Augieland

The Whole Foods live lobster poppycock

So Whole Foods has banned the sale of live lobsters in its stores nationwide and PETA applauds this action. I know this because people are asking my opinion.

Here is my opinion: a stupid, simple case of a corporation trying to distract consumers from its shortcomings.

Here is my elaboration:

In general, I am of the opinion that food should be locally sourced and should be bought as locally as possible. For many ingredients, Whole Foods comes pretty early on my list of places to shop because I want to send the message with my spent food dollar that I would prefer more organic choices. But more than organic I would prefer food grown as close to me as possible, and if that is not possible I would rather keep my dollars in my community. I will go to Whole Foods for things not readily available at a local store, but only after checking. So it is far less than likely I was ever going to buy a lobster at Whole Foods (that's what the local fish guy is there for, so BFD).

The beauty of lobsters has always been:
1. They are pot caught so there is very little by-catch.
2. Being very low on the food chain, the PCB and Mercury concerns are much lower than other sea life popular with consumers at the moment.
3. They are fished by fisherman not farmed by corporations
4. They are purchased live, there are little processing concerns and even less freshness concerns.
5. Their cost to customers makes over-fishing prohibitive
6. They are why we know about good cholesterol.
7. They taste amazing, but only if they start live.

As for Whole Foods, they care about actual localness or quality of fish only in as much as they strive to be better rather than good, not the loftiest of ambitions. Just look at salmon. Although Whole Foods was one of the first to label farmed salmon as artificially colored, they did so only after the Times wrote the color wheel article. As far as pre-packaged smoked salmon, they offer about one wild-caught option for about every nine farmed. Although Whole Foods is very good at paying lip service to the belief in better choices and remains a far better choice than most super market options, it has clearly moved far away from its roots and at this point in its evolution seems to be doing more to arrest the progress of the organic and local movements than advance it.

All of these realities lead us to the reason Whole Foods has actually decided to stop selling lobsters at this point in time. Michael Pollan has written a book called "An Omnivore's Dilemma" that sheds light on the shortcomings of the realities of large scale organics, and since Whole Foods is as big as large-scale organic gets at the moment, they are the benchmark. Pollan simply points out things like how grass-finished beef from New Zealand, although better than corn-fed from Texas, may not be all that can be done by the industry leader to move us away from the horrible corn-based system prevalent at the moment.

Much like G.W. Bush pandering to his zealot base by suggesting a same-sex marriage amendment to distract from his needed house cleaning, Whole Foods is indulging its fanatic base by seeking PETA approval. In both cases, what is in order is addressing new issues that arise as the world changes and in both cases distraction is being used in order to maintain a status quo.

As far as PETA goes, I can't even begin to address their headline-seeking, donations-mongering, accomplish-nothing tactics. It is a bad organization that has constantly, for years, done nothing but hurt the cause of ethical treatment for animals. Their mission has seldom been more than to get fifteen year old girls to use words like lacto-ovo and nag their parents about the cruelty of gelatin in Jell-o. To these ends, they are constantly claiming insignificant victories like this.

No one buys lobster at Whole Foods really, unless there is a sale. Whole Foods has not chosen a higher ground. What has been accomplished is PETA has gotten air time on CNBC. PETA's petty and false victories are on easy to target luxury items, and in no way change the supply or demand for the items. As far as lobsters and foie gras go, these are both industries that support small sensible production with little environmental impact, the type to be embraced if what you care about is the health and welfare of all the animals on earth.

If the people at PETA actually cared about ethical treatment of animals, they would focus every single dollar and minute on the gross abuses that actually exist in the food world today. Like that corn is poisonous to cows, so much so that we need to fill them so full of antibiotics to keep them alive in spite of the poison diet we feed them that humans are developing antibiotic resistance as a result of consuming standard commercial beef. Through our unethical poisoning of cattle, we have created new sicknesses and the need to cook (pasteurize) our milk before we consume it. If PETA wanted to do the most good for the most animals, they would entirely focus their lobbying on ending government subsidies of corn. It causes far more problems for all life on earth than almost any thing other than fossil fuel dependence.

At best, PETA and Whole Foods have advanced the idea that lobsters have a central nervous system, equating them with earthworms. Pigs have such developed brains that the common industry practice of weaning them a few weeks early in order to get a head start on their hormone-laden fattening diet leaves them so distraught they develop an oral fixation that causes them to incessantly suck on each other's tails until they fall off, leaving sores that get infected. The pork industries solution? Cut the tails off (tail docking) at the time of the early weaning. But pay no attention to these grievous violations of ethical animal treatment, you can rest easy because PETA has convinced Whole Foods to stop selling the live version of what are essentially bugs.

Look, it ain't easy to know exactly what to do. I find it best to focus on getting the best, most tasty food available. I believe organic vegetables taste better than conventional, that wild salmon tastes better than farmed goes without saying. Although their legs are more sinewy, free range chickens have more flavor than Perdue, and grass-fed beef, although not quite as tender in many cases as corn-fed, has many more layers of flavor as well as six times the omega-3s of corn-fed beef.

My plan in reaction to this news? I suggest you try it. I am going to the Union Square Greenmarket to buy some grass-fed beef from Elk Trails Farm. Then, I'll stop at Flying Pigs Farms' stand and purchase some bacon to wrap around it. Once that is in the fridge, I'll call some local fishmongers to see who has the best price on live 1.5 pound lobsters and make Wife surf and turf for dinner.

Not lucky enough to have these options near you? Make a round of phone calls to your local purveyors and tell them you would be stopping in with money to spend if they did. They will get the message. By supporting small producers with better, more whole food, we have created such a network here in New York that I have many choices for all of the above. You can do the same.

Top Ten New Chefs '06

The thing I was most excited about for my trip to Food & Wine Magazine's Aspen Classic 2006 was the Best New Chefs Dinner. Saturday night, after a day spent in seminars and walking around in the sunshine and air of a beautiful 87-degree day in the Rockies, Wife and I joined about 998 other people under a rather elaborate network of party tents in the backyard of the Ritz Carlton Club to taste a dish from each of the ten men and women named Best New Chef in the magazine's July issue.

Before I go on to give you my thoughts on the dishes each chef prepared, it is worth mentioning a couple things:

1. These people were awarded best new chef, not best new caterer. I will, as always, be as honest and frank as I can about what my thoughts were regarding the dishes and their execution, but must note that each chef probably made about 3000 samples of their dish, in the mountains, under a tent with a support staff of students. I say this more in praise then as an offered excuse.
2. The team that organized this deserves a huge amount of credit. Besides being able to make it through each line about twice with little more than an eight-minute wait, there was also space away from the tables to stop and talk, enjoy a cocktail with friends, or listen to the music. I have been to a lot of multi-chef/multi-tasting events and seldom are their enough plates, napkins, and glasses (let alone plenty of food) accompanied by a sense of calm.

Ordered according to my preference, the chefs and their dishes were:

Michael Carlson of Schwa in Chicago, Illinois made Prosciutto Consommé with Melon. A demitasse cup contained a consommé so focused aromatically it tasted as if it was being sprayed directly onto your soft palate as opposed to being drunk, while staying ethereal enough to perfectly show off the aroma of the small balls of cantaloupe floating in it. On top of this were a couple of micro-arugula leaves and a dried chip of prosciutto that was the distillation of the taste of an entire plate of the ham in one small, crisp bite.

Pino Maffeo of Restaurant L in Boston, Massachusets offered Slow-cooked Veal Breast, grains of paradise, maple glaze. The yielding rich bite of veal breast was complemented by light notes of smoke and earthy sweetness with black olive while contrasted by a slight onion-like bite. Along with this, Pino served two amuses, a red wine gelée with root beer leaf and crumbled French meringue, and a black truffle popcorn soup. The soup was irrefutably my hands down favorite flavor of the evening and, had it not been just the smallest of tastes to compliment, I would have put Pino at the top of the list. As is, I am planning a trip to Boston as soon as I can confirm this soup will be offered at least by the cup, if not bowl and take-home container.

Stewart Woodman of Five in Minneapolis, Minnesota put forth Au Bon Canard Seared Duck Breast, celery root slaw, lobster vinaigrette. The duck breast was a simple sear focused on crisping the fat side, the slaw was a crunchy light rich counter to its chew and flavors of carmelization. The lobster vinaigrette went almost unnoticed until I was about to put my plate down and realized that the aroma of lobster perfuming my entire head was born of that brick colored sauce I was about to let go of, causing me to reclaim the plate and go looking for a sauce spoon.

Douglas Keane of Cyrus in Healdsburg, California proffered Thai Marinated Lobster, avocado, mango, fresh hearts of palm. Walking a beaten path, Douglas showed his talents in not letting any one of these or the other flavors, like basil, cilantro and oil, take over, so in the long run you had a very fresh tasting bite about the lobster's sweetness and how it plays off flavors at the higher end of the spectrum.

Cathal Armstrong of Restaurant Eve in Alexandria, Virginia passed Braised Leg of Lamb in Gelée with Braised Leg of Lamb. A simple pan-seared slice of individual lamb muscle set atop a slice of a terrine of lamb meat and aromatics in gelée. Complex richness serving as counterpoint to a simple, pure, slightly gamey version of a component of itself.

David Chang of Momofuku Noodle Bar in New York, New York gave us Steamed Berkshire Pork Buns, hoisin, scallions, and pickled cucumber. The toothsomeness of the pork-belly versus the light flavors and crunch of the pickles and scallion was perfect, each becoming more for the contrast. The bun wrapped around it was also perfect in its lightness, both in texture and sweetness. I am just not sure these two elements should have been combined: the depth of the pork and the etherealness of its bun seemed to be of such different worlds that they may need not have met.

Christopher Lee of Striped Bass in Philadelphia, Pennsylvainia presented Tasmanian Sea Trout, honey-white balsamic caviar, ricotta cheese, fine herbs. The flavors around the piece of fish were great, the caviar a slightly sweet/slightly acidic refreshing, inspired use of espherication played well off the lactic acidity/richness of the ricotta, and the herbs added many little touches of flavor variation. All this went so well together that the fish seemed a superfluous nonentity.

Jonathan Benno of Per Se in New York, New York bestowed Pickled Gulf Shrimp with Ajo Blanco. A shrimp that had been lightly pickled, enough so that its inherent sweetness was masked but not enough that the pickling offered its own identity, balanced impressively and precariously on the edge of a teacup over a medium-thick white liquid that had the tang of fresh yogurt. In an evening of precious little dishes, this one seemed most.

Jason Wilson of Crush in Seattle, Washington was doling out Slow Braised Short Rib "Burgers," tomato jam , truffled pecorino, horseradish. Jason's flavors were composed in an un-ignorable manner. These were great earth flavors layered one on top of the other. In execution, though, the sear on the burger brought out the tough chew of the short rib, and the truffle-scented bun (a stroke of genius aromatically) was crumply so that it disintegrated in your hand and spilled down your chin after the first bite.

Mary Dumont of The Dunaway Restaurant at Strawberry Banke in Portsmith, New Hampshire conferred Seared Maine Scallop sweet corn, fennel confit, haricot vert, smoked bacon, and fennel pollen vinaigrette. The scallop was one-side-seared so that it had the awesome depth of the flavors of caramelization, while maintaining a giving bite. Along with it were wonderfully fresh vegetables as snappy as you could want. The problem was that until a very nice finish of fennel about a minute after swallowing, the pervasive smoke flavor was too overwhelming for the components. You could tell they wanted to flaunt their natural sweetness but weren't allowed.

All the chefs put an amazing foot forward and I look forward to getting to their places as I travel about. If you have the benefit of starting out close, I would get there soon.

David Burke's Fromagerie, 832 mcmansillion stars

David Burke of David Burke & Donatella has come to Rumson, New Jersey as new owner of The Fromagerie. More accurately, Mr. Burke has returned to Rumson after a series of stages in France, a stint as a chef in Westchester, and some time heading up restaurants in both NY and Chicago. It turns out that at some point in the long history of the little French restaurant on the corner of Ridge Road and Avenue of Two Rivers, David worked part-time at the Fromagerie, so this is a sort of homecoming.

Other than the fact that Chef Burke is involved in David Burke & Donatella, I cannot tell you a lot about him other than what I learned from his bio on the Fromagerie website, which credits him with inventing salmon pastrami, flavored oils, and tuna tartare. My history in the dining room is not as long as Chef Burke's is in the kitchen, so I was not around at the time to confirm or deny these claims. What I can tell you is the first real use of infused oils I was exposed to was at Charlie Trotter's in Chicago circa '92, and that that meal was what started me down this endless path of searching out better and better meals. So it would seem both Chef Trotter and I owe him a debt of gratitude. As for pastrami-cured salmon, I have never known it not to exist. And tuna tartare is too trite at this point to address. If Burke was the first, though, huzaah's are definitely in order, or at least should have been before every single place in the universe regardless of cuisine started making it and mercury concerns began outweighing any joy to be found in anything but the greatest of tuna.

As for the Fromagerie, I have a long history with the place. When I was young (in the '80's) in Monmouth County, special occasions took place at either the Fromagerie, Doris and Ed's (a seafood restaurant that evolved during the California cuisine movement), The Shiki (a Japanese Hibachi place) or The Farmingdale House (real Italian), all very good versions of standard American places as accepted at the time. In the '90's, a couple of more innovative places opened, like Nicolas for fine dining and Copper Canyon and The Bistro for better dining. The Fromagerie moved from well-settled/dependable to formerly best around, where the restaurant and the Peters family that owned and operated it existed dear to the hearts of most of the locals for quite some time.

As I understand it, the new management's intention is to entirely renovate the interior of the Fromagerie before the beginning of fall, when a re-branding will take place. At this point, the bar half has been opened up, brightened, and if you overlook the spackle drying on the sheetrock, it is shaping up to be a far lighter space. As for the dining room, it still wears its patina, but as we were sat we were informed ours would be the last butts to grace that banquet before reupholstering.

The menus are still in the old green holders, but the inserts definitely hint at things to come. On the inside page, one of David's cookbooks is offered for sale, and there is an announcement of a three-course prix-fixe brunch to start in the near future. The rest of the menu breaks down into Appetizers, Entrées, and Fromages. There is a wine list focused on France and America, consisting of the Peters' collection that will be buit around, along with some newer California stuff and a bunch of '04 white Burgundy they have already added.

Our meal started with a shot glass of asparagus soup and a cod-cake with horseradish cream, offered as amuses. The crust of the cod-cake was perfectly crisp, its interior seemed to be flaked potatoes and cod (a brandade cake, if you will). Once we figured out the soup was asparagus and not avocado (the young server had a cute brain lapse) it was quite nice -- the astringency of spring asparagus tempered by an amount of cream (maybe crème fraiche there was a slight tang) without getting heavy and creamy.

After the amuse, but before ordering, each person at the table was served a cheddar and poppy popover. A huge cheddar and poppy popover. Large empty humid pockets of air with striations of fleshy dough, all held in a brown crust of toasted little cheddar bits. The perfect bread service for a place called Fromagerie. I would, however, suggest they wait for the guests to order before serving it. The popover is the size of a Nerf basketball and the kind of thing it is just fun to tear into and eat until it is gone, so when ordering time comes around a significant portion of your hunger is sated. Wife had soup and an appetizer, BIL had just an entrée, and only after yours truly committed to both components of service did Sis commit to a soup in addition to her main.

From Appetizers, I selected PRETZEL CRUSTED CRAB CAKE, mango vinaigrette and poppy seed honey. The pretzel crust was actually two rafts made of pretzel sticks sandwiching loose Alaskan (or just the claw meat of blue claws)crab meat, lashed with chives, and rolled in a crunchy puff, which (based the saturation in the sticks) I would bet was then sautéed in clarified butter. Turns out that once pretzel sticks have gotten a nice crisp while sautéing, they have absorbed enough butter for it to become a primary flavor in the dish, perfect with the iodiney sweetness of the pacific crabs. For secondary flavors, there was a light yet pervasive note of fennel and/or tarragon that played well off the poppy seeds in the honey. The interactions of sweet in the crab meat, sweet in the honey, fat in the buttery pretzels, and richness from the binder of the crab meat made perfect room for the leavening tropical and citrus flavors of the mango vinaigrette. Beautifully plated, the only question this dish begged was how much sweeter it would be if made with local lump blue claw crab, maybe in fall.

From Entrées, I had the HALIBUT "T-BONE" STEAK, lobster dumplings and lobster bordelaise. Ignoring the quotation marks in the description, this was a perfectly pan-roasted halibut steak, crisp on the outside and medium-rare at its center. It was firm, dense, and moist. Few do it as well. The bordelaise was quite nice, tasting more of brandy than red wine, but the lobster aroma was deep and permeating. In the sauce were a scattering of crisp haricot verts which added a nice tactile counter-point to the fish's flesh. Also on the plate were two lobster dumplings, beautifully tasting of the iodine sweetness of deep cold water. That being said, part of their composition was about an inch-and-a-half section of the shell of a lobster finger, inedible and for some reason imbedded in the dumpling. For her appetizer, Wife had LOBSTER BISQUE which, while being decadent and lobstery, had a lobster's tentacle rolled into the spring roll that accompanied it. I am all for cool presentation, but if it isn't edible it shouldn't be on a plate, let alone strung into a component of a dish. If you want to put these elements in a dish, go buy one of Ferran's books. I am sure he has figured out how to make something that looks just like a lobster shell, while still being edible and probably tasting of lobster. But putting shells in food is something even breakfast places know to avoid with eggs. Presentation, as important as it is, should not take precedence over composition.

Well fed at this point, for dessert we all went with the David Burke Cheesecake Lollipop Tree, a very cool presentation consisting of a silver stand with three types of cheesecake pop -- chocolate truffle, strawberry, and three-chocolate -- radiating from a silver trunk and branches. The two chocolate pops were quite nice but there was a flavor, or more a consistency, of a stabilizing gum of some sort that made the sugars taste artificial. The strawberry had a crust of something like the old shell dip for soft ice-cream, sickly sweet and oily in texture.

If you look up David Burke & Donatella on Zagat.com the pricing is considered "ridiculous" by the New Yorkers who write in. In spite of this, the restaurant remains hugely successful which is one of the awesome paradigms of the New York Dining scene. The food on my inaugural visit to the Rumson outpost was expertly prepared and plated with true art, seriously respectable product, inspiration, and execution, across the board, the potential is apparent.

Monmouth County is by anyone's definition a well-heeled area with sizeable disposable income that could stand to have some truly well-made cuisine, but that halibut T-bone is one dollar cheaper than the "ridiculous"ly-priced same dish at Chef Burke's NY establishment. Are the diners of Monmouth County ready to swallow prices exorbitant by Manhattan standards in order to add a fine food establishment to their list of options? I'll go back to see how it feels once the renovation is complete and whether the finished product is in line with the right column of each page of the menu, but at the moment, with only Manhattan restaurants and Nicolas for comparison, the entrées feel about 20-25% off-market.

On the night I went, the place was full of people pleased with their first foray, in spite of the "under construction" appearance and the inevitable "the one in NY is better" comparisons. People will check out anything new for the first time, but if they feel taken advantage of it may not even become their special event place. Is Rumson ready for a new paradigm in dining? Only time will tell.

P.B. & Jammin

For the last seminar slot on Saturday, I was convinced not to miss Josh Wesson's PB & Jammin' Wines seminar. Josh is co-founder of Best Cellers and has carved out quite a niche for himself as the guy encouraging people to enjoy drinking wine. Josh brings his message to all those who tune in to his Eric Bogosian/Elliot Gould baritone that wine is and should be fun; that you need not spend a lifetime figuring out your particular opinion on reverse osmosis cones to have wines of all types and varieties add to your general quality of life. He pushes the notion that there is good affordable wine out there for everyone and that the industry has done itself a disservice in taking itself far too seriously and encouraging its patrons to do the same. To Josh, wine is just about fun, and if you enjoy sardonic humor, drinking it with him is just that.

In the interest of proving the point that food and wine pairing is a simple thing to both do and comprehend, Josh held a seminar in which he paired six wines to four peanut-butter creations from Peanut Butter & Co in NYC. Josh had assembled a panel of six besides himself, each person somehow related to one of the six wines being tasted, to round out the discussion of pairing notions. Each person on the panel discussed his or her wine, its philosophy, its making, which of the four sandwiches they imagined it would pair well with, and of course why we should all be buying it. We tasted them in ascending order of sweetness as they were discussed. Once all were tasted we then sampled our sandwiches with the wines Josh suggested.

The sandwiches were:

The Heat is On: spicy peanut butter, pineapple jam and grilled chicken

Velvet Elvis: smooth peanut butter, banana, bacon and honey

Classic PB&J: crunchy peanut butter and cabernet jelly

Chocolate Fluffernutter: chocolate peanut butter and marshmallow fluff

The wines and my thoughts were:

Fairview Goats do Rhome Rosé: grass and strawberry with dancing acids, it almost went well with The Classic but I would leave this one for quaffing ice cold in very hot sun.

Three Thieves Zinfandel: actually smelled like simple grape jelly which is what was so surprising about it going well with absolutely nothing.

Rosemont Estate Traminer-Riesling: white flowers on the nose, this was fun in its simple balance of light sweetness and acidity; nice with The Heat.

Domaine Chandon Riche: an extra dry (which due to the beauty of French irony means slightly sweet) sparkler from California, it smelled of roses and grapefruit. Sadly, having lost most of its bead due to the nature of such a huge tasting, it did not dance as well as it probably would have otherwise, but that didn't stop it from pairing well with The Heat, Elvis, and The Classic.

Bertani Recioto della Valpolicella Valpentena: a sweet sticky wine made by arresting the Amarone process with cold while residual sugar remains, it had concord grape, blackberry jam, tarragon, eucalyptus, and clove notes. It paired up respectably with Elvis, Fluffernutter, and The Classic, but at about two to five times the cost of most of the others once you factor in its smaller bottle, it had better have.

Coppo Brachetto d'Aqui: a light pink, slightly frizzante, low alcohol juice that tasted as if someone had washed strawberries and raspberries in Pellegrino water and then bottled it, it had notes of nag champa incense, cranberries, and grass. It tasted quite nice but lacked the backbone to stand up to the fat of the peanut butter.

In general the pairings went much as I expected, but that in no way takes away from the basic fun which was playing with wine and food.

So I spent Saturday morning with a guy I respect as an innovator on the cutting edge of food ideas, and went on to be impressed by a guy who is a master of fusion of a cuisine I am seldom wowed by. Then I joined the throngs to be part of a civilized marketing blitz or as close to such a thing as exists. With my appetite for the wines of Spain and all things pickled well whet, I jumped back in to put sauce with sow and plonk with peanuts, all just to be reaffirmed in my belief that people passionate enough about food and wine to travel to revel in it, or to work hard enough at it to reach the top of their fields, are almost without fail pretty cool people to eat and drink with.

Wine & Swine

After an hour or so in the Grand Tasting tent on Saturday , it was time for the afternoon seminars. From 2:30-2:45 p.m. was Wine & Swine, a salumi course with Dan Phillips of Grateful Palate, and Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality group. The objective was to learn about our taste preferences by tasting wines and salumi together. The Dans swore that if we would simply make the notes "good," "ehh," or "yuck," in their grid (using their smiley-face system), at the end of the exercise we would have learned about our preferences regarding how basic flavors and salt, sweet, hot, spicy and fat play together. We were given six wines, six cured sausages, and a sheet of paper consisting of a grid with boxes for our reactions. In my grid (pictured below) + =good, l = ehh, and – = yuck.

For the record, my bouquet notes on the wine were:

'03 Theo Minges Gleisweiler Hölle Riesling Spatlese: minerals, lemon, pineapple candy

'06 Bon-Bon Shiraz Rose: white stones, aloe, cranberry

'02 Sinskey Pinot Noir Four Vineyards: port, black cherries, booze, wood

'03 Riecine Chianti Classico: flat cherry soda

'04 Alto Moncayo Garnacha: chocolate, tarragon

'04 Shrivington Shiraz : leather, blackberries, wood smoke, salami

My salumi notes were:

Salame Toscano: mineraly like cherry stone clams, salty

Salame Bielese: fleshy tear, rather plain otherwise

Saucisson Sec Basquese: too much spice, little more than hot

Wild Boar Cacciatorni: gamey with chocolate notes

Sopressata: mineral and salt notes combining to taste of clams again

Finocchino: all about the fennel seeds studding it

Here is my chart with contemplation-less reactions to the combinations:

 

I made no big breakthrough as to my preferences, other than to confirm that I am still obviously pretty alone in believing that as far as wine pairing goes (and only as far as wine pairing goes) pork is the other white meat and there are just too many variables in the flavors of cured meats to make a safe bet on the tannins in red wine. The places in the world that make the best sausages are far stronger in whites than reds – think Friulli, Alsace, the banks of the Mosel (Tuscany being an exception because traditional Chianti, prior to the super-Tuscan bulking trends of late, was really just a red white wine, and the same can be said of the Lambruscos of the Parma region) – and to use the food quote that has always made the most sense to me which I first heard attributed to Danny Meyer when I was a budding young food freak, "if it grows together it goes together."

Aspen Day 2, morning

Day two at the Classic was all about the seminars. I imagine if you go to many industry-related conferences these types of things are very commonplace. Four forty-five minute periods during the day in which authorities on a topic discuss their specific expertise with those gathered for the convention, the difference here being that the skill-set of these pundits is one everyone, or at least someone in every family, should to some extent have experience in: the preparation of sustenance. So the crowd consists more of people with a passion, than people with an obligation. When doctors get together they do so either to write off a vacation or because they need to learn new aspects of their chosen profession. People come to the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen because they are passionate about food, some of them for no other reason. I am sure there are zealous petrochemical engineers at whatever earth-screwing conference oilmen throw, but I doubt many people with no relation to the industry are lining up an hour ahead of time to get a good seat for the opportunity to hear new ways to crack crude. I am at home among these people.

In the 9:00-9:45 a.m. slot I sat down to see José Andrés take on Two Ingredients Ten Ways. Minibar is certainly one of the most innovative places in America and I was not going to miss an opportunity to see the man behind it make ten dishes. Gathered on a raised stage with a heavily product placement-laden kitchen and a cantilevered mirror over the prep and cooking stations were Katsuya (Café Atlantico and it's Minibar's Executive Chef), a student from the CIA, José, and his two daughters (five and seven years old and proudly sporting Spanish soccer jerseys). A hilarious show ensued for the crowd as we watched the two chefs, gracefully aided by the young ladies, make: Watermelon Gazpacho with Tomato Seeds , Watermelon Cones, a Watermelon Flight, Watermelon and Tomato Skewers, Grilled Watermelon Steaks with Pistachios and Micro Greens, Watermelon Gelatin with Spices, Watermelon Granita with Fresh Blossoms and Fruits, Watermelon with Fruit Salad, Watermelon Air with Sea Urchin, Watermelon Spherification, Watermelon Ice Cocktail, and Watermelon Soda.

All this in under forty five minutes, with time left over for one of the girls to teach her father the word was "juice" not "yewce," and for José to spell out s-h-e-e-t-s after the word gelatin, because he gets yelled at when he tries to pronounce it.

In the long run, as far as flavors and concepts go José and Kats had done little ground breaking in the course of their presentation. Most of the components they used are already understood as playing well together - things like mint, citrus, and the simple refreshing pleasure of a cool watermelon's sweetness and tomato's acidity. What is so profound about José, Kats and what they do is their creativity. Once they have done the hard work of conceiving the preparations - removing the seeds whole from their chamber inside a tomato and laying this filet on top of a cube of watermelon - you can do it yourself, rather impressively, in about four minutes. So why didn't you think of that?

A crowd of about 300 walked out of the conference room in the basement of the Aspen St. Regis having laughed for about forty-three minutes straight, each on his or her way home to either freeze little balls of watermelon, put them in a paper cone and top them with micro mint leaves as an amuse, or maybe sear a watermelon steak (a "silly steak" according to Jose's daughters) in Spanish olive oil; each amused and inspired by where applied imagination and some good ingredients can take you.

From 10:30-11:15 a.m. on the same stage in the belly of The St. Regis stood Ming Tsai, of TV and Blue Ginger Restaurant fame, showing another 300 of us that even with an excruciating hangover, if we could pay enough attention to cut a half-pound of butter into 1/16th inch dice, refreeze it and then operate a food processor for about seven minutes, we too could make a shrimp mousse master recipe.

Ming's Shrimp Master Class then went on to show how with this base master ingredient three dishes could be made quite simply. Ming first spread the mousse onto dried crustless squares of white bread and pan fried them in oil (with sesame seeds) to make Shrimp Toasts. Next, he mixed edamame and chervil into the mousse, and folded it into a wonton skin held in the C made by his thumb and forefinger. This, placed on a leaf in a steamer which had had black tea added to its water (a way of compensating for off flavors in tap water), came out as Steamed Shrimp and Edamame Shumai in Lemon Broth (the lemon broth being warmed chicken stock with the juice of half a lemon squeezed in). Lastly, Ming applied the mousse to a filet of halibut, seared it, and then finished it in a hot oven to make Shrimp Crusted Halibut with Spicy Asparagus Salad (the salad was blanched asparagus spears dressed with a sambal and lime vinaigrette).

Ming has been a TV chef personality long enough to have made quite a shtick of product plugging, forgetting to turn burners on and sweating branded vodka from being out the night before. The truth is, his routine is funny enough, and Ming is so good at translating actually interesting fusion food to a home kitchen that these alone would be reasons enough for me to suggest you catch him if you can. The added bonus of seeing him, though, for me is his childlike admiration of fine cuisine. Being his student and listening to Ming regale the crowd with stories of Morimoto brandishing one of his amazing knives and separating the black skin from the white skin of an albino salmon on East Meets West, or Masa teaching him about Maldon sea salt for edamame, his nodding to all made those he has looked up to and learned from a very comfortable place from which to learn.

Certified Wild American Shrimp

At the center of The Aspen Classic is the Grand Tasting tent. Actually two huge tents with an open-air courtyard in the center, it houses booths for all the marketing interests involved in putting the Classic on. Many and varied companies that benefit from an association with Food & Wine, from Crocs shoes (the orange foamy clogs Mario wears all over town), to Hendrick's Gin (yours truly's favorite Martini ingredient), and all the things in between.

There are well-established brands that hardly exist separate from the magazine, like All-Clad, and brands making a big market push like Fiji Water. The plethora of mid-level wines is dazzling. Rather than try to tell you about them all and about the moments of rubbing elbows under the tents by people excited to get a taste of a mini beef patty from the Jamaican tourist council or sample the next new offering from Absolut, I will instead talk about the folks that won my heart in those crowds of people by offering real food with a sense of terroir.

The Certified Wild American Shrimp group was there representing the thousands of Americans who get on boats every morning of the season to go out to catch wild shrimp. Rather than farming off the coasts of South America or even in the estuaries around the Gulf of Mexico, guaranteeing a boring product that will neither offend nor excite, these guys go out and catch shrimp. Happily, shrimp that taste of place.

At their eight-foot table, they were plating up a simple shrimp cocktail consisting of three types of shrimp: the Carolina White, the Florida Pink, and the Texas Brown. Onto this they would grate on a micro-plane a rock of pink Himalayan Sea Salt, to open the flavor up (there also was some kind of ginger-orange dressing for them if you couldn't conceive of shrimp divorced from some kind of sauce). The three naked, but salted examples all tasted like shrimp I haven't tasted in quite a while. Today's farm-raised shrimp need sauces, they taste of little without them. But here the Carolinians favored the more mineraly flavors, while the Floridians played to sweetness, and the Texans tasted of iodine.

The fact is, all of these are from a part of the world all of our minds have recently been on and if you need a reason other than that they taste better to seek these shrimp out, you can make it that by supporting the market for a product caught in these waters by locals you are putting money into the hands of people working to rebuild in that Katrina-devastated economy. But if you are like me you will seek them out and buy them because you had almost given up on shrimp as an ingredient due to the fact that you can't remember the last time a shrimp tasted like a shrimp and not a sauce, and are saddened by that. Then its as easy as going to their website printing out their card requesting your local purveyors start offering real shrimp, and handing them around your local mongers over and over till your food tastes better.

Sommelier Challenge

For our wedding, Bubby’s big idea for a gift was to give us a reservation for El Bulli he had made for himself but wasn’t going to be able to attend that happened to fall a week before our big day. Chopes’ idea was to give us tickets to the Food & Wine Magazine Classic in Aspen for the year after our wedding. Things like this are probably why Chopes is a life-long friend, and Bubby often ends up being struck about the head and neck when we drink together.

Day One, Wife and I kicked off our trip to the Classic with The Sommelier Challenge. Lettie Teague, Food & Wine’s Executive Wine Editor, assembled four pretty heavy-hitter sommeliers for the event: Robert Bohr of Cru, David Lynch of Babbo, Daniel Johannes of Daniel Boulud’s various restaurants, and Larry Stone of Rubicon Estates. Lettie gave them each a wine to pitch the audience, her thinking being that, ultimately, the job of a sommelier is to sell customers wine. It is a sales job that involves ordering, inventory maintenance, market awareness, presence, charm, and product knowledge. So each of these four “superstar sommeliers” was given a wine Lettie had chosen from outside their specific skill set, and assigned to sell it to the crowd (which would vote on who had done his job the best at the end).

First up was Larry Stone with a Tiefenbrunner. With spearmint and grapefruit qualities to its nose and a firm, cleansing acidity, citrus, and minerals on the palate, I appreciated it as simple, yet with a finesse that would make it a good kick-off wine. Larry discussed its universal appeal in that it was assertive enough to pair with most any starter course, yet would stay out of the food’s way. He went on to discuss the wine’s focus and add poetry with observations like hawthorn blossom and citrus notes.

Next came Daniel Johannes and an Etude “heirloom pinot noir.” A new world wine with an interesting bouquet of hickory smoke and BBQ, rasp- and boysenberry, that on the palate was crushed red fruit and wood but lacked an acidity that would have driven these fatter points home. Faced with what I consider the hardest challenge of the afternoon due to this wine being almost trite in its American-ness, Daniel went to a safe place I am sure he has spoken from before. He discussed that pinot goes with Pacific salmon and then began to geek out on the idea of varietal variation among pinot noir clones in Burgundy. He addressed attractive buzzwords like “heirloom” and the fact that this wine would be better with food.

David Lynch was given a Las Gravas from Jumilla Spain made of a blend of cabernet, syrah, and an indigenous grape named Monastrell that I found intriguing in its almost feral qualities. The nose was of morning breath, cinnamon, and diesel, while the palate was meaty like salami with driving red fruit acidity and black pepper notes. In order to sell it to us, David stepped out from behind the panelists’ table and addressed us in a more familiar pose, standing at one of the tables. He discussed the Monastrell grape bringing a spice and acidity to the wine that would make you crave food, and how dinner would be made better for its association with this wine.

Robert Bohr was given Purple Angel Carmenere from Chile, which had a vegetal bouquet with scents of green bell pepper to go along with jammy red fruit notes. To my palate it was spicy, with notes of minerals and earthiness, big extracted fruit surrounding a driving acidic core. Robert first asked we ignore the superfluous modern label with its picture of a purple angel, then started his explanation of why we should choose his wine with the information that carmenere is a little known sixth grape allowable in the Bordeaux A.O.C. rules. Robert shared this with us as one of his favorite tidbits cocktail party discussions, good for sucking the wind out of the sails of self-proclaimed wine know-it-alls. He then went on to explain that bordelaise grapes have a long history in Chile, even to some extent longer than Bordeaux because parts of Chile were spared devastation by phyloxera around the turn of the last century.

History then bridged into Robert’s appreciation of the wine as a unique offering of South America in that it straddled the line between the classic style, which tends to be aggressively linear, and the modern. Robert then did the thing that won him my vote; he used the word “spoofalated” to describe the modern wines of Chile, and the world for that matter.

For the second round, all four superstars were asked to address the same wine, an old vines Chenin Blanc from Saumur in the Loire. Gardenias, minerals, pears and under-ripe plums on the nose, it had flavors of pear with light vanilla notes and acids that would dance with the things you’d grill in olive oil. In turn, the gentlemen addressed: the large boite/new oak program; biodynamic viticulture; the perfection of a peekytoe crab pairing; the gripping acids; and the perfect spot this takes on a wine list for a customer looking for either value, or something from a less beaten path. Each added to the prior’s comments after both agreeing and complimenting the others for stealing what he would have said. In the long run, it was a team effort and as a result I think there might be a rise in the price of the bottle since a room of about seventy people was sold it by a dream team of cork dorks, and I believe only about 1000 cases a year are produced.

Ultimately, Robert Bohr won the day. Maybe it was his younger, more precocious, slightly more needy-of-approval style, maybe he just covered more of the things that make wine attractive to customers at this exact moment in time, or maybe he was given the most interesting wine. The fun as a spectator was watching talented pros, good at their games, riffing, one-upping, and enjoying each other. A large percentage of the time was spent with the panelists, the moderator and the crowd laughing and enjoying, and isn’t that the whole reason anyone would ever become or look for a sommelier?

Thoughts on the 4th Annual Big Apple BBQ Party

• 4^th Annual Big Apple BBQ Party in a row. From the first little one where only those who loved cue enough to stand in the rain were on line to last year, which had such perfect hot weather that the lines got as long as two hours, to this one in which cooler temps made the hour wait seem longer, the best part of the BABBQP is meeting other people willing to brave such conditions on line.
• It is a great thing that there are now three places making BBQ in NYC of a standard that they could hold a place at this event. And it is gracious of Danny to include them in an event he started to draw attention to the ground-breaking place he and Ken Callaghan had opened back when no one would invest in the apparatus required by local statutes to properly smoke things here. But the truth is we can get the food of the other places every day, let Blue Smoke have their stand out of respect for the work done and round out the other very limited space with people a little farther away than Harlem.
• People will stand on line for up to an hour to get food from places that range in distance from a 5 minute walk to a 9 minute walk to a 25 minute A train ride.
• Confining beer drinking to the circle set up in Madison Square Park was silly, when EMP was selling very tasty spiked lemonade to all those with six bucks in their entrance.
• The best showing on both Saturday and Sunday this year was Southside Market, amazing ¾ inch smoke ring on the brisket and some of the tastiest smoked sausage ever.
• Ed Mitchell's whole hog pulled itself back up with the leaders (where it has been in prior years) Sunday morning with beautiful, simple chopped pork interspersed with crackling after running out about two hours early Saturday and having one of the all-time rudest servers in history manning the Bubba line.
• Ubon's shoulder is a great saucy sandwich.
• As good as the rib tips are at Smokey O's, the snoots are what all the other attendees should copy. Somewhere between pork rinds and crackling with a very nice sauce.
• Feel like I do and think it is silly to get ribs on the street from a place a little more than 4 blocks away that you all ready eat at about 10 times a year, yet want to give patronage to the locals? Got to Blue Smoke once you are full and wash it all down properly with a little Bourbon. This year Bear, Bubby, Pichon, Ringwald, Vee, Wife and I got rather julepy Sunday evening with bellies full of BBQ from parts far and wide, and a good time was had by all.

Little Owl, 871 spritezillian stars

Different types of people are drawn to different types of restaurant and in a perfect world everyone has a place that feeds them as they like, in a room in which they are comfortable. The truth is that the price of a dish of food in a restaurant includes all the costs involved in running the restaurant. At the base level there is the electricity, gas, rent, insurance and so on, and at another level there are the publicists, consultants, and decorators. The more a restaurateur puts into a place the more the food on the plate will cost. This makes the most special of finds for foodies a place confidently making high caliber food without the added costs of adornment.

 

Usually this type of place involves a talented young person or group with history at a respected establishment going out on their own. When their ambition to establish themselves combines with their talent and experience, often very fine food served in a more relaxed, more affordable venue ensues and a dynamic eatery is born: think Po, Hearth, Chickenbone Cafe, and Ureña.

 

The newest guys to go out on their own are Joey Campanaro and Gabriel Stullman. After decamping from Jimmy Bradley’s group they have landed at the corner of Grove and Bedford in a quaint little space they have named The Little Owl in honor of the owl sculpture sitting on the top corner of the building directly across Grove Street, clearly visible through the windows on the exterior walls.

 

Much like its name, the interior of The Little Owl seems to involve an understanding of its surroundings. Forty patrons is definitely full for this small room yet while Wife and I were there, there were thirty seven patrons, about eight around the bar, two in the doorway waiting to sit, and the rest sitting around small café tables cheerfully eating. Without seeming uncomfortably crowded the room was full and truly buzzing with the noise of a lively restaurant, but not getting loud.

 

There are huge windows facing out as well as huge windows looking into the kitchen. What isn’t glass is simply whitewashed clapboard that feels as if the boys may have convinced some of their friends it would be fun to pitch in for the restaurant's opening a la Tom Sawyer. All in all the décor is eclectic, tasteful and unobtrusive, with touches like low window boxes full of thyme in lieu of anything that would obscure and crowd a space easily prone to it.

 

Chopes first brought Little Owl to my attention when he told me that friends of his would be opening it and that, being someone who likes to know good places, I should pay attention. In all honesty, we have been friends so long I would have been as happy to call him a buffoon with no idea of talent as I would to shake his hand and say “thanks for the heads up.” Happily, I can report that after appetizers I sent a text that read “at Little Owl, good rec.”

 

The partnership splits up duties with Gabriel as the Maitre D’/host/front waiter/wine guy, and Joey through the glass running the kitchen. Having only gotten license approval for the wine list late Friday, they were running with a truncated selection of what they could get there for the weekend. There were four whites, four reds, one rosé and one sparkler. Within this very short selection France, Chile, Spain, Portugal, and Australia were all represented with well-selected wines, offering quality relative to a friendly market price. I went with a glass of Maria Gomes, Louis Pato, Beiras, Portugal, ’04, mostly because I had never heard of the Maria Gomes grape. The wine was fruit forward, full of golden apples and pineapples, with light acidity, subtle herbs, and minerals backing it up, definitely suggested for quaffing with the fish on the menu.

 

As of my first visit, which was during the restaurant’s first week Chef Campanaro had created a tight menu of eight appetizers, six entrees, four sides and three verbal specials. There was something for everyone. Right after whittling down what to order (it all reads well) while we spent about ten minutes waiting outside, we were then seated and were offered the verbal specials, all of which were also attractive, so negotiations started anew. Finally we went with the following:

 

From appetizers, gravy meatball sliders beef-pork-veal and pecorino, three airy meatballs about an inch and a half in diameter dressed in simple tomato sauce, topped with pecorino and chopped parsley, sandwiched in perfectly fitting home made garlic rolls. When I asked I was told that it is grandma’s recipe from Italy in the Village by way of Philly, but I like to think Joey’s grandma used to send him home with a container of meatballs and this little gem was created rummaging through the fridge for a midnight snack and got remade and played with till it was this. This has to be about as good as a meatball sandwich is ever going to taste.

 

  From the verbal specials, we chose “spaghettini with anchovies and breadcrumbs” in an appetizer size. This was properly al dente thin spaghetti with a condiment of white anchovy, breadcrumbs, roasted peppers, and what I assumed to be tomato paste from its slightly metallic zing. The anchovy largely played a supporting role to the breadcrumbs, which had absorbed the peppers, tomato, olive oil, and cheese to the point that they were almost meaty. The sweet spot for a restaurant that wants to succeed with a fairly priced menu in this rather expensive town is definitely in the ability to take a humble dish born of poverty like this one and make it taste as good as this.

 

When Gabriel cleared our plates from the spaghettini and asked how things were, I commented that the appetizers had done their job well in that although I had walked in not that hungry, I was definitely at this point looking forward to entrees. The next thing he did was either borne of his desire to encourage return customers, the fact that Chopes was a friend of his, or the fact I was photographing all the food, I’m not quite sure which, but he saw fit to send a taste of spanish mackerel tarragon honey mustard, and crunchy slaw. A small fillet of the mackerel was seared skin side down, giving it a nice crunch but preserving a medium rare temp throughout the piece. This was set atop a simple cabbage and carrot slaw that walked the line between sweet and rich very well, with a hint of licorice permeated throughout. On top of all this were some very small onion rings and micro amaranth leaves. Tarragon is a tough mistress, this dish is one of the few I have seen it bring its touch of fresh anise aroma without going all the way to the overly-soapy, herbal side. Whatever the impetus for Gabriel’s decision to share this, it was well made,-- besides photographing well it tasted great; it caused me to send that text, and I will definitely be back for more.

 

 

The first entrée sampled was the pork chop parmesan butter beans and wild dandelion. I really only ordered it because it is called “the pork chop” and for some reason that struck me. What arrived was a decent sized pork chop perfectly grilled with enough fennel seed or caraway in the seasoning to be reminiscent of an Italian sausage, topped with dandelion greens and floating on a glorious pool of gigante beans in a parmesan broth. I would hate to detract from the quality of the chop and its garnish, both were of a good standard, but the beans were near perfect for their simplicity and succulence.

 

The other entrée was the crispy chicken asparagus home fries, shitakes and lemon mustard, a boned half a chicken sautéed so the skin crisped evenly golden. Nothing earth-shattering here but great technique and confidence will leave those that want chicken happy.

 

It was a warm summer eve that seemed to steer me towards a frozen dessert so I went with cherry sorbet. Exactly right in that it had the taste of amarini cherries as opposed to artificial cherries and was as smooth as if cream had been involved.

 

The Little Owl is a little place with good aspirations and obvious talent fit snuggly into it, where a value market is targeted by making the most of affordable quality ingredients and trusting that this is a business model that still works in the town of the 10 million dollar opening. It is definitely worth a visit, whether it is because you want to say you were there back when, or you live close and want a good meal, or the reason I’ll probably be back most often: you like to eat great food in noisy little places.