The selection for my upcoming class on Thanksgiving Wines

The great annual celebration of Thanksgiving brings all our families together over a table with more food than any of us could possibly eat.  So much thought and effort goes into producing the food, but very little thought goes into which wines to pair with this abundant meal.  Beaujolais Nouveau often makes its debut as the first wine of the season and can bless our tables with a snapshot of the French vintage. Beaujolais Nouveau is rarely more than a bubble gum style wine and though very quaffable is hardly deign of gracing the table for the whole meal.

There are no hard and set rules to pairing the right wine with this traditional meal, but I will try to offer you some good tips on choosing the wine style appropriate to the celebration.  

The first thing you need to consider is the sheer volume of heavy food you will consume during this meal.  This meal weighs you down quickly so you don’t need a wine that will do the same.  This is probably not the time for that big Cabernet, Merlot or Zinfandel.  Does that mean that it is absolutely not allowed – no.  If you love a wine and you are excited to drink it, then by all means bring it to the table.  Just be aware that a heavy wine might bog down your palate and take you out of the game sooner.

Sweeter or super fruity wines are probably not a good choice either as they could potentially negatively affect the taste of the food.

Acid is key, and I’ m not talking that Ken Keasey you’re either on the bus or off the bus type of acid, but crisp sourness that will make you salivate and clean your palate in preparation for the next bite. The Acid profile in a wine whether it is white or red will count more than the fruitiness of the wine. It shouldn’t be wine with a level of acidity that will make you wince and drool out of the side of your mouth as if you just sucked on a lemon, but the type of acidity that is crisp, provides freshness and cleans your palate.

Body of the wine is also key.  If the wine is too full-bodied then you might also get taken out of the dinner early.  Full bodied wines will be too heavy for this type of meal. Look for a light to medium bodied wine that will keep you in the game for the long haul.

Tannin should be light or well-rounded and supple. That super tannic Cabernet Sauvignon with tons of oak that leaves you wondering where your gums disappeared to is probably not a good choice for this type of meal.  Look for light tannins in red wines for Thanksgiving.

So what does that leave as options?

In whites: Albarino, Rueda, Burgundy or even California unoaked chardonnay, Dry German Rieslings, Austrian Gruner Veltliners are all natural choices.  Dry Sparkling wines and Champagne are not bad choices either.

In reds: Pinot Noir especially from Burgundy, or Willamette Oregon, Grenache or wines from the southern Côtes du Rhône, Tempranillo, California cool climate Pinot Noirs, Beaujolais Cru or even Loire Valley Cabernet Francs, Valpolicellas, Barberas and Chiantis are all good choices.

For the wine tasting I am putting on tomorrow night I have chosen:

Paco & Lola – Rias Baixas – Albarino 2009
Lois – Gruner Veltiner 2010
Verget – Bourgogne Blanc – Grand Elevage 2009
Retorno – 100% Garnacha – Catalayud 2009
Pascal Granger – Juliénas (Beaujolais Cru) 2008
Ramsay – North Coast – Pinot Noir 2009
Byron – Central Coast – Santa Maria Valley – Pinot Noir 2009

Ground Zero

This morning we were able to catch up on sleep as I wasn’t expected to be at the Congress until 12:30pm.  We took the opportunity to head down to ground zero.  The apartment we were staying in has a straight line view down 6th Ave all the way to ground zero.  I can only imagine the vantage point if you were per chance looking out the window that morning on 911.

The area is a major construction zone. We asked how we could get in, but were told we had to go 5 blocks to see if we could pick up tickets to enter the memorial.  So instead we headed just one block east and landed on the occupy Wall Street park.  There was a heavy police presence for what appeared to be a fairly small group of campers.  Makeshift offices with generators powering computers and tarps at the ready for inclement weather.  A kitchen area and re supply area for all the occupiers needs.  A group was having a town hall meeting at a seating area in the park.  It was hard to imagine that the activity in this little park could spark the explosion of discontent across the nation and beyond we are seeing at this time.

Many clever signs in the park

This is what democracy looks like

We walked another block over and arrived at Wall Street which is barricaded against any attack.  We got back on the subway and headed uptown.  We walked up to the Armory and starving dropped into a Korean Express – which rocked.   Most times I am more excited by inexpensive ethnic fare available in NYC than the starred options.  The kimchee was so nicely sour and spicy that it has become my new point of reference.

The Somm Slam final two took their positions. Each of us had a jar of curry in front of us and another blind tasting wine.  Fred Dex began the competition by explaining that the two would have to go through the blind tasting verbally in front of us.  I smelled the wine and instantly thought Sauvignon Blanc but a more subtle one on the nose.  It did not have the intensity of a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand nor could I imagine that it was an old world Sauvignon Blanc.  That left based on what was left of the selection Chile or Australia.

Dex allowed Jill Zamorsky (Sommelier for Brian Voltaggio’s Restaurant Volt) who won the blind tasting on the previous day to choose who would taste and evaluate first. She decided to go first. A lady in the second row who is a Master Sommelier was to write down all the descriptors each contestant used in their allotted 4 minutes.  Alexander LePratt (Sommelier for Café Boulud) left the room and we got to watch Jill go through the process.  She narrowed it down to an Australian Sauvignon Blanc.  Alexander came back in and went down the same path and narrowed it down even further to a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillion and said it came from Margaret river.  Pretty amazing really except that these finalists have had a little time to snuggle up to this selection over the course of 3 days.  It would have been awesome if they were faced with a wine that was not included in the selection.  Still it was amazing to watch each of the finalist vocalize their sensory evaluation and indicate what they are looking for when they narrow down the options to their final decision.

They each had to open up a jar in front of them to evaluate a spice blend (Curry) and determine what the mix was composed of.   They both did well in listing the typical elements in the curry blend.

Their final pairing exercise came down to two dishes created by Indian Chef Hemant Mathur of restaurant Tulsi.  One dish was a type of croquette with spinach and Garam Masala and the following dish was Tandoori style Lamb rack chops with apple chutney.  Jill chose a St. Joseph Esprit de Granit (Syrah) to go with the first dish and Alex chose a Chilean Chardonnay.  I felt the St. Joseph was a better pairing.  Jill chose a  Pinot Gris and Alex chose a Pinot Noir both from the same producer, Mt Difficulty, in New Zealand with the lamb.  I felt that Alex’s choice was better with this dish, though frankly I would have been happy with either choice with this pairing.

I retired from the Slam a little early so I could catch Andoni Aduriz on stage, which I was sure was going to be the highlight of the Congress.

I sat down mid movie that showed some of the producers from his region.  It brought me back to my brief stay in the Basque country where I was struck by the mountainous verdant coastline that runs all the way to the west of Spain.   He showed a few dishes as well where he used Calcium Carbonate (Lime) to cook vegetables to create very unique effects and textures.  Andoni loves to mimic nature in his cooking.  Make potatoes look like rocks for an example as he did when he was at the IACP in Denver.  In one dish he soaked Jerusalem artichokes in calcium carbonate mixture for 3 hours then cooked them. When he cut into them the interior looked just like crab meat, which he of course incorporated into the dish.  The show stopper of the presentation was when he showed a dish that was a 5 year process to perfect.  The dish was  inspired by an an egg dish he had in Japan at a Kaiseki restaurant.   He wanted to create an edible facsimile of an egg that he could stuff with a substance similar to egg white.  So he had to create an egg mold and then find the perfect edible mixture brittle enough to replicate the cracking characteristics on an egg.  He created a mixture based on Manitol poured it into the mold and emptied it out to get the right thickness.  Then he unmolded the egg, drilled a hole in the thick end and filled it with a mixture meant to replicate egg white (I was hoping  he was going to fill the center with an egg yolk that would form inside, but maybe that will be in another 5 years) and then he sealed the hole with a thin layer of manitol mixture.  Table side they bring out egg yolks that have been cured in sugar and pull one of these eggs out of an egg carton and smash it onto the plate in front of the guests (seems like a lot of work for something you are going to smash). He asked his assistant to bring him a box of eggs which he then proceeded to throw into the crowd. Some of the eggs smashed in the audience’s hands.  Quite dramatic and fun.

After that amazing presentation I strolled around the vendors area and got a call from Lucy who was heading my way.  I met her at the door and while she at the ladies I ran into Jorge and Bruce and talked to them about their meat retreat at Peter Lugers.  Lucy came up and Jorge passed her his pass to check out the event.  We went in and strolled around and I passed by the Winston Industries booth and for laughs filled out a card for a CVap oven.   The CVap stands for Constant Vapor and is a low temperature oven that allows you to cook items at a precise temperature in vapor (not steam) environment.  Think Sous Vide without the bags.

We stayed in the vendors area for awhile and then decided to head off for a beer at a nearby pub.  We no sooner get out of the Armory and down a half block when I got a call from Winston Industries and Jill lets me know that my name was picked out of a bowl and that I was the winner of the CVap oven and which included the whole Modernist Cuisine Book Series that was just published and getting much deserved hype as the most expensive and revolutionary cook book to ever hit the market.   I was beyond elated at my good fortune.

What a way to end a great Congress! Thanks Winston Industries. Thanks Starchefs.

Chris Young one of the authors of Modernist Cuisine and his lab set up

Heading out into the street on Monday had a very different feel to it than Sunday.  The city was bustling with workers.  Wherever I went on the subway, I was fighting the tide of the working masses.  Not quite sure why the subway is designed so that everyone has to come in or out of the same turnstiles.  The Parisians have a much better system.  It’s also rare on the Paris system that you have consider that the train you might get on is going to hit the stops you have on your map.  Not the case in NYC,  be very aware of the train letter that comes into the station.

Today’s wine presentation was fascinating.  It featured a Quebecois, François Chartier, who has been intently studying aroma compounds in all foods and wines and creating food and wine parings based on aroma comfort zones. He got my attention right away when he conjured Jimi Hendrix by bringing up how Jimi turned to music science when he created the album Rainbow Bridge. Prior to that Jimi was playing completely by instinct, then as any artist he felt he needed to understand the theory behind the art.  I always wonder what Jimi would be playing now if he were alive.

François has worked intently with Ferran Adria (they both have the same hairdo – curly hair on a slightly balding head) in the creation of some of his dishes.  His system which he demonstrated in several pairings brings together the same aroma compounds in various elements of a dish and ties it together with the main aroma compound in the wine.  His main curious pairing was a Nori wrapped raspberry gel and a McClaren Vale Shiraz Grenache.  I really want to buy his upcoming book called Tastebuds and Molecules to play around with some of researched pairings. He was a fascinating and enthusiastic presenter.

Back to the main stage to catch the last part of Pierre Hermé the Macaron king.  This year I chose to go the wine route as the primary focus of the seminars and activities to catch.  It meant that I was often torn to have to miss some of the outstanding presenters.  There’s just too much activity to catch everything at the congress.  Pierre Hermé’s shop, across the street from St. Sulpice on Rue Bonaparte in the 6th, was one of my Pastry stops on my bi-annual trips to France with my culinary students.  Walking into his shoebox size store was like walking into a fine jewelry store.  Pierre was putting together some funky entremets with weird pairing like strawberry and wasabi.  He explained that he came up with his pairings by focusing on one ingredients then tasting it with many other flavors and eventually stumbling over great flavor combinations. “flavors find him.”  It would be interesting to see if there are scientific aroma connections à la Francois Chartier in the inherent aroma molecules in Pierre’s pairings. Time to go Hendrix in your approach Pierre.

Then it was back to the 2nd day installment of the Somm Slam.  Missing both Sanghoon Degeimbre from Belgium and Paul Liebrandt of restaurant Corton on the main stage.  The original 11 sommeliers had dwindled down to 6.  They had like the previous days a wine to blind taste.  Today the focus was going to be on pairing the wine selections with the cuisine of RJ Cooper who recently opened a restaurant called Rogue 24 (because he serves only 24 course tasting menus) in Washington DC.  RJ was the chef de cuisine at Vidalia which is owned by the first chef I ever worked for Jeff Buben.   They had to pair wines to two of his dishes. One dish was based on cured duck, corn silk, quail egg and filled the room with smoke as each dish was presented covered with a plastic cup filled with smoke.  The next dish was based on green peanuts, tobacco, liquid corn polenta, sorghum and maple.  They each picked their fist wine and then those were taken out of the selection for the following dish.  I was happy to see that Côtes du Rhône was often being chosen and seemed to form the best pairings.

They finished the second day of the Slam with more theory questions and then it was back to the main stage. Once again I took in the tail end of a presentation by Spanish chef Angel Leon of restaurant Aponiente in Puerto Santa Maria in Andalucia on seafood and using ingredients from the bottom of the food chain. He’s doing some soylent green type stuff with plankton and other stuff we should probably get used to eating.  He managed to fatten up a type of lake carp and transform its belly into a seafood chorizo which he passed around the room.

Then it was on to a presentation by a chef from Chile: Rodolfo Guzman of Restaurant Borago in Santiago.  As in the previous year with Dan Hunter from Australia, you can quickly spot a disciple of Andoni Aduriz. They all seem to share an amazing connection to their native soil.  They all actively seek out foods and special attributes of their surroundings and incorporate them into their cooking.  He showed an awesome video of his work creating a dessert based on the nuts of a tree sacred to the Mapuche Indians.  He re-created the outer part of the seed with a mold and then the seeds and was able to reseal the pod so you could shake the pod and hear the seeds inside.  All edible of course.

His presentation was followed by Chris Young one of the authors of Modernist Cuisine , the most anticipated culinary encyclopedia. His set up looked like a mini lab.  He showed us an inexpensive ($400) way of creating a Rotovap like machine for reducing liquids at low boiling temperature. The top blew off the contraption mid lecture, which added some comic relief to the otherwise serious scientific tone of his presentation. He had a counter top centrifuge (everyone should have one) and he showed the multi layers you can get out of puréed peas.  In the vial he passed around you could clearly see three distinct layers of green.  Really cool, but I’m not likely to have enough money to purchase a centrifuge in my lifetime. Could be a cool product.

I was done after that demo and instead of staying for David’s Thompson Thai Street food presentation and the cocktail reception that followed, I decided to meet up with my wife and members of her family who came up to visit from Philadelphia.

We went out to Co. a nearby pizzeria owned by Jim Leahy, the man who popularized No Knead bread which I have posted about here.  Excellent wood oven pizza.

Day one of the Somm Slam

It was hard getting up by 9am to prepare for the “Blood and Curds” Spanish Wine and Cheese seminar and the calm along 6 Ave. on a Sunday morning made it even harder to get out of the comfortable bed.

In previous years at the ICC the lines to get in were overwhelming and the registration seemed disorganized. This year they provided bar codes to be scanned and even though I was late for the seminar the process took less than 1 minute.  Bravo Starchefs!

The seminar was stellar and reinforced how much I already know about Spain’s cheeses and wines.  That in itself is comforting.  They presented 10 wines and 9 cheeses. Enrique Canut and Kerin Auth did a great job at going back and forth with their discussion about the various cheeses and the reasons she chose the wines to accompany. Enrique presented a stellar cheese called “Ombre” which stands for “shade” that I will have to try and find locally.

Then it was time to get into the main room for the opening presenters. Compared to previous years the room seemed to have fewer vendors.  The Belgium beer garden was missing.  Could the economy have caught up with this congress?

Kim Severson and Grant Achatz took the main stage and Kim acted as interviewer to go over the theme of this year’s congress the “6th Sense.”  The sixth sense is the intangible positive or negative emotional response you get when you dine in a restaurant.  The hardest thing to control.  Chef like Grant Achatz and Heston Blumenthal have been toying with manipulating diners emotions through sensory manipulation for quite some time.

During the first congress I attended. Heston Blumenthal took us on journey of preparing a Christmas dinner for a small group that was a perfectly orchestrated and loaded with every imaginable sensory memory he could come up with to evoke the emotions of Christmas. Mind blowing and cemented my desire to someday experience a dinner at his restaurant.

There is so much involved with an unforgettable meal.  The people you dine with, the weather, the circumstances in your life, the occasion, the scents, the waiter and of course the food.  Can a restaurant actually strum those emotional heartstrings and magnify the customers experience?

Grant talked about his latest venture “Next” which is a restaurant that changes themes and menu every 3 months. Currently he is working on a childhood theme. Previous themes have been “Paris 1906″ and currently the theme is a “Tour of Thailand.”  So the challenge is to come up with dishes that conjure the comfort foods of childhood.  This presents a challenge, as he mentions, due to the fact that certain flavors like “bisquick” are for him, Because his mother made them every Sunday, the benchmark for pancake flavor.  How do you mess with that and connect with the consumer about that flavor and very American childhood memory and still put the Alinea spin on it.

Since I chose to be a Somm Slam judge at this year’s ICC, I had to sacrifice some pretty exciting presenters.  The next up was Laurent Gras the former chef for L2O.  I wanted to get the opportunity to talk to him as I had a student who worked for him at L2O. Interestingly enough L2O was awarded the coveted 3 stars from Michelin right after Laurent quit the restaurant.

Instead of catching that I went to the Slam.  They brought out 11 top Sommeliers to compete this year. Predominantly from Washington D.C. , some NYC and one Californian.  On each of the days the Sommeliers were presented with a wine that all had to blind taste and to guess its origin.  All the judges were presented with the same wine so we could evaluate along with them.

Next five of them were led a way from the room while the other six were presented with a plate of 3 Wisconsin cheeses. They had 4 minutes to go to a table with approximately 50 wines and decide which wine they would pair with all 3 cheeses.  Once they committed to a wine the volunteers would begin to pour their wine to the judges so that we could evaluated their choice along with the cheeses.  So if you can imagine each of us had 6 different glasses of wine for us to evaluate along with the cheeses.  We were asked to determine our top 3 choices of a best pairing.

decisions decisions

Then it was next group’s turn.  Originally Fred the emcee said the wines the first group chose would be taken out of the selection.  But when it was time for the second group to choose, he changed his mind and decided to let them have access to the same selection.  The following day he said all the selections from the 1st day would be removed and the options would dwindle.  Two of the same wines were chosen by sommeliers from each group.  A white Maury from the Côtes de Roussillion (did not know they made such a wine) performed remarkably well and was one of the wines chosen by two of the sommeliers.

The wine sponsors for the event were Côtes du Rhône, Vin du Sud (Languedoc), Australia and Chile.  This at least gave the sommeliers a fighting chance to determine the wine in the blind tasting. In the next part of the competition the groups of sommeliers were asked wine theory questions about each of the sponsor’s region.  They had to jot the answer down in a notebook and then show it to all of us.   At the end of the Slam a young lady named Eileen asked for my business card and said she was from InterRhone.  I asked if she knew some of the same people I know and said that Daphne Payan, the daughter of the Directrice of the University of Wine in France where I took my professional students for many years, was at the congress.

I went into the main vendors area and caught the tail end of the David Burke and Doug Piper Australian lamb deconstruction.  the two ping ponged off each other as they cut and prepared a vast array of lamb dishes.  David Burke discussing and making all the dishes he likes to make using lamb and Doug Piper taking down a whole lamb.  David Burke had a band saw and said that every kitchen should have one if they could afford it.

I skipped Bill Kim’s presentation and it seems that might have been a mistake.  He is doing something similar to David Chang’s Momofuko but in Chicago.  His is called Urban Belly and his newer venture Belly Shack.

Bjoring and Daniel

The next up was a Nordic duo, Bjorn and Daniel, that bored the pants off of me.  Interesting ideas but the delivery was numbing.  They have a restaurant in Stockholm Sweden called Frantzén/Lindeberg and showed a video of the producers they use.  It showed their fisherman who catches their fish and then kills them using the Ike Jime method (click the link to get Cooking Issues detailed research on this technique).  This is when you catch the fish live and slice through its vertebrae at its tail and then carefully run piano wire through the core of the vertebrae.  This method insures the fish bypasses the rigor stage which can adversely affect the texture of the fish. Not sure I grasp all of the benefits of the method but it looks like quite a pain staking process.  Being that it originated in Japan I’m sure there is tremendous value.

The video also showed their farmer, a Luddite, who lives in a tent and tends to their specifically grown vegetables.  He plows his field using a horse drawn plow.  He refuses to deliver the vegetables with a car or truck but instead packs everything up and takes public transportation. Two plus hours of public transport to deliver vegetables so that he can feel better about his carbon footprint.  The restaurant only serves 20 patrons a night at around $250 meal with optional additional wine pairing.  There is the customary 1 staff member per guest of standard 3 Star Michelin luxury.   As Bjorn stated “we are not becoming millionaires doing this.”

Gilles Verot and Daniel Boulud

The day ended with a presentation by Daniel Boulud and Giles Verot, which was interesting to me as I had just eaten at DBGBs the night before.  They showed a video in French of Gilles and his wife’s charcuterie in Paris.  Gilles who is a second generation charcutier (his father was a M.O.F. Meilleur Ouvrier de France) in St. Etienne (just south west of Lyon) married a woman in Paris whose father owned a charcuterie in Paris.   This convenient union allowed him to take over the reins of the Paris store and get the hell out of St. Etienne.  Daniel Boulud discovered Gilles when he was over in France searching out a talented charcutier to develop a charcuterie program at Daniel’s many restaurants in NYC.  This collaboration has brought Gilles over to the US many times to train Daniel’s staff and to create the stellar charcuterie that Daniel offers at his restaurants.

Gilles put together a multi-layered Pâté en Croute featuring venison, duck and wild boar each marinating in a unique spice or herb.  After he finished assembling the pâté he cut through an already cooked one to show the crowd.  Giles is the type of artisan which you can’t help but love.  Very humble, amazingly skilled in his craft and grateful for the collaboration with Daniel.  It is that humility which I find particularly endearing.  Many French Chefs vaunt their egos and lack humility.

I rejoined my wife back at the apartment and we prepared to meet up with Jorge de la Torre as he had invited us to join him at a Vegetarian Japanese restaurant in the east village.  I was not really up for a Japanese vegetarian restaurant, but usually Jorge has great leads on restaurants so we decided to join him and the Dean for J&W Miami.

Kajitsu is the restaurant and is in the basement of a brownstone in the east Village.  Jorge told me it was a 2 star Michelin, so that raised my expectations.  I was further encouraged when we got to the table, Jorge pointed out that Grant Achatz was sitting at the counter with, I assume, his wife.   If one of the top chefs in the US is eating here it must be awesome.

The very Japanese decor was indeed peaceful and calming.  We chose the $50 prix fixe which was a 5 course meal.  I have been to many 1, 2 and 3 star restaurants in my time and how the Michelin guides selected this one as a 2 star is beyond me.  The food was artfully presented and mostly well cooked, the service was attentive and graceful.  However I desperately desired salt at every course.   Vegetables were cooked beyond a crunch in certain plates and maybe I’m not deign of judging Shojin Buddhist cuisine but I think we would have been much happier heading down the street and eating at Momofuku noodle bar. Bathroom was not appointed to the level of a 2 star nor were there any of the other customary luxuries that Michelin requires of a 2 star joint.  I can’t help but wonder what Grant’s take on this restaurant is.

We ended the evening at a nearby Tequila bar, where my wife ordered a jalapeno spiked concoction that was so spicy she couldn’t take more than a few sips.  We were hoping for a call of a very small speakeasy called “Do not Tell” that you have to gain entrance into by going into a little pizza place, going into the telephone booth and picking up the phone. Jorge sent Lucy in there and she picked up the phone and the doorman opened a door in the wall in the phone booth.  No room tonight.

We headed home on the subway and ended another great day in the city.

The logo and theme for this year's Starchefs ICC Congress

Sometime in August I got an email from Starchefs to fill out their industry survey and become eligible for a drawing for a free ticket to attend this year’s Congress.  Midway thru September I was informed I had won free entrance.  In the process of signing in for my ticket, I noticed I could sign up for the Somm Slam (I attended one session last year).  In order to attend this I had to fill out another series of questions to find out if I could be one of the judges.

The person organizing the Slam got in touch to let me know I was selected as a judge and was eligible for a free ticket to the Congress, as well as some of the wine and cocktail seminars.  Clearly I was destined to go to this event again.

My wife, Lucy, loves New York and I offered to have her join me so we could hang out each evening and she could reconnect with friends and family during the day. The friends I usually stayed with were in Spain on vacation but they were nice enough to let us use their new apartment in Chelsea.

We arrived Saturday afternoon and had made plans to meet my British cousin and his wife who live in the burbs of NYC and who I hadn’t seen in about 25 years at DBGB in the Bowery.  This is Daniel Boulud’s Grand Brasserie and the acronym is intended to be reminiscent of the Punk Club CBGBs which was also located in the Bowery. The only possible similarity other than the acronym and the proximity to the old club are the long lines for the four bathrooms that the 200 plus patrons must share and the rather loud music that provided the soundtrack to our evening.  The space, however, is attractive and youthful. The tables and booths are concentrated for volume, the different kitchen stations surround the diners as well as shelving with various copper pots and pans donated by top chefs from around the world and dry goods which I assume are to be used by the cooks.  The overriding theme is an ode to the sausage and features an around the world tour on the menu of the noble sausage.

Daniel Boulud has collaborated with Gilles Verot a famous Chacutier from Paris to create this international collection of stuffed goodness. We tucked into the menu and quickly began to feel the vibe of our waiter who was clearly more interested in maximizing his tips that night than providing a cozy environment for us to make up for 25 years of missing conversation.  We wanted to begin with a series of appetizers and charcuterie and then order the main courses, but the waiter insisted that the kitchen didn’t like it that way. So we ordered everything all at once.

Much to his dismay we weren’t planning on leaving anytime soon and we set up our claim with no intention of moving.  A group of Japanese sat next to us and soon a 3 foot long whole stuffed piglet arrived at the table. Photos all around and then they devoured most of the animal, followed by a hearty Japanese rendition of Happy Birthday at dessert. Then they were gone and the table was turned in about 5 minutes.  The human landscape changed all around us with as much ease and speed.

The food was excellent albeit with small portions at seemingly inflated prices.  The charcuterie was worthy of French standards and Gilles Verot has done an excellent job at training the kitchen staff at handling the finer points of forcemeat cooking.

It was an overall enjoyable experience but seemed to be a departure from the hospitality and comfortable vibe I enjoyed the previous year at Bar Boulud.  This had a turn em and burn em feel that made me feel like one of the Saturday night out of town rubes that Anthony Bourdain, whose plaque and copper pot laid vigil on our table all night, described in Kitchen Confidential.

It was great to catch up with my cousin and his lovely wife and we continued to revel at a trendy lounge not far from the restaurant. The night finished trying to hail a legal cab and eventually compromising by taking an off license cab driven by a Liberian.

We collapsed in our bed to a spectacular view of the illuminated Empire State Building.

Taming the fire for some long burning coals

After many changes in direction and detail, the day of the Asador came.  It all started like this.  My friend Paul Foxx, who  worked for me at Le Bosquet in Crested Butte, was coming out from San Francisco and wanted to take some classes at my school. Based on a picture of him on Facebook roasting a whole lamb over an open fire in the Argentinean style known as Asador, I suggested it might be more fun for us to put on the same thing here in Colorado.

I thought I would try to sell it as a special class and as a way to bring attention to our new Global Grill Series that we are featuring this summer.  I had visions of a well attended class that would then drift into a well attended event that would grab the attention of local media etc. I tried to market it to our clientele at the Kitchen Table and did not even get a nibble.  I regretfully decided to throw in the towel, put up the white flag and bow out of the race.

However, one of my chef instructors and former students is from Argentina and she was really looking forward to the event. I was too.  So we decided to resurrect the event and see if we could sell it to our friends and make the event happen for our own education.  Paul Foxx, had already sent out the cross, Alex Seidel (Chef and owner of Restaurant Fruition and Fruition Farms) had a lamb all ready to go for slaughter and we had enough like minded friends to help us out.

We had plenty of other worries about the day. Would the weather cooperate? Would the local Fire Department let us burn?

The day turned out to be a glorious, low wind, hardly a cloud in the sky 88 degree day.  Fruition Farms is hardly right around the corner from my home or my school.  I arrived a little late from our original scheduled time.  There were a couple of people there and we set up our site.

I had made 3 previous calls to the Franktown Fire Department and was told I could call the day of and we would be OK.  Paul started the fire as I called the FD and they told me they needed to get someone out there to determine if we could burn and issue me a permit.  “Don’t start the fire until they get there” Jane from the Franktown FD told me.  “OK” I replied as I was watching the flames take off.  They took forever to get to the site and I was worried they would shut us down. They were annoyed that we had already started, but when they saw that we had taken adequate precautions and were not planning a bonfire they gave us the OK and we got down to business. The fire chief was wondering if we were doing a pig roast and lost interest when he heard it was lamb.

Bringing the lamb to put on the cross

We hacked off the head of the lamb and removed any organs the processing plant had left in. I cleavered the chest open and we stretched the rib cage open so we could attach it to the cross.  Paul wrapped wire around each leg and punctured the chest to rap wire around the frame.

Tying down the lamb

Organs

We got the lamb going and then started on the other tasks that complimented the meal. We created large batches of the classic sauces for an Asado: Chimichurri, Criolla and Provencal.  We got some of the participants involved and struggled to keep parsley from flying off the cutting board.

Prepping the goods

Josh (who tends the farm, has a sprout company and grows vegetables for the restaurant) had picked some potatoes, turnips, baby leeks, arugula, radishes and chicory for us to use.

Josh the farmer

We assembled some enpanadas, which Patricia had intended to deep fry in lard over the fire.

Enpanada ready for frying

Patricia had also prepared some fresh chorizo sausages which we grilled, stuffed in crispy french baguette, smothered with Chimichurri and devoured as everyone was quickly needing sustenance to go with the wine.

Chorizo on the grill

We grilled off the head and organs, which are a crucial part of any Asado.  We sliced them and served them with the salsa Provencal. They were met with little enthusiasm by some and devoured by others (including brains and eyes).  The tongue and cheeks of the head were exceptional.  Patricia had also brought some Morcilla (Blood Sausage that she had made) which the Argentine contingency were particularly excited about.

There was a lull while we waited for the lamb and the potatoes to finish cooking. Fortunately this fell during the daily milking of the sheep and everyone made their way to watch the action.

Milking the sheep

Alex Seidel makes his own sheep’s milk ricotta and Pecora. It is quite tasty and in very limited production.

Asado de Tira or Flanken Ribs

Finally after rotating the lamb so that it slowly roasts over every part, we were ready to carve the beast.

We made quick work of taking apart the lamb and with a make shift buffet table on one of our coolers and a wide selection of Bauscher plates everyone came up and served themselves to a delicious feast and retreated to the shade of the Kelty tents and abundant Malbec.

Carving time

Caroline with a plateful

The day was a huge success and we might just try to make it an annual event.  We had a great group of foodies for the inaugural launch and I feel confident we will have an even more successful event next year.

Mark deNettis and Chef Bob from Fuel

I’ve been wanting to attend a Whole Hog Hoe Down at Il Mondo Vecchio for awhile and this past Memorial Day weekend while most were putting their sausage on their grills we were making ours.

The owner and instructor is Mark DeNettis, who wields three knives and a steel in an easily accessible scabbard attached to a large chain wrapped around his waist over a maille apron.  He would look equally comfortable at a renaissance festival as to take down a 220 lb. hog.  His bald head is protected by a “Universal Semen Sales” baseball cap. He’s got forearms the size of Popeye and his family hails from Apulia, Italy.  He’s got pork blood running through his veins.  He clearly enjoys what he does.

The eight of us went into the production room and Mark wasted little time to begin his presentation.   He gave a small introduction about the pig and the slaughterhouse it was processed in and then with few deft cuts above its shoulders and around the pigs neck he exposed the vertebrae holding the head to the body.  He moved his body around to the front and twisted the head until it snapped.  A few more cuts at the vertebrae joint released the head which he moved off to the side.

Then he continued on the front of the hog and angling in from the second rib  outlined the front quarters and again hacked through the front quarters.

Head and Shoulder removed. Rib cage and pork belly

He flipped the rib cage and backstrap section of the pig over and piercing between the ribs on the top part of the ribcage outlined where he would make his next hack saw cut.  He quickly removed both bottom sections of the rib cage. This is where the St. Louis ribs and spare ribs come from.

He moved to the back of the animal and began to cut from the belly to the lower back on both sides.  A few passes with the hacksaw and the hind quarters were removed.  In a mere 30 minutes Mark had dismembered the pig into head, front quarters, hind quarters and backstrap.

Under his work table were a line of grey bus tubs in which he would toss in bones and different meat cuts intended for grinding or curing.

He took every opportunity to demonstrate classic meat cuts even if the end result would be ground or turned into a whole cured section.

He showed us how to break down the legs and explained the different leg muscles.  No different than muscling out a veal leg or leg of lamb. One of the legs would be used for prosciutto.

He took down the Boston butt and Picnic Shoulder and showed the muscle, located at the top end of the Boston Butt, that is sectioned off to be used in one of my favorite Salumi “Capocollo” or “Coppa.”

He then demoed a spider rack, which is when you expose the rib tips of the whole rib cage section. Quickly he moved on to sawing down the vertebrae and creating two rib loin roasts.

Giving Bert a high heat shave

Following the contour of the pigs head with his boning knife, he de-masked the whole pigs head, remove the ears, put them in the center of the peeled head, rolled it into a tube and stuffed it into an expanding type of funnel and stuffed it in a fishnet sock. This is the “porchetta di testa,” which he will later cooks sous vide at 180º until it is very tender.

Porchetta di Testa

He put the hams and pancetta on cure and then proceeded to grind all the meat for sausages.  He divided up the ground meat, sprinkled them liberally with a chorizo spice mixture and an andouille spice mix and some of the participants worked the spices in.

Seasoning Andouille

Into the sausage stuffer they went and with a few cranks a coil of sausage furled.  Then two of the participants massaged the meat in the casing and spun the sausages into links in alternating forward and backward spins.

All the participants but one were male and there is nothing like stuffing meat in casing to lower the conversation down to penis and sex jokes.  And that’s saying a mouthful.

Throughout the demo his assistant, Joey, was wrapping meat, bones and skin and stuffing them into boxes for each of us.

The BIG one

The demo ended with a look into his curing fridge which is chock full of his cured meats.  When I first visited his shop over a year ago it barely had any sausages curing in it and now he is building another walk-in.

We grabbed our boxes and left with our memorial day bounty and the kicker is that we will get a call to come pick up our cured products when they are ready. A little over 3 hours elapsed with a break included.

Overall it’s a really great concept.  I would love to have it be more hands on, but I think I could handle the process on my own based on the demo.

He has created a professionally accredited meat butchery program through his Rocky Mountain Institute of Meat, which is hosted at Cook Street if you want to get your hands deeper into all types of quadrupeds and bipeds.

I must be on a whole animal kick as this coming Wednesday June 15th we will be roasting a whole lamb at Fruition Farms near Larkspur. We will be doing an Argentinean whole lamb Asador.  The lamb was raised at the farm. Alex Siedel will be making his famous ricotta that day and we will feast on the whole roasted lamb as well as with many other Argentinean side dishes.

A friend of mine from Crested Butte days, Paul Foxx, is coming from San Francisco to put it on for us.  He shipped the Asador cross over a week ago.

This is sure to be an event worthy of my blog’s name.

Hot pork buns from the Momofuku Book

I could go full hog on this post and turn a sows ear into a purse but I am too busy bringing home the bacon to feast on the trough of puns available to me.  Just the mention of pork belly makes most women recoil with fear as they visualize themselves in their summer bikinis.  In fact at my work I was told by two of my female co-workers that if I even put the words pork belly on a recreational class description it would receive as warm a reception as Gadafi at a human rights convention.  I did not heed their advice and put a pork belly laden Vietnamese menu on the calendar. They were right; it never sold.  When I see pork belly on a menu I become like a heat seeking missile. It beckons me with a come hither look and I throw all caution to the wind.

When I was in NYC for the Star Chefs Congress 3 years ago, I had to go try the pork buns at Momofuku Noodle Bar.  I had heard about them from various sources and was coveting them prior to my arrival.  They were indeed awesome.  So naturally it was on my list of things to try to make from David Chang’s Book.  I have been consistently amazed at how easy the recipes are in this book and of course that makes it an even more worthwhile to purchase.

Momofuku pork belly

So here it is.  Get some good pork belly, put the salt sugar rub on it (let’s call this Chang’s Simple rub as it is generally equal parts salt and sugar and he uses it on everything). Let it cure overnight. I got my pork belly through Ranch Foods Direct and we have recently become an affiliate of theirs at our school. Put the pork belly into a roasting pan and roast in a pre-heated 450° for a half an hour.  His book says for an hour but I was worried it might render too much fat and as you can see from the above picture it was nicely seared in that time. Then drop the temp to 200° (make sure you let all the heat escape from the oven first) and bake it for another hour and a half.During that time ask yourself what is the difference between Roast and Bake?

Baste regularly with all the abundant fat. Remove the pork belly from the oven and allow to cool. Pour the fat into a measuring cup and once all the fat has risen to the top, rack it off and freeze the juice at the bottom of the cup.  David calls this liquid gold and he advises adding it to his taré which is then added to his ramen broth (see my last post if you are confused or bust out the $21 and buy the book on amazon). Wrap the pork belly and put in the fridge to set.

Nice Buns!

Meanwhile make the pork bun dough or do like I did and buy some already made and available in the freezer section (along with some other really bizarre stuff) of your Asian grocery store. Remember don’t go on a Sunday or you might go postal.  If you bought them pre-made, then heat up a steamer and place the buns in the steamer to heat through. You can also re-heat your pork belly in the same steamer. Cut some scallions and slice some cucumbers.  I didn’t have cukes when I took the shot above, so I substituted zucchini and it worked beautifully. Actually for me it is a better solution as cucumbers take their revenge on me for hours after I eat them.  Remove the buns from the steamer brush on a little Hoisin sauce, place slices of cucumber or zukes on the bun. Slice the pork belly against the grain, arrange slices on top of the zukes and sprinkle with scallions. Eat quickly – repeat.

I’ve figured I can have quick access to this dish on a regular basis by freezing sections of cooked pork belly.  All I need are the scallions and cucumbers and I am only a few minutes from a very tasty treat.

Oh by the way pork belly is what they use to make bacon and I bet you don’t pass that up for breakfast.

I recently borrowed this book from work and have been enjoying it completely.  First of all it is a very fun read. I especially like the part where he talks about how he came up with the name of his restaurant “It is no accident that Momofuku sounds like motherfucker” he states.

Not too long ago I was getting ready for a TV spot on Channel 2 the Deuce and I was talking to my marketing rep about how I just finished reading Anthony Bourdain’s follow up book Medium Raw and how much I enjoyed it. “He has such a filthy mouth” she says “chefs shouldn’t be like that, you’re not like that.”  Little does she know that I can rattle off a litany of swear words and use them to chisel away at someone’s ego with the precision of Michelangelo.  Most Chefs can and don’t hesitate in their kitchens.  You get into the high energy bust your ass world of professional cooking and this comes with the territory.  I haven’t been in that world for awhile, so I have since adapted to a more polite daily interaction with people (but I can’t tell you how many times I have wanted to let loose).

Anyway, David Chang the owner of a small restaurant empire in New York is the author of this particular book and he does not hold back on his thoughts or his language.  If you also read Anthony Bourdain’s Medium Raw there is a great chapter on David Chang as well as many other great chapters.

Inspired by both the Momofuku book, Anthony’s interview with David and the amazing meal I experienced at David’s Noodle Bar in NYC a few years back, I decided to dig into the book and learn some Chang magic.

It has been fun, easy and tasty so far.  The first dish I attempted was the Bo Saam, the often written about whole pork shoulder dish served with multiple sides, shredded table side by the patrons, wrapped in lettuce leaves and served with all the condiments (including freshly shucked oysters).

The first shock in the recipe was the shear volume of salt in his rub. 8 lbs. of pork shoulder 1 cup of salt + 1 Tbsp. & 1 cup of sugar.  Rubbed over the shoulder and allowed to sit in your fridge overnight.  Removed from the dish and placed in a roasting pan, then baked at 300º for 6 hours.  Way too salty.  I figure that David actually makes huge batches of this salt sugar combo and then rubs his meats to desired amount and then goes on with the recipe.  Trying to rub that much salt on the pork is overkill. So I would guess keep the ratio the same but only try to rub in about a 1  cup of the mixture. The dish is then baked in a 300° for 6 hours or even do it at 250º for 8.  Baste it often and then finish it with a brown sugar rub and brown it under the broiler.  It should shred easily and be interlaced with fat.  He uses Niman Ranch Paul Willis raised Berkshire pork and that is going to give you better results than your factory farmed abominations.  I don’t have Paul’s number on speed dial, however I have access to great locally raised John Long’s pork.

Then I wanted to make his Kimchee. I had most of the ingredients already on hand except for the shrimp sauce.  I made it, put it in the fridge and waited the prescribed two weeks.  Then we tasted it with the Bo Saam.  It was tasty but didn’t not have any of the fermentation qualities that give Kimchee a bad name (no funk).

Clearly it was time for a trip to Pacific Ocean Market in nearby Westminster.  I went on a Sunday and that is not the day to go to an Asian Market.  The place was packed and I was one of the few Caucasians in the place.  The Chinese music was blaring but with a crackly distortion that would make you willing to cut off your right hand in order to find the off switch.  Still I endured and managed to spend 2 hours there trying to decipher the different packages to find what I was looking for.  Fortunately they have separated the different Asian cultures into separate aisles so you stand a chance at finding what you are looking for.  I have had other frustrating trips to this market desperately trying to find ingredients for the IACP conference that I foolishly volunteered for 2 years ago.  Two of the ingredients that I had such trouble finding then are Katsuobushi (I now know is dried bonito flakes) and Kombu which is Dried kelp.

Kombu on left and Katsuobushi on the right

I struggle to look at every package in the Japanese aisle to find Kombu written anywhere.  Lots of Kelp and seaweed (shredded or whole), but nothing that says Kombu.  Another bewildered caucasian lady is searching the aisle with a little more confidence and I ask her.  “Hell if I know” she says.  Back to the search. Refusing to leave empty handed I grab a package with whole kelp and hope for the best.  Then I try find my nemesis the Katsuobushi.  Finally I come across a one pound bag of the stuff hidden away in a cubby at floor level. $17 for a bag of what looks like fish food that might take me a lifetime to use.  Then I search a little longer and find the ideal solution for my casual exploration of Japanese cuisine.  A bag of individual portions of Katsubushi and upon further inspection it actually says Katsuobushi on the packages.  Relieved I continue on my quest for the products described in the book.  Usukuchi light soy sauce, I can’t find anywhere either but as you can see from the link there is no obvious label that I could be looking for.  Next trip.  I get the the shrimp sauce to add the funk needed to make my kimchee authentic.  I grab a bunch of other stuff: pigs feet and neck bones, various different noodles etc. and head to the check out counter with my eco-friendly grocery bags.

The next big recipe I attempt (with great success I might add) is the ramen noodle dish.  This involved many different steps. Making a ramen broth which includes Taré a vaguely described product that sounds more like the classic fond you would find in roasting bones for a veal stock, except this time you use Sake, Mirin and Soy Sauce to deglaze the meat drippings that are thickly embedded in the roasting pan.  He’s right this liquid is awesome tasting but so is the French version.  I made a classic dashi (which is a broth with Katsuobushi and Kombu). Then I started to freestyle on his recipe by adding the mushroom to the dashi and then again adding them to the ramen broth.   It took two days to get the product I felt might be worthy of the broth he describes.  Adding the pig’s feet (not called for in the recipe) really gave tons of gelatin to the broth and I was going to freeze it and use a modern technique called Gelatin Filtration to turn it into a crystal clear broth.

I made the Kimchee but this time I used the shrimp sauce that I was missing the last time I made it.  If you have ever smelled Southeast Asian fish sauce and recoiled in disgust then this stuff is like nasal napalm.  I of course made my wife take an uninhibited snort of the stuff (she was already feeling a little nauseous) and she almost yakked in the bathroom.  This was clearly gonna make this batch of Kimchee funky, I mean this stuff could put the funk back into a Black Eyed Peas Superbowl halftime show.

David Chang talks about making various pickles and how easy it is.  So I also made a few of those. Daikon Radish, Thai Bird Chilis and I turned the dried shiitakes I used in the making of the ramen broth into the soy sauce pickled ones he describes in the book.  I agree with him on pickles as well.  They are super easy to make and I indeed wonder what has taken me so long to start pickling things.

Finished ramen dish plated on February's Bauscher Deep Plate entry

Now nothing to do but wait and let the shrimp sauce do its magic to the Kimchee.  The time came two weeks later and we had my brother in law’s family over for dinner before they went  to the Furthur show.  I had slow roasted the pork shoulder à la Bo Saam method described above (but with about half the amount of salt).  I slow poached the eggs in the method described in the book which is to keep them in water between 140º-145º for 45 minutes and I could remove them from the shell whole with a still runny yolk.  Hardly a new concept for me, but I had never attempted it without a thermo-recirculator before.  It was a challenge to keep the temperature at the exact temp I wanted and I ended up keeping it hovering at around 143º which was not quite enough to firm the egg white.  In my subsequent ghetto style effort I found that hovering at 145º yields the desired effect.  I used Asian wheat noodles I bought at the market and put the dish together.  The verdict very tasty.  Needs more refinement, but very close to what I experienced at Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York.   The noodles were the downfall.  There were no fresh ramen noodles at the Asian Market. A week later I made a batch of pasta which he suggests as an alternative and it was much better.  But now I will have to try and make his actual fresh Ramen noodle recipe.  But as he also mentions finding the Sodium Carbonate and Potassium Carbonate is a “pain in the ass.”  I’ll let you know what I find out.

So overall I would say that Chang’s book rocks.  Easy to produce recipes that are filled with great forward flavors and I am learning a little along the way.  Next I will try to cook his famous Momofuku pork buns of which I also have a fond memory from eating at his restaurant. Kimchee is on week four and the funk is on.

My first attempt at No Knead Bread

So I have been curious about the no knead bread craze for awhile but it wasn’t until I read this blog post that I was motivated to try Jim Lahey’s famous NYT recipe.

I’m definitely a convert.  This is the easiest dough I have ever worked with and can literally be made in about 10 minutes.  Then you wait a day, crank up your oven, bake it in a covered stock pot for 30 minutes, remove the lid and finish the bread for another 15 minutes. Voila.

So it’s your turn…do this now.

Recipe:

3 cups All Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp. Active dry yeast
1 1/4 tsp. Salt (I think you are better off adding 2 tsp. of salt)
1 5/8 cups of water (I did more like 1 3/4 the first time and then 2 cups second time)

Technique:

Mix all these ingredients together and allow it to sit for 18 or more hours

Initial Dough

After 15 hours at room temperature (you could easily keep this 2 days in the fridge if you wanted to retard it further and develop more flavor)

Lay down a clean tea towel and dust it with 1/8″ thick layer of flour. Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and lay it on the floured tea towel.  Fold the dough loosely into itself to form a flattened boule. Cover with the excess tea towel and allow to rise for 2 hours

15 hours later the dough is ready to be turned out onto the floured tea towel

An hour and a half into the rising period heat up your oven to 450º along with an 8 qt. stock pot (must have a tight fitting lid which you will need when you add the dough)

After the two hour rising period. Remove the pan from the oven and gently place the dough into the pot (the recipe says to put it in seam side up, but I did it seam side down and it worked fine). Place the lid on the pot and put into the oven.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes.  Allow the bread to cool down before trying to cut.

Bread right out of the oven

A few notes on what I have learned so far.  No adjustments have been necessary for the altitude here in Denver. The amount of yeast seems to create a nice airy dough.  The original recipe’s water content seemed a little shy on my first attempt so I added a little more.  Approximately 1 3/4 cup of water.  the second time I went right for 2 cups. Both doughs worked fine.  I preferred the 1 3/4 cup version as it was a little less loose to work with.

The original salt content of 1 1/4 tsp. salt tasted flat.  2 tsp. was much better.  Next time I will try 2 1/4 tsp.

The first time I used a le Creuset casserole and the second time I used and anodized aluminum Caphalon pot.  Le Creuset created a much more uniform deep brown crust, the Caphal0n burned the bottom lightly.  Both times I actually baked in a 465° oven.  Maybe if I baked it in the Caphalon at the recommended temperature it would have come out perfectly.  Regardless of which direction you go this dough seems to be very forgiving and low maintenance.

Second attempt