily husmanskost special. From what executive chef Johan Svensson explained to me years ago, that literally means "houseman's cooking," or traditional Swedish home cooking. But, I mean, this is Aquavit, so my Oxbringa – brisket, root vegetables and mustard broth — was cooked at a lower, slower pace than it would have been in a Swedish home. It came with a mini Prinsessbakelse for dessert, which is a sponge cake layered with whipped cream and raspberries and served under a marzipan shell.
We talked about the Atlanta restaurant scene (a big-name Atlanta chef is apparently looking at real estate in New York) and the gutsy meal that Anthos chef Michael Psilakis had served the night before (his restaurant was on the Esquire list, too).
Then last night I went to a launch party for yet another damn vodka. This one actually tasted a little bit different from other vodkas, which is cool if you want to drink it straight. But since most people will have it in Cosmopolitans anyway, I’m not convinced that it makes a difference.
Still, it was good sipping vodka, and I did, in fact, sip it as I ate many permutations of herring and caught up with Darrell Hartman, recently of Travel + Leisure and now a freelancer — a shift he apparently intended to make. I mentioned a promising job opening in food-related editing that I heard about recently.
“Full time?” he asked. I nodded. He shook his head. So that’s cool.
After the vodka party, I headed to my own neighborhood of Park Slope and popped into Brownstone Billiards, which used to have a fascinating karaoke night on Wednesdays, but no longer. It turns out that it drove out the pool players, costing the place a lot of money. The place has a new bartender whose name I didn’t catch. He’s an actor who just moved from Philadelphia to seek his fortune. He said Brownstone’s default vodka or Cosmos is a high-end French one, which I asserted made no sense. He agreed with me, but, I mean, the bartender”s supposed to agree with you.
Then today I stopped by during lunchtime because chef-owner Marcus Samuelsson was launching a line of cookware. So I caught up with him, and with Beverly Stephen from Food Arts and Jennifer Leuzzi, recently back from what was apparently a fabulous vacation.
I have no plans to stop by Aquavit tomorrow, but you never know.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Goatstravaganza
October 9
“I have news,” said Shelley Clark as she invited me to dinner last night.
Ooh, exciting. Was a chef fired? was a scandal brewing?
I rushed to Focolare to find out.
Focolare is a modern Italian restaurant that recently opened in the unlikely locale of Little Italy.
As a New Yorker, if you want to have a clandestine meeting and really, really don’t want anyone you know to see you, go to Little Italy.
What’s left of this once proud neighborhood is now a tourist trap whose restaurants have a reputation for bad, fake Italian-American food. I have no idea whether that reputation is deserved or not, as I haven’t eaten in Little Italy since my first or second month living in New York, back in 1999.
But chef Frank Lania, a veteran of La Grenouille, is trying his hand at contempory Italian there. So Shelley and I sampled beet ravioli, penne with eggplant, duck with a mild chocolate sauce (don't laugh), and some seared scallops, while she told me that she was quitting her job at Lou Hammond & Associates after 10 years to work on her own.
That was her news. It’s not really news I can use, but interesting nonetheless and I’m happy for her. Shelley had to rush off, so I chatted with Frank, drank some sherry and sampled some desserts — white wine mousse with raspberry coulis, molten chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream.
While I was pausing between bites, I was approached by some tourists from Houston. I had been pointed out to them as a food writer and they just wanted to give me their ringing endorsement of Focolare. They liked it much better than other places they’d eaten in New York — Tavern on the Green and The View.
I thanked them, welcomed them to New York and asked them what shows they’d seen. I think they said they’d seen Mama Mia.
Frank said that just a few days after Focolare opened they were visited by Texan tourists who loved the place and have been sending their friends there since.
But if you’re a food writer, or someone in the media who covers books about food, you don’t have to go to Focolare to sample Frank’s cooking. He’s making a goat dish for Goatstravaganza, a party on November 8 celebrating the launch of my friend Margaret Hathaway’s book The Year of the Goat.
Goat cheese will be served, Margaret will read from her book and her husband, my college friend Karl Schatz, will show pictures he took of goats (he’s a terrific photographer, if I do say so myself), cashmere, mohair, kidskin and other goat products will be on display, Goats Do Roam wine will be served (even if you have already received your invitation, I bet you didn’t know that; I’m on the inside track!), and live goats will be in attendance too.
So if you’re, you know, legit, and want to come to the party, let me know: Post a comment here or e-mail me at bthorn@nrn.com
“I have news,” said Shelley Clark as she invited me to dinner last night.
Ooh, exciting. Was a chef fired? was a scandal brewing?
I rushed to Focolare to find out.
Focolare is a modern Italian restaurant that recently opened in the unlikely locale of Little Italy.
As a New Yorker, if you want to have a clandestine meeting and really, really don’t want anyone you know to see you, go to Little Italy.
What’s left of this once proud neighborhood is now a tourist trap whose restaurants have a reputation for bad, fake Italian-American food. I have no idea whether that reputation is deserved or not, as I haven’t eaten in Little Italy since my first or second month living in New York, back in 1999.
But chef Frank Lania, a veteran of La Grenouille, is trying his hand at contempory Italian there. So Shelley and I sampled beet ravioli, penne with eggplant, duck with a mild chocolate sauce (don't laugh), and some seared scallops, while she told me that she was quitting her job at Lou Hammond & Associates after 10 years to work on her own.
That was her news. It’s not really news I can use, but interesting nonetheless and I’m happy for her. Shelley had to rush off, so I chatted with Frank, drank some sherry and sampled some desserts — white wine mousse with raspberry coulis, molten chocolate cake with vanilla bean ice cream.
While I was pausing between bites, I was approached by some tourists from Houston. I had been pointed out to them as a food writer and they just wanted to give me their ringing endorsement of Focolare. They liked it much better than other places they’d eaten in New York — Tavern on the Green and The View.
I thanked them, welcomed them to New York and asked them what shows they’d seen. I think they said they’d seen Mama Mia.
Frank said that just a few days after Focolare opened they were visited by Texan tourists who loved the place and have been sending their friends there since.
But if you’re a food writer, or someone in the media who covers books about food, you don’t have to go to Focolare to sample Frank’s cooking. He’s making a goat dish for Goatstravaganza, a party on November 8 celebrating the launch of my friend Margaret Hathaway’s book The Year of the Goat.
Goat cheese will be served, Margaret will read from her book and her husband, my college friend Karl Schatz, will show pictures he took of goats (he’s a terrific photographer, if I do say so myself), cashmere, mohair, kidskin and other goat products will be on display, Goats Do Roam wine will be served (even if you have already received your invitation, I bet you didn’t know that; I’m on the inside track!), and live goats will be in attendance too.
So if you’re, you know, legit, and want to come to the party, let me know: Post a comment here or e-mail me at bthorn@nrn.com
Monday, October 08, 2007
Some weather we’re having
October 8
It's a cliché that people with no imagination talk about the weather. My mother has banned the utterance of the word “humidity” in her presence because, she has declared, it leads to the most boring of conversations.
But there’s something comforting in talking about the weather — or cathartic if the weather has been quite bad. Everyone can participate, neighbors can reminisce. It’s a pleasant, non-controversial folk tune, part of the friendly chirping noises that knit the fabric of society, unless a winemaker is doing the talking.
“On July 3rd the sun came out in the late morning, but then it got cloudy and we thought it would rain, but no, the sun came out again. But then on July 5th it started to get colder than usual and we got a lot of rain, but then on the 9th...”
I exaggerate a little, and in fact I’m not exactly sure what they say, because as enthusiastic and attentive as I feel when a discussion on wine begins, soon I start to feel like Homer Simpson.
“Well then, on August 9th we got this breeze from the coast,” the winemaker says with a meaningful chortle. But my brain is going “dee dee dee, dee, de dee...” unable to concentrate due to lack of interest, unable to shut the winemaker out enough to think of anything else, I sit there and succumb to my brain’s own white noise.
Winemakers can be very nice people, and I love the fruit of their labors, but I don’t want to hear every last detail about their jobs any more than you want me to explain to you the positioning of each of my commas, or to have me reminisce about stories I’ve line-edited.
“Well, this one writer, he had the most peculiar beliefs about the use of the semicolon...”
Still, there I was, having lunch at the Beard House as a guest of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission. Actually, at that moment it was not yet a lunch but a grape tasting. A winegrower discussed the weather conditions that affected a particular grape variety, and then we’d taste it. We’d smash the grape with our tongues and assess the juice — there was room in our press booklet for us to write tasting notes — and then we’d chew on the skin, having been told that it was the skin, really, that gave each wine its unique charactersitcs. We moved on to Pinot Noir, then Zinfandel. Zinfandel clusters, it turns out, have grapes at different stages of ripeness on each cluster. Getting the right mix was essential, we were told, and I believed it. Why not?
That was followed by two different clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon, from different parts of the Sonoma Valley.
Really, much of it was rather interesting, and the lunch was beautifully put together and managed. But by the time we’d made it to the Cabernets I was done tasting. I was ready for lunch, which of course involved wine tasting, but I can manage to sample three glasses of wine per course. I’ll sample all three, maybe twice, and then pick a glass and stick to that.
The wine industry is masterful at bringing romance to its beverages. It’s fermented grape juice, after all, but its merchants have drawn us in, seduced us, and last Thursday convinced dozens of journalists and sommeliers and the like to sit and listen to a monologue about the weather.
Here in New York it has been unseasonably warm so far this October. But the calendar says it’s autumn, and so the autumn restaurant season has begun.
It’s as busy an autumn as anyone I’ve spoken to can remember, and autumns are always busy on the New York restaurant scene. But it seems to me there has been an unusual drought of fine dining openings, and other phenomena I can’t explain.
The night of the wine luncheon I went to the opening of the hotel Mela, not far from Times Square. There was a red carpet outside, and a velvet rope. That’s a little unusual, but not so much so. But there was a line of paparazzi outside. A few flashes went off as I walked down the carpet, much to my amusement.
(I was later told by a publicist that the paparazzi were there waiting for celebrities that might arrive. I pressed her and she said that maybe Beyonce would come, but maybe not. “You know how celebrities are,” she said. I don't but I let it go.)
I drank some Champagne, sampled some hors d’oeuvres, met a new editor of Travel + Leisure’s web site and was interviewed about bangs.
A couple of people were starting a web site about bangs — yes, the hair that droops down over your forehead. The Travel + Leisure editor, whose name I have forgotten, apparently had fabulous bangs and they wanted to interview her about them. They did a little video of her talking about her bangs, which she actually cuts herself.
I asked them if they wanted me to talk about bangs. It was a joke. I’m bald. I haven’t had bangs since I was 19. They turned the camera on me, so I told them that for me, bangs would have to be a really horrible comb-over.
If I were a woman, they asked, what kind of bangs would I have? They suggested some types that I didn’t understand, such as pixie bangs.
“What are pixie bangs?”
“Like Audrey Hepburn.”
“Anyone should do whatever they can to look more like Audrey Hepburn,” I said, trying to visualize her bangs, which I could not. But she certainly was beautiful.
Downstairs in the hotel’s restaurant, Saju, the room seemed to be filled with concierges, travel agents and travel writers. I don’t think I saw a single food writer. I was sipping Champagne and admiring the orchids (spiky and red, not the ubiquitous white ones which are elegant but, I’m sorry, boring), and struck up a conversation with some hotel guests from Atlanta, when a fake staff member took a microphone, announcing that it was his last day and that his colleagues wanted him to sing, which he did badly, until a fake manager took the mic away, yelled at him and started singing opera. Then the first guy grabbed the mic back and sang a show tune, but this time he sang it well, and then a woman joined in, and this singing troupe entertained us for a few minutes. I’d never seen anything like it at a restaurant opening. They were good singers, but what were they doing there, and couldn’t I talk to the other guests instead?
Then they stopped and salsa music began playing, until the DJ switched to ’80s music. I sipped more Champagne, ate some food on skewers and a lamb chop or two, and wandered off, wondering what had just happened.
Friday I understood. I had lunch at Matthew Kenney’s latest venture, Freefood. The name is perhaps a misnomer as salads are $11.25. It’s meant to indicate that there aren't any additives to the food. Chef de cuisine John McAllister explained to me that all of the ingredients except for the cheeses were organic. But I liked him anyway. Nice guy, smart, and good with food costs. At the Soho Grand, where he was executive chef for a number of years, he says he kept food costs down to 21.5 percent, owing largely to catering, of course, but it's still good.
That night I went to a reception at the residence of the British Consul General, where 60 some-odd Scotches were being served. I stayed long enough to catch up with bartender and beverage writer Naren Young, who has left Pegu Club and Public and is now at La Esquina, and food writers Nancy Davidson and Julie Besonen. I also ate a Scotch egg, talked with Scotch purveyors and drank enough Scotch to ensure that Ray Garcia's friends would continue to like me.
That evening was his poker night, you see, and I went to the apartment of Ray's friend Matt Parker and contributed to the winnings of others by losing at Texas Hold 'em.
Perhaps it’s disingenuous to blame the Scotch for my losses, but hey, it’s my blog.
It was 80 degrees out on Saturday, when I’d invited my friend Birdman to be my plus-one at the Beard House, where Sonoma chef (yes, back to Sonoma) Mark Stark was cooking.
With the possible exception of Kenyon Phillips, Birdman is my least formally dressed of friends (tivas are his footwear of choice all year long), except when he's not.
It being summerlike outside, he wore a seersucker suit with a knit bow-tie and the appropriate variety of white shoes whose name I have forgotten. He looked fantastic.
I looked at shoes today with my colleague Elissa Elan, who was my lunch guest at the newly revamped Cafe SFA at Saks. I had the burger, she had a salad topped with seared salmon, and I indulged her afterwards by commenting on the $700 shoes she was admiring.
I got a phone call this afternoon from publicist Stephanie Faison.
“You're not on my RSVP list for the opening of Grayz tonight,” she said, perhaps slightly confused. “You come to everything.”
Indeed, the opening had slipped my mind, but I was free.
The strange weather today — apart from the temperature, which was still in the 80s — was the nature of the venue that chef Gray Kunz was opening — not a high-end restaurant, but a lounge and event space. I’m torturing the analogy, I know, but it did seem like an indicator of the New York City restaurant climate.
Regina Schrambling, in a weather-appropriate sleeveless dress, pointed out that the food being served — sausages (weisswurst), brisket, pork belly, baked beans, goulash — was all autumn. Indeed it was.
I met Oceana’s executive chef, Ben Pollinger, whom I’d only spoken to on the phone before, and Buddakan’s relatively new executive chef, Lon Symensma, who took over when Michael Schulson left to do the TV show Pantry Raid (cute name, right?). Gotham Bar and Grill chef and New York restaurant icon Alfred Portale stopped by, and Chris Lee of Gilt with sommelier Jason Ferris. And others. We spoke of many things, which I will not reveal, because I think they will be the subject of my next column in Nation’s Restaurant News.
What I had at the Sonoma County lunch (food by chef Bruce Riezenman):
Drakes Bay oysters with sparkling wine sabayon and fennel Chiffonade
2000 Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvée, Carneros
grapes
Whole corn and cauliflower soup with dungeness crab and coconut
2005 Baletto Pinot Gris, Sonoma Coast
2003 Murphy Goode Fumé Blanc Reserve, Alexander Valley, “The Deuce”
Liberty Duck confit, heirloom tomato & lavendar coulis and Merlot juice, with Tierra Farm marrowfat bean ragù and braised red chard
2005 Ravenswood Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley
2005 Bucklin Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley
1995 Ravenswood Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley
What we ate from Sonoma on Saturday (Chef Mark Stark and his team):
Hors d’Oeuvre
Petite Maine lobster rolls with parsley and fennel
Crispy monterey squid with orange–chile gremolata
Oh! Tommy Boy potato spring rolls with caramelized onions and mint
Pomegranate-glazed CK lamb kofta
Dungeness crab tacos with aji amarillo
Wattle Creek Methode Champenoise NV
Dinner
Bacon and Eggs — Pinot-poached Triple T Ranch egg and slow-braised pork belly with black truffle–bacon vinaigrette and crisp potato, pearl onion, and frisée salad
Wattle Creek Pinot Noir 2005
Sonoma veal cheek raviolo with popcorn sweetbreads, creamed corn, and mustard–tarragon jus
Wattle Creek Triple Play 2003
Arugula and endive with Manchego cheese, Meyer lemon, and avocado
Wattle Creek Viognier 2005
Liberty Farms duck four ways — cardamom and vanilla–roasted duck breast; duck confit and foie gras cabbage roll; and black Mission fig in a blanket with duck prosciutto
Wattle Creek Shiraz 2002
Caramelized Gravenstein apple financier with hazelnut crunch, Marin Farms Camembert ice cream, and wattle creek sparkling Shiraz and blackberry sabayon
And what I sampled at Freefood:
Smoothies:
Raspberry, cacao, goji berries and almond milk
Banana, cacao bean, Thai coconut, espresso and cashew butter
Green tea, melon, nutmeg and candied ginger
Young coconut, spinach, agave and Super Green Food (a powdered additive made from leafy green vegetables)
Juices:
Kale, cucumber, spinach, lemon and green apple
Pineapple, green apple and fennel
Soups:
Five spice squash, dried orange zest and toasted sesame
Romesco soup with dharred tomatoes, roasted peppers, marcona almonds and sherry vinegar
Yukon gold potato, celeriac, roasted hazelnuts and oil spiced with cinnamon
Pressed sandwiches:
Slow-roasted free-range chicken with sun-dried tomato, tapenade, arugula and mozzarella
Maple smoked wild salmon with herbed labne, mizuna and capers
Roasted portobello, macadamia hummus, preserved lemon and crispy artichoke
Various foods at the buffet that I wrote down somewhere but can’t find at the moment
Chocolate marzipan budino with sea salt
Cranberry tart with sage cream
It's a cliché that people with no imagination talk about the weather. My mother has banned the utterance of the word “humidity” in her presence because, she has declared, it leads to the most boring of conversations.
But there’s something comforting in talking about the weather — or cathartic if the weather has been quite bad. Everyone can participate, neighbors can reminisce. It’s a pleasant, non-controversial folk tune, part of the friendly chirping noises that knit the fabric of society, unless a winemaker is doing the talking.
“On July 3rd the sun came out in the late morning, but then it got cloudy and we thought it would rain, but no, the sun came out again. But then on July 5th it started to get colder than usual and we got a lot of rain, but then on the 9th...”
I exaggerate a little, and in fact I’m not exactly sure what they say, because as enthusiastic and attentive as I feel when a discussion on wine begins, soon I start to feel like Homer Simpson.
“Well then, on August 9th we got this breeze from the coast,” the winemaker says with a meaningful chortle. But my brain is going “dee dee dee, dee, de dee...” unable to concentrate due to lack of interest, unable to shut the winemaker out enough to think of anything else, I sit there and succumb to my brain’s own white noise.
Winemakers can be very nice people, and I love the fruit of their labors, but I don’t want to hear every last detail about their jobs any more than you want me to explain to you the positioning of each of my commas, or to have me reminisce about stories I’ve line-edited.
“Well, this one writer, he had the most peculiar beliefs about the use of the semicolon...”
Still, there I was, having lunch at the Beard House as a guest of the Sonoma County Winegrape Commission. Actually, at that moment it was not yet a lunch but a grape tasting. A winegrower discussed the weather conditions that affected a particular grape variety, and then we’d taste it. We’d smash the grape with our tongues and assess the juice — there was room in our press booklet for us to write tasting notes — and then we’d chew on the skin, having been told that it was the skin, really, that gave each wine its unique charactersitcs. We moved on to Pinot Noir, then Zinfandel. Zinfandel clusters, it turns out, have grapes at different stages of ripeness on each cluster. Getting the right mix was essential, we were told, and I believed it. Why not?
That was followed by two different clusters of Cabernet Sauvignon, from different parts of the Sonoma Valley.
Really, much of it was rather interesting, and the lunch was beautifully put together and managed. But by the time we’d made it to the Cabernets I was done tasting. I was ready for lunch, which of course involved wine tasting, but I can manage to sample three glasses of wine per course. I’ll sample all three, maybe twice, and then pick a glass and stick to that.
The wine industry is masterful at bringing romance to its beverages. It’s fermented grape juice, after all, but its merchants have drawn us in, seduced us, and last Thursday convinced dozens of journalists and sommeliers and the like to sit and listen to a monologue about the weather.
Here in New York it has been unseasonably warm so far this October. But the calendar says it’s autumn, and so the autumn restaurant season has begun.
It’s as busy an autumn as anyone I’ve spoken to can remember, and autumns are always busy on the New York restaurant scene. But it seems to me there has been an unusual drought of fine dining openings, and other phenomena I can’t explain.
The night of the wine luncheon I went to the opening of the hotel Mela, not far from Times Square. There was a red carpet outside, and a velvet rope. That’s a little unusual, but not so much so. But there was a line of paparazzi outside. A few flashes went off as I walked down the carpet, much to my amusement.
(I was later told by a publicist that the paparazzi were there waiting for celebrities that might arrive. I pressed her and she said that maybe Beyonce would come, but maybe not. “You know how celebrities are,” she said. I don't but I let it go.)
I drank some Champagne, sampled some hors d’oeuvres, met a new editor of Travel + Leisure’s web site and was interviewed about bangs.
A couple of people were starting a web site about bangs — yes, the hair that droops down over your forehead. The Travel + Leisure editor, whose name I have forgotten, apparently had fabulous bangs and they wanted to interview her about them. They did a little video of her talking about her bangs, which she actually cuts herself.
I asked them if they wanted me to talk about bangs. It was a joke. I’m bald. I haven’t had bangs since I was 19. They turned the camera on me, so I told them that for me, bangs would have to be a really horrible comb-over.
If I were a woman, they asked, what kind of bangs would I have? They suggested some types that I didn’t understand, such as pixie bangs.
“What are pixie bangs?”
“Like Audrey Hepburn.”
“Anyone should do whatever they can to look more like Audrey Hepburn,” I said, trying to visualize her bangs, which I could not. But she certainly was beautiful.
Downstairs in the hotel’s restaurant, Saju, the room seemed to be filled with concierges, travel agents and travel writers. I don’t think I saw a single food writer. I was sipping Champagne and admiring the orchids (spiky and red, not the ubiquitous white ones which are elegant but, I’m sorry, boring), and struck up a conversation with some hotel guests from Atlanta, when a fake staff member took a microphone, announcing that it was his last day and that his colleagues wanted him to sing, which he did badly, until a fake manager took the mic away, yelled at him and started singing opera. Then the first guy grabbed the mic back and sang a show tune, but this time he sang it well, and then a woman joined in, and this singing troupe entertained us for a few minutes. I’d never seen anything like it at a restaurant opening. They were good singers, but what were they doing there, and couldn’t I talk to the other guests instead?
Then they stopped and salsa music began playing, until the DJ switched to ’80s music. I sipped more Champagne, ate some food on skewers and a lamb chop or two, and wandered off, wondering what had just happened.
Friday I understood. I had lunch at Matthew Kenney’s latest venture, Freefood. The name is perhaps a misnomer as salads are $11.25. It’s meant to indicate that there aren't any additives to the food. Chef de cuisine John McAllister explained to me that all of the ingredients except for the cheeses were organic. But I liked him anyway. Nice guy, smart, and good with food costs. At the Soho Grand, where he was executive chef for a number of years, he says he kept food costs down to 21.5 percent, owing largely to catering, of course, but it's still good.
That night I went to a reception at the residence of the British Consul General, where 60 some-odd Scotches were being served. I stayed long enough to catch up with bartender and beverage writer Naren Young, who has left Pegu Club and Public and is now at La Esquina, and food writers Nancy Davidson and Julie Besonen. I also ate a Scotch egg, talked with Scotch purveyors and drank enough Scotch to ensure that Ray Garcia's friends would continue to like me.
That evening was his poker night, you see, and I went to the apartment of Ray's friend Matt Parker and contributed to the winnings of others by losing at Texas Hold 'em.
Perhaps it’s disingenuous to blame the Scotch for my losses, but hey, it’s my blog.
It was 80 degrees out on Saturday, when I’d invited my friend Birdman to be my plus-one at the Beard House, where Sonoma chef (yes, back to Sonoma) Mark Stark was cooking.
With the possible exception of Kenyon Phillips, Birdman is my least formally dressed of friends (tivas are his footwear of choice all year long), except when he's not.
It being summerlike outside, he wore a seersucker suit with a knit bow-tie and the appropriate variety of white shoes whose name I have forgotten. He looked fantastic.
I looked at shoes today with my colleague Elissa Elan, who was my lunch guest at the newly revamped Cafe SFA at Saks. I had the burger, she had a salad topped with seared salmon, and I indulged her afterwards by commenting on the $700 shoes she was admiring.
I got a phone call this afternoon from publicist Stephanie Faison.
“You're not on my RSVP list for the opening of Grayz tonight,” she said, perhaps slightly confused. “You come to everything.”
Indeed, the opening had slipped my mind, but I was free.
The strange weather today — apart from the temperature, which was still in the 80s — was the nature of the venue that chef Gray Kunz was opening — not a high-end restaurant, but a lounge and event space. I’m torturing the analogy, I know, but it did seem like an indicator of the New York City restaurant climate.
Regina Schrambling, in a weather-appropriate sleeveless dress, pointed out that the food being served — sausages (weisswurst), brisket, pork belly, baked beans, goulash — was all autumn. Indeed it was.
I met Oceana’s executive chef, Ben Pollinger, whom I’d only spoken to on the phone before, and Buddakan’s relatively new executive chef, Lon Symensma, who took over when Michael Schulson left to do the TV show Pantry Raid (cute name, right?). Gotham Bar and Grill chef and New York restaurant icon Alfred Portale stopped by, and Chris Lee of Gilt with sommelier Jason Ferris. And others. We spoke of many things, which I will not reveal, because I think they will be the subject of my next column in Nation’s Restaurant News.
What I had at the Sonoma County lunch (food by chef Bruce Riezenman):
Drakes Bay oysters with sparkling wine sabayon and fennel Chiffonade
2000 Gloria Ferrer Royal Cuvée, Carneros
grapes
Whole corn and cauliflower soup with dungeness crab and coconut
2005 Baletto Pinot Gris, Sonoma Coast
2003 Murphy Goode Fumé Blanc Reserve, Alexander Valley, “The Deuce”
Liberty Duck confit, heirloom tomato & lavendar coulis and Merlot juice, with Tierra Farm marrowfat bean ragù and braised red chard
2005 Ravenswood Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley
2005 Bucklin Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley
1995 Ravenswood Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel, Sonoma Valley
What we ate from Sonoma on Saturday (Chef Mark Stark and his team):
Hors d’Oeuvre
Petite Maine lobster rolls with parsley and fennel
Crispy monterey squid with orange–chile gremolata
Oh! Tommy Boy potato spring rolls with caramelized onions and mint
Pomegranate-glazed CK lamb kofta
Dungeness crab tacos with aji amarillo
Wattle Creek Methode Champenoise NV
Dinner
Bacon and Eggs — Pinot-poached Triple T Ranch egg and slow-braised pork belly with black truffle–bacon vinaigrette and crisp potato, pearl onion, and frisée salad
Wattle Creek Pinot Noir 2005
Sonoma veal cheek raviolo with popcorn sweetbreads, creamed corn, and mustard–tarragon jus
Wattle Creek Triple Play 2003
Arugula and endive with Manchego cheese, Meyer lemon, and avocado
Wattle Creek Viognier 2005
Liberty Farms duck four ways — cardamom and vanilla–roasted duck breast; duck confit and foie gras cabbage roll; and black Mission fig in a blanket with duck prosciutto
Wattle Creek Shiraz 2002
Caramelized Gravenstein apple financier with hazelnut crunch, Marin Farms Camembert ice cream, and wattle creek sparkling Shiraz and blackberry sabayon
And what I sampled at Freefood:
Smoothies:
Raspberry, cacao, goji berries and almond milk
Banana, cacao bean, Thai coconut, espresso and cashew butter
Green tea, melon, nutmeg and candied ginger
Young coconut, spinach, agave and Super Green Food (a powdered additive made from leafy green vegetables)
Juices:
Kale, cucumber, spinach, lemon and green apple
Pineapple, green apple and fennel
Soups:
Five spice squash, dried orange zest and toasted sesame
Romesco soup with dharred tomatoes, roasted peppers, marcona almonds and sherry vinegar
Yukon gold potato, celeriac, roasted hazelnuts and oil spiced with cinnamon
Pressed sandwiches:
Slow-roasted free-range chicken with sun-dried tomato, tapenade, arugula and mozzarella
Maple smoked wild salmon with herbed labne, mizuna and capers
Roasted portobello, macadamia hummus, preserved lemon and crispy artichoke
Various foods at the buffet that I wrote down somewhere but can’t find at the moment
Chocolate marzipan budino with sea salt
Cranberry tart with sage cream
Friday, October 05, 2007
Ivy Stark update
October 5
Regarding my entry of a couple of days ago, Ivy Stark is indeed back at BR Guest Restaurant Group.
From a BR Guest spokeswoman: “We'll have more info next week, but you are correct in saying that she is back!”
(This picture shows what Ivy Stark looks like in formwalwear during the James Beard Foundation Awards)
Ivy Stark update update, October 10: Specifically, she’s at Dos Caminos Park, something Grub Street knew three weeks ago.
You know a lot of restaurateurs complain about blogs that spread rumors. But the thing is, more often than not, it seems, those rumors end up being pretty accurate.
Grub Street has more resources than most blogs, it being the food blog of New York magazine, but still...
Regarding my entry of a couple of days ago, Ivy Stark is indeed back at BR Guest Restaurant Group.
From a BR Guest spokeswoman: “We'll have more info next week, but you are correct in saying that she is back!”
(This picture shows what Ivy Stark looks like in formwalwear during the James Beard Foundation Awards)
Ivy Stark update update, October 10: Specifically, she’s at Dos Caminos Park, something Grub Street knew three weeks ago.
You know a lot of restaurateurs complain about blogs that spread rumors. But the thing is, more often than not, it seems, those rumors end up being pretty accurate.
Grub Street has more resources than most blogs, it being the food blog of New York magazine, but still...
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
family and friends
October 4
Belcourt, a Mediterraneanish restaurant in the East Village, is scheduled to open this Saturday, so last night they were practicing, serving family and friends and handing out sheets of paper for us to evaluate our experience. It's a common practice -- a sort of dress rehearsal for the restaurant's staff — although press isn't often invited to such things (or at least I'm not).
But publicist Gail Schoenberg invited me, and I had dinner with her and her high school friend Kathy, who is a bartender at a dive bar (her words) called Nancy Whiskey in Tribeca. She makes a good living. I shared with her a statistic I'd heard, and that some have trouble believing, that Hooters waitresses on average make 45 percent tips. She simply nodded. She also told me about a popular drink in Irish bars that I will never sample — the Jäger Bomb, which is a shot of Jägermeister dropped into half a Red Bull.
Some other press people were there, too, like Epicurious' James Oliver Cury and his wife Dorothy, who had been invited by chef Matt Hamilton. I noticed that Dorothy had a tattoo on her left shoulder — a heart with the word "mother" written across it. I asked her about it, and she said it was a tattoo that sailors and other tough guys have tattooed on their arms so that people would call them momma's boys, giving them the opportunity to get into a fight.
Oh, the things you learn if you just ask.
After dinner we decided to stop by Jehangir Mehta's new restaurant, Graffiti. There he told us the story of someone who called, claiming to be from a particular newspaper and asking for a reservation.
Now, Graffiti has, like, five tables, and so it's reasonable that they don't take reservations.
Could he make an exception?
Well, he supposed he could.
And what free stuff could he give them?
Well, he doesn't really do that.
How about some house wine?
Um, no.
What if we bought a bottle of house wine? Would you give us another one for free?
Well, you see, this is just a small restaurant and he couldn't really afford to do that.
So they canceled the reservation.
General rule of thumb for restauratuers: If someone has to ask, you shouldn't give it to them.
What we ate at Belcourt:
Chestnut, celery and sunchoke soup
Oil poached octopus with cardamom pickled carrots, salsify, coriander dressing and olive crisps
House cured duck prosciutto, spiced figs, mascarpone and lamb's tongue lettuce
Roasted butternut squash and apple ravioli, wild mushrooms brown butter and sage
Lamb burger, goat cheese, spicy ketchup, zucchini, pickle and fries
Salt cod bourridde with brandade dumplings, baby fennel, Manilla clams and sauce verte
Hanger steak with fried scallions, bone marrow sauce and brown butter
Zucchini crudo with lemon and brown butter
And at Graffiti (which we paid for, in case you were wondering, although Jehangir did pour me a bit of Merlot to drink while Gail finished her tea):
Chicory chocolate steamed bun with peanut-butter ice cream
Halva with mascarpone date cream
Grape-braised figs and black pepper ice cream
Belcourt, a Mediterraneanish restaurant in the East Village, is scheduled to open this Saturday, so last night they were practicing, serving family and friends and handing out sheets of paper for us to evaluate our experience. It's a common practice -- a sort of dress rehearsal for the restaurant's staff — although press isn't often invited to such things (or at least I'm not).
But publicist Gail Schoenberg invited me, and I had dinner with her and her high school friend Kathy, who is a bartender at a dive bar (her words) called Nancy Whiskey in Tribeca. She makes a good living. I shared with her a statistic I'd heard, and that some have trouble believing, that Hooters waitresses on average make 45 percent tips. She simply nodded. She also told me about a popular drink in Irish bars that I will never sample — the Jäger Bomb, which is a shot of Jägermeister dropped into half a Red Bull.
Some other press people were there, too, like Epicurious' James Oliver Cury and his wife Dorothy, who had been invited by chef Matt Hamilton. I noticed that Dorothy had a tattoo on her left shoulder — a heart with the word "mother" written across it. I asked her about it, and she said it was a tattoo that sailors and other tough guys have tattooed on their arms so that people would call them momma's boys, giving them the opportunity to get into a fight.
Oh, the things you learn if you just ask.
After dinner we decided to stop by Jehangir Mehta's new restaurant, Graffiti. There he told us the story of someone who called, claiming to be from a particular newspaper and asking for a reservation.
Now, Graffiti has, like, five tables, and so it's reasonable that they don't take reservations.
Could he make an exception?
Well, he supposed he could.
And what free stuff could he give them?
Well, he doesn't really do that.
How about some house wine?
Um, no.
What if we bought a bottle of house wine? Would you give us another one for free?
Well, you see, this is just a small restaurant and he couldn't really afford to do that.
So they canceled the reservation.
General rule of thumb for restauratuers: If someone has to ask, you shouldn't give it to them.
What we ate at Belcourt:
Chestnut, celery and sunchoke soup
Oil poached octopus with cardamom pickled carrots, salsify, coriander dressing and olive crisps
House cured duck prosciutto, spiced figs, mascarpone and lamb's tongue lettuce
Roasted butternut squash and apple ravioli, wild mushrooms brown butter and sage
Lamb burger, goat cheese, spicy ketchup, zucchini, pickle and fries
Salt cod bourridde with brandade dumplings, baby fennel, Manilla clams and sauce verte
Hanger steak with fried scallions, bone marrow sauce and brown butter
Zucchini crudo with lemon and brown butter
And at Graffiti (which we paid for, in case you were wondering, although Jehangir did pour me a bit of Merlot to drink while Gail finished her tea):
Chicory chocolate steamed bun with peanut-butter ice cream
Halva with mascarpone date cream
Grape-braised figs and black pepper ice cream
Amalia turnover complete
October 3
I just got off the phone with the folks at Amalia, here in New York, who tell me that Ivy Stark has quit her job as executive chef and is being replaced by her chef de cuisine Adam Ross, who has a solid background working his way through many of Boston's finest kitchens. His promotion follows the promotion of Roberto Ikuma to pastry chef — replacing John Miele, who left to work for Ed Brown’s new restaurant, Eighty One, which will open this year — and of the appointment of a new general manager, Shahed Choudhury, to replace the astute and charming polyglot Thomas Vaucouleur de Ville d’Avray, who arguably has the best name I have ever heard. Monsieur Vaucouleur de Ville d’Avray is now working for the Dolce Group in Los Angeles.
Word in the ether is that Ivy has returned to the BR Guest fold to work at Dos Caminos again, maybe to open the Las Vegas unit. Surely someone will confirm that soon (unless of course it’s not true, but I bet it is).
Quotation of the day: “money talks (i heard it once - it said good bye)”
I just got off the phone with the folks at Amalia, here in New York, who tell me that Ivy Stark has quit her job as executive chef and is being replaced by her chef de cuisine Adam Ross, who has a solid background working his way through many of Boston's finest kitchens. His promotion follows the promotion of Roberto Ikuma to pastry chef — replacing John Miele, who left to work for Ed Brown’s new restaurant, Eighty One, which will open this year — and of the appointment of a new general manager, Shahed Choudhury, to replace the astute and charming polyglot Thomas Vaucouleur de Ville d’Avray, who arguably has the best name I have ever heard. Monsieur Vaucouleur de Ville d’Avray is now working for the Dolce Group in Los Angeles.
Word in the ether is that Ivy has returned to the BR Guest fold to work at Dos Caminos again, maybe to open the Las Vegas unit. Surely someone will confirm that soon (unless of course it’s not true, but I bet it is).
Quotation of the day: “money talks (i heard it once - it said good bye)”
Whatever happened to Tyson Wong Ophaso?
October 3
People obsessed with the New York food scene, of whom there are more than is reasonable, might be glad to know that Tyson Wong Ophaso, the good-natured Thai-born former executive chef of Chinatown Brasserie, has landed on his feet in Los Angeles, where he is corporate chef for the Domaine Restaurant Group.
A press release that landed in my e-mail inbox says his first task was to rework the menu at Red Pearl Kitchen to make it more reflective of Southeast Asian street food, although the new menu items it mentions are mostly Cantonese, and the editor in me must point out that China is not part of Southeast Asia, which comprises 10 countries that I’ll list below for the curious.
Menu items include steamed and pan fried dim sum, shrimp har gao, pork shu mai (that’s the Japanese spelling of a Cantonese dish, although it is a popular snack in Bangkok, where it’s called khanom jeep), and a bunch of dishes in pancakes that come from farther north in China.
Noodles (which are Chinese but common enough everywhere else) and Thai curries are available as well, however.
And now, the countries of Southeast Asia in alphabetical order:
Brunei
Cambodia
Indonesia
Laos
Malaysia
Myanmar
The Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam
Thank you.
People obsessed with the New York food scene, of whom there are more than is reasonable, might be glad to know that Tyson Wong Ophaso, the good-natured Thai-born former executive chef of Chinatown Brasserie, has landed on his feet in Los Angeles, where he is corporate chef for the Domaine Restaurant Group.
A press release that landed in my e-mail inbox says his first task was to rework the menu at Red Pearl Kitchen to make it more reflective of Southeast Asian street food, although the new menu items it mentions are mostly Cantonese, and the editor in me must point out that China is not part of Southeast Asia, which comprises 10 countries that I’ll list below for the curious.
Menu items include steamed and pan fried dim sum, shrimp har gao, pork shu mai (that’s the Japanese spelling of a Cantonese dish, although it is a popular snack in Bangkok, where it’s called khanom jeep), and a bunch of dishes in pancakes that come from farther north in China.
Noodles (which are Chinese but common enough everywhere else) and Thai curries are available as well, however.
And now, the countries of Southeast Asia in alphabetical order:
Brunei
Cambodia
Indonesia
Laos
Malaysia
Myanmar
The Philippines
Singapore
Thailand
Vietnam
Thank you.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
What a person eats when Zarela turns 20
October 2
I’ve added the menu of Zarela’s 20th anniversary party to the bottom of my entry about it. Click here (and scroll down) to have a look.
I’ve added the menu of Zarela’s 20th anniversary party to the bottom of my entry about it. Click here (and scroll down) to have a look.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Eating as much of Los Angeles as I can
October 1
“Is this the lovely Nina? It’s Greg from the Century Plaza, I have my super-VIP of the evening.”
I sink a little in my chair as Concierge Greg works his magic. I will wonder later how much of this show is genuine schmoozing of Nina and how much of it is for my benefit, but for now I just want it to be over.
“I know … I understand. Yes but if you could fit him in. He’s the food editor of Restaurant News. I told him about Lucques and he’s very interested in visiting.”
That was only partly true. I already knew of Lucques, although it wasn’t top-of-mind. I’d really wanted to check out Craft, but it’s not serving dinner on Sundays yet.
But I’d enjoyed hearing chef-restaurateur Suzanne Goin speak in Aspen. I’d be happy to check out one of her Sunday dinners. But “very interested” in visiting? Greg was taking poetic license. Then again the language of a concierge is poetic in a way, and whether Greg was actually sweet-talking Nina or merely nursing my ego while managing my expectations — setting me up for a long wait before being seated — it was effective.
“He’ll wait at the bar and have a Sidecar until you can fit him in,” Greg continued, mapping out my next steps of the evening.
I don’t like pulling strings to get restaurant reservations. It’s unjournalistic and, frankly, undignified.
But to ask the concierge of your hotel with help for reservations is perfectly reasonable. To give him your business card so he can remember your name — well, okay, if it’s a business card from the Daily Variety of restaurant trade magazines, and if that magazine happens to be hosting a conference at the concierge’s hotel, at which hundreds of attendees have booked rooms, that’s pulling strings.
Oh well.
I wasn’t even planning on going out to dinner last night. Our Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference, MUFSO, had started that evening with Taste of Los Angeles, a reception at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza’s reflecting pools at which a bunch of local restaurants were dishing up their specialties. As food editor I had to attend.
In fact, the Culinary R&D conference had ended the night before, on Saturday. I and our two executive editors, Richard Martin and Robin Lee Allen, had spent the morning meeting with a dozen-and-a-half restaurant operators from the United Kingdom who were interested in learning about foodservice trends in the United States. We were joined by Jeff Sinelli, the young CEO of Which Wich, a sandwich chain based in Dallas who had just won a Hot Concepts award from us and who was providing a restaurant operator’s perspective for our British visitors.
Jeff had also won a Hot Concepts award several years ago for his Genghis Grill, which he then flipped and started Which Wich. I’m pretty sure he’s not yet 40 years old.
He’s also 6'5", which might be irrelevant, but I, being 5'3.5", find it fascinating.
But my point is that if I weren’t going to attend Taste of LA, I could have flown out that afternoon; I wasn’t assigned to cover anything at MUFSO.
If I’m going to attend, I’m going to try as much of the food as is reasonable, and possibly more.
But publicist Ellen Hartman had no dinner plans and she wanted some, and we did have legitimate things to discuss about many of her clients. Besides, I was feeling bad that during my four days in LA I had only managed to visit Grace, Pinkberry (which we have in New York anyway), Pink Taco and In-and-Out Burger. I had not been a very intrepid trend-spotter.
But I’d had duties to perform at Culinary R&D, which is a full-on day-and-a-half of relentless activity.
Rehearsal started later than I thought it would on Friday, however, so my boss Pam Parseghian and I hopped into a taxi to go to In-and-Out Burger, because I’d never been. I had one of those secret off-the-menu items — the one with sautéed onions. But that night, after Nancy Kruse’s keynote State of the Plate speech and a cooking demonstration by Japonais executive chef Gene Kato, we had a reception at which the conference’s 15 sponsors all were serving food made from their products. I had to go, and I had to try as many items as I could manage (I managed 14).
So I was full, and besides it seemed important to stay in the hotel and bond with my colleagues based in places other than New York.
“X Bar,” said Jesse Parziale, who’s on our event planning staff and who had been working hard while following the progress back in Tampa of his daughter’s pinkeye.
I met our new ad-sales guy, Kevin McKay, recently of another restaurant trade magazine. He’s a gallant fellow, the type with the presence of mind to remove his suit jacket to drape it around the shoulders of a woman shivering in the early autumn air of Los Angeles at twilight. He did just that during the Saturday closing reception of Culinary R&D.
He showed me pictures of his kids, the (fraternal) twin boys Jack and Michael (Jack’s the jock, Michael’s more of an intellectual), age 5, 4-year-old Tess, and Ryan, who’s pushing 3.
Lunch the next day was the same format as dinner the night before. Then came the presentations on Japanese food, which included the tasting of four types of miso followed by the sampling of four miso preparations, assiduously supervised by presenter Elizabeth Andoh, who instructed the attending chefs on some basic principles of Japanese cuisine (five colors, five tastes, five methods of preparation).
Then there was a cooking demonstration with accompanying tastings by “iron chef” Masaharu Morimoto. Next was that reception in which Kevin the new ad salesman displayed his gallantry and I ate cheese and drank Tennessee whisky.
I switched to scotch for the pre-Hot-Concepts-awards cocktail party — I think because the bartender, Vichai, was Thai, and Chivas Regal, the favorite drink of Bangkok’s Sino-Thai middle class, was in plain view.
By the way, the bartender on the previous night, Boonsong, also was Thai.
Of course I dialed back to wine for dinner and then repaired to X Bar again, which Richard and I think some others managed to close down at 2.
My point is that there’s a reason I hadn’t been able to check out more Los Angeles restaurants.
Richard and I checked out Pink Taco the next day after our meeting with the British restaurateurs (I had the signature pink tacos, He had a salad and pork tacos), and then I checked e-mail and lay down for half an hour before going to visit my old college friend Matt Shapo (scroll down to the previous blog entry if you want a refresher on Matt), his wife Jenn and their two-year-old son Evan, who enjoyed giving me his version of high fives.
Matt took me back to the hotel, I put on a tie and sport coat and headed downstairs to the Taste of LA, where I finally met our new Tampa correspondent, Catherine Russo Cobb. She was a bit shy and tentative, but that’s fair enough, really. She’s also bright, dismissive of shallowness and an avid runner.
Good old Jamie Peters, who worked at NRN before moving to Memphis to work at a publication at the university there, now lives in Los Angeles, and editor-in-chief Ellen Koteff brought him to our party. He has an MBA now and is doing PR or marketing or something for Mattel. He seems the same — baby-faced, quick-witted, funny and just a bit aloof.
I made a reference to C&C Music Factory — I think I said “I got the power” or something like that — and he wondered if perhaps the band performing at Taste of LA could do a slow-jazz rendition of that song. I said I’d prefer that they try “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).”
So my evening was full, my day complete, when Ellen Hartman asked me to dinner, but I realized I had not yet eaten enough from the trough that is LA.
And so we went to the Concierge Greg.
I was just settling into my Sidecar and Ellen into her Lucques Gimlet, when our table was ready.
“I want to eat out with you more often,” Ellen said.
(Fade out to a C&C Music Factory song of your choice).
What I ate at Lucques:
last-of-the-season figs with burrata, James’ arugula and crushed pistachios
duck leg braised in red wine with kabocha squash, toasted pepitas and grilled bacon (I also sampled Ellen’s Alaskan halibut and clam stew with artichokes, potato, sherry and almond aioli)
Concord grape and walnut buckle with vanilla ice cream and crème fraîche
I drank a glass of 2004 Château Perray Jouannet from Anjou in France’s Loire Valley.
“Is this the lovely Nina? It’s Greg from the Century Plaza, I have my super-VIP of the evening.”
I sink a little in my chair as Concierge Greg works his magic. I will wonder later how much of this show is genuine schmoozing of Nina and how much of it is for my benefit, but for now I just want it to be over.
“I know … I understand. Yes but if you could fit him in. He’s the food editor of Restaurant News. I told him about Lucques and he’s very interested in visiting.”
That was only partly true. I already knew of Lucques, although it wasn’t top-of-mind. I’d really wanted to check out Craft, but it’s not serving dinner on Sundays yet.
But I’d enjoyed hearing chef-restaurateur Suzanne Goin speak in Aspen. I’d be happy to check out one of her Sunday dinners. But “very interested” in visiting? Greg was taking poetic license. Then again the language of a concierge is poetic in a way, and whether Greg was actually sweet-talking Nina or merely nursing my ego while managing my expectations — setting me up for a long wait before being seated — it was effective.
“He’ll wait at the bar and have a Sidecar until you can fit him in,” Greg continued, mapping out my next steps of the evening.
I don’t like pulling strings to get restaurant reservations. It’s unjournalistic and, frankly, undignified.
But to ask the concierge of your hotel with help for reservations is perfectly reasonable. To give him your business card so he can remember your name — well, okay, if it’s a business card from the Daily Variety of restaurant trade magazines, and if that magazine happens to be hosting a conference at the concierge’s hotel, at which hundreds of attendees have booked rooms, that’s pulling strings.
Oh well.
I wasn’t even planning on going out to dinner last night. Our Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators conference, MUFSO, had started that evening with Taste of Los Angeles, a reception at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza’s reflecting pools at which a bunch of local restaurants were dishing up their specialties. As food editor I had to attend.
In fact, the Culinary R&D conference had ended the night before, on Saturday. I and our two executive editors, Richard Martin and Robin Lee Allen, had spent the morning meeting with a dozen-and-a-half restaurant operators from the United Kingdom who were interested in learning about foodservice trends in the United States. We were joined by Jeff Sinelli, the young CEO of Which Wich, a sandwich chain based in Dallas who had just won a Hot Concepts award from us and who was providing a restaurant operator’s perspective for our British visitors.
Jeff had also won a Hot Concepts award several years ago for his Genghis Grill, which he then flipped and started Which Wich. I’m pretty sure he’s not yet 40 years old.
He’s also 6'5", which might be irrelevant, but I, being 5'3.5", find it fascinating.
But my point is that if I weren’t going to attend Taste of LA, I could have flown out that afternoon; I wasn’t assigned to cover anything at MUFSO.
If I’m going to attend, I’m going to try as much of the food as is reasonable, and possibly more.
But publicist Ellen Hartman had no dinner plans and she wanted some, and we did have legitimate things to discuss about many of her clients. Besides, I was feeling bad that during my four days in LA I had only managed to visit Grace, Pinkberry (which we have in New York anyway), Pink Taco and In-and-Out Burger. I had not been a very intrepid trend-spotter.
But I’d had duties to perform at Culinary R&D, which is a full-on day-and-a-half of relentless activity.
Rehearsal started later than I thought it would on Friday, however, so my boss Pam Parseghian and I hopped into a taxi to go to In-and-Out Burger, because I’d never been. I had one of those secret off-the-menu items — the one with sautéed onions. But that night, after Nancy Kruse’s keynote State of the Plate speech and a cooking demonstration by Japonais executive chef Gene Kato, we had a reception at which the conference’s 15 sponsors all were serving food made from their products. I had to go, and I had to try as many items as I could manage (I managed 14).
So I was full, and besides it seemed important to stay in the hotel and bond with my colleagues based in places other than New York.
“X Bar,” said Jesse Parziale, who’s on our event planning staff and who had been working hard while following the progress back in Tampa of his daughter’s pinkeye.
I met our new ad-sales guy, Kevin McKay, recently of another restaurant trade magazine. He’s a gallant fellow, the type with the presence of mind to remove his suit jacket to drape it around the shoulders of a woman shivering in the early autumn air of Los Angeles at twilight. He did just that during the Saturday closing reception of Culinary R&D.
He showed me pictures of his kids, the (fraternal) twin boys Jack and Michael (Jack’s the jock, Michael’s more of an intellectual), age 5, 4-year-old Tess, and Ryan, who’s pushing 3.
Lunch the next day was the same format as dinner the night before. Then came the presentations on Japanese food, which included the tasting of four types of miso followed by the sampling of four miso preparations, assiduously supervised by presenter Elizabeth Andoh, who instructed the attending chefs on some basic principles of Japanese cuisine (five colors, five tastes, five methods of preparation).
Then there was a cooking demonstration with accompanying tastings by “iron chef” Masaharu Morimoto. Next was that reception in which Kevin the new ad salesman displayed his gallantry and I ate cheese and drank Tennessee whisky.
I switched to scotch for the pre-Hot-Concepts-awards cocktail party — I think because the bartender, Vichai, was Thai, and Chivas Regal, the favorite drink of Bangkok’s Sino-Thai middle class, was in plain view.
By the way, the bartender on the previous night, Boonsong, also was Thai.
Of course I dialed back to wine for dinner and then repaired to X Bar again, which Richard and I think some others managed to close down at 2.
My point is that there’s a reason I hadn’t been able to check out more Los Angeles restaurants.
Richard and I checked out Pink Taco the next day after our meeting with the British restaurateurs (I had the signature pink tacos, He had a salad and pork tacos), and then I checked e-mail and lay down for half an hour before going to visit my old college friend Matt Shapo (scroll down to the previous blog entry if you want a refresher on Matt), his wife Jenn and their two-year-old son Evan, who enjoyed giving me his version of high fives.
Matt took me back to the hotel, I put on a tie and sport coat and headed downstairs to the Taste of LA, where I finally met our new Tampa correspondent, Catherine Russo Cobb. She was a bit shy and tentative, but that’s fair enough, really. She’s also bright, dismissive of shallowness and an avid runner.
Good old Jamie Peters, who worked at NRN before moving to Memphis to work at a publication at the university there, now lives in Los Angeles, and editor-in-chief Ellen Koteff brought him to our party. He has an MBA now and is doing PR or marketing or something for Mattel. He seems the same — baby-faced, quick-witted, funny and just a bit aloof.
I made a reference to C&C Music Factory — I think I said “I got the power” or something like that — and he wondered if perhaps the band performing at Taste of LA could do a slow-jazz rendition of that song. I said I’d prefer that they try “Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).”
So my evening was full, my day complete, when Ellen Hartman asked me to dinner, but I realized I had not yet eaten enough from the trough that is LA.
And so we went to the Concierge Greg.
I was just settling into my Sidecar and Ellen into her Lucques Gimlet, when our table was ready.
“I want to eat out with you more often,” Ellen said.
(Fade out to a C&C Music Factory song of your choice).
What I ate at Lucques:
last-of-the-season figs with burrata, James’ arugula and crushed pistachios
duck leg braised in red wine with kabocha squash, toasted pepitas and grilled bacon (I also sampled Ellen’s Alaskan halibut and clam stew with artichokes, potato, sherry and almond aioli)
Concord grape and walnut buckle with vanilla ice cream and crème fraîche
I drank a glass of 2004 Château Perray Jouannet from Anjou in France’s Loire Valley.
Friday, September 28, 2007
why my commas go where they do
September 28
I’m in Los Angeles for Culinary R&D, a conference that Nation’s Restaurant News holds for corporate chefs at chain restaurants. I arrived a day early, yesterday, to run through the presentation I have to give and settle in before the conference starts this afternoon.
Coming early also gave me a chance to catch up with my old friend Matt Shapo.
Matt and I were co-features editors at The Tufts Daily long, long ago in the mid-1980s. We entertained the rest of the staff by engaging in witty banter while editing things. We had different editing and writing styles. Matt would take commas out and I would put them back in and probably add some more, or vice-versa, depending on who saw the article first. Matt taught me a looser style of writing, so that when I was editing stories in Bangkok, I would take commas out that Dave Peters — a brilliant Anglo-Icelandic Canadian with a certain penchant for order, who also was my immediate superior — would then put back in.
Dave is now a consultant of some sort in Toronto, and Matt is in charge of the web site for All Access, a trade magazine for the music industry. You might also recall that his wife, Jenn Saltzman, is the niece of former New York Daily News food writer Liz Forgang, making Liz and me friends-in-law.
Matt and Jenn have a two-year-old named Evan whom I hope to meet on Sunday, but yesterday the babysitter canceled so Matt and I ended up going out alone. We ate at Grace, partly because chef-partner Neal Fraser is giving a presentation at Culinary R&D tomorrow.
Matt had pumpkin gnocchi followed by diver scallops in matsutake mushroom broth and I had a warm autumn fruit salad (figs, persimmons, pomegranate etc.) with lentils, mizuna and curry dressing, followed by braised pork shank with garlic rapini, smoked shallot & chorizo home fries in a cider sage sauce. I drank a glass of 2005 Château Soucherie, a Cabernet Franc from France’s Loire Valley.
We had huckleberry donuts for dessert, and ordered a chocolate hazelnut torte to take home for Jenn, because it’s very important to be kind to your friends’ spouses.
Grace is on the cutting edge of water service. They use a reverse-osmosis process to make their own still and sparkling water, for which they charge $2.50 a person. Matt and I sampled that, too.
I’m in Los Angeles for Culinary R&D, a conference that Nation’s Restaurant News holds for corporate chefs at chain restaurants. I arrived a day early, yesterday, to run through the presentation I have to give and settle in before the conference starts this afternoon.
Coming early also gave me a chance to catch up with my old friend Matt Shapo.
Matt and I were co-features editors at The Tufts Daily long, long ago in the mid-1980s. We entertained the rest of the staff by engaging in witty banter while editing things. We had different editing and writing styles. Matt would take commas out and I would put them back in and probably add some more, or vice-versa, depending on who saw the article first. Matt taught me a looser style of writing, so that when I was editing stories in Bangkok, I would take commas out that Dave Peters — a brilliant Anglo-Icelandic Canadian with a certain penchant for order, who also was my immediate superior — would then put back in.
Dave is now a consultant of some sort in Toronto, and Matt is in charge of the web site for All Access, a trade magazine for the music industry. You might also recall that his wife, Jenn Saltzman, is the niece of former New York Daily News food writer Liz Forgang, making Liz and me friends-in-law.
Matt and Jenn have a two-year-old named Evan whom I hope to meet on Sunday, but yesterday the babysitter canceled so Matt and I ended up going out alone. We ate at Grace, partly because chef-partner Neal Fraser is giving a presentation at Culinary R&D tomorrow.
Matt had pumpkin gnocchi followed by diver scallops in matsutake mushroom broth and I had a warm autumn fruit salad (figs, persimmons, pomegranate etc.) with lentils, mizuna and curry dressing, followed by braised pork shank with garlic rapini, smoked shallot & chorizo home fries in a cider sage sauce. I drank a glass of 2005 Château Soucherie, a Cabernet Franc from France’s Loire Valley.
We had huckleberry donuts for dessert, and ordered a chocolate hazelnut torte to take home for Jenn, because it’s very important to be kind to your friends’ spouses.
Grace is on the cutting edge of water service. They use a reverse-osmosis process to make their own still and sparkling water, for which they charge $2.50 a person. Matt and I sampled that, too.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
McCormick & Schmick’s
September 26
Remember Zoë from the blog entry below? Turns out she’s an Australian and had no idea who Gilbert Gottfried was.
I learned that this evening, when I once again ran into Michael Park, whom I had not met until Monday.
And who was with him but good old Sara Bonisteel, who last appeared in this blog long ago, when she became editor-in-chief of the New York Resident.
It turns out she hasn’t had that job for a year-and-a-half and now works for Fox News’ web site.
We were all at McCormick and Schmick’s for an event celebrating National Seafood Month, which is in October.
The seafood chain’s publicists had attracted a good array of journalists, very few of whom I’d met before, except of course for Michael and Sara. Arlyn Blake was there, too, no-doubt introducing people whom she thought should know each other.
Oh, and Marian Betancourt was there, too. She had just written a book with San Antonio chef Scott Cohen.
Actually, Scott Cohen is from the Northeast, but he’s been in San Antonio for the past several years. I’ve been using him as a source for years, but we’d never met until recently, when he was in town to cook at the Beard House and stopped by our offices.
That was arranged by his publicists, who e-mailed me that I’d like Scott as he’s “a real down-home boy.”
I’m not sure why someone would think that I, a New York-based food writer, would be interested in meeting someone because he’s “down home.” But of more interest to me is the fact that I knew perfectly well that Scott was a northeasterner and just slightly more down-home than Leona Helmsley. Why would a publicist pretend otherwise? I mean if you’re going to lie, lie about something that matters.
But of course I met with him anyway. We had a nice chat.
I also re-met Kara Brisson, whom I last knew as the event coordinator of Hurapan Kitchen, where I had my 40th birthday party last April (I haven’t written a blog entry about it yet; I’m not sure why, but it was a good party). Now she’s the local McCormick & Schmick’s beverage director.
Part of the party was a presentation by one of McCormick & Schmick’s chefs about cooking seafood at home. It was a terrific presentation briefly interrupted by ignorant people repeating the scare-mongering of those who for reasons I will likely never understand (that means you, Pew Charitable Trust) like to make people nervous about mercury and PCBs and so on in fish without pointing out that the medical community generally concurs that the dangers of those contaminants for most people (with the possible, possible exception of nursing mothers, pregnant women and small children) is outweighed by the health benefits of eating fish.
One pompous, ignorant woman brought up that something was wrong with the feed in farm-raised salmon.
I think she was trying to remember the half-truth that the feed is dyed red. In fact, the added coloring is a pigment called astaxanthin, a healthful antioxidant — let me repeat that, a healthful antioxidant — that occurs naturally in the krill that wild salmon eat, giving their flesh that pink color.
I would not condemn this woman as an idiot if I hadn’t actually met her later on as I was reciting for someone a tasty and easy mussel recipe: moules marinières (sauté shallots in butter, add cleaned mussels, chopped parsley, black pepper and white wine, cover and steam until the mussels open).
She insisted fleur de sel must be added.
Okay, it’s seafood and so probably doesn’t need salt, but even if it did, fleur de sel would be a waste as it’s its texture that makes it different from regular cheap salt, and that would be lost in the steaming.
I didn’t argue with her, but she disagreed with the guy I was talking to that mussels and French fries were a common combination in Paris, where she says she lived for three years.
So that’s incorrect thing, number 2.
I asked her to repeat her name and she spelled it for me in French, which, I mean, you can’t be more pompous.
She also declared unbidden that she was as good a cook as anyone in the room.
I didn’t challenge her on any of these facts, because why bother? But I have found that when people say that they’re the best at something, it usually means that they’re worse than average.
She wandered off soon enough, which was nice, and I ended up talking to editors I didn’t know from magazines like Parenting who were collecting quick tips on cooking for consumers. Nice people.
I closed out the evening talking to McCormick and Schmick’s publicists. They’d thrown a good party.
Remember Zoë from the blog entry below? Turns out she’s an Australian and had no idea who Gilbert Gottfried was.
I learned that this evening, when I once again ran into Michael Park, whom I had not met until Monday.
And who was with him but good old Sara Bonisteel, who last appeared in this blog long ago, when she became editor-in-chief of the New York Resident.
It turns out she hasn’t had that job for a year-and-a-half and now works for Fox News’ web site.
We were all at McCormick and Schmick’s for an event celebrating National Seafood Month, which is in October.
The seafood chain’s publicists had attracted a good array of journalists, very few of whom I’d met before, except of course for Michael and Sara. Arlyn Blake was there, too, no-doubt introducing people whom she thought should know each other.
Oh, and Marian Betancourt was there, too. She had just written a book with San Antonio chef Scott Cohen.
Actually, Scott Cohen is from the Northeast, but he’s been in San Antonio for the past several years. I’ve been using him as a source for years, but we’d never met until recently, when he was in town to cook at the Beard House and stopped by our offices.
That was arranged by his publicists, who e-mailed me that I’d like Scott as he’s “a real down-home boy.”
I’m not sure why someone would think that I, a New York-based food writer, would be interested in meeting someone because he’s “down home.” But of more interest to me is the fact that I knew perfectly well that Scott was a northeasterner and just slightly more down-home than Leona Helmsley. Why would a publicist pretend otherwise? I mean if you’re going to lie, lie about something that matters.
But of course I met with him anyway. We had a nice chat.
I also re-met Kara Brisson, whom I last knew as the event coordinator of Hurapan Kitchen, where I had my 40th birthday party last April (I haven’t written a blog entry about it yet; I’m not sure why, but it was a good party). Now she’s the local McCormick & Schmick’s beverage director.
Part of the party was a presentation by one of McCormick & Schmick’s chefs about cooking seafood at home. It was a terrific presentation briefly interrupted by ignorant people repeating the scare-mongering of those who for reasons I will likely never understand (that means you, Pew Charitable Trust) like to make people nervous about mercury and PCBs and so on in fish without pointing out that the medical community generally concurs that the dangers of those contaminants for most people (with the possible, possible exception of nursing mothers, pregnant women and small children) is outweighed by the health benefits of eating fish.
One pompous, ignorant woman brought up that something was wrong with the feed in farm-raised salmon.
I think she was trying to remember the half-truth that the feed is dyed red. In fact, the added coloring is a pigment called astaxanthin, a healthful antioxidant — let me repeat that, a healthful antioxidant — that occurs naturally in the krill that wild salmon eat, giving their flesh that pink color.
I would not condemn this woman as an idiot if I hadn’t actually met her later on as I was reciting for someone a tasty and easy mussel recipe: moules marinières (sauté shallots in butter, add cleaned mussels, chopped parsley, black pepper and white wine, cover and steam until the mussels open).
She insisted fleur de sel must be added.
Okay, it’s seafood and so probably doesn’t need salt, but even if it did, fleur de sel would be a waste as it’s its texture that makes it different from regular cheap salt, and that would be lost in the steaming.
I didn’t argue with her, but she disagreed with the guy I was talking to that mussels and French fries were a common combination in Paris, where she says she lived for three years.
So that’s incorrect thing, number 2.
I asked her to repeat her name and she spelled it for me in French, which, I mean, you can’t be more pompous.
She also declared unbidden that she was as good a cook as anyone in the room.
I didn’t challenge her on any of these facts, because why bother? But I have found that when people say that they’re the best at something, it usually means that they’re worse than average.
She wandered off soon enough, which was nice, and I ended up talking to editors I didn’t know from magazines like Parenting who were collecting quick tips on cooking for consumers. Nice people.
I closed out the evening talking to McCormick and Schmick’s publicists. They’d thrown a good party.
Zarela turns 20
September 24
This evening I went to the 20th anniversary celebration of Zarela, a regional Mexican restaurant in Midtown East.
It was a bad night for parties in Midtown East, because today was also the opening day for the United Nations General Assembly, which also is in Midtown East. So nearby streets were closed as dignitaries’ motorcades zoomed by, sirens blazing, snarling traffic and annoying everybody.
It sounds cool to have the U.N. headquarters in your city, making it kind of the capital of the world, but in fact it’s mostly irritating. When major sessions are going on there the static can be felt in the air nearby (or maybe it’s just the traffic). People are on edge. It feels sort of like when you have an itch between the lower part of your shoulder blades that you can’t reach.
But it was a good party, packed with high-quality people.
I arrived early, but Gilbert Gottfried already was installed on a banquette along the southern wall, talking to an entourage.
I chatted with our hostess, Zarela Martinez, and managed to stick my foot in my mouth as I wondered aloud about the possibility of reproducing authentic food outside of where it originated.
She said it was most certainly possible and the only thing that can’t yet be imported from Mexico is the corn.
“Haven’t you read my books?” she asked.
I haven’t. She disapproved, but nicely.
I congratulated both of her sons separately on the anniversary.
“It’s my mother’s restaurant,” each one of them said.
“Just say thank you,” I said to her son Aaron Sanchez, who I think categorizes me as one of those people he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to know but can’t quite place. That’s fair, he’s a somewhat famous, fairly hot celebrity chef, and that means he has a lot of people to keep track of.
Still, I asked him how things were going at Centrico, the Tribeca restaurant where he’s chef.
Things are good, he said, owner Drew Nieporent’s a great boss. Now if they could just convince more people who live north of Canal Street that monsters don’t live south of Canal, they’d be all set.
Tiny Dr. Ruth Westheimer — you remember, the sex specialist from the 1980s — arrived shortly before the buffet opened. And I met Saveur founder and former editor-in-chief Coleman Andrews.
Zarela introduced me to him and I was reminded once again that meeting famous people is useless if you don’t have both the inclination and the opportunity to have meaningful conversation.
Still, it made it into my blog, didn’t it?
Mostly I hung out with people from Epicurious — Megan Steintrager, her colleague Sarah Kagan, Michael Park, a freelancer who works for them sometimes.
We camped near the buffet and I mostly chatted with Sarah about New England and how great it is (she grew up in Redding, which apparently is the most rural part of Fairfield County, Conn., and has family in that crazy state of Rhode Island).
Shortly after we sat down, we were joined by Michael’s friend Zoë.
What I ate:
Appetizers
Mariquitas con Salsa Macha
Green plantain chips with peanuts, chiltipín chiles, garlic and olive oil
Picada con Salsa Cruda
Corn tart with purée of avocado, tomatillo and chile serrano topped with Mexican
cream and queso fresco
Taquitos de Cabeza
Corn tortilla with shredded veal cheeks garnished with pickled onion and jalapeño.
Ensalada de Camarones
Shrimp salad of fresh shrimp, avocado, cilantro, jalapeño and onion.
Served with lime and oil vinaigrette.
Longaniza Verde
Green Mexican sausage with chile limón sauce
Platos Fuertes
Makúm de Repollo
Pork shoulder with white cabbage, tomato, habenero chile and sour orange
Pollo Con Chile Seco
Chicken drumettes with dried chile, fresh orange juice and flavored with vanilla
Casserola de Huitlacoche
Layered crepes with huitlacoche, Mexican cream and cheese.
Served with ranchero sauce.
Ensalada de Chayote
Mexican squash with cilantro, olive oil and chile Serrano
Arroz con Crema
Rice baked with sour cream, white cheddar cheese, poblanos and corn.
This evening I went to the 20th anniversary celebration of Zarela, a regional Mexican restaurant in Midtown East.
It was a bad night for parties in Midtown East, because today was also the opening day for the United Nations General Assembly, which also is in Midtown East. So nearby streets were closed as dignitaries’ motorcades zoomed by, sirens blazing, snarling traffic and annoying everybody.
It sounds cool to have the U.N. headquarters in your city, making it kind of the capital of the world, but in fact it’s mostly irritating. When major sessions are going on there the static can be felt in the air nearby (or maybe it’s just the traffic). People are on edge. It feels sort of like when you have an itch between the lower part of your shoulder blades that you can’t reach.
But it was a good party, packed with high-quality people.
I arrived early, but Gilbert Gottfried already was installed on a banquette along the southern wall, talking to an entourage.
I chatted with our hostess, Zarela Martinez, and managed to stick my foot in my mouth as I wondered aloud about the possibility of reproducing authentic food outside of where it originated.
She said it was most certainly possible and the only thing that can’t yet be imported from Mexico is the corn.
“Haven’t you read my books?” she asked.
I haven’t. She disapproved, but nicely.
I congratulated both of her sons separately on the anniversary.
“It’s my mother’s restaurant,” each one of them said.
“Just say thank you,” I said to her son Aaron Sanchez, who I think categorizes me as one of those people he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to know but can’t quite place. That’s fair, he’s a somewhat famous, fairly hot celebrity chef, and that means he has a lot of people to keep track of.
Still, I asked him how things were going at Centrico, the Tribeca restaurant where he’s chef.
Things are good, he said, owner Drew Nieporent’s a great boss. Now if they could just convince more people who live north of Canal Street that monsters don’t live south of Canal, they’d be all set.
Tiny Dr. Ruth Westheimer — you remember, the sex specialist from the 1980s — arrived shortly before the buffet opened. And I met Saveur founder and former editor-in-chief Coleman Andrews.
Zarela introduced me to him and I was reminded once again that meeting famous people is useless if you don’t have both the inclination and the opportunity to have meaningful conversation.
Still, it made it into my blog, didn’t it?
Mostly I hung out with people from Epicurious — Megan Steintrager, her colleague Sarah Kagan, Michael Park, a freelancer who works for them sometimes.
We camped near the buffet and I mostly chatted with Sarah about New England and how great it is (she grew up in Redding, which apparently is the most rural part of Fairfield County, Conn., and has family in that crazy state of Rhode Island).
Shortly after we sat down, we were joined by Michael’s friend Zoë.
What I ate:
Appetizers
Mariquitas con Salsa Macha
Green plantain chips with peanuts, chiltipín chiles, garlic and olive oil
Picada con Salsa Cruda
Corn tart with purée of avocado, tomatillo and chile serrano topped with Mexican
cream and queso fresco
Taquitos de Cabeza
Corn tortilla with shredded veal cheeks garnished with pickled onion and jalapeño.
Ensalada de Camarones
Shrimp salad of fresh shrimp, avocado, cilantro, jalapeño and onion.
Served with lime and oil vinaigrette.
Longaniza Verde
Green Mexican sausage with chile limón sauce
Platos Fuertes
Makúm de Repollo
Pork shoulder with white cabbage, tomato, habenero chile and sour orange
Pollo Con Chile Seco
Chicken drumettes with dried chile, fresh orange juice and flavored with vanilla
Casserola de Huitlacoche
Layered crepes with huitlacoche, Mexican cream and cheese.
Served with ranchero sauce.
Ensalada de Chayote
Mexican squash with cilantro, olive oil and chile Serrano
Arroz con Crema
Rice baked with sour cream, white cheddar cheese, poblanos and corn.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Listen to me again
September 25
Hong Kong satellite radio guy Neil Chase has posted his second interview of me. Here it is. It’s interview #25. Click on the “more” button to just listen to the interview. If you want to listen to it in context, click on “Listen to the whole programme.”
Oh, British spelling. So many double consonants and e’s.
Hong Kong satellite radio guy Neil Chase has posted his second interview of me. Here it is. It’s interview #25. Click on the “more” button to just listen to the interview. If you want to listen to it in context, click on “Listen to the whole programme.”
Oh, British spelling. So many double consonants and e’s.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Primehouse, Singaporeans and the second bottled-water event in a week
September 21
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Greg Lindsay is one smart bastard.
We were both at last night’s opening party of Primehouse New York. That made sense since since we met during a press trip to meet the progenitor of Primehouse’s meat.
Greg’s one of those people who can follow a conversation on any topic, participate intelligently in that conversation and probably add something new to it without seeming like a smartass. It’s a quality we all should cultivate.
Now Greg’s working on a book about airports and how they are like the railroads of the 19th century. Spurring development wherever they crop up.
Somehow, as I sampled a couple of Eben Klemm’s cocktails — a drink that was like a Manhattan, but gin-based, and another made from vodka, blackberry and sage — the topic of the Bangkok airport, an ongoing project, came up and Greg talked about the corruption surrounding it. I pointed to the airport of my hometown of Denver, and how it was built on a tornado-prone flood plain in the middle of nowhere on land owned by old monied Denver families — something that everyone in the city seems to know and that no one seems to mind, even though it’s a display of corruption every bit as profound as what can be found in Bangkok.
The notion that widespread corruption only exists in developing countries astounds and annoys me, and yet people assert it a lot.
But Greg didn't. Instead he went into fascinating detail about developments around DIA (Denver International Airport) and also about the sociology of people who had settled in the new housing developments where the old Denver airport, Stapleton, once stood.
When Greg was there he knocked on the doors of new homes that resembled Brooklyn brownstones and asked the people why they’d moved there.
Anyway, it should be a good book, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
And that was just stop #1 of the evening.
Remember how the other day I went to a cocktail party at Daniel sponsored by Evian and then heard from some visiting chefs from Singapore while I was having lunch with them at Nobu that Fiji water also was hosting a dinner party at Daniel?
I said that I hoped it was true, and I e-mailed a Fiji representative to see if it was true. I just meant to check the facts, but they asked me if I would like to attend that dinner.
“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t want to dine at Daniel, because i’m retarded.”
Oh wait, I’m not retarded, so of course I went from Primehouse to Daniel to take them up on their offer for dinner.
There I was with all the Singapore chefs with whom I’d had lunch at Nobu. They were still guests of the poultry and egg board, but Fiji wanted to have them for dinner at Daniel.
At lunch I’d sat between Milind Sovani, a chef from Bombay who lives in Singapore and owns a high-end restaurant called The Song of India, and Christophe Megel, the head of The Singapore Culinary Academy and Spice Garden, which has some sort of affiliation with Johnson & Wales. One of his school’s graduates will be externing at Daniel soon.
At dinner, I sat between chef agent, Tufts alumnus, self-proclamed decent poker player and all-around nice guy Jeff Allen, and a Singaporean chef by the name of Mr. Puk, who specializes in Chinese seafood. He was born in Singapore, but his ancestors were from Hainan Island, so we talked about that island’s most famous dish, Hainan Chicken, which I think has been perfected in Thailand, where it is called khao man gai.
The dish is poached chicken served with rice that is cooked in the poaching broth. A bowl of the broth is also served on the side. The Thais' addition is a chile-ginger sauce.
Daniel did not serve khao man gai. After sipping some 1999 Dom Pérignon, we had:
Pressed poulard and foie gras terrine ith black truffles, young turnip salad and port reduction
2003 Au Bon Climat “Hildegard” Chardonnay, Santa Maria Valley
Warm salad of sea scallop with matsutake mushroom, Meyer lemon confit and chive oil
2006 Au Bon Climat "Daniel" Chardonnay, Santa Barbara
Duo of striped bass, slow baked with Champagne sauce, and tuna-wrapped tartare with fried oyster
2004 Au bon Climat “Old World Rules” Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
Red king salmon baked in clay with roasted black mission figs and fennel confit
2005 Au Bon Climat “Le Bon Climat” Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
Wild Scottish grouse with foie gras “cromequis,” rutabaga-parsnip purée, Seckel pear and black currant jus
1998 Au Bon Climat “Knox Alexander” pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
Tahitian vanilla bavarois with mango-cilantro gelée and passion fruit-banana sorbet
2005 Au Bon Climat “One Hand Clapping” late harvest Pinot Blanc, Bien Nacido Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley
Chocolate sablé with Colombian coffee cream, coffee ganache and hazelnut-macadamia ice cream
Chocolates, Madeleines (of course) and petits fours.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, Greg Lindsay is one smart bastard.
We were both at last night’s opening party of Primehouse New York. That made sense since since we met during a press trip to meet the progenitor of Primehouse’s meat.
Greg’s one of those people who can follow a conversation on any topic, participate intelligently in that conversation and probably add something new to it without seeming like a smartass. It’s a quality we all should cultivate.
Now Greg’s working on a book about airports and how they are like the railroads of the 19th century. Spurring development wherever they crop up.
Somehow, as I sampled a couple of Eben Klemm’s cocktails — a drink that was like a Manhattan, but gin-based, and another made from vodka, blackberry and sage — the topic of the Bangkok airport, an ongoing project, came up and Greg talked about the corruption surrounding it. I pointed to the airport of my hometown of Denver, and how it was built on a tornado-prone flood plain in the middle of nowhere on land owned by old monied Denver families — something that everyone in the city seems to know and that no one seems to mind, even though it’s a display of corruption every bit as profound as what can be found in Bangkok.
The notion that widespread corruption only exists in developing countries astounds and annoys me, and yet people assert it a lot.
But Greg didn't. Instead he went into fascinating detail about developments around DIA (Denver International Airport) and also about the sociology of people who had settled in the new housing developments where the old Denver airport, Stapleton, once stood.
When Greg was there he knocked on the doors of new homes that resembled Brooklyn brownstones and asked the people why they’d moved there.
Anyway, it should be a good book, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
And that was just stop #1 of the evening.
Remember how the other day I went to a cocktail party at Daniel sponsored by Evian and then heard from some visiting chefs from Singapore while I was having lunch with them at Nobu that Fiji water also was hosting a dinner party at Daniel?
I said that I hoped it was true, and I e-mailed a Fiji representative to see if it was true. I just meant to check the facts, but they asked me if I would like to attend that dinner.
“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t want to dine at Daniel, because i’m retarded.”
Oh wait, I’m not retarded, so of course I went from Primehouse to Daniel to take them up on their offer for dinner.
There I was with all the Singapore chefs with whom I’d had lunch at Nobu. They were still guests of the poultry and egg board, but Fiji wanted to have them for dinner at Daniel.
At lunch I’d sat between Milind Sovani, a chef from Bombay who lives in Singapore and owns a high-end restaurant called The Song of India, and Christophe Megel, the head of The Singapore Culinary Academy and Spice Garden, which has some sort of affiliation with Johnson & Wales. One of his school’s graduates will be externing at Daniel soon.
At dinner, I sat between chef agent, Tufts alumnus, self-proclamed decent poker player and all-around nice guy Jeff Allen, and a Singaporean chef by the name of Mr. Puk, who specializes in Chinese seafood. He was born in Singapore, but his ancestors were from Hainan Island, so we talked about that island’s most famous dish, Hainan Chicken, which I think has been perfected in Thailand, where it is called khao man gai.
The dish is poached chicken served with rice that is cooked in the poaching broth. A bowl of the broth is also served on the side. The Thais' addition is a chile-ginger sauce.
Daniel did not serve khao man gai. After sipping some 1999 Dom Pérignon, we had:
Pressed poulard and foie gras terrine ith black truffles, young turnip salad and port reduction
2003 Au Bon Climat “Hildegard” Chardonnay, Santa Maria Valley
Warm salad of sea scallop with matsutake mushroom, Meyer lemon confit and chive oil
2006 Au Bon Climat "Daniel" Chardonnay, Santa Barbara
Duo of striped bass, slow baked with Champagne sauce, and tuna-wrapped tartare with fried oyster
2004 Au bon Climat “Old World Rules” Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
Red king salmon baked in clay with roasted black mission figs and fennel confit
2005 Au Bon Climat “Le Bon Climat” Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
Wild Scottish grouse with foie gras “cromequis,” rutabaga-parsnip purée, Seckel pear and black currant jus
1998 Au Bon Climat “Knox Alexander” pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley
Tahitian vanilla bavarois with mango-cilantro gelée and passion fruit-banana sorbet
2005 Au Bon Climat “One Hand Clapping” late harvest Pinot Blanc, Bien Nacido Vineyard, Santa Maria Valley
Chocolate sablé with Colombian coffee cream, coffee ganache and hazelnut-macadamia ice cream
Chocolates, Madeleines (of course) and petits fours.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
we have a lot to learn about Japanese food
September 20
“Thank you for come, I’m so appreciate!” my friend Shigeko Fuke said as I arrived at Ono last night, forgoing the big restaurant opening of the evening (it might have been BLT Market, I don’t remember because the New York restaurant scene in September is a blur, even as it’s happening) to attend The 2nd Fundraising Event for the Japanese Culinary and Cultural Association of America.
I think I met Shigeko and her husband Miguel Cardona five or six years ago at the relaunching of one of the dusty midsize Midtown hotels that get refurbished every once in awhile and throw a press party about it.
Somehow we’ve been friendly ever since. Because of Shigeko I have judged sushi competitions alongside chefs Daniel Boulud and Gabriel Kreuther, spoken to groups of visiting Japanese restaurateurs about food trends in New York, and appeared in the Japanese version of Playboy.
Playboy spelled my last name Thom instead of Thorn, but they really do look similar. As you would expect, I was not the centerfold, but an interviewee. I was recommending restaurants for visiting Japanese tourists.
So how could I turn down Shigeko’s invitation for dinner, especially as I’ll be moderating a talk on all things Japanese and foodish in LA next weekend.
Having sampled a sparkling sake and then switched to Asahi Select, I found myself in a conversation circle with Peacock Alley chef Cedric Tovar, who was sharing stories about his time in basic training in the French army. After that he cooked for the prime minister, so his year's service wasn’t so bad.
Then Lee Jones from Chefs Garden arrived and railed against those who insisted on using local produce whether it was any good or not. Naturally he would rail against that as his super-high-end produce is shipped nationwide. Lee was in town to talk to the Experimental Cuisine Collective about soil today. I tried to make it, but my job and a misbehaving computer foiled my attempts.
I did have time to speak to chef Andre Christopher of Pops For Champagne in Chicago, but he came to my office, which makes it easier. He showed me some photos of his food, one dish of which was garnished with Chefs Garden's super-expensive Mimo chives. Seeing the chives was like seeing an old friend.
Anyway, Lee and I sat at the same table, but I was between the charming food and travel writer Karen Tina and journalist and Iron Chef judge Akiko Katayama, whom you might recall arranged for me to visit Japan’s Niigata prefecture earlier this year.
What I ate and drank:
First course by Nobuo Fukuda of Sea Saw restaurant
Assorted sashimi plate:
Aji/grapefruit, avocado, ginger, yuzukosho, ponzu oil, white truffle oil
Sockeye salmon gravlax/soy roasted almonds, Pecorino-Romano cheese, basil oil, soy and balsamic reduction
Maguro akami/roasted beet purée and Pinot Noir reduction
Tako-ashi/small heirloom tomatoes, yuzu, shallots, wasabi aïoli, pink peppercorn, mozzarella cheese
Madai/ceviche-style miyoga, taro and shiso
Hirame/kobujima and yuzu
Otokoyama sake (tokubetsu junmaishu)
Second course by Kazuhiko Hashimoto of Ono:
Cold egg custard with sea urchin, nagaimo, white truffle-scented edamame soup, sea grapes and shiso bulb
Third course by Akio Saito of the Conrad Tokyo:
Overnight dried barracuda with pickled Daitokuji natto miso paste with grated radish, black vinegar and black rice
Steamed lobster with akatuchi shimeji mushroom, grilled chestnut, fried ginko and leaf-shaped sweet potato chip
Pine needle shaped fried thin wheat noodles with leaf-shaped ginger
Nanotuki organic junmai ginjo sake
Fourth course by takashi Yagihashi of Takashi Restaurant (which isn’t open yet but will be in Chicago):
Seared Washugyu New York strip and braised short ribs with confit Japanese eggplant and caramelized gobo
Taiheizan Kimoto sake (Junmai Kimoto)
Dessert by Kiyomi Toda-Burke and Sandra Palmer of Three Tarts:
Chocolate Bar/bruléed ganache with sansho caramel
Lychée Gelée with goji berries and tarragon
Black + Blonde/black sesame ice cream sandwich and miso blondie
Hanahato Kijoshu aged sake
Petit-fours by Chika Tillman of ChikaLicious
“Thank you for come, I’m so appreciate!” my friend Shigeko Fuke said as I arrived at Ono last night, forgoing the big restaurant opening of the evening (it might have been BLT Market, I don’t remember because the New York restaurant scene in September is a blur, even as it’s happening) to attend The 2nd Fundraising Event for the Japanese Culinary and Cultural Association of America.
I think I met Shigeko and her husband Miguel Cardona five or six years ago at the relaunching of one of the dusty midsize Midtown hotels that get refurbished every once in awhile and throw a press party about it.
Somehow we’ve been friendly ever since. Because of Shigeko I have judged sushi competitions alongside chefs Daniel Boulud and Gabriel Kreuther, spoken to groups of visiting Japanese restaurateurs about food trends in New York, and appeared in the Japanese version of Playboy.
Playboy spelled my last name Thom instead of Thorn, but they really do look similar. As you would expect, I was not the centerfold, but an interviewee. I was recommending restaurants for visiting Japanese tourists.
So how could I turn down Shigeko’s invitation for dinner, especially as I’ll be moderating a talk on all things Japanese and foodish in LA next weekend.
Having sampled a sparkling sake and then switched to Asahi Select, I found myself in a conversation circle with Peacock Alley chef Cedric Tovar, who was sharing stories about his time in basic training in the French army. After that he cooked for the prime minister, so his year's service wasn’t so bad.
Then Lee Jones from Chefs Garden arrived and railed against those who insisted on using local produce whether it was any good or not. Naturally he would rail against that as his super-high-end produce is shipped nationwide. Lee was in town to talk to the Experimental Cuisine Collective about soil today. I tried to make it, but my job and a misbehaving computer foiled my attempts.
I did have time to speak to chef Andre Christopher of Pops For Champagne in Chicago, but he came to my office, which makes it easier. He showed me some photos of his food, one dish of which was garnished with Chefs Garden's super-expensive Mimo chives. Seeing the chives was like seeing an old friend.
Anyway, Lee and I sat at the same table, but I was between the charming food and travel writer Karen Tina and journalist and Iron Chef judge Akiko Katayama, whom you might recall arranged for me to visit Japan’s Niigata prefecture earlier this year.
What I ate and drank:
First course by Nobuo Fukuda of Sea Saw restaurant
Assorted sashimi plate:
Aji/grapefruit, avocado, ginger, yuzukosho, ponzu oil, white truffle oil
Sockeye salmon gravlax/soy roasted almonds, Pecorino-Romano cheese, basil oil, soy and balsamic reduction
Maguro akami/roasted beet purée and Pinot Noir reduction
Tako-ashi/small heirloom tomatoes, yuzu, shallots, wasabi aïoli, pink peppercorn, mozzarella cheese
Madai/ceviche-style miyoga, taro and shiso
Hirame/kobujima and yuzu
Otokoyama sake (tokubetsu junmaishu)
Second course by Kazuhiko Hashimoto of Ono:
Cold egg custard with sea urchin, nagaimo, white truffle-scented edamame soup, sea grapes and shiso bulb
Third course by Akio Saito of the Conrad Tokyo:
Overnight dried barracuda with pickled Daitokuji natto miso paste with grated radish, black vinegar and black rice
Steamed lobster with akatuchi shimeji mushroom, grilled chestnut, fried ginko and leaf-shaped sweet potato chip
Pine needle shaped fried thin wheat noodles with leaf-shaped ginger
Nanotuki organic junmai ginjo sake
Fourth course by takashi Yagihashi of Takashi Restaurant (which isn’t open yet but will be in Chicago):
Seared Washugyu New York strip and braised short ribs with confit Japanese eggplant and caramelized gobo
Taiheizan Kimoto sake (Junmai Kimoto)
Dessert by Kiyomi Toda-Burke and Sandra Palmer of Three Tarts:
Chocolate Bar/bruléed ganache with sansho caramel
Lychée Gelée with goji berries and tarragon
Black + Blonde/black sesame ice cream sandwich and miso blondie
Hanahato Kijoshu aged sake
Petit-fours by Chika Tillman of ChikaLicious
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
It’s after Labor Day, so I must be insane
September 19
I meant to sto`p by the International Chefs Congress at some point over the past couple of days, but it proved to be impossible. I worked all day Monday but wanted to at least stop by the evening reception, but first it made sense to make an appearance at a reception in the Sutton Place home of Jan and Mitsuko Shrem, who own the Clos Pegase Winery in Napa and, it turns out, the best view of Midtown Manhattan and the East River I’ve ever seen.
I ran into Crain's New York writer Louise Kramer on the way to the party and we caught up during the ride to the 32nd floor (don’t pass up time to chat in elevators; time is money).
Publicist Michael Gitter opened the door for us and I looked to the left to see a painting of a woman in profile, but with two eyes.
And I said to myself, “No, that’s not a Picasso. Are you crazy? It’s probably just a Braque or something."
But Braque did cubist stuff, not two-eyed profiles. Of course it was a picasso. I felt like a bumpkin.
Then I glanced past the painting to the windows and saw the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Sutton Place and the rest of New York south of 58th Street stretching gloriously before me, the stately East River flowing by its side.
The East River is, too, stately. Don’t be such a snob. And in my view were at least two of the engineering triumphs that span its width to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn.
I’d meant just to pop my head in, sip a glass of wine, say "hi, hi," and go on either to the Chefs Congress reception or The Tasting Room, whose owners were celebrating the restaurant’s first anniversary in its new space. But as Jan Shrem began to hold court and the hors d'oeuvre from Le Périgord were passed, I realized that I was where I needed to be for the evening.
So the press party at The Tasting Room was over by the time I got there, but the family-and-friends party was going on and I ended up staying for that.
Wine was being served, but the food was gone, so I went from there to a Chinese hole-in-the-wall for noodles and got home at around 1 a.m.
I checked my e-mail and learned that the culinary pages in Nation’s Restaurant News would be closing on Tuesday instead of the usual Wednesday.
So the Chefs Congress for Tuesday was out and I was actually at my desk at 8:45 Tuesday morning.
If you don’t work with me, you don’t know how rare a thing it is to see me sitting at my desk at 8:45 a.m. (8:45 p.m. is less rare), but it had to be done.
It had to be done partly because I’d RSVPed for a lunch at the ‘21’ Club (I don’t know why the 21 is in single quotation marks, but it always is) featuring Bob Waggoner from Charleston, whom I hadn’t seen in awhile.
My table was awesome, with Regina Schrambling and Arlyn Blake and Laurie Woolever all seated there.
Laurie was at the Shrem’s party, too. All the more reason to stay.
I still had pages to read at 6:30 that night, but there was a lull in activity in the office, so I popped up to Daniel, which happily is just half a mile away from NRN’s offices, for a party that Evian was throwing.
They’d sent me an invitation in one of those fancy wooden boxes in which good alcohol is often sold, which was a mistake: If you’re going to send someone a fancy wooden box of the sort in which good alcohol is often sold, there’d better be good alcohol in it or the recipient will be disappointed.
Still, I went to the party (free hors d'oeuvre at Daniel? Of course I’ll go), just as I would have if they'd just e-mailed me an invitation.
The invitation in the box said the hors d’oeuvre would be infused with Evian, and I asked Daniel about that as I didn't know what that meant, and he said that they had planned to cook some of the appetizers in Evian, but ultimately he decided to use regular water, as Evian, as he said it, is for drinking, "not for playing."
I was still in the office at around 9 p.m., and decided that enough was enough and I should go home rather than to any International Chefs Congress parties, especially since I had lunch today at Nobu with a bunch of visiting chefs from Singapore who were being hosted by the American Egg Board. I’m not exactly sure what I was doing there, but I enjoyed myself, and was told from one of the chefs that Daniel was hosting a Fiji Water party later this week.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope it is.
I meant to sto`p by the International Chefs Congress at some point over the past couple of days, but it proved to be impossible. I worked all day Monday but wanted to at least stop by the evening reception, but first it made sense to make an appearance at a reception in the Sutton Place home of Jan and Mitsuko Shrem, who own the Clos Pegase Winery in Napa and, it turns out, the best view of Midtown Manhattan and the East River I’ve ever seen.
I ran into Crain's New York writer Louise Kramer on the way to the party and we caught up during the ride to the 32nd floor (don’t pass up time to chat in elevators; time is money).
Publicist Michael Gitter opened the door for us and I looked to the left to see a painting of a woman in profile, but with two eyes.
And I said to myself, “No, that’s not a Picasso. Are you crazy? It’s probably just a Braque or something."
But Braque did cubist stuff, not two-eyed profiles. Of course it was a picasso. I felt like a bumpkin.
Then I glanced past the painting to the windows and saw the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, Sutton Place and the rest of New York south of 58th Street stretching gloriously before me, the stately East River flowing by its side.
The East River is, too, stately. Don’t be such a snob. And in my view were at least two of the engineering triumphs that span its width to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn.
I’d meant just to pop my head in, sip a glass of wine, say "hi, hi," and go on either to the Chefs Congress reception or The Tasting Room, whose owners were celebrating the restaurant’s first anniversary in its new space. But as Jan Shrem began to hold court and the hors d'oeuvre from Le Périgord were passed, I realized that I was where I needed to be for the evening.
So the press party at The Tasting Room was over by the time I got there, but the family-and-friends party was going on and I ended up staying for that.
Wine was being served, but the food was gone, so I went from there to a Chinese hole-in-the-wall for noodles and got home at around 1 a.m.
I checked my e-mail and learned that the culinary pages in Nation’s Restaurant News would be closing on Tuesday instead of the usual Wednesday.
So the Chefs Congress for Tuesday was out and I was actually at my desk at 8:45 Tuesday morning.
If you don’t work with me, you don’t know how rare a thing it is to see me sitting at my desk at 8:45 a.m. (8:45 p.m. is less rare), but it had to be done.
It had to be done partly because I’d RSVPed for a lunch at the ‘21’ Club (I don’t know why the 21 is in single quotation marks, but it always is) featuring Bob Waggoner from Charleston, whom I hadn’t seen in awhile.
My table was awesome, with Regina Schrambling and Arlyn Blake and Laurie Woolever all seated there.
Laurie was at the Shrem’s party, too. All the more reason to stay.
I still had pages to read at 6:30 that night, but there was a lull in activity in the office, so I popped up to Daniel, which happily is just half a mile away from NRN’s offices, for a party that Evian was throwing.
They’d sent me an invitation in one of those fancy wooden boxes in which good alcohol is often sold, which was a mistake: If you’re going to send someone a fancy wooden box of the sort in which good alcohol is often sold, there’d better be good alcohol in it or the recipient will be disappointed.
Still, I went to the party (free hors d'oeuvre at Daniel? Of course I’ll go), just as I would have if they'd just e-mailed me an invitation.
The invitation in the box said the hors d’oeuvre would be infused with Evian, and I asked Daniel about that as I didn't know what that meant, and he said that they had planned to cook some of the appetizers in Evian, but ultimately he decided to use regular water, as Evian, as he said it, is for drinking, "not for playing."
I was still in the office at around 9 p.m., and decided that enough was enough and I should go home rather than to any International Chefs Congress parties, especially since I had lunch today at Nobu with a bunch of visiting chefs from Singapore who were being hosted by the American Egg Board. I’m not exactly sure what I was doing there, but I enjoyed myself, and was told from one of the chefs that Daniel was hosting a Fiji Water party later this week.
I don’t know if that’s true, but I hope it is.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Farmer Daniel (no, not that farmer Daniel)
September 18
New Yorkers might remember Daniel Orr either as the executive chef of La Grenouille or, later, as the executive chef of Guastavino, Terence Conran’s failed experiment under the Queensboro Bridge.
Guastavino was open for quite a few years, but it never really found its way, and Daniel eventually moved to the tropics, where he worked in Antigua for a time.
He has now returned to his native Indiana to open a local-produce-oriented restaurant in Bloomington, called Farm.
He grew up in nearby Columbus, Ind.
I reported this fact in Nation’s Restaurant News a little over a month ago, but I just got a press release reminding me of it, so I thought I’d pass the news on.
But you might consider subscribing to NRN. It’s a good read.
New Yorkers might remember Daniel Orr either as the executive chef of La Grenouille or, later, as the executive chef of Guastavino, Terence Conran’s failed experiment under the Queensboro Bridge.
Guastavino was open for quite a few years, but it never really found its way, and Daniel eventually moved to the tropics, where he worked in Antigua for a time.
He has now returned to his native Indiana to open a local-produce-oriented restaurant in Bloomington, called Farm.
He grew up in nearby Columbus, Ind.
I reported this fact in Nation’s Restaurant News a little over a month ago, but I just got a press release reminding me of it, so I thought I’d pass the news on.
But you might consider subscribing to NRN. It’s a good read.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Foxwoods
September 16
“Welcome to Aspen East!” one of the publicists for the Foxwoods second annual Food & Wine Festival said as she greeted people on Friday.
You gotta love plucky marketing.
The event, like Aspen, was something of a reunion, and I had yet to put down my bags when I ran into Steve Shipley from Johnson & Wales and minor celebrity chef Michel Nischan (minor but as warm and good-natured as any chef I know).
Here he is (on the right), with chef Jean-Pierre Vuillermet.
But Aspen’s Food & Wine Magazine Classic is the mother of American food and wine festivals, and the town itself is a luxurious resort in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
Foxwoods is a gigantic casino for the masses. It’s in the pretty countryside of the Mashantucket-Pequot nation’s section of Connecticut, and it was the largest casino in the world until recently, when a bigger one opened in Macao, but it ain’t Aspen.
Still, the turnout wasn’t bad. Exhibitors in the banquet hall where the “grand tasting” was held said attenance was way up from last year. And the event did draw some big-name celebrities in the food world.
I heard two things over and over again: “Mutton Man!” from Grub Street’s Josh Ozersky, who calls me that for reasons lost to history; and “This is off the record!” from chef agent Scott Feldman.
Scott is my networking role model. He’s a genius and, it turns out, old high school friends with my freshman year college roommate, Michael Yudell, who now is a professor of public health at Drexel. Roslyn, N.Y., raised some good people. Better than you’d expect, really.
Not off the record and from Scott: Rocco Laterzo no longer works for American Express.
I had my first dinner of the festival at Al Dente, an old school American-style Italianish restaurant, with journalists, mostly travel writers, whom I hadn’t met before, except for Andrew Linick of The Practical Gourmet, whom I’m pretty sure I met many years ago at the opening of Lundy’s in Times Square (which closed shortly thereafter).
I had arugula salad with endive, lemon and olive oil topped with Parmesan cheese, followed by halibut sautéed with lemon, capers and shaved fennel, while sharing life stories with Los Angeles-based freelance writer Earl Heath and his wife (I think wife; I don't really know) Rita. He’s from nearby Waterford, Conn., and she’s from Wyoming, so we had amusing high-altitude stories to share.
Then at the afterparty that night I reconnected with some more New England chefs, like Andy Husbands, the chef of Tremont 647 in Boston, whom I’d met some years ago when he was one of the “celebrated chefs” of the National Pork Producers Council, a year-long gig that by all accounts is a lot of fun.
Here’s Andy (on the right) with restaurant consultant Ed Doyle
Michael Schlow, one of the featured celebrity chefs of the event, was there and confirmed a rumor that he was opening a restaurant in Foxwoods. It will be an incarnation of Alta Strada, his Italian restaurant in Wellesley, Mass., and will be at Foxwoods’ MGM Grand, which is slated to open in May.
I was wondering why Michael Schlow was listed as a celebrity chef and Michael Symon, whom I think enjoys about similar celebrity, was just listed as a chef, but the Foxwoods connection kind of explains it I think. And Mr. Schlow probably is more of a celebrity in New England, since Michael Symon is based in Cleveland and his New York venture, Parea, didn’t last too long.
New York Restaurateur Jimmy Bradley was there, too, and I learned that he and Danny Abrams were no longer partners — something I apparently should have known a long time ago.
In fact, it was reported in The New York Times in May of 2006. But hey, you can’t remember everything.
One of the very nice things about the Foxwoods festival is that nothing much was scheduled before noon. So I slept in until it was time to go to the Grand Tasting, which mostly featured wine and spirits, and beer, including a gluten-free sorghum beer which Ming Tsai’s chefs found interesting.
Ming Tsai’s big on catering to customers with allergies, because his son has many of them. I learned this later in the afternoon when I wandered into the press room while he was being interviewed. What else I learned: Iron Chef provides contestants with three possible mystery items, so they have some warning of what they might have to work with. When Ming Tsai had to cook duck on the show, he knew it would be duck, chicken or squab.
Squab. I used to see squab on a lot of menus, I really did, just a few years ago. These days, not so much. I wonder why.
Speaking of Iron Chef, I sat in on Morimoto’s demonstration, because he’ll be cooking at the Nation’s Restaurant News Culinary R&D conference in a couple of weeks. (The conference is September 28 and 29 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and is free to restaurant operators. Register now).
Dinner that night was a gala masquerade, and then there was an afterparty on the 24th floor, at Foxwoods’ fine dining restaurant, Paragon.
David Burke was at both of those (he’s opening three restaurants at Foxwoods when the MGM Grand opens). He also participated in the celebrity chef poker game on Sunday, which New York chef Franklin Becker of Brasserie won — and so $15,000 will go to a charity to treat autism. Ming Tsai came in second.
Here’s Franklin (on the left), with his agent, Scott Feldman.
At Saturday’s afterparty I met Junior’s owner Alan Rosen (Junior’s is opening a restaurant off of the MGM lobby and a coffee bar on the casino floor), and Top Chef’s Sam Talbot.
I’m going to have to start watching that show. I hate reality TV, and I don’t like to watch food TV because I like to turn off my brain when I watch TV, and if food’s involved I feel like I have to pay attention. But the show’s stars are becoming part of my world, and they seem to be good people. I could take being-nice lessons from Sam Talbot.
Harold Dieterle, formerly of Top Chef and now of Perilla restaurant in New York, was at Foxwoods, too. I saw him posing for a picture with fans at the Grand Tasting and I asked him if that happens a lot.
“Yeah, man, where’s my security?” he said (he was joking).
Following the afterparty, which ended promptly at 1 a.m. as that’s last call in Connecticut (I was told that last call was 2 a.m. on weekends, but it isn’t at Foxwoods), we went downstairs and...
“This is off the record!”
Sorry Scott.
Never mind.
“Welcome to Aspen East!” one of the publicists for the Foxwoods second annual Food & Wine Festival said as she greeted people on Friday.
You gotta love plucky marketing.
The event, like Aspen, was something of a reunion, and I had yet to put down my bags when I ran into Steve Shipley from Johnson & Wales and minor celebrity chef Michel Nischan (minor but as warm and good-natured as any chef I know).
Here he is (on the right), with chef Jean-Pierre Vuillermet.
But Aspen’s Food & Wine Magazine Classic is the mother of American food and wine festivals, and the town itself is a luxurious resort in the beautiful Rocky Mountains.
Foxwoods is a gigantic casino for the masses. It’s in the pretty countryside of the Mashantucket-Pequot nation’s section of Connecticut, and it was the largest casino in the world until recently, when a bigger one opened in Macao, but it ain’t Aspen.
Still, the turnout wasn’t bad. Exhibitors in the banquet hall where the “grand tasting” was held said attenance was way up from last year. And the event did draw some big-name celebrities in the food world.
I heard two things over and over again: “Mutton Man!” from Grub Street’s Josh Ozersky, who calls me that for reasons lost to history; and “This is off the record!” from chef agent Scott Feldman.
Scott is my networking role model. He’s a genius and, it turns out, old high school friends with my freshman year college roommate, Michael Yudell, who now is a professor of public health at Drexel. Roslyn, N.Y., raised some good people. Better than you’d expect, really.
Not off the record and from Scott: Rocco Laterzo no longer works for American Express.
I had my first dinner of the festival at Al Dente, an old school American-style Italianish restaurant, with journalists, mostly travel writers, whom I hadn’t met before, except for Andrew Linick of The Practical Gourmet, whom I’m pretty sure I met many years ago at the opening of Lundy’s in Times Square (which closed shortly thereafter).
I had arugula salad with endive, lemon and olive oil topped with Parmesan cheese, followed by halibut sautéed with lemon, capers and shaved fennel, while sharing life stories with Los Angeles-based freelance writer Earl Heath and his wife (I think wife; I don't really know) Rita. He’s from nearby Waterford, Conn., and she’s from Wyoming, so we had amusing high-altitude stories to share.
Then at the afterparty that night I reconnected with some more New England chefs, like Andy Husbands, the chef of Tremont 647 in Boston, whom I’d met some years ago when he was one of the “celebrated chefs” of the National Pork Producers Council, a year-long gig that by all accounts is a lot of fun.
Here’s Andy (on the right) with restaurant consultant Ed Doyle
Michael Schlow, one of the featured celebrity chefs of the event, was there and confirmed a rumor that he was opening a restaurant in Foxwoods. It will be an incarnation of Alta Strada, his Italian restaurant in Wellesley, Mass., and will be at Foxwoods’ MGM Grand, which is slated to open in May.
I was wondering why Michael Schlow was listed as a celebrity chef and Michael Symon, whom I think enjoys about similar celebrity, was just listed as a chef, but the Foxwoods connection kind of explains it I think. And Mr. Schlow probably is more of a celebrity in New England, since Michael Symon is based in Cleveland and his New York venture, Parea, didn’t last too long.
New York Restaurateur Jimmy Bradley was there, too, and I learned that he and Danny Abrams were no longer partners — something I apparently should have known a long time ago.
In fact, it was reported in The New York Times in May of 2006. But hey, you can’t remember everything.
One of the very nice things about the Foxwoods festival is that nothing much was scheduled before noon. So I slept in until it was time to go to the Grand Tasting, which mostly featured wine and spirits, and beer, including a gluten-free sorghum beer which Ming Tsai’s chefs found interesting.
Ming Tsai’s big on catering to customers with allergies, because his son has many of them. I learned this later in the afternoon when I wandered into the press room while he was being interviewed. What else I learned: Iron Chef provides contestants with three possible mystery items, so they have some warning of what they might have to work with. When Ming Tsai had to cook duck on the show, he knew it would be duck, chicken or squab.
Squab. I used to see squab on a lot of menus, I really did, just a few years ago. These days, not so much. I wonder why.
Speaking of Iron Chef, I sat in on Morimoto’s demonstration, because he’ll be cooking at the Nation’s Restaurant News Culinary R&D conference in a couple of weeks. (The conference is September 28 and 29 at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and is free to restaurant operators. Register now).
Dinner that night was a gala masquerade, and then there was an afterparty on the 24th floor, at Foxwoods’ fine dining restaurant, Paragon.
David Burke was at both of those (he’s opening three restaurants at Foxwoods when the MGM Grand opens). He also participated in the celebrity chef poker game on Sunday, which New York chef Franklin Becker of Brasserie won — and so $15,000 will go to a charity to treat autism. Ming Tsai came in second.
Here’s Franklin (on the left), with his agent, Scott Feldman.
At Saturday’s afterparty I met Junior’s owner Alan Rosen (Junior’s is opening a restaurant off of the MGM lobby and a coffee bar on the casino floor), and Top Chef’s Sam Talbot.
I’m going to have to start watching that show. I hate reality TV, and I don’t like to watch food TV because I like to turn off my brain when I watch TV, and if food’s involved I feel like I have to pay attention. But the show’s stars are becoming part of my world, and they seem to be good people. I could take being-nice lessons from Sam Talbot.
Harold Dieterle, formerly of Top Chef and now of Perilla restaurant in New York, was at Foxwoods, too. I saw him posing for a picture with fans at the Grand Tasting and I asked him if that happens a lot.
“Yeah, man, where’s my security?” he said (he was joking).
Following the afterparty, which ended promptly at 1 a.m. as that’s last call in Connecticut (I was told that last call was 2 a.m. on weekends, but it isn’t at Foxwoods), we went downstairs and...
“This is off the record!”
Sorry Scott.
Never mind.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Chocolate busts and grasshoppers
September 14
Time to play catch-up before the weekend. So...
Yesterday I had lunch at Payard, which was promoting the opening in November of its restaurant in Las Vegas, at Caesars Palace. It will be serving breakfast and lunch like any regular restaurant, but with added grab-and-go options, but dinner will be all dessert, served as a three-course tasting.
I don’t understand this dessert-only restaurant fad we’re seeing and would appreciate someone explaining it to me. Is it part of the restaurant specialization trend that we’re seeing with the opening of burrito chains and fancy sandwich shops and yogurt stands and noodle bars and so on? Maybe.
A fellow guest (who is blushing as he reads this, he really is) told me a rumor that the restaurant will have some sort of holographic imaging device that will allow the production of chocolate busts of the restaurant's guests. I speculated that it would cost guests $150. Just a guess, we’ll see.
I sat next to Thomas the wine representative, from France’s Loire region. He told me that Loire wines were the most popular wines in France because of their reasonable prices and food-friendliness. I could see that. He provided us with a Marquis de la Tour (sparkling) Rosé (non-vintage), a 2006 Remy Pannier Vouvray and a 2006 Chinon, also from Pannier.
On Monday I finally saw good old Clark Mitchell for the first time since May. We had dinner with Chad Belisario, who does PR for the Mandarin Oriental hotel group but whom I’ve known for years and years, since he was a budding young journalist for one of those big glossy monthlies. Then he was hired by Jennifer Leuzzi back around the turn of the century, when she was herself a publicist, and he ended up going down that route. Nice guy. Tall.
Anyway, we had dinner at Toloache, Julian Medina’s new Mexican restaurant. We left the menu up to Julian, except that Clark and I insisted that we must have the tacos de chapulines, which are made with dried grasshoppers imported from Mexico (along with sautéed onion, jalapeño and lime).
Chad was hesitant, but he was a good sport about it and seemed to enjoy them.
Basically, they're salty and crunchy. They reminded me very much of the dried shrimp that are a snack in Thailand.
Some of the other things we ate at Toloache:
Guacamole tasting:
"tradicional" with avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro and Serrano chiles
"frutas" with avocado, Vidalia onion, mango, apple, peach, habanero peppers and Thai basil "rojo" with avocado, tomato, red onion, chipotle and queso fresco
Malpeque oyster shooters with Huichol salsa, red onion, agave and Meyer lemon
Vuelva a la Vida ceviche with shrimp, octopus, hamachi, oyster, spicy tomato salsa and avocado
Spicy yellowfin tuna ceviche with key lime, Vidalia onion, radish and watermelon
Huitlacoche and truffle quesadilla with manchego cheese and corn
A variety of tacos, including the grasshopper one
Suckling pig with habanero-sour orange salsa, cactus, avocado and chicharrones
What I ate at Payard:
Chilled heirloom tomato soup with guacamole and basil
Baby arugula salad with pine nuts, Parmesan shavings and black Mission fig
Seared salmon with white pineapple, cucumber Rémoulade and wasabi-buttermilk dressing
Mini beef burger on pretzel bread with tomato confit
Pomegranate poached pear with Cabrales cheese and Szechuan pepper ice cream
"Four Hour" apple cardamom crumble with crème fraîche ice cream
Payard hazelnut candy bar with salted caramel sauce
Palet d'Or with crispy meringue, hazelnut wafer, butter chocolate mousse and gold leaf.
Time to play catch-up before the weekend. So...
Yesterday I had lunch at Payard, which was promoting the opening in November of its restaurant in Las Vegas, at Caesars Palace. It will be serving breakfast and lunch like any regular restaurant, but with added grab-and-go options, but dinner will be all dessert, served as a three-course tasting.
I don’t understand this dessert-only restaurant fad we’re seeing and would appreciate someone explaining it to me. Is it part of the restaurant specialization trend that we’re seeing with the opening of burrito chains and fancy sandwich shops and yogurt stands and noodle bars and so on? Maybe.
A fellow guest (who is blushing as he reads this, he really is) told me a rumor that the restaurant will have some sort of holographic imaging device that will allow the production of chocolate busts of the restaurant's guests. I speculated that it would cost guests $150. Just a guess, we’ll see.
I sat next to Thomas the wine representative, from France’s Loire region. He told me that Loire wines were the most popular wines in France because of their reasonable prices and food-friendliness. I could see that. He provided us with a Marquis de la Tour (sparkling) Rosé (non-vintage), a 2006 Remy Pannier Vouvray and a 2006 Chinon, also from Pannier.
On Monday I finally saw good old Clark Mitchell for the first time since May. We had dinner with Chad Belisario, who does PR for the Mandarin Oriental hotel group but whom I’ve known for years and years, since he was a budding young journalist for one of those big glossy monthlies. Then he was hired by Jennifer Leuzzi back around the turn of the century, when she was herself a publicist, and he ended up going down that route. Nice guy. Tall.
Anyway, we had dinner at Toloache, Julian Medina’s new Mexican restaurant. We left the menu up to Julian, except that Clark and I insisted that we must have the tacos de chapulines, which are made with dried grasshoppers imported from Mexico (along with sautéed onion, jalapeño and lime).
Chad was hesitant, but he was a good sport about it and seemed to enjoy them.
Basically, they're salty and crunchy. They reminded me very much of the dried shrimp that are a snack in Thailand.
Some of the other things we ate at Toloache:
Guacamole tasting:
"tradicional" with avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro and Serrano chiles
"frutas" with avocado, Vidalia onion, mango, apple, peach, habanero peppers and Thai basil "rojo" with avocado, tomato, red onion, chipotle and queso fresco
Malpeque oyster shooters with Huichol salsa, red onion, agave and Meyer lemon
Vuelva a la Vida ceviche with shrimp, octopus, hamachi, oyster, spicy tomato salsa and avocado
Spicy yellowfin tuna ceviche with key lime, Vidalia onion, radish and watermelon
Huitlacoche and truffle quesadilla with manchego cheese and corn
A variety of tacos, including the grasshopper one
Suckling pig with habanero-sour orange salsa, cactus, avocado and chicharrones
What I ate at Payard:
Chilled heirloom tomato soup with guacamole and basil
Baby arugula salad with pine nuts, Parmesan shavings and black Mission fig
Seared salmon with white pineapple, cucumber Rémoulade and wasabi-buttermilk dressing
Mini beef burger on pretzel bread with tomato confit
Pomegranate poached pear with Cabrales cheese and Szechuan pepper ice cream
"Four Hour" apple cardamom crumble with crème fraîche ice cream
Payard hazelnut candy bar with salted caramel sauce
Palet d'Or with crispy meringue, hazelnut wafer, butter chocolate mousse and gold leaf.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
San Francisco, and a brief lesson in recent Thai political history
September 12
Let me return now to my recent trip to California. My visit with the almond folks ended on Saturday in San Francisco, and I had the option, after an almond dinner at Luella, of flying out on that evening’s red-eye, but instead I spent the evening in the St. Francis Westin and on Sunday I caught up with old friends from my Bangkok days.
Craig Stuart and Michael Carpenter were classmates at Princeton, but if I remember the story right they didn’t really get to know each other until they lived in Thailand, working through a program called Princeton in Asia.
Craig then, in 1993, I think, found his way into the offices of Manager, a business monthly owned by Thai media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul, where I worked.
If you have a good memory for Thai names and are a serious Asia-politics newshound, you might remember that Sondhi (I’m not being excessively familiar; it’s customary to refer to Thais by their first names) was instrumental in fomenting hostility against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, which was ousted last year in a coup d'état.
Now that’s interesting because Manager had actually become the plaything of Pansak Vinyaratn, the once-and-future senior advisor to the Thai prime minister. He had fled the country after the 1991 ouster of Chatichai Choonhavan, whose think-tank he headed, and he also was to be the senior advisor of Thaksin’s government.
But in the early- and mid-1990s, Pansak and Sondhi were good friends, or allies, or something, and Manager had been handed to Pansak (unofficially, but completely) to do with as he liked.
What he liked was to create a quirky publication with unconventional ideas, beautiful photography and bright and curious young white people to do the words. It was an agreeable place to spend one’s 20s, and a big part of the enjoyment was that Craig was there — smart and curious, but always up for a drink.
As for Michael, he returned to the United States after his Princeton-in-Asia tour (and was the stateside director of the program for awhile) before he was lured back in 1995 with the launch of Asia Times.
Asia Times was an insanely ambitious newspaper — another project of Sondhi’s — that wanted to take on The Asian Wall Street Journal in particular and in general break the perceived stranglehold that Western media had on coverage of Asia.
Unfortunately, they forgot to market it and it all crashed and burned and was gone by July 1997. But in the meantime, it was a fun place to be a copy editor, which is what Michael and I (and eventually Craig) were.
Michael is inquisitive and enthusiastic and contagiously lovable, and returned to the United States in 1997 to get his MBA from Kellogg.
Craig would pursue journalism for another year or two before getting his MBA at Yale.
And they both ended up marrying Korean-Americans and settling in San Francisco, where Craig’s a banking vice president and Michael’s some sort of senior marketing guy. Another friend from our group, Jeff Cranmer, married the little sister of Michael's wife, Winnie, and he also lives in San Francisco, but he was in Vermont this weekend and couldn’t meet for brunch.
But I did meet with Craig, his wife Susan, their daughter Marlowe, and Michael and his daughter Anabelle at Yank Sing at Rincon Center for dim sum. The restaurant was Michael’s suggestion, and he’s one of the few people I trust when it comes to food, and not just because he’s from Louisiana. He loves food and pays attention to it.
His wife, Winnie, in case you were wondering, was overseas on business, as she often is.
I don’t recall what we had exactly, because we were busy catching up and watching the girls play, but Craig was kind of flummoxed that the servers seemed disinclined to serve us steamed items.
He marveled at their strategy of bringing plates to the table as though we’d already ordered them. Craig notices things like that — quirks in human nature that make them who they are, or that are just interesting tactics.
I spent the afternoon at Craig and Susan’s NoPa apartment and then in Golden Gate Park with Craig and Marlowe at what Craig says was the country’s first playground. It was recently redone, but somehow in kid-friendly, politically correct San Francisco, they managed to leave intact two gigantic concrete slides that require sand and big, flat found pieces of cardboard to slide down. I think that slide was Marlowe’s favorite feature of the playground, though she liked the swing, too.
Susan then looked after Marlowe while Craig and I went to dinner at LarkCreekSteak, Bradley Ogden’s newest restaurant, where we met chef Jeremy Bearman, drank Mourvedre and ate the following:
Summer bean and heirloom tomato soup with wilted arugula, Spanish style chorizo and olive soaked croutons
Jonathan apple, endive and fried Bellweather Farms Crecenza, Bronx grapes, La Quercia prosciutto and cider vinaigrette
Monterey bay, pan-sautéed calamari with garlic butter, lemon and Romano beans
Baked stuffed little neck clams with parsley, garlic, butter, anchovy and lemon zest
Certified Angus New York strip (me)
USDA Prime New York strip (Craig)
Malted “milkshake” panna cotta with salted caramel and Madagascar vanilla bean and various other chocolate desserts (in September the Lark Creek restaurant group celebrates its own chocolate festival)
Let me return now to my recent trip to California. My visit with the almond folks ended on Saturday in San Francisco, and I had the option, after an almond dinner at Luella, of flying out on that evening’s red-eye, but instead I spent the evening in the St. Francis Westin and on Sunday I caught up with old friends from my Bangkok days.
Craig Stuart and Michael Carpenter were classmates at Princeton, but if I remember the story right they didn’t really get to know each other until they lived in Thailand, working through a program called Princeton in Asia.
Craig then, in 1993, I think, found his way into the offices of Manager, a business monthly owned by Thai media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul, where I worked.
If you have a good memory for Thai names and are a serious Asia-politics newshound, you might remember that Sondhi (I’m not being excessively familiar; it’s customary to refer to Thais by their first names) was instrumental in fomenting hostility against the government of Thaksin Shinawatra, which was ousted last year in a coup d'état.
Now that’s interesting because Manager had actually become the plaything of Pansak Vinyaratn, the once-and-future senior advisor to the Thai prime minister. He had fled the country after the 1991 ouster of Chatichai Choonhavan, whose think-tank he headed, and he also was to be the senior advisor of Thaksin’s government.
But in the early- and mid-1990s, Pansak and Sondhi were good friends, or allies, or something, and Manager had been handed to Pansak (unofficially, but completely) to do with as he liked.
What he liked was to create a quirky publication with unconventional ideas, beautiful photography and bright and curious young white people to do the words. It was an agreeable place to spend one’s 20s, and a big part of the enjoyment was that Craig was there — smart and curious, but always up for a drink.
As for Michael, he returned to the United States after his Princeton-in-Asia tour (and was the stateside director of the program for awhile) before he was lured back in 1995 with the launch of Asia Times.
Asia Times was an insanely ambitious newspaper — another project of Sondhi’s — that wanted to take on The Asian Wall Street Journal in particular and in general break the perceived stranglehold that Western media had on coverage of Asia.
Unfortunately, they forgot to market it and it all crashed and burned and was gone by July 1997. But in the meantime, it was a fun place to be a copy editor, which is what Michael and I (and eventually Craig) were.
Michael is inquisitive and enthusiastic and contagiously lovable, and returned to the United States in 1997 to get his MBA from Kellogg.
Craig would pursue journalism for another year or two before getting his MBA at Yale.
And they both ended up marrying Korean-Americans and settling in San Francisco, where Craig’s a banking vice president and Michael’s some sort of senior marketing guy. Another friend from our group, Jeff Cranmer, married the little sister of Michael's wife, Winnie, and he also lives in San Francisco, but he was in Vermont this weekend and couldn’t meet for brunch.
But I did meet with Craig, his wife Susan, their daughter Marlowe, and Michael and his daughter Anabelle at Yank Sing at Rincon Center for dim sum. The restaurant was Michael’s suggestion, and he’s one of the few people I trust when it comes to food, and not just because he’s from Louisiana. He loves food and pays attention to it.
His wife, Winnie, in case you were wondering, was overseas on business, as she often is.
I don’t recall what we had exactly, because we were busy catching up and watching the girls play, but Craig was kind of flummoxed that the servers seemed disinclined to serve us steamed items.
He marveled at their strategy of bringing plates to the table as though we’d already ordered them. Craig notices things like that — quirks in human nature that make them who they are, or that are just interesting tactics.
I spent the afternoon at Craig and Susan’s NoPa apartment and then in Golden Gate Park with Craig and Marlowe at what Craig says was the country’s first playground. It was recently redone, but somehow in kid-friendly, politically correct San Francisco, they managed to leave intact two gigantic concrete slides that require sand and big, flat found pieces of cardboard to slide down. I think that slide was Marlowe’s favorite feature of the playground, though she liked the swing, too.
Susan then looked after Marlowe while Craig and I went to dinner at LarkCreekSteak, Bradley Ogden’s newest restaurant, where we met chef Jeremy Bearman, drank Mourvedre and ate the following:
Summer bean and heirloom tomato soup with wilted arugula, Spanish style chorizo and olive soaked croutons
Jonathan apple, endive and fried Bellweather Farms Crecenza, Bronx grapes, La Quercia prosciutto and cider vinaigrette
Monterey bay, pan-sautéed calamari with garlic butter, lemon and Romano beans
Baked stuffed little neck clams with parsley, garlic, butter, anchovy and lemon zest
Certified Angus New York strip (me)
USDA Prime New York strip (Craig)
Malted “milkshake” panna cotta with salted caramel and Madagascar vanilla bean and various other chocolate desserts (in September the Lark Creek restaurant group celebrates its own chocolate festival)
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
For New York restaurant news junkies
September 11
The opening of Primehouse New York, Stephen Hanson’s latest restaurant, which was supposed to happen on September 20, has been pushed back to October 1. The opening party’s still scheduled for the 20th.
Primehouse’s shtick is that the beef served there is descended from the same bull. You can read all about it here if you’re curious.
The original Primehouse, in Chicago, involved chef David Burke, who, having been the corporate chef of Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group for a number of years, is a steak expert. He’s not involved in the New York restaurant, though. Heading up the kitchens there will be Jason Miller, who also was the chef at Primehouse in Chicago.
The opening of Primehouse New York, Stephen Hanson’s latest restaurant, which was supposed to happen on September 20, has been pushed back to October 1. The opening party’s still scheduled for the 20th.
Primehouse’s shtick is that the beef served there is descended from the same bull. You can read all about it here if you’re curious.
The original Primehouse, in Chicago, involved chef David Burke, who, having been the corporate chef of Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group for a number of years, is a steak expert. He’s not involved in the New York restaurant, though. Heading up the kitchens there will be Jason Miller, who also was the chef at Primehouse in Chicago.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Middle America, Calif.
September 10
Last Friday, after learning about almonds' nutritional (they're filling, have protein and lots of good fats as well as nice micronutrients) and beauty-enhancing attributes (basically, they have lots of Vitamin E, but you can also smash them and use them to exfoliate if you want to), we went to Vino Piazza, charmingly fractured Italian for "Wine Plaza."
There four of the six wineries that rent space there stayed open for us to try their wines. So I met giggling Craig Watts, the owner of Watts Winery, Matthew the perpetual student, who was pouring wine for Olde Lockeford Winery, whose owner is an amateur paleontologist, and so many of the wine labels feature prehistoric creatures (a trilobite on one, a saber-toothed tiger skull on another, a triceratops skull on a third); and the father-son team that runs La Vida Dulce winery.
I didn’t make it to the fourth winery.
California’s central valley is America’s produce basket, but its grapes are mostly used for blending into inexpensive vintages. Over the past decade or so, however, some of the growers have taken to bottling their own stuff – with mixed results, for sure, but some of it is tasty. But what was really fun about Vino Piazza was the people pouring the wine, who had the pride of winemakers of more prestigious wine-growing regions without the pomp.
They had the straightforwardness mixed in with quirky idiosyncrasies that make exploring the United States a continuous thrill and adventure.
That vision of the central valley was reinforced at dinner, which was at Harmony Wynelands in Lodi. It’s a vineyard whose spokesman, surfer and would-be Hawaiian Shaun MacKay, is the stepson of owner Bob Hartzell. With very little prompting, Bob will sidle up to the reception hall's organ, for which the hall was built in 1921. In fact, the organ’s pipes fill two rooms adjacent to the hall.
Why does a Lodi winery have a gigantic organ? Why not? They also feature silent films accompanied by the organ four times a year.
Last Friday, after learning about almonds' nutritional (they're filling, have protein and lots of good fats as well as nice micronutrients) and beauty-enhancing attributes (basically, they have lots of Vitamin E, but you can also smash them and use them to exfoliate if you want to), we went to Vino Piazza, charmingly fractured Italian for "Wine Plaza."
There four of the six wineries that rent space there stayed open for us to try their wines. So I met giggling Craig Watts, the owner of Watts Winery, Matthew the perpetual student, who was pouring wine for Olde Lockeford Winery, whose owner is an amateur paleontologist, and so many of the wine labels feature prehistoric creatures (a trilobite on one, a saber-toothed tiger skull on another, a triceratops skull on a third); and the father-son team that runs La Vida Dulce winery.
I didn’t make it to the fourth winery.
California’s central valley is America’s produce basket, but its grapes are mostly used for blending into inexpensive vintages. Over the past decade or so, however, some of the growers have taken to bottling their own stuff – with mixed results, for sure, but some of it is tasty. But what was really fun about Vino Piazza was the people pouring the wine, who had the pride of winemakers of more prestigious wine-growing regions without the pomp.
They had the straightforwardness mixed in with quirky idiosyncrasies that make exploring the United States a continuous thrill and adventure.
That vision of the central valley was reinforced at dinner, which was at Harmony Wynelands in Lodi. It’s a vineyard whose spokesman, surfer and would-be Hawaiian Shaun MacKay, is the stepson of owner Bob Hartzell. With very little prompting, Bob will sidle up to the reception hall's organ, for which the hall was built in 1921. In fact, the organ’s pipes fill two rooms adjacent to the hall.
Why does a Lodi winery have a gigantic organ? Why not? They also feature silent films accompanied by the organ four times a year.
Friday, September 07, 2007
The bees are fine
September 7
(please see an August 11 2008 update below)
I'm in Lodi, Calif., at the moment, a guest of the Almond Board of California, which has flown out 20 some odd journalists from the U.S. and Canada to learn all about almonds.
California is currently in the midst of its biggest almond harvest in history. It's a bumper crop due to a confluence of excellent weather conditions and the fact that more trees were planted four years ago in response to increased demand, and it takes four years for an almond tree to bear commercially useful levels of nuts.
But here's the thing. The California almond industry is the beekeeper industry's largest client. That's because almonds are completely dependent on bees for the cross-polination that they need, and so almond growers bring in between eight and 12 bee boxes per acre of trees when they're in bloom in early spring.
So naturally I asked how they were coping with the global bee die-off, and the almond industry folks said it wasn't an issue -- that though the lack of bees has been widely reported, and some beekeepers have had trouble keeping their charges alive, in fact there is no shortage of bees.
And this also isn't the first time lots of honeybees have died. Old-timers report that something similar happened a few decades ago, and records show that it also happened in the 19th century.
Some 500,000 acres of Callifornia is planted with almond trees, and they all had enough bees.
But the almond board does pay close attention to the bees. In fact, it claims to do the most bee research in the country.
One representative from the almond board told me last night at dinner that that was due in part to the fact that the Honey Board is dysfunctional, but I have no way of knowing whether that's true or not. I had been wondering why no one from that board had bothered to comment on the bee die-off. You'd think they would have said something.
Here's something else: Almond hulls, which are used for cattle feed, were being sold at record-prices last year. I asked if that was because of the earmarking of some corn (also used in cattle feed, obviously) for ethanol, but they didn't have an answer for me.
Seems logical, though.
Last night we had dinner at a Sicilian restaurant in Elk Grove called Palermo.
Here's what we ate:
Tomato bruschetta
Slad with goat cheese and almond slivers
Thinly sliced salmon with arugula, lemon juice, capers and almonds
Duck tortelloni with mushrooms and almonds, cooked in tomato sauce
Farfalle gratinate with cream, porcini mushrooms, ham and chicken in almond crust
salmon with dried porcini mushrooms and ground almonds, served with risotto (with almonds in it) and cranberry-almond sauce.
Tiramisu
Spumoni with almonds
I skipped breakfast, but I did eat a couple handfuls of almonds
Lunch was a salad with shrimp, avocado and almonds, followed by creme brulee topped with fruit but not almonds.
Then we had a tasting of almond products, and now I'm off to drink wine, to be followed by dinner that likely also will include some almonds, but I'll let you know.
August 11, 2008 update
There might not be a shortage of bees for big customers like the almond board, but the National Honey Board did point me to some data about domestic honey production over the past 50 years, and the picture’s actually pretty grim — so grim that I made a chart.
(please see an August 11 2008 update below)
I'm in Lodi, Calif., at the moment, a guest of the Almond Board of California, which has flown out 20 some odd journalists from the U.S. and Canada to learn all about almonds.
California is currently in the midst of its biggest almond harvest in history. It's a bumper crop due to a confluence of excellent weather conditions and the fact that more trees were planted four years ago in response to increased demand, and it takes four years for an almond tree to bear commercially useful levels of nuts.
But here's the thing. The California almond industry is the beekeeper industry's largest client. That's because almonds are completely dependent on bees for the cross-polination that they need, and so almond growers bring in between eight and 12 bee boxes per acre of trees when they're in bloom in early spring.
So naturally I asked how they were coping with the global bee die-off, and the almond industry folks said it wasn't an issue -- that though the lack of bees has been widely reported, and some beekeepers have had trouble keeping their charges alive, in fact there is no shortage of bees.
And this also isn't the first time lots of honeybees have died. Old-timers report that something similar happened a few decades ago, and records show that it also happened in the 19th century.
Some 500,000 acres of Callifornia is planted with almond trees, and they all had enough bees.
But the almond board does pay close attention to the bees. In fact, it claims to do the most bee research in the country.
One representative from the almond board told me last night at dinner that that was due in part to the fact that the Honey Board is dysfunctional, but I have no way of knowing whether that's true or not. I had been wondering why no one from that board had bothered to comment on the bee die-off. You'd think they would have said something.
Here's something else: Almond hulls, which are used for cattle feed, were being sold at record-prices last year. I asked if that was because of the earmarking of some corn (also used in cattle feed, obviously) for ethanol, but they didn't have an answer for me.
Seems logical, though.
Last night we had dinner at a Sicilian restaurant in Elk Grove called Palermo.
Here's what we ate:
Tomato bruschetta
Slad with goat cheese and almond slivers
Thinly sliced salmon with arugula, lemon juice, capers and almonds
Duck tortelloni with mushrooms and almonds, cooked in tomato sauce
Farfalle gratinate with cream, porcini mushrooms, ham and chicken in almond crust
salmon with dried porcini mushrooms and ground almonds, served with risotto (with almonds in it) and cranberry-almond sauce.
Tiramisu
Spumoni with almonds
I skipped breakfast, but I did eat a couple handfuls of almonds
Lunch was a salad with shrimp, avocado and almonds, followed by creme brulee topped with fruit but not almonds.
Then we had a tasting of almond products, and now I'm off to drink wine, to be followed by dinner that likely also will include some almonds, but I'll let you know.
August 11, 2008 update
There might not be a shortage of bees for big customers like the almond board, but the National Honey Board did point me to some data about domestic honey production over the past 50 years, and the picture’s actually pretty grim — so grim that I made a chart.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Because I want you to win $500, I really do
September 4
(This entry is dedicated to Regina Schrambling and others who prefer blind blog postings)
I just got off the phone with someone who used to work with Paul Liebrandt and recently opened a restaurant of his own in Soho. I really wanted to talk to him about his own restaurant, and I did, but I also had to ask if he knew anything about a future restaurant of Mr. Liebrandt that has been the topic of much speculation and apparently is causing quite a bit of consternation for my friends over at Eater, so much so that they’re willing to open their checkbooks over it.
The chef said that Paul enjoyed the pork-belly with miso-butterscotch sauce that’s on his new restaurant’s menu, but that he had no idea what arrangements Paul and “Drew” were working on and that they were being very hush-hush about it.
Aha!
O.K., not Aha!, but I’m trying to share what I have, because I don’t think I could accept the $500 even if I won it.
(This entry is dedicated to Regina Schrambling and others who prefer blind blog postings)
I just got off the phone with someone who used to work with Paul Liebrandt and recently opened a restaurant of his own in Soho. I really wanted to talk to him about his own restaurant, and I did, but I also had to ask if he knew anything about a future restaurant of Mr. Liebrandt that has been the topic of much speculation and apparently is causing quite a bit of consternation for my friends over at Eater, so much so that they’re willing to open their checkbooks over it.
The chef said that Paul enjoyed the pork-belly with miso-butterscotch sauce that’s on his new restaurant’s menu, but that he had no idea what arrangements Paul and “Drew” were working on and that they were being very hush-hush about it.
Aha!
O.K., not Aha!, but I’m trying to share what I have, because I don’t think I could accept the $500 even if I won it.
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