johnder

The old sink was put out on the sidewalk and just as I was putting it out, a couple was walking down the street and asked if it was being thrown out. When I said I didn't need it anymore they asked to take it and made off down the street with it. The stainless steel top of the sink was in great shape, the plumbing and cabinet had seen better days! Doing the work was, uh, definately stressfull on the marriage at times, but we both survived.

Well, I guess I learned a lot of how to do this first from my parents. They purchased a brownstone in Brooklyn and did a similar gut rennovation on it. This was when I was about 14 years old, and lasted until I was about 17. Needless to say I was recruited for a lot of the manual labor during that time. I also have a background in computer and mechanical engineering, both being things I studied in college, so that definately came in handy, along with many, many hours of studying the local building codes. We had an architect friend help us with some of the layout for the kitchen, but I pretty much had the layout already planned, he just polished it up, and helped with the cabinet layout. I had 3 basic requirements. A 48" stove A kick-ass exhaust system A huge amount of counter/prep space. So the kitchen was basically built around that! I learned most of my cooking skills and style from either my mother/sister who are both bakers, from classes at the French Culinary Institute, or most recently my crazy cookbook collection. Regardless of growing up with 2 bakers, I really don't like baking. I think it is because I don't have the patience to be that precise and to be so hemmed into a specific recipe. I am much more of the type that will take a basic recipe and twist and turn it to make it something different.

Oh, I should add that I may be getting a whole lobe of fois gras from La Belle farms, in which case the menu could change to include a seared fois, as well as a cured torchon. John

So it looks like tonights plan will not be dinner at home, but dinner at En Japanese Brasserie downtown. I have been there once or twice before and as far as mega japanese restaurants go, it isn't the worst. It is for a birthday dinner for a dear friend of mine who decided on the place. My main complaint about the place is the sound level. As far as the dinner party on Saturday, I started thinking about the menu. I really want to do something with the wild mushrooms that Mikuni Wild Harvest has, so I ordered some mushrooms and going to work one of the courses around that. I ordered a pound of the Wild Oregon Golden Chanterelles and a pound of Wild Lobster Mushrooms and a bottle of something new they have, an Indonesian Lemon Vinegar which is supposed to be amazing. I plan on using (for now) the mushrooms in a very simple pasta dish with some homemade pasta. As far as the exact menu, I still need to see what is at the greenmarkets and the local stores, but it will be something along the lines of: Amuse Pasta Course Fish course Meat Course Cheese Desert For the meat, I have an amazing pork belly from the Flying Pigs farm that I am going probably end up using. Everything else is up in the air.

Is there something you wish to tell us? ← Damn, busted. Ok, time to come clean. *)!^!@* spell checker. ← As someone who contributes more than my share of typos, I can relate Nevertheless, I couldn't resist. ← You are forcing me to go back now and correct all my typos in this post now.

Everything that you see was done by us with the exception of the countertops which we sub contracted out. We are glad we did because the large prep space piece weighed almost 550 pounds and was just about the limit of the size the could install in one piece.

Is there something you wish to tell us? ← Damn, busted. Ok, time to come clean. *)!^!@* spell checker.

Ah right. The floor. There was a lot of debate on the floor. The rest of the first floor was redone with bamboo flooring, but we decided not to do it in the kitchen due to wear an tear. I always grew up with tile floor in kitchens, so that is what we ended up with. I know there is a lot of debate on how hard it is to stand on a tile floor for long periods of time, but so far that hasn't been an issue for us. We wanted a tile pattern that would be in the same time period as the tin ceiling, so we went with a simple, yet classic tile layout. It was grouted with a light grey epoxy based grout that is completely stain resistant, perfect for kitchen floors. The wood you see in the picture above is just a protective layer we put down while we were still doing work.

So here are some more pictures that showed the progress of the kitchen. It really was a pretty horrific experience to have to live day in and day out with this mess. Luckily the house has 2 floors so we had a pretty good escape up to the second floor. The first floor, if it wasn't under construction was a storage place for all the construction materials. I probably took us an additional 10 minutes to get out the door every morning from a combination of having to climb over boxes and dusting ourselves off. The house as I mentioned is very old. It had at one point it seems two wood burning stoves, so any demolition, especially in the ceiling would cause sheets of soot to come crashing down upon us. Here is a picture facing out to the backyard. You can see the new windows framed-in on the right side of the picture, and the door out to the backyard to the left of that. You can see how small the previous window was out to the back by where the new door is going in. It was especially crazy since the back of the house gets southern exposure, so with the new windows (as you will see) gets a crazy amount of natural light. In the sake of not boring everyone, I will skip forward a week or two to show you what the same view looks like after the door and window was installed. This also shows you the lighting that was installed. I went a little crazy with the amount of lights in the kitchen. I really didn't want to be working in my shadow and since it was a guy renovation I had the opportunity to install as many lights as I wanted. I think the final count of lights in the kitchen (not including hood lights, or under cabinet) is 18 recessed lights in a kitchen that is 14 x 16. Here is the same view during the day, and you can see the plumbing being roughed in, as well as the start of the cabinet install. More cabinets, as well as the range hood installed. Also you get a pretty good view of the tin ceiling we installed, as well as all the lights. We bought the tin ceiling from a company called AA-Abbington which is one of the last companies making replica tin ceilings. Like all the other work we tackled this ourselves and I have to say, this was one of the hardest jobs. Mainly because I was obsessive-compulsive about installing lights then having a "oh !@*" moment when I realized I needed to cut holes in the tin for each of them. Let's just say putting up this ceiling is like working with 2 foot by 4 foot razor blades. Yet more cabinets and our super pantry cabinet. My pride and joy -- my Wolf stove. The sink, dishwasher and countertops installed. We opted for Zodiaq solid surface over Granite even though it was the same price. One of the reasons was that Zodiaq is the only FDA approved food-preparation surfaces other than stainless steel, mainly because it is completely non-porous. edit: fixed typo as docsconz gleefully pointed out.

Unfortunately I have yet to find any decent fish stores in the neighborhood. There are 3 stores that I know of that look clean and well kept but unfortunately their product doesn't move as quickly as I would like which leads to not super fresh fish. There was one passable one I went to for a while that I would puchase things from every now and then, but last xmas my Korean mother-in-law was in town and we went in there to buy some fish for her to make a korean kimchee/fish pot. Unfortunately I don't think I will be going there anymore because after making the stew she determined the fish wasn't that great and actually called the Korean owner back to complain. All I know is there was a lot of banter back in forth in Korean and only afterwards did my wife tell me that one of the things her mother told them was something along the lines of: I haven't been back since. If I need to get fish now I will try to get as much as possible from the fish stall at the local farmers marker, or I will go to Wild Edibles in the Grand Central Terminal market.

So while the view is great down in Dumbo, the food choices are pretty slim. There are basically a handful of places to get food. We have a few deli's that can give you any type of normal sandwich, along with eggs in the morning. A bagel store, a Japanese place, a few bars, 2 general catch all type resturants that is more of a sit-down deal, Grimaldis Pizza (stay tuned for that) and Almondine. Almondine is party of Jaques Torres' chocolate factory and is the Patisserie and Bakery arm. In addtion to having amazing sweets, they have a rotating daily selection of awesome sandwiches. Today they had my all time favorite, the pate sandwich. It is a big slab of Pate, Cornichons, Tomato and if that wasn't enough -- a smear of butter all on their house made baguette. It isn't the most healthy sandwich, but it is sooooo damn tasty. I try to only have these once a month.

Ah my box of booze just came. As some of you may know, I have been obsessed with finding some decent form of apricot brandy to use in cocktails. The defacto standard one, Marie Brizzard Apry is almost impossible to find now. There is a pretty big thread about it going on here. Well last week I found a store that sells both the Hungarian Zwack Apricot brandy, which is more like an eau de vie, and the Maraska Apricot. I heard good things about the Zwack, but it is a dry brandy, not a sweeter type used in the older cocktails. I really like the Maraska Maraschino, so I had high hopes for the Maraska Apricot, but alas Audrey broke me the news last week that is isn't so hot. Oh well, it was already ordered at that point, I will just add 2 more bottles to my collection. I will definately report back first hand on the results of the taste testing.

I didn't realize you grew up in Park Slope! I don't think things changed much since you were a kid, what was that, 10 years ago? I currently live on 16th Street between 5th and 6th avenues. Some people say it is borderline Park Slope and probably is Windsor Terrace/Prospect Heights. If you ask a realtor, they think 75% of Brooklyn qualifies as Park Slope. Prospect Park has really become even more amazing in the past few years. They finished the Audubon center and 2 years ago reopened the "forest" which was closed to allow nature to regrow itself in a protected fashion. This coming Saturday I am going to take a bikeride down to the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket and take lots of photos along the way. In terms of changes to the neighborhood it is pretty extreme. 7th Avenue was the area to first change as it had the most foot traffic. Now almost every store is either an organic market, restaurant or clothing store with a few Starbucks and Barnes and Noble scattered in. 5th avenue is still somewhat Bohemian, it is a mix of hole in the wall restaurants, cool local bars to have a beer and listen to the jukebox, or discount 99 cent stores.

So I am about to head off into yet another meeting, but wanted to give you guys a look at what we see outside our main conference room. Our offices are right on the water, and we have an amazing view of the East River along with lower Manhattan. The bridge you see is of course the world famous Brooklyn Bridge. and of course a little sustinance for the meeting to come.

I can't speak for Donbert, but I for one was concentrating more on what was in my glass than what was in the kitchen. ← While the drinks I were making were good, they are no match for the kitchen. At least that is what I am told.

That could be dangerous. Even more dangerous than my normal experience at Pegu where Brian/Phil/Jim/Chad just pick the cocktails I am drinking on a given night!

I wondered about that too? SB (whose neither eyes nor moniter are that great any more ) ← I saw them too. Thought maybe it was organized to be a movie set. ← Ummmm...aren't those construction vehicles? A bulldozer and a backhoe? Or am I crazy? ← To answer all your questions, those are just plain old construction workers tearing up the street. There is a crazy amount of construction going on down here. They are building 4 or 5 huge condos within 3 blocks of our office. As a result there are numerous public utilities digging up the street everywhere. On the topic of movie sets, that is another normal thing down here. Just last week Adam Sandler was filming a movie directly outside our front door. A slight verbal altercation occurred between myself and the stagehand when he tried to prevent me from getting my coffee the other day. This week they are supposedly filming an episode of Law and Order. Hopefully I can grab some pictures.

She actually is going to the opera, but I am not. I will be seeing my own show at Pegu, mainly in the form of them making many, many cocktails for me. Donbert and Sneakeater actually saw the kitchen last week, so they are privy to the after construction look. Friday looks good for drinks to me!

Oh, there will be quite a few cocktails this week I expect. Both at home, at Pegu and now it seems at Donbert's place!

Ok, phew. Done with my first round of meetings for this morning. I overslept this morning, so as a result didn't really have any breakfast. I am not a huge breakfast person normally, mostly it just involves copious amounts of coffee -- if I am lucky some wasa bread with butter and cheese. Alas this morning I only had time for coffee. Depending on how late I am on a given day I will either make a latte at home, or stop by my favorite cafe, Cafe Regular. They serve coffee by La Colombe Torrefaction, pretty awesome stuff. Sorry for the blurred photo, I was walking pretty fast trying to take the photo so I wouldn't be late for my meeting. Once I got out of the subway, I decided to take the shortcut underneath the Manhattan bridge. Looks pretty ominous, but it is pretty safe. I am mostly concerned with crap falling from the bridge, but recently they put up the protective undercover you see in the photo.

Early morning greetings everyone! I guess my hint photos for this blog were somewhat of a giveaway, especially to Megan. Oh well. For those that don't know, the bridge picture is a shot from my walk from the subway to work -- it is the Brooklyn side of the Manhattan bridge and if you look closely, you can see the Empire State building framed within the arch of the bridge. It was an overcast day when I took the photo; I will try to get a better picture this week. For those that don't know much about me, I will give a quick background. My name is John Deragon, a native New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. My father’s heritage is Quebecois and my mother’s heritage is Norwegian. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a lobster fisherman in Coney Island, so I spent quite a bit of time on a boat as a child, and still love being around the water to this day. Growing up as a child in Brooklyn was a pretty awesome experience. Not only was I exposed to the great foods Brooklyn had to offer (Knishes, Bagels, Nathan's franks, etc.) we had tons of ways to entertain ourselves with various games we learned (stickball, stoopball, ball & crack, skulls…). I will get into more detail on the food and games as the week progresses. I currently live in Park Slope, which is a neighborhood in Southern Brooklyn that is framed by Prospect Park along with my wife Jeannie and our dog Dune. (Which is whom you see in my avatar photo) Prospect Park is the sister park of Central park and was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux who also designed Central Park. The rumor is by designing Prospect Park after Central Park, they fixed all the mistakes they made in CP. More info about our great park can be found at the Prospect Park website. We purchased a small wood frame house about 2 years ago with the purpose of doing a lot of the renovations ourselves. The house was priced right mainly due to the dysfunctional layout of the first floor, mainly the pathetic kitchen and bathroom layout. From what we could tell, the house was built sometime between 1915 and 1920, and for the most part is pretty sound. The kitchen was built in the back of the house and was roughly 5’ by 6’ with a small window going out to our relatively (by NY comparison) backyard. To the right of the kitchen was a small bathroom with another very small window. Those two photos are as the kitchen right before we moved in, as the previous owners were packing up. We made a decision to start the construction (or more precisely the demolition) on the kitchen immediately as you can see from these photos: Needless to say we found a lot of surprises along the way. (more details on that later this week, including that chimney you see, along with some nasty termite damage) All the work was done while I was working a full time job at an interactive advertising agency, so all the work was done at nights and weekends, which lead to us living with a fridge, laundry sink and microwave for almost 10 months. Fast forward to today and our kitchen is done and is awesome, if I say so myself. During the day I am now the Chief Technology Officer for Waterfront Media which is a company that provides online versions of many popular diets, as well as a health related reference site EverydayHealth. The offices are located in Dumbo, which stands for Down Under [the] Manhattan Bridge Overpass, hence the teaser photo! Ok -- given it is getting late and I have a early meeting tomorrow morning I am going to wrap it up for now. As far as what to expect this week here is the schedule as it stands now: Monday: Dinner at home, or possibly out at a friends Birthday dinner. Still up in the air. Tuesday: Dinner at Applewood Restaurant one of our favorite local restaurants here in Park Slope. Wednesday: Dinner at Annisa, Anita Lo’s restaurant. Thursday: Pegu Club Friday: Still up in the air. Saturday: Dinner party for 8 at home. All during the week I will be preparing for the dinner party on Saturday, so there will be bits and pieces of Saturdays dinner spread throughout the week, from tracking down ingredients, to prep work, to figuring out the wine pairings. With that, I will see everyone back here in a few hours!

A bartender that knows when it is appropriate to shake a drink vs. when to stir a drink is always a big plus for me. Also one that shakes like she/he means it is nice as opposed to a half hearted shake is nice too.

Everything you wanted to know about Methocell can be found here.

I haven't been able to find the Luxardo, but I find a place that has a really large selection of apricot flavored brandies/liquors. I ordered a bottle of: and a bottle of: I ordered them from Here.

I think it depends on the vermouth and if it is sweet or dry, but once opened and if left on the counter, you are looking at a degredation of flavors after about a month. I have heard somewhere that an opened bottle will keep in the fridge for ~6 months.