After some back-and-forth with the owners of the Piggery, I was able to obtain a pig head,with which I made headcheese and a homemade salumi!
A Weekend in the City: Back Home Again November 12, 2009
This past weekend, I was in New York City with the Cornell Hotel Society for the annual Javits Center Hotel Show. During the weekend, we had an agenda, but I had plenty of free time to hit up old favorites as well as to experience new flavors.
Figure 1: The hotel show, where a man was making porchetta. Peter enjoyed this:
On Sunday, we attended a reception at Tribeca Grill, since Drew Nieporent is an alumnus of our school. We had delicious tamarind-glazed pork ribs, some very good cod, DIY shrimp and chicken soft tacos/burritos, and beet and oxtail gnocchi. Everything was very good, and the reception was a lot of fun.
After the reception was over, I took my friend, Peter, restaurant hopping; he had never before been to NYC. Since he is a foodie as well, I wanted to show him some of the best.
We started at wd~50, where we went for an appetizer and dessert but ended up getting something more like a small meal. Everything was phenomenal, as always: scallops with mustard, white chocolate, and beer; cuttlefish with rootbeer gel and cashew; cold fried chicken with honey-tabasco sauce; gala apple sorbet with rum-caramel filling; sake sorbet with licorice and bartlett pear; and pistachio cake with melon ice cream, chartreuse foam, and meyer lemon. For something so spur-of-the moment, this meal was again one of the best I’ve experienced; alas, what less can I expect after many awesome eating experiences at wd~50?
After thanking the chefs, we headed out to walk around and decided to hit up Momofuku Ssam bar next. We were already getting full, but we split the beef tendon with green mango and peanuts. This dish was tender beyond what I could have expected, and the spiciness with the mango and peanuts was addictive.
After our dish, we went next door to the bakery, and I sampled the stuffing soft serve, a tribute to Thanksgiving. Again, I could not have dreamed of an ice-cream more true to its flavor, and had I not been concerned that my gut was about to bust, I would have had a cup of it with caramelized corn bread and dried cranberries on top.
The weekend was a great success, and I am glad I spent some time eating at my favorite restaurants–it brought me right back to my days outside of Ithaca.
Putting the Cook Back in Cookies and Pumpkin Semifreddo November 4, 2009
After a visit to the Ithaca farmer’s market on Saturday, I made some awesome bacon chocolate chip cookies! This time, however, I substituted lard for half of the butter. Besides giving a slightly different flavor, the lard kept the cookies a little more structured (like Crisco does) than butter alone. The bacon was also very delicious, especially with 60% Ghiradelli chocolate.
A few days ago, I also made a pumpkin semifreddo. The backstory is that I don’t have an ice cream freezer, but I really wanted to do something with pumpkin creme anglaise. So, after making the anglaise, I beat two or three eggwhites and sugar to a meringue and folded in about half to two-thirds of a cup of the creme anglaise. This gave a lighter but spiced and definitively pumpkin flavor and froze very well; it was not crystalized at all. I plated it with an apple cider reduction and salted pumpkin seeds. Not only did they make for great presentation, but it was a tasty combination!
