Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods’ roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine. HBD, LB
the Mothership I wanted to do a test run before inviting the world to our long-promised steakhouse night. In addition, friends have been begging for something good to eat, and my girlfriend is skipping town for the greener pastures and sensory delights of … Rwanda. So it was last weekend or never. I enlisted our close collaborator and butcher …
I’ve been corresponding with Michael Laiskonis, Le Bernardin’s executive pastry chef, for over a year. I found him through his blog, where he explains his approach and techniques with unusual eloquence. There are other pastry chefs with James Beard awards and three Michelin stars, but Chef Laiskonis is the first I’ve encountered with a combination of great vision, deep technical …
The expression, not the act: why would anyone, when suggesting blandness, invoke the most complex and exotic of spices? At Underbelly, little turns us on like a dark, aromatic Madagascar vanilla pod. Sometimes a pod is not just a pod. Consider: Vanilla encompasses 100 odd species of the tropical orchid Vanilla V. planifolia. First cultivated by …
Architect’s rendering of proposed Underbelly kitchen remodel. If you’re like me, you’ve been thinking, “immersion circulators and antigriddles were cool back in the ’90s … but what I really want is a large hadron collider.” Because, after all, with the particle physicists’ recent world record of smashing two protons head on, each charged with 1.2 trillion electron volts of …
There are many takes on thanksgiving dinner. One is about nostalgia: cremate a Butterball turkey, whisk lumps of flour into the the fatty pan drippings, cut open cans of translucent cranberry substance, add water to the stovetop stuffing, and finish off your loved ones with a wrecking ball of mashed potatoes. Bury them under pie. Another approach is elite, …
Later this summer, for one night only, we’re going to be the best, funnest, cheapest, and least abusive steak house in the country. With that end in mind we’ve been researching the finest beef in the land, making some friends in green places, and conspiring. I’m having a strategy session with our butcher, Jeffrey Ruhalter, next week. We’re going to …
We’ve posted some pictures here. All the pics in the top and bottom row are by Jothan Cashero. Maggie Shi wrote about the meal on The Scout. And Nikoya Lightbourne has posted a full reoport on her blog. Stay tuned for more!
The dishes have been washed and stowed, the candle wax has been scraped from the windowsills, wine glasses have been recovered from odd corners of the loft, and the last remnants of …
We’re going to launch with a recession-friendly dinner later this month. We’ve been working hard these last few months sourcing ingredients from the Hudson Valley and Pennsylvania, and making special arrangements with our friends and local purveyors. The menu will include: assorted hors d’oeuvres corn chowder with porcini cream roasted rack of Jamison Farm lamb, lamb …
