slkinsey

So, the next thing to do is figure out a (non-wine) ingredient list, because different things need to be purchased at different times: Marinated Crudités Cranberry Bellini ewindels is handling the crudités 1 bag cranberrys (Fairway) sugar cubes (home) orange bitters (home) Raw Kumamoto Oyster With Cucumber Granita 1 dozen Kumamoto oysters (Citarella) 4 English cucumbers (Fairway) chives for garnish (greenmarket) Cauliflower Soup With Curry Oil 2 large heads cauliflower (greenmarket) cream (greenmarket) oilive oil (Fairway) curry powder (home or Fairway) chervil for garnish (greenmarket or Fairway) chicken stock (home) spinach (greenmarket or Fairway) nutmeg (home) shallot (greenmarket) Tuna Carpaccio With Mixed Herb Salad sushi-quality tuna -- around 2 ounces/person (Citarella) olive oil (Fairway) Sicilian salt-cured capers (home) Maldon sea salt (home) bunches of tarragon, parsley, basil, cilantro, etc. (greenmarket) Brussels Sprouts Four Ways Lots of Brussels sprouts (greenmarket) cream for crème brûlée (greenmarket) eggs for crème brûlée (greenmarket) superfine sugar for crème brûlée (Fairway) gruyere for gratin (Fairway) bread crumbs for gratin (Fairway) Parmigiano-Reggiano for gratin (Fairway) guanciale for sauté (Salumeria Biellese) olive oil for shredded salad (Fairway) white wine vinegar for shredded salad (Fairway) herbs for garnish (greenmarket) Lemon-Thyme Sorbet 2 containers Fairway lemon sorbet (Fairway) 1 bunch thyme or lemon thyme (greenmarket) Farigoule thyme liqueur (home) Turkey Two Ways With Cornbread Dressing, Foie Gras And Black Truffle Carpaccio 14 pound turkey (Citarella) 1 bottle port (home) 1 bottle dry red wine (somewhere cheap) 2 large carrots (greenmarket) 5 ribs celery (greenmarket) 2 medium yellow onions (greenmarket) 1 bouquet garni (greenmarket) 1 jar "Black Truffle Carpaccio" (Citarella or Fairway) 1 block foie gras (Fairway or Citarella) 1 lb Butter (Fairway) 1 large head cabbage (greenmarket) 1 container cornmeal for the dressing (Fairway) 1 sack flour for the dressing (Fairway) 1 loaf sturdy white bread for the dressing (Fairway) milk for the dressing (Fairway) parsley, sage, thyme for the dressing (greenmarket) crimini mushrooms for the dressing (greenmarket) onion for the dressing celery for the dressing dried porcini mushrooms for the dressing (Fairway or Citarella) Bourbon Bread Pudding 1 large brioche (Zabar's) milk (greenmarket) eggs (greenmarket) sugar (Fairway) bourbon (home) Pecan Tart flour for crust (Fairway) butter for crust (Fairway) lard for crust (home) sour cream for crust (Fairway) Steen's cane syrup for filling (home) brown sugar for filling (Fairway) pecans for filling (Fairway) arrowroot for filling (home) eggs for filling (greenmarket) vanilla for filling (home) bourbon for filling (home) Cranberry Cheesecake (?) ewindels Sugarless Apple Pie (?) bergerka Palmiers and Chocolate Truffles ewindels

No pictures from last year, unfortunately. I'll take some this year, of course. As for the timing, etc... This is in a "tasting menu" format, so each course is fairly small. Think something along the lines of "Thanksgiving dinner as Thomas Keller might do it... if he sustained a horrible head injury that knocked out most of his culinary talent." Understanding that, it's a long dinner. We typically sit down for the oyster course at 8:00 to 8:30 and finish the turkey course sometime around 11:00 -- around three hours. This corresponds roughly to the timing of an extended multicourse tasting menu at a restaurant. The small portion sizes and the length of the meal combine to (hopefully) make sure that no one is stuffed to the gills by the time dessert comes around (although I do remember getting an email from a guest after last year's dinner saying: "did you notice that Eric Malson went back for thirds on the turkey?! dude, that's insane!"). It's taken a few tries to figure out appropriate portion sizes, and I think I was largely sucessful last year. Nevertheless, one goal for this year is to reduce the portion sizes even a bit more compared to last year.

So, here is what I have in mind: Marinated Crudités Cranbery Bellini – – – Raw Kumamoto Oyster With Cucumber Granita Wine TBD – – – Cauliflower Soup With Curry Oil Wine TBD – – – Tuna Carpaccio With Mixed Herb Salad Wine TBD – – – Brussels Sprouts Four Ways - crème brûlée - gratin - sautéed with guanciale - shredded "slaw" Wine TBD – – – Lemon-Thyme Sorbet Wine: a sparkling Moscato d'Asti – – – Turkey Two Ways With Cornbread Dressing, Foie Gras And Black Truffle Carpaccio Wine TBD – – – Bourbon Bread Pudding Pecan Tart Cranberry Cheesecake (?) Sugarless Apple Pie (?) Coffee – – – Palmiers and Chocolate Truffles Grappa, Scotch, Bourbon, Etc.

I'll definitely be doing a logistics section here a little later on. For now, I will say that I do write the logistics down and keep the list in the kitchen. I usually have the help of two people in the kitchen, bergerka and ewindels. Three is about all there is room for. Typically bergerka clears the table, and ewindels does the wine while I do the plates. Then the two of them bring the plated dishes to the table while I do whatever has to be done to get ready for the next course. For the final course, I usually have the help of ewindels (an experienced and talented cook in his own right) with the plating. As for the wine, I'll definitely be drinking. As others will tell you, my Scottish ancestry has endowed me with a remarkable capacity to tolerate alcohol without feeling the effects too strongly (perhaps high levels of alcohol dehydrogenase?). Since we will be giving small pours that are accompanied with plenty of food, I'm not worried about that.

As pointed out in the thread on Una Pizza Nappoletana by bpearis, Robert Sietsema has an article in the Voice about artisinal pizza in NYC, specifically Fornino and Una Pizza Napoletana -- mostly about Fornino:

Here's a quote for posterity:

Nice review of Una Pizza Napoletana in today's $25 and under: The review also noted that, at 17 bucks a pop, it's the most expensive pizzeria around. Still... I know I have to go there.

Okay... so, I think I have settled on the salad course. bergerka expressed a preference for tuna, and since she will be doing most of the dishes, keeping her happy is always one of my primary goals. So it's going to be tuna carpaccio with the herb salad on top and maybe a few capers. I've made tuna carpaccio before. It's pretty easy to do, and has some distinct advantages for a meal like this. The big advantage is that I can pound out and plate the tuna sometime in the afternoon, then keep the plates in the refrigerator until service. When it comes time to serve these dishes, I can simply dress the herb salad in a large bowl, place a small handfull into the center of each plate and garnish. Easy to do the whole works in the amount of time it takes to clear the table of the soup bowls and pour the next wine.

The bowls I am going to use are small, narrow bowls. Something like this bowl from Ikea, but a little smaller. Remember, the idea is that it's not a very big serving. The whole thing will only be maybe a cup and a half in volume. For reaching the bottom layer, I think I will just have to hope that no one stirs up their soup, although I might say something to the effect that it's not meant to be stirred. Obviously there will be some mixture of the two ingredients as the diners reach the bottom of the bowl. I do want a big color contrast, and I also want a big texture contrast. This is one reason I had originally thought (and am still leaning in the direction) of a sort of dense, creamed spinach puree. To be honest, the "spinach puree on the bottom" idea is ripped off from something Doug Psaltis made at Mix which had a layer of spinach puree on the bottom, and below that a few poached oysters. I'd love to have one more secret under the bottom layer, but can't think of anything that would work as well as oyster, and I'm already serving oyster in the previous course. I'm definitely keeping the curry oil. That's what made the dish such a hit last year. Curry spices and cauliflower go together very well. Although the oil does provide a very nice color contrast, more importantly it provides a lot of really nice flavor. It's especially nice to incorporate the curry flavor as an oil drizzle, because some spoonfulls will have a lot of curry flavor, some will have none, etc. This year, I just want to remove the shellfish element, refine the dish a bit and -- dare I say it? -- kick it up a notch. I'll get into plates later, but I think I have enough to do every course with a fresh, clean plate without having to rely on washing in between.

I'm loving this idea. Thanksgiving and fennel are inextricably linked for me and those fronds are about as pretty a garnish as it gets. Hmmm. I've never pureed fennel. This is well worth a shot. ← This is an appealing idea. I've made a fennel puree soup before for Thanksgiving, and it worked very well. The fennel would, I think, have to be pureed as I am looking for a denser but still smooth texture for the hidden element. Fennel goes with cauliflower, I think. How well do we think fennel goes with curry flavors? I'll get into this a bit later, but there are two key elements: 1. Plan as many dishes as possible that can be largely cooked ahead of time and can be easily reheated with little monitoring. If they can be completely or partially plated ahead of time, that helps too. 2. Plan out the logistics of the meal. Literally write down a list of what has to happen when. Plan out where things will be stored, account for stovetop and oven real estate, and consider and where pots, dishes, glasses will be placed when you're done with them. Once you go through these steps, it is a small matter to simply execute the plan. Looking at my menu, for example, the only element that is really time-sensitive is cooking the turkey breasts. The granita in the first course will be pre-portioned, and I can open the oysters right before we sit down. Meanwhile, the soup elements are coming up to temperature on the stove and the brussels sprouts gratin and soup bowls are in the oven. While one person clears the oyster settings (demitasse spoons into a bus bin and the rest raked into a trash can, then the slates stacked out of the way), I can prepare the soup settings (1 small ladle of "hidden element TBA" in first, then 1 larger ladle of cauliflower puree, then place the garnish on top and give it a drizzle of curry oil from a squirt bottle -- I estimate around 15-20 seconds per serving; should have 10 to 12 servings banged out by the time the oyster settings are removed and the wine poured). And that's the way it goes. I also have the advantage of having an kitchen that is open to the dining room, so I can stay in touch with everyone even during these brief periods of work.

Cool. Thanks for the info. I hope to evaluate several different strategies this weekend. Will post pictures and comments if I can.

WBC, it's a fact that cooked fish fillets are very delicate. You have to turn them extremely carefully, or they will fall apart. It is especially difficult with larger fish fillets. This is one reason there is such a thing as a fish spatula. If your fillet fell apart on you when you tried to turn it, it is also likely it was a little overcooked anyway. Nonstick is, IMO, essential to cooking fish fillets unless you want to use a lot of fat. Otherwise you are going to have sticking. IMO, this is a foolproof method for cooking "crispy skin" fish fillets: preheat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat for a minute; add small amount of fat, drop in fish fillet skin side down; monitor fish, cooking it on the skin side until it appears to be around 3/4 cooked through; carefully turn fillet over and cook on the flesh side for approximately 30 seconds; slide fish out of pan to waiting dish; serve skin side up. You want to make sure the skin side is really dry before you put it in the pan. Pat if down with a few paper towels and then, just before moving it to the pan, draw the blade of a sharp knife sideways down the length of the skin to remove that last bit of excess moisture.

That's an interesting idea, Lucy. The two conditions I absolutely need to meet for the underlayer are: 1. has to be denser than the cauliflower soup so it stays on the bottom and doesn't mix too much; and 2. I don't want to have to thicken it with additional starch (e.g., potato) because that is too filling. If this works with chervil, parsley and cream, it could be a nice idea.

So, that does it for the savory courses. Major things to improve this year: better presentation/use of garnish, smaller portion sizes.

Really loved the Coturri Albarello last year. A super-powerful, funky different wine. I always think it's fun to go out with a wine that is not only very powerful, but also unusual. This fit the bill. Not sure whether we'll have the same one this year, but I'm certainly looking for something like it.

Last of the savory courses is: Turkey Two Ways With Cornbread Dressing, Foie Gras And Black Truffle Carpaccio Coteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup "Le Rollier," Domaine Mas Foulaquier, 2001 Sonoma Valley Red Wine "Albarello," H. Coturri & Sons, 2001 There was a fair amount of interest in the Turkey Two Ways recipe last year, and much to my delight several eG members duplicated the recipe for their dinner with great results. Since RecipeGullet is still in development, I duplicate the recipe here:

Next: Lemon-Thyme Sorbet "Vigneto Biancospino," Azienda Agricola Dante Rivetti, Piemonte, 2002 This is always a winner, and it gives me some breathing room before the main event. I think it's also the right time for something light and refreshing that isn't the least bit filling. This allows the diners to rest for around half and hour, and get their second wind. The recipe is simple: combine two pints Fairway lemon sorbet with the leaves from one bunch of thyme. Chill. Serve. The only difficulty is in making sure that the thyme leaves are tender. I've tried various methods, and haven't been entirely satisfied to-date. This time around, I'll try poaching the thyme leaves in a little farigoule thyme liqueur and then pureeing the whole works. Sparkling Moscato d'Asti works perfectly with this, so I don't anticipate changing that either. In years past, I've served this out of frozen hollowed-out lemon halves (using the juice for the ceviche). My mother recently decided I couldn't live without some antique footed glass sorbet dishes, so guess what I'll be serving it in this year?

Next: Toasted Corn And Stilton Soufflé Sautéed Brussels Sprouts With Guanciale and Chive/Oregano Vinaigrette Bourgogne Rouge, Domaine Alain Hudelot-Noellat, 2000 Again.... this was pretty good. The corn and stilton soufflé wasn't exactly what I would have wanted though (a little too much like eggy cornbread), and it's a pain to make these at the last minute. This time, I think I am going to build a course around brussels sprouts. I was thinking something like "Brussels Sprouts four Ways." It would be something like: 1. A tiny little "brussels sprout crème brûlée." I have a lot of tiny ramekins from the soufflés last year, so it would be easy to make up some brussels sprouts custards, chill them in the refrigerator and then do a thin burnt sugar topping a la minute. I think it adds extra interest in the form of contrast that this would be cold. 2. Little servings of brussels sprouts and cheese (gruyere?) gratin. Easy to make in a large baking pan and then punch out circles for service with a cookie cutter. In this dish the brussels sprouts will be cooked until completely tender. 3. A few halved brussels sprouts fried cut-side down in guanciale fat until well browned, served with tiny pieces of crisp guanciale. These will be cooked, but still with some considerable bite. 4. Raw brussels sprouts shaved micro-fine on the mandoline and dressed with a light vinaigrette. I'll have to QA this to make sure that raw brussels sprouts are palatable. Otherwise, I'll blanch them for around 2 seconds to get out the raw taste and shock them in ice water. The only element of this dish that really has to be done a la minute is to brûler the custards. For the halved brussels sprouts, I'll probably pre-brown the cut sides by iceing down the halved brussels sprouts and frying the cut sides on very high heat. That will give me nicely browned surfaces with not too much cooking of the brussel sprout. After that, I can warm them up to temperature over low heat during the preceding course without overcooking them.

Next is: Mixed Herb Salad With Shrimp Ceviche Saumur Blanc "La Papareille," Domaine Saint-Vincent, 2002 I like the idea of having a tiny little salad and something cold after the soup. I'm looking for bright flavors and some acidity, no richness. This salad, which was a handfull of mized herbs dressed with integrated lemon/olive oil and two medium shrimp "ceviched" in lemon juice, worked well for that purpose. However, I've done the shrimp ceviche thing for around 5 years now, and I have the sense that it's time to move on to something new. Not really sure what to do with this one. I could keep the herb salad and do a little piece of cold poached salmon or seared-but-mostly-raw tuna in place of the shrimp. Or I could go in a more bitter direction and do something with frisee or endive. I like to stick with seafood until the main course. Still thinking about this one.

Continuing to look down the menu, we have: Cauliflower Soup With Seared Diver Scallop And Curry Oil Saumur Blanc "La Papareille," Domaine Saint-Vincent, 2002 This was the surprise hit of last year. It's literally nothing more than a large head of cauliflower cooked until just tender in milk, then pureed and enrichened with a little cream and chicken stock. The curry oil is made by heating good curry powder in olive oil and infusing the oil for several hours, then straining it all through a coffee filter. Last year, each dish was garnished with a single seared diver scallop and drizzled with the curry oil. The nice thing about this soup is that it can be made several days in advance and then warmed up on the stove for service. I've tried it cold, and it just doesn't work. I'm going to be keeping this dish more or less intact this year, with a few modfications. I'm reducing the size of the serving and switching from a wide shallow bowl to a tall narrow bowl. I'm eliminating the scallop. I'd also like to do another layer of something hidden underneath. I've been thinking of putting a spinach puree on the bottom of the bowl and then filling the rest of the way with the cauliflower puree and garnishing with the curry oil. Spinach goes with curry flavors, right? Any thoughts? It would also be nice to think of one other garnish element for the surface of the soup. Something like a single leaf of chervil laid down flat on the surface.

It is more or less interchangable with the common cream liqueurs, although a bit different. Check out the web site here.

This is why Audrey is so great. There are some new ones on the menu that are definitely worth a try. I think her Tantris Sidecar is a brilliant drink, and one you really should try. But it's really hard to pick. I've never had anything there that wasn't exceptional. If it's on the menu, it's very good. And the menu offers very good descriptions of what the drinks are like. Off the menu, she makes a brilliant Manhattan with Bookers bourbon and Carpano Punt e Mes, and the Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini is extremely interesting. But, then again, the Sazerac at Bemelman's is superb (it's Eric_Malson's favorite) and so are the other classics like their Pegu Club and Pisco Sour. I can't decide! Could this be why I often need a blood transfusion after I've been there? I'm looking forward to a full report. Talent like Audrey and Sasha Petraske and Julie Reiner and others like them are what makes NYC a great place for the cocktail enthusiast.

We have a large-for-NY but small-for-anywhere-else kitchen, so it's difficult to have a lot of help back there. I have help moving plates out to the table and clearing in between courses, and some limited help at plating... but not much. The real secret is to come up with things that can be made ahead of time and plated easily. You also have to have a good game plan in place for which things go where and when certain things get done. As you can see, the oyster course isn't particularly difficult to plate and I'm under no time constraint there because I can open the oysters before everyone sits down. I would never schedule the opening of a dozen oysters in the middle of the meal, because that would be too much trouble and take too much time. Once I start talking about the next course, I'll begin to talk about dinnertime logistics and scheduling.

Right. Well, there are two things at play here: 1. the cucumber cup is not meant to be eaten, and 2. if the cucumber cups freeze well and they are sitting on a block of frozen slate, melting will hopefully not be an issue. But it's definitely something I should QA.

So, next is: Kumamoto Oyster On The Half-Shell With Cucumber Granita Muscadet de Sevre et Maine sur Lies, Cuvee Vielles Vignes, Domaine Clos des Briords, 2002 This I thought worked very well as the course that calls everyone to the table. It's nice to sit down at the table and have something briny, bracing and cold to start the meal. Last year I served these on little mounds of rock salt, on top of frozen blocks of inch-thick slate. That was pretty cool. I've vastly improved my oyster opening skills in the last year, so this one should be easier, too. It's also good that this course doesn't require any cooking -- the soup course can come up to temperature on the stove while we're eating this one. I can I'll keep this for 2004. Nevertheless, there are things that I wasn't entirely happy about. Last year I ordered the oysters ahead of time and picked them up. This means that I didn't get to pick them out. They were high quality oysters, but overall a good bit larger than I might have liked. I'll be picking out my own this year. It means more time at the store when it's mobbed, but c'est la vie. Last year I put a scoop of cucumber granita right into the shell with the oyster. Nice idea in my head, but not as good in execution. It's also diffisult to execute under time pressure. Better would be something that can be pre-set and simply placed. This year, I think I am going to use some hollowed out sections of English cucumber to form little "cups" for the granita. Hopefully I can portion the granita into the cucumber-cups a few hours before dinner and place the filled cucumber-cupsin the freezer (I'll have to see how this effects the appearance of the cups). That way, once the oysters are opened, all I have to do is place a mound of rock salt on each piece of slate, bed the oyster shell in the salt and drop a filled oyster-cup onto the corner of the slate. I need to think of a cool and interesting garnish for this. Wine TBD (there will be a section on wines early next week). Cleanup is easy. Just use a damp cloth to swipe off each slate into the trash and stack the slates in a predetermined out-of-the way niche. This whole course is one bite of oyster, maybe 4 demitasse spoons of granita and around 1/3 of a glass of wine.