Let's Get Ready To Rhombus

We organized an impromptu dinner with Gerard and Alison because we hadn't seen them in ages. They brought a big hunk of beautiful halibut, and I got all geeky with a variety of local mushrooms and some leftovers. The two vivid purées (sweet potato and purple cauliflower) from the other night became- with the addition of some eggs and flour- crêpe batter, and some fresh oyster and shiitake mushrooms made a nice duxelle with some of the dried black trumpets and a few porcini. Sautéed gently with onion, herbs, garlic, and a splash of wine until silky, it was a deep and resplendent shroom paste. After I cooked up the two-toned crêpes in separate batches, I stamped out diamond shapes with one of my new cutters, then layered them all together, alternating, again within the confines of the lozenge.





















Et voilà. I gave some thought to making a sort of an emulsified butter-type sauce for these, but people were hungry so we just ate them.






















Next up, we had a dozen malpeque oysters from PEI garnished with homemade ponzu and fennel fronds. To go with both these dishes, a Finger Lakes Chardonnay: Red Tail Ridge Nutt Road Vineyard. Not bad at all, and I like their focus on sustainability. If I can find their pinot I will surely try it.






















Lastly, the halibut, which Gerard rubbed with salt and pepper and baked until just opaque (occupied as I was with my pretty shapes, I had neglected to get a fire going). I did manage to make some mash with pan di zucchero (a chicory relative) and wilted some chard and kale with garlic. And we added some kimchi or emphasis. Delightful.

Dessert was five local cheeses with a little sticky Australian Muscat I brought back from VT. It's cloying in any but the smallest amount, but a little sip with a pungent blue is a honeyed, walnutty treat. It's telling, though, that we returned straight away to the 2000 Hilberg-Pasquero Barbera which we had opened for the main course. Biodynamic, funky, and with a deep, chewy center, it held our interest all the way to the bottom of the bottle.

Ace Of Diamonds

I ordered a bunch of geometric cookie cutters for making the next batch of plates, and when they arrived they got me thinking about all sorts of other possibilities, on account of I'm a sucker for geometry and all. Our neighbor brought us over a trout, and I had broken my no-buying-vegetables-in-summer rule (which is fairly easily broken) at a nearby farmers' market for some purple cauliflower because ours didn't come up this year. And we had sweet potatoes in the pantry.

So I steamed the two vegetables, and puréed them with enough of the steaming water to get them silky. The trout got the customary treatment: wrapped in parchment with butter, garlic, and thyme, then put in the oven. Using the largest triangle cutter, I made a little pedestal for the fish, and used the luscious juices from the parchment as a sauce. I briefly considered thickening it and whisking in some capers, but there really wasn't any point; everything was right in the sweet spot between delicate and substantial.

Painful Itching And Burning

This post is dedicated to Brooke and Brittany. They're sisters. They're both pretty obnoxious, and prone to cheap sexual innuendo, especially when it comes to jokes about hot beef. (Hey, girls- did you know that "innuendo" is Italian for suppository?) They live in Portland, or Seattle, or some other silly pseudo-city out West, where they smoke weed, play hacky sack, and hang out with other negligent reprobates. For a while it was hard to decide which of them was lazier, but now Brittany has clearly won. She's a big huge quitter of Sarah Palin-esque proportions. Click the link to see the last time she posted something. Seriously, it's just shameful. She hardly even bothers to comment on other people's blogs any more, that's how far she has sunk into her morass of appalling torpor. Honestly, the kids today.

So, because they did/specifically did not ask for it respectively, here's a flat iron steak. Sous vide at 52˚ C for an hour or so, then a sear in smoked duck fat. Sweet potato fries. Green mash made from curly endive, garlic, pine nuts, olive oil, ume plums, white truffle oil, lemon juice, and a little mustard. More mustard on the side. It's what's for dinner, bitches.

Umami Dearest

Last week, while I was making some new plates at the ceramics studio the owner showed me some of the amazing variety of mushrooms that are growing on her property. I am very, very far from qualified to ID fungi, but black trumpets are an easy spot and she has a couple of big, fat patches growing on the sites of long-ago cut hardwood stumps. In exchange for my eye, and for a follow-up email to a good mycologist friend in Boston, she let me come back with a basket and gather a bunch.





















They're delicate, but can handle a gentle rinse; if you pinch off the narrow end the faucet will quickly force any critters and crud through the funnel and leave them ready to cook or dry. I did both, setting aside some nice ones for dinner and putting the rest on a rack over a cookie sheet in a 180˚ oven with the door propped open a bit for a couple of hours. First I let all of them dry off a bit on a towel.






















They cook down pretty seriously, losing a lot of volume as they cough up their moisture. But man, are they good. Easily one of the mushroomiest-tasting varieties, and striking in their inky contrast to most colors of food. In this case, I spooned the mushrooms (given a quick sautée with garlic, parsley, and wine) over the top of "risotto" made from the local, organic 10-grain mix we like so much (and which does not include rice, so it's really a dense and toothsome porridge) with a big bowl of freshly-shelled peas stirred in near the end. I made it with the last container of frozen chicken broth, the use of which coincided perfectly with my acquisition of a duck from the farmers' market in town; smoked poultry broth will shortly be back in rotation.

To complete the complete meal, another of the wondrous ragouts de jardin- in this instance the last favas, broccoli florets, baby fennel and celery, garlic, carrots (4 colors) and scallions- quickly sautéed and deglazed with a spoon of the smoked broth and a splash of Mas de Gourgonnier rosé. It was our last bottle, so I'll have to head out and get more for all of the WARM, SUNNY WEATHER that we will totally be having in the coming weeks.

Après Moi, Le Dessert

Complaining about the weather is about as pointless as activities get, I know, but the amount of rain we've been getting is beyond ridiculous. The temperature barely cracked 70˚ all weekend in Vermont- though it didn't actually rain there- and yesterday it pissed down all afternoon. Poor Milo shivered through his first swimming lesson. Today the sun is actually somewhat visible, but it's cold out.

I've lived in England, so I can handle it- I'll just start drinking a lot more to suppress my emotions, and then riot at the occasional soccer match to vent the pent-up aggression. It's just that we have all these tomato, pepper, eggplant, cucumber, and melon plants that are barely growing, let alone setting any fruit. And I was kind of looking forward to the sweet glory that is the second half of the season, as opposed to, say, a big pile of mildew covered in fat, satisfied slugs. It may be that we're due for a break later this week, so stay tuned; I know you're all on the edge of your seats with suspense.

Meanwhile, dinner must still be made. And it can still be mostly vegetables, if not the most sexy ones. So a moulard duck breast (the other is going to become prosciutto) with a good rub of pimentón, salt, pepper, and cinnamon into all the scored fat was the point around which a bunch of other flavors organized themselves. While the duck rendered and crisped in a pan, I blasted escarole in the processor with ume plums, pine nuts, olive oil, and lemon juice to make a heavenly mash. Our new batch of kimchi is ready, and it's a good one- our own scallions, carrots, and green garlic really help- and there was some good slaw made even better by a few days in the fridge. After the duck was cooked, I poured off some of the fat and made fried rice with leftover brown basmati and some beet greens from the other night.

While the sun is actually out, I'm going to go plant some things and continue my delusional belief that there's even a point any more. And then it'll be time to start drinking.

A Good Cellar Rots Labels

We went to Vermont for the weekend, to check on the progress of the repairs being done there and to revel in the perfection that Vermont in high summer exemplifies. The raspberries are coming in, and the wild strawberries carpet the meadow- especially around the tree where my Mom's ashes are buried. Milo loves it there, and we invited a friend and her daughter who is as close to a sibling as he has.

The kids played so well together that we grownups were able to just hang out and cook and drink and read like normal people. It was amazing. The years of mandatory vigilance have paid off; now we get to actually enjoy ourselves. The enormous excavator parked in the driveway may deserve partial credit, but we were pretty happy.

Saturday night we grilled lamb leg steaks and salmon, and made sautéed roots (carrot, turnip, chioggia beet) with fennel plus brown rice, steamed beet greens, and a reduction of wine, vinegar, maple syrup, curry, cumin, sage, and apple juice that worked on meat and fish alike. I perused the cellar, and stumbled upon some forgotten treasures, one of which we opened to celebrate: a 1990 Vieux Donjon Châteauneuf. Oh, the insanity. A dusty, sweet, evanescent tapestry of longing that deepened into a pool of lavender, cherry, and licorice. Poor man's Burgundy indeed.


























The next night we made pizzas, using almost entirely local ingredients (the sauce, flour, cheese, toppings, and pepperoni). Various combinations of the leftovers, plus newly purchased garlic scapes from our pals at Taylor farm. The only hitch was that the grill ran out of gas after the first pie so we had to finish cooking them in the oven. Not a catastrophe. We drank a 2000 Thackrey Aquila Sangiovese, which tasted like a new release. His wines defy age better than anything I have ever drunk.

Also, the red clover in the meadow was full of butterflies; Milo had demanded that we bring his net, and boy was he right to think of it. No butterflies were injured during the making of this post- it was strictly catch and release.

Lipstick On A Chicken

You know those precooked chicken sausages that hang out in the freezer section? The organic ones with 1990s-era flavor combinations like sundried tomato and porcini mushroom? Well, because our grocery options up here are limited, occasionally my wife goes a little crazy from the limitations of a couple of small stores and grabs at anything that we don't normally buy. And so it was that these things were in the fridge.

Because they're pre-cooked, and they have the cellulose casings, grilling them is a disaster; they end up as rubbery little logs with no moisture. Chopping them up into a pasta sauce is really the only thing they're good for (beyond just heating and eating on bread with mustard and kimchi while standing over the sink; they do the job, but only just).

So I figured that with some tinkering they might make a decent wonton filling. I had seen some skins in the freezer and the idea of both frying and hiding the sausage seemed to be win/win. I chopped them fine, adding copious ginger, garlic, preserved yuzu, nam pla, cilantro, and a little kimchi juice. Wrapped 'em up. Fryed 'em.





















It looks like a delicious little Magdalena Abakanowicz, doesn't it? I made the quick dipping sauce with soy, vinegar, sriracha, and a drib of agave, and served them on spicy baby greens (radish, mustard, mizuna). We also had sautéed crimini mushrooms with wine and garlic, and a heaping salad. And rosé. On the screened porch. The sun actually came out for a minute.

Lay Back And Dream On A(nother) rainy Day

The near-constant rain is impeding the growth of the heat-loving plants, and if it keeps up it's a safe bet that most of our tomatoes and peppers won't ripen and our cucurbits will succumb quickly to a plague of powdery mildew. And the slugs are as big as schnausers. But the greener things are thriving- roots are getting fat, and our salad isn't bolting like it normally does. This month will tell whether we are in for the sweet late-season good stuff or not.

In the meantime, there's enough variety to at least allow for some simple pleasures like the ragout we had the other night. It's a survey of all the non-leafy options available right now: carrot, scallion, green garlic, fennel, pea, fava bean, baby celery, and nasturtium bud. A quick sautée, a splash of wine, and it was freshest al dente bliss. Some broiled coho salmon and fried rice with beet greens completed the plate, but honestly the ragout was the star. The frozen mirepoix got us through the winter very well; every time it hit a pan I grinned at the vivid potency of summer captured in each bag as it wafted up (a mince of guanciale made it positively sublime). But when these prime crops, the non-leafy prizes of summer, have just been picked about 20 minutes before you eat them, it's a whole different experience- one we get to have for maybe five months out of the year if we're lucky.

Good Weed

My latest article is out in the July issue of Chronogram.

John's Birthday

The garden is really hitting its stride now, offering a wider array of perfect options for organizing a dish around. The beets have been getting me excited, not least because they go with so many different flavors. They're also beautiful. John's birthday party offered me an excuse to monkey around with some of the different directions a beet can go, and try to combine them in an interesting way.





















Inspired by the bite of foie and yuzu that came with the daikon-shiso soup at Alinea, I bought some foie to add occasion-appropriate decadence. The jar of fresh yuzu that I preserved Moroccan-style last winter offered the ideal component to go with it: the salt-curing essentially candies the fruit, making for an intensely concentrated flavor.



























We had lamb the other night, which I might not post about because the photo is awful, but as a sauce for it I pressure-cooked beets and Kalamata olives with a bit of olive brine. Since there was some of that left, I adjusted it with maple syrup, a drop of vanilla, and some yogurt. A tour of our edible flowers yielded coriander, nasturtium, and lavender, and I picked some chives for a little allium bite. Here's the first try, including a sliver of raw chioggia beet for crunch:





















For the final version, I sautéed short pieces of the beet stems in smoked duck fat (plus the fat that rendered off the foie when I seared it) adding a little vanilla sugar at the end. And I put one little lavender flower on each spoon as well. To follow the bite, I made another version of the coconut borscht; it had galangal, kaffir lime, and coconut milk, but this time used dashi as the base for a subtle smoky element that echoed the smoked fat on the stems. Unfortunately, I do not have 16 shot glasses, so we made do with some corn-based plastic cups. Not so elegant, but it was a potluck for crying out loud. I pulled out a 1991 Salomon Undhof Riesling Library Reserve to go with this, and it had a delightful, grapefruity brightness that meshed well with the yuzu and cut through the rich fat.


























As always, the food was just beautiful. Grilled sides of Coho salmon and ocean perch, greens, escarole mash, pizzas, cauliflower au gratin, beans, salad- our potlucks cannot be beat. There were many other great wines, including a 2003 Peter Michael Point Rouge, a 1999 Lisini Brunello, a 1998 Barbaresco Rabajà, 2 1997 Super Tuscans that I have plum forgotten, and last of all, by the fire on the riverbank, framing a bracing late-night dip, a 1989 Chevillon Nuits-Saint-Georges "Les Roncières." Summer has arrived.

Bresaola

Not bad for a first try. It came out a little salty, because I forgot about it and left it on the cure for a week. Next time I think 4 days will be about right.


























Now I just have to go the the deli and get them to slice it like this- it's just too much work to keep doing it by hand. Isn't it pretty? It almost makes me want to make stained-meat windows, except that it's too tasty.

Alinea 6/20/09

In Palazzo Spada, near where I lived in Rome, there's a cute little Architectural folly by Borromini called Il Perspettivo- a corridor built in forced perspective to appear much longer than it is, that opens onto a garden with a statue in it. There's a nice moment that happens as soon as you enter, when you see that the ceiling slants down, and the floor slopes up, and you realize that the whole thing is about 10 feet long and the statue is tiny. Alinea's entry hall does a similar thing, and that cognitive shift- where something turns out to be something else, and we are surprised and delighted- is an important part of the Alinea experience.


























"Il Perspettivo"


Before we went, I knew about as much about this restaurant as one can without actually having eaten there. I love the cookbook- though so far I've just used it for inspiration- and I've read and heard many accounts of other people's experiences there. Everything I learned told me that it justifies the hype. And the proximity (about a week off) of our anniversary provided all the justification I needed for such a lavish indulgence.

It's funny- I was actually nervous going in, more so than I have been since I met Radiohead backstage last August. The trompe l'oeil entryway with the gleaming Star Trek doors on the left at the end does a nice job of underscoring the through-the-looking-glass-ness of your passage from the busy clamor outside to the busy serenity within; the doors pop open suddenly and from then on you are in the hands of some seriously talented people. It's dim inside, with some tactile yet minimal canvases and a few abstract arrangements of plexi, glass, and plants (and a ceramic Chinese pig) that make for something to look at between courses. There are a lot of staff, but they move pretty smoothly.

I had been going back and forth about whether to get the wine pairing or not, and after looking at the dizzying pornography which is their wine list I decided to abandon myself to the pairings. It didn't seem possible to choose one or two bottles that were going to play nicely with the zillion flavors to come. First they brought us a champagne cocktail: Henriot Brut with Chartreuse, Akvavit, and Orange Curaçao. The quantities of liqueurs were so small that the glasses looked like pure champagne, and tasted like champagne but with astonishing fruit and floral overtones. It would be more fun if they brought the glass without announcing what was in it, and let people try to figure out what the hell it was.

I'm going to publish some of the pics I took, but not all; the lighting is low and I didn't use a flash. Some came out barely OK, many were useless. You can easily find beautiful pics of this beautiful food all over the internets.

Roes • traditional garnishes





















Blis roes of Arctic char and steelhead trout with flavors of brioche, dill, and sour cream all transformed into foam, quenelle, and, uh... cream respectively. It was sublime- a tired canapé from the 60s resurrected as the irresistible club mix of the late aughts.

Foie Gras • daikon, shiso, yuzu
Dönnhoff "Felsentürmchen" Riesling Spätlese Nahe 2006

I didn't even take a picture of this, because the soup bowl has a rounded bottom (which I like) and required holding to prevent spillage and humiliation. I would love to make bowls like this, notched on one side to allow for a little fork to rest on top, but my guests normally don't take direction the way cowed Alinea guests do. We dutifully ate the bite on the fork- hands down one of the most elegant bites of food I've ever tasted- and savored the syncopated counterpoint of flavors which danced around the creamy core of foie. The soup was so clean, yet so powerfully flavored with daikon, shiso, and yuzu; it was the wet dream of all the little first-course soups I make and I'm going to duplicate it if it kills me.

Pork Belly • iceberg, cucumber, Thai distillation
Abbazia di Novacella Kerner, Valle Isarco, Alto Adige 2007

This one was mighty. Super-shreddy aromatic pork confit on cucumber-infused lettuce with Thai essence and basil seeds, plus a panoply of herbs, flowers, and garlic chips on top and a cayenne-bell pepper pudding on the side. I didn't take any notes at all- this is from memory; I'm going to miss some flavors and get a few things wrong, so bear with me. The spicy sauce was a welcome high note and the wine matched well. Later on we began to miss the spice, since there was not much to be found in subsequent dishes.






















Green almond • juniper, gin, lime

This one was a variant on the version in the cookbook, but with a different gel and no cayenne. It was lovely, but fell short of my expectation; I really like the idea of having tiny corners of intense salty, sweet, sour, and spicy that embellish the main flavors and elegant textures. This could have used a pinch of fire.

Soft Shell Crab • carrot, five spice, duck
Melville "Verna's" Estate Viognier, Santa Barbara County 2008

It's safe to say that I've never seen a more extravagantly beautiful plate of food. And the wide-ranging yet tightly compatible flavors- from crunchy crab to unctuous duck, impeccably liased by creamy carrot- were marvelous. Little bright floral and herbal notes popped out in different bites. It was downright musical. The only weak spot for me was a sesame-chive nougat sort of thing (in back, with a little flower on top) that was a tad too arid for my taste; it had the saliva-destroying power of halvah and might have worked better as a powder in smaller quantity. The wine was remarkably non-California tasting, having undergone no Malolactic fermentation, but still paled next to the 2002 Cheze Condrieu we had recently.






















Blue Crab • carrot, five spice, duck
Gustave Lorentz Grand Cru Pinot Gris "Altenberg de Bergheim" Alsace 2004

Where the last plate would not be out of place in many top-notch restaurants, this one was a seriously deep sci-fi remix of many of the same flavors. Served chilled in an entasized shot glass with a spoon, it was one of the most profound dishes of the night. Everything had been turned into cream, or gel, or foam; the fibers of crab offered the only resistance to the tongue. Dense yet ethereal, funky yet weightless, complex yet harmonious, this was a goddamn masterpiece. If our tongues were longer we surely would have swabbed these glasses clean.

The wine was insane. It tasted years older than it was, and had the honeyed, layered, deep yellow vibe of some mutant love child of a Chave Hermitage blanc, the Cheze Voignier, and maybe some Meursault thrown in as lube. My wine find of the night.


























Black Truffle • explosion, romaine, parmesan

His most famous dish, and the only one he brought with him from Trio. Very nice, but then I knew what was coming. Christine did not; I have a nice sequence of pics documenting her progress through the five stages of trufflicious explosement. This is stage one: anticipation.


























Pigeonneau • à la Saint-Clair
"Alter Ego" de Château Palmer, Margaux 2004

Chef Achatz has been incorporating more classics into the menu, and here was a little piece of Escoffier reimagined as a Zen garden. Elegant, perfectly executed, and deeply satisfying. Something I noticed throughout, though, is that given the size and subtlety of some dishes, even a sprig of thyme was a tad overblown at times, crushing the more delicate flavors. Making it into a powder would have allowed for the same intense brightness, but made it available to more of the bites and integrated it better. Quibbling, but nonetheless it happened several times.

The wine was a closed fist. Good young Bordeaux- even a second wine like this- is just not worth opening. It's hard for me to imagine that they couldn't find something more drinkable.





















Bacon • butterscotch, apple, thyme

This is Claudia's now-infamous "bacon on a sex swing" and it does deserve the name. On balance, though, it's a tad heavy on the sweetness; this is the point at which we started to get a little fatigued from the sugar in many dishes. They've reordered the trajectory of the menu so that it undulates back and forth between savory and sweet, but because we use so little sugar at home and have many more bitter, spicy, and pickled components to our meals, it got a little cloying. Not to say that they weren't wonderful, just that we could have used some kimchi or tsukemono type flavors here. Overall there was a dearth of sour and hot in the meal, and cumulatively it made for a heavier experience than it could have been. The bacon was so polite it almost didn't register; I wanted feral intensity like in our hillbilly bacon to counterbalance the sweetness of the apple and butterscotch (and again with the thyme sprig!)

Sweet Potato • bourbon, brown sugar, smoldering cinnamon

The presentation was terrific, but it hit at the wrong point in the menu for us.

Mustard • passionfruit, allspice

Freaking genius. One of the best bites of the night. Served on the Eye, a chilled glass that helps keep these antigriddled lovelies cold for their harrowing trip upstairs from the kitchen, the combined flavors were a revelation- and, just as importantly, they faded away after the one bite, making us scramble to remember the sensation.

Hot Potato • cold potato, black truffle, butter
Bruno Paillard "Première Cuvée" Brut Rosé, Rheims

Another classic; the temperature contrast adds a new dimension to the layers of richness (you pull the pin, dropping the hot potato and truffle into the cold soup, then knock it back.) Eating off of parrafin kind of squicks me out, though. The Champagne was good, but not as good as I wanted it to be. Kind of tight and restrained- a more opulent style like Egly-Ouriet might have been interesting.





















Yuba • shrimp, miso, togarashi

This was a crispy spine of yuba that supported a helix of prawn, orange taffy, and miso mayonnaise, garnished with black and white sesame seeds. The salty miso and gentle heat from the togarashi balanced the sweet orange well, but the much subtler sweetness of the prawn got a little lost. I loved the serving dishes.

White Asparagus • arugula, white pepper, honey
Tentaka "Silent Stream" Junmai Daiginjo Sake, Tochigi

This soup kind of let me down. Texturally, it was super creamy, but the sweetness overall and lack of definition in the pickled asparagus made it a little flabby. My least favorite of the night. It's important to remember, though, that in another context it may well have been mind-blowing. The sake was incredibly aromatic and clean- a very special treat.

Lilac • scallop, shellfish, honeydew
Albert Mann "Vielles Vignes" Auxerrois, Alsace 2006

And then maybe my most favorite of the night. I love eating lilacs (though my experience cooking with them is limited to making ice cream) and this dish was a stunning accomplishment. There's a point when one contemplates a great work of minimalism- whether music, painting, sculpture, or anything- that the narrow constraints of the piece crack open and reveal something close to infinity inside; it's like seeing the universe in a grain of sand. This dish was like that. The impossibly subtle sweetness of the shellfish with tiny compressed honeydew balls and celery in the gentlest of cream sauces, studded with little lilac "pillows" surrounded by an ethereal lilac foam- it was a perfect little world in a bowl, and downright moving in its beauty.




















Wagyu Beef • powdered A-1, potato, chips
Jean-Michel Gerin Côte-Rôtie "Champin le Seigneur" 2003

At this point our enigmatic centerpiece came into play. It's another trademark of the establishment that something mysterious is placed on your table at the outset, and becomes part of a course later on. This evening it was a solemn black vase that sat atilt on a black rubber circle developing a nice rime of frost around its base while we ate. It obviously had dry ice inside, but what would they do with it?

The answer came in the form of the most divine piece of beef I've ever had. I've had wagyu before, but this was so unspeakably sublime it wiped the others from my memory like doodles from a dry-erase board. Like a hard drive in an MRI. Like I just learned that Soylent Green was made from PEOPLE. What put it over the top were the accompaniments: a cube of hot, silken mashed potato crusted with salt and vinegar potato chips and a little plastic pouch containing the powdered essence of A-1 steak sauce: anchovy, tamarind, raisin, and clove. There were also little piles of Maldon salt and black pepper. A slice of this übersteak, swabbed in a bit of each powder and chased by a smidge of creamy, crispy potato bomb was an utterly brilliant take on numbing steakhouse fare. And just the right amount- by the fifth bite, the awe had subsided and it was time to move on. Bite six was a fond, longing farewell to what may have been a once-in-a-lifetime pleasure.

The dry ice had aromatics in it, so when they served the food they poured water (I'm guessing) into the vessel and fragrant fog gushed forth onto the table, giving this moment of profound decadence a nice B-movie touch. The wine, as with the Palmer, was WAY too young. There is just no point serving something that says Côte-Rôtie on the label when it's this tight. I can think of several $20 bottles that would have matched this so wonderfully- not to mention how a glass of something truly special and ready to drink would have elevated this into the stratosphere. I know they need to be able to source large quantities for the list, but there has to be a better wine choice for such a magnificent plate of food as this.

Something else that didn't quite sit right with us was the bread. Throughout the meal, lovely little baked bready things were placed on our small side plates, and we had two gorgeous butters to slather on them- goat, and cow with black Hawaiian salt. Now there's nothing at all wrong with that, except that it stood out as such a weird restaurant trope to hang on to, given how many others had been discarded in the name of innovation- like a vestigial tail you can't see because it's behind you. It would have been so much more fitting to have grains and bakery-type notes interwoven with the courses of the tour. As it was, there was almost no grain to be found in our meal.



















Lemon Soda • one bite

Served on a linen-wrapped wand of sorts (looking a bit like a ruler) these were two small triangular envelopes of isomalt (probably) containing lemon-flavored pop rock powder. They evaporated in a pleasant citrus fizz and cleansed our palates for what followed.

Yogurt • pomegranate, cassia

A beautiful sphere of yogurt with a liquid center in a pomegranate syrup, downed as a shot. Rich yet clean, and again the instant nostalgia trying to capture all the subtleties of the interplay between the tangy yogurt and that slightly metallic earthiness of pomegranate. In some ways the single bites were the most powerful because they forced one to pay attention, stretching time out to contain more individual slices of experience.



























Bubble Gum • long pepper, hibiscus, crème fraîche
The flavors of bubble yum captured in a glass tube which one pulls on hard like a stubborn stogie. A flood of fleeting associations, and a lovely chewy bite to the gels. Really nice.



























Transparency • of raspberry, yogurt
A paper-thin glass of raspberry, dusted with sweet yogurt powder. It dissolved into pure flavor, then vanished.



























Rhubarb • goat milk, onion, lavender air
Elio Perrone "Bigaro" Piedmont 2008

This plate came on a pillow filled with vaporised lavender essence; the weight of the plate and our pressure on it slowly forced the fragrance out into the air around us while we ate. Onion cotton candy, different textures of rhubarb and goat milk- it was beguiling. The wine, a Moscato-Brachetto blend, was an excellent match, and had hints of the the tangy Brachetto stank that helped keep it from being too one-dimensional.

Chocolate • blueberry, tobacco, maple
Smith-Woodhouse 1994 Vintage Port

Now I don't know why they chose us for what happened next. It may be that they research their guests and they discovered what a giant food nerd I am. It may be that one or more of our (all-male) wait staff told Chef that one of the great beauties of our time was sitting upstairs and he should come up and gaze upon her. It may be that all my geeky banter, especially with Craig the wine guy, distinguished us from the more taciturn and/or thoroughly disoriented diners around us. It may have been plain dumb luck. But I didn't see anybody else get the following treatment.

One of our servers came up at this point and said "Chef is going to throw you a little bit of a curve ball." They cleared everything off the table and vanished, returning with a rubber mat, which unrolled across the whole table. Then, suddenly, Chef Achatz was standing there, with a helper on the other side. We said hello, and he explained that sometimes plates offer a too-small surface for composition; this was an effort to expand outward onto a larger canvas, as it were. And they got to throwin'. Tobacco cream, blueberry syrup, spheres of blueberry jam, pickled blueberries, walnuts- praline and powder- jiggly spheres of maple extract (the wood, not the sap) and chocolate mousse that had been frozen with liquid nitrogen. And thyme. Did I mention the thyme? We chatted a bit and they went back to work. It was a delicious finale. I resisted the urge (probably because I'm over 30) to insist upon a photo with him, and I didn't even hump his leg or anything.

Here's the result, after a few initial passes of the spoon (just, you know, to make sure it was OK.)





















Pound Cake • strawberry, lemon, vanilla bean

A tiny circle of dense, chewy swirl formed on the end of a vanilla bean from somewhere in the happy, happy place between cake and candy. Not much more to say about it, except that I had wisely saved a sip of port to wash it down.

And that was that. A mere four hours (at around $200 per hour) and we were done. Was it worth it? Sure. For what it was, there's no question, especially compared to how easy it would be to drop that kind of coin at even a mediocre place. This was astonishing, and in places it was simply as good as food can get. The staff are excellent, and quickly get a read on what kind of guest you are; if you show some familiarity or interest, they become more personable and less formal. I abhor the sniveling sycophant style of service, and they do an admirable job of finding the sweet spot where you feel most comfortable (though little things like replacing your napkin every time you go to the can seems a bit over the top, and uses too much bleach.)

Portion sizes could be a little smaller in some cases, since plate fatigue can set in with the larger courses, no matter how sublime. And the pretty hard tilt toward sweetness bogged us down in a few spots. But we are not normal Americans that way. And this is all small beer. The man is a genius, plain and simple.

We had a little visit to the kitchen on our way out, and it's fascinating to watch. There are many, many people employed there, and they do their work with remarkable efficiency. The staff run all the plates upstairs (many were sweating by the end of the night) and the atmosphere is one of frenetic calm- like a Ferrari engine humming at 7500 rpm. Inept as I am, I would love to stage in that kitchen for a month- not just to learn the wizardry and the process, but to see the interface between the real world outside and the kitchen within- to learn about the sources, and producers, and exotic materials, and to see how Chef Achatz, like Borromini, takes the language of classicism and warps it in his magic mirrors until it becomes positively psychedelic in its revelatory power.

Quality Is Job One

Blogging is a funny thing, really. I like doing it, and it landed me a magazine writing job (which is also mostly fun) but I never quite get around to doing most of the requisite things that others do to boost traffic: getting all up in the MyFace and TwitSpace and BoobTube with quick ubiquity, and commenting far and wide like a tweaker cheerleader suffering from simultaneous Prader-Willi and exclamation point-specific Tourette's syndromes. And God knows I detest banner ads, so this is not in danger of earning me beer money any time soon. (Have you seen the new purple Bar Of Death™ that lurches up the screen to occlude the text you might wish to read, requiring you to click it away? Whoever invented that should be waterboarded.)

And so I'm still trying to figure out why I spend so much time trying to take a decent picture of the food I cook and then write interestingly about it for a bunch of strangers.

But then a show intervenes, and I go away for a week, busting my ass to get it all just so, and schmooze, and deal with all the ancillary details, and only have a few minutes in which to even think about all this, and maybe snap a picture of a particularly good meal or bottle that happened on the trip. And maybe a phrase or two will unfurl and get filed away for use when I'm back in front of my very own computer. And I'm OK with it; this is a hobby, and that's enough. I'm happy.

But then, say, I'll find myself at Alinea, and Grant Achatz has come up to say hello, and he's composing our dessert right on our table while we chat, and then I realize that it's a little more than that.

You can read all about it in a couple of days when I get to writing.

Fait Accompli

This will be quick, because I've been writing all day and desperately need a shower. Wednesdays we have the Farmers' Market in town, so we wandered over to get a few things. Wild Hive has a table there, so we said hi to Don and grabbed some beans and a bag of his 10-grain mix. I like making it into risotto-y things, and since the wife had stopped at the fish market earlier for scallops, we were in business.

A simmering pot of roasted chicken broth and some little beets cut into small cubes (plus some minced dried porcini) were all I needed to make a creamy, deep fuchsia porridge of sorts which I topped with seared scallops and a little pan sauce made with sherry and pimentón. A salad on the side. Organic rosé. Aaaaw yeah.

Fight For Your Right To Pâté

With the warmer weather, I've been craving pâtés and terrines; a slice or two with a salad and crusty bread is as good as lunch can get (at least until the cucumbers and tomatoes arrive) and the archetypal combination of potted meat, mustard, and pickles can find expression in many forms along a spectrum from humble to elegant.



















In this case, humble: a 5 lb. pork shoulder from Fleisher's became two pâtés de campagne (though with some tweaking of the flavors toward Spain.) First, a cut into cubes, along with most of that glorious fat- I froze some for future use- and a run through the large die of the grinder.


























Next up, seasoning with garlic, fresh herbs (parsley, thyme, rosemary, sage and chive flowers) pimentón, 5-spice, wine, sherry, pepper, coriander, cumin, and preserved lemon, followed by a second pass through the large die. Into this heady mélange I beat a panade of two eggs, milk, and panko as well as a handful of whole green peppercorns. I packed the mixture into two loaf pans and let them sit overnight. The next morning, I fired up the water bath and vacuum-sealed both terrines; one went in the freezer for another time, and the other slid into the bath for a six-hour soak at 68˚ C.




















Once out, I unsealed it, wrapped it tightly, and let it sit overnight in the fridge. The next day, with bread, salad, cornichons- not yet our own, but soon- and good mustard, I finally had the lunch I'd been craving for weeks. Delayed gratification is often the best kind.

Meat Mandalas

We had this venison roast in the freezer, and the seal had broken so it was getting a little ice on it, so I pulled it out. Once defrosted, it was clearly more than we needed, so I cut three small steaks off of it and put the rest in the fridge. I rubbed the steaks with salt, pepper, and some herbs and let them sit while I cubed red potatoes and a turnip and set them in a little smoked duck fat to brown. The turnip greens, plus the greens from two chioggia beets and some radishes got a coarse chop and a wilt with garlic, and I simmered some dried cranberries with a minced beet, agave syrup, balsamic vinegar, and 5-spice. It worked well; venison likes a slightly sweet sauce, and the addition of sage flowers added an amazing kick to a combined bite of meat and chutney.
























The next night, trying to avoid redundancy, I marinated thinly-sliced strips of deer in soy sauce, wine, agave, nam pla, mirin, and yuzu juice. I made some local polenta using more of the BBQ pork broth and the last dollop of the coconut borscht to give it a lovely deep flavor and rosy hue. Meanwhile, I glazed some baby carrots in rosé with raisins, cumin, cider vinegar, and honey. Once the meat was cooked (about 30 seconds- thin as it was, I wanted it still pink in the middle) I reduced the marinade for a sauce and put it all together. This one was better; the subtle richness of the polenta married ever so happily with the steakiness of the meat and the slightly sweet carrots and raisins. Another shining example of the endless riches to be had when one saves bones and uses potent bits of leftovers to change the everyday into the one-of-a-kind.

Boar-B-Q

The bones from the boar ribs- simmered for a couple of hours with an onion, carrot, and parsley- turned into a nimble yet hefty (think Chris Farley) stock which we have been putting to good use in the ensuing days. In this case the smoky, umamilicious elixir was the happy medium in which some udon found themselves, accompanied by burdock simmered with dried shiitake, blanched kale (I usually do it in the noodle water pre-noodle) and a sprinkle of 7-spice (shichimi togarashi for those who enjoy typing.)

Freaking awesome. Guilt-free essence of barbeque, with slippery noodles, bright greens, and sweet, super-earthy burdock with a mushroom subwoofer. Never have normally genteel folk been reduced to slurping, grunting animals so quickly.

Mulch Ado About Nothing

No time for a real post right now, but here's a shot of the herb and fruit garden that's just about done. It looks a little corporate right now, but as things fill in the mulch to green ratio should reverse. The post title courtesy of Milo, who just started saying it for some reason.

Process Serving

Last week I had a vague hankering to make a chicken cacciatore-type thing, but after taking stock of what we had lying around I decided on a kind of chicken saag instead. Our turnips are getting really big, so I took chopped leaves and root and cooked them with onion until soft, then added some leftover bitter green pesto, yogurt, and a little wine and puréed it until smooth. The root really helps thicken the greens, making for a wonderfully rich texture without using much at all in the way of fat. I simmered the thighs in the green sauce until all was lovely and tender. The leftovers made for a great lunch. We saved the bones, and the next day I made a curried chicken pho with the bones, onion, ginger, clove, cinnamon, coriander, and star anise, then strained it and put it in the fridge for another time.


























This next meal from the following night was good, but unremarkable: broiled salmon, sautéed pak choi from the garden, whole-wheat couscous, and a sauce. The sauce was the beginning of something pretty interesting, though, which is why I'm posting this. It was basically a hybrid of a chimichurri and a gribiche, with mustard, olive oil, garlic, parsley, cornichons, capers, and lemon. It was delicious with the oily fish, but it wasn't quite all the way to where I wanted it.




















Then, on Sunday, entertaining some friends, I had a chance to try again for the result I had envisioned, and also make another idea that had taken shape over the course of a couple of days: coconut borscht. Initially, I was just going to purée beets with coconut milk, but then I remembered the pho made from the curried chicken bones and it all came together. I pressure-cooked cubed beets with coconut milk, curried chicken pho, kaffir lime leaves, and galangal, then removed the rhizome and blasted the rest smooth. Strained through a tamis, and adjusted for seasoning, it was a silky fuchsia indulgence of a first course. The sweetness of the beets really meshed with the tropical overtones of the lime leaf and galangal, and the creamy coconut elided those bright treble notes with the earthy bass of beets and the woody spices from the broth. Our friends brought a bottle of Susana Balbo's Torrontes, which is a lovely, tropically perfumed white that turned out to be perfect with the soup.






















Next up was softshell crab tempura, made using Hank's batter recipe. To go with them, the gribichichurri 2.0- similar, but with lecitihin added to emulsify it (see? no oil seeping out like on the salmon plate) and with a healthy pour of homemade lime pickle salsa: last year's vinegar-pickled serranos, carrots, and lime wedges with coriander, fenugreek, mustard and cumin seeds all blended together into a green glop that looks like salsa and tastes like lime pickle. (Thanks to Cookie for the idea.)





















And last, from a recent trip to a farmers' market, boar ribs rubbed, smoked, and mopped with the latest iteration of the ongoing barbeque saga, served on more pommes écrasées (because all people love them) with our guests' beet greens and radicchio salad. Somewhere during the crab we switched over to one of the 2002 Cheze Condrieus I got for half price, and MAN is that a chewy, sexy, profound glass of honey-yellow bliss. It even handled the ribs, though a fat red would have been the obvious choice (had it not been a school night.)




















So the Viet-Thai borscht and pickle sauce go in the repertoire, and the ribs will become a luscious BBQ pork broth for using in miso or rainy-day split pea soup, or with udon, or as the base for an even more insane barbeque sauce to use in pulled pork. As the garden unfolds- strawberries are arriving, peas and favas impend, baby carrots are about 2 weeks off- it will be fun to see what else gets added into the mix.

Pete and John's Not Very Excellent Adventure

The June issue of Chronogram is out; this time around Medeski and I tasted our way through many local wines. Go here to read all about it.