Michael Laiskonis

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Work...

The end of this past week finds me spent. While I already would like to be posting here more often, it's not for lack of ideas, but often just an issue of time. Although this week didn't afford the several hours of thinking, cooking, and writing that make up my average post, I hate to let the blog lie dormant for too long. In place of the usual writing here, I offer the story of how I find myself where I am today, a story I'm often asked to tell. I almost wish I believed in such a thing as fate, as in hindsight, it seems predetermined that I should be telling this story. Anyway, off we go...

It was about 1993, and I was working my first cooking job, or more specifically, as prep cook-baker-dishwasher-counter boy for a tiny bakery and gourmet shop. The idea that this might be more a career than just something to do was beginning to form. With no formal training, I would seek out and devour whatever information I could find; in the days before the internet, this meant anything from magazines, to outdated textbooks, to the yellowed notebooks I found on a shelf at the bakery. On this path of discovery, when everything was new and revelatory, I stumbled across the magazine Art Culinaire. For those unfamiliar, it's actually a properly bound book issued quarterly, that for chefs, reflects the latest in trends and techniques. Well this was the first ever copy I'd seen, and it just happened to profile Le Bernardin (issue 24 to be exact).

At the time, of course, Gilbert Le Coze was still at the helm, and a young Eric Ripert, as chef de cuisine, was pictured alongside him. This early issue of the magazine also featured a few other prominent rising stars at the time, notably Gray Kunz and David Burke. But I was drawn to the minimalist look of the recipes from Le Bernardin, which seemed to have a contradictory simplicity/complexity that spoke to me. When the restaurant opened in the 80s, Le Coze's style was very unique, even cutting edge, and it certainly was to me, as I was working in a not-quite-haute-cuisine-environment. Even more enlightening, given my slow lean toward pastry, were the pages featuring then pastry chef Francois Payard. Now well known and highly influential, few people realize that his first big position in the US was at Le Bernardin. Over the next few years, I must have ripped off every single dessert in that magazine. A few of those components still remain in my standard repertoire today. Upon reading that first issue of Art Culinaire, I set two goals: one day, I too, would grace those pages, and that eventually, I'd go to New York to eat at a place like Le Bernardin.

Fast forward 4 years or so, I had furthered my training, finding myself working in a real restaurant/pastry capacity for Rick Halberg at Emily's, in a sleepy suburb outside of Detroit. This was my first taste of working with contemporary ideas in a kitchen-as-laboratory environment. I had been there a couple of years, climbing my way up to the position of sous chef,  when Rick was invited to cook at the James Beard House in New York. Though I think we chefs here in the city tend to take the Beard House for granted, for those chefs west of the Hudson River, cooking there was, and is for many, a sort of culinary pilgrimage. So if that excitement wasn't enough, Rick announced that the two of us would extend the trip an extra day to eat. I don't remember if I was asked for a suggestion, but the day after our successful dinner, we found ourselves at Le Bernardin for lunch. I may have already been to Paris once by then, but no matter, at least here in the US, this would be one of my first important and highly anticipated dining experiences. I still remember every bite of food from that lunch, from the salmon rilletes through to Florian Bellanger's warm chocolate tart.

I had one dish that, to this day, has remained one of the most memorable in a decade of cooking and dining. The main course was skate, sauteed in goose fat, sauced with a squab jus. That single plate, along with the whole experience, blew my impressionable mind. Back in those days, before the second floor of Le Bernardin had been remodeled to become the private dining rooms, or Les Salons, the long hallway back to the restrooms revealed a large window looking into the kitchens. I must have stood there for five minutes, as the activity of the army of white-clad cooks was mesmerizing. In this state of epiphany I left the restaurant and walked -still in suit and tie and day on a hot summer day- the entire 50 or so blocks up to Kitchen Arts and Letters and back down another 60 blocks to our hotel. Along the way I filled up on more pastry, of course, at the newly opened Payard Patisserie. My love affair with New York and its culinary strata was instantly cemented. During that day of walking and eating, I set a new goal, to one day break into the NYC restaurant scene.

Another few years had passed, and I finally got to meet Eric Ripert when he was invited to cook at Tribute, where I had become pastry chef. I shyly confessed not only my early source of inspiration, but most of all, that revelatory skate dish, which he recalled with affection as well. I would end up seeing him a few times, at various events around the country, but it wasn't until early 2004, when I was just beginning to think about expanding my horizons, that we would meet one on one. And even then, it was a third person that arranged the meeting. While I was also considering possible opportunities in San Francisco and Chicago, the notion of New York was at once exciting and terrifying. Was I ready? And could I actually perform at the level of Le Bernardin? Knowing such an opportunity might never come along again, I agreed to interview with Chef Ripert, and because he already knew my work, after an hour or so, I left with an offer. Now coming up on my fourth year in New York, I still pinch myself, just to make sure that it's all really happening.

Not only did I get to eat at Le Bernardin, years after I accidentally discovered it in a magazine, but I also get to walk through those doors every day, and know that I'm leaving my own mark on the legacy begun by Gilbert and Maguy Le Coze. I also eventually found myself in Art Culinaire, even getting the cover shot. And it's an honor to follow the path set by a long line of talented pastry chefs, among them Herve Poussot, and Florian. And as for my idol Francois, it is especially rewarding that I now consider him a friend and colleague. About a year ago, I had to replace the behemoth of an ice cream machine that had been there for so long, that no one could actually determine its age. I ended up learning from Francois that it dated back to his tenure. And then I thought about the countless gallons and hundreds of flavors that churned in that thing over the years...

The chocolate tart that I tasted during that first lunch became a signature dessert at Le Bernardin, just like Gilbert's famous Variation of Caramel that preceded it, and like my "egg" that followed. At the time, of course, the whole molten chocolate cake thing was just starting to spread like crazy. And while I still prepare Florian's original recipe once in a while as a special request, it was long ago struck from the menu. Recently, however, I brought back the idea, thinking, I guess, that now bringing it back might make it "cool" in a "retro" sense. Cool or not, it is pretty good. The new version is baked into a porcelain cup as part of our tasting menu. Even if no one actually knows it, it's really an homage to the place that helped me realize a dream.

Download Warm-Chocolate-Cake.pdf

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.

Bread and Chocolate

I was thinking recently about certain American pastry traditions, comparing them, not necessarily for better or worse, against those of Europe and elsewhere. While we have our own strong traditions and identity, I couldn't help but notice at least one thing other cultures had that we didn't: bread and chocolate. I'm still hard pressed to come up with an example that isn't a direct import, like the now common pain au chocolat (like Francois Payard's pictured below). I may be splitting hairs, but I really mean to differentiate what I consider to be bread from sweet cakes, cookies, and various quick breads, where the focus is on the sugar, not on the simple combination of flour, yeast, and salt. I didn't exactly grow up with strong and varied gastronomic tendencies, so it wasn't until early adulthood that I came to embrace this whole notion, when a friend introduced me to the pleasure of crisp, salty grissini dipped into Nutella.

I would obviously find more exposure to the simply satisfying, almost savory-sweet combination, through my job as a baker and pastry chef. I made the classic pain au chocolat part of my early repertoire, as well as an Italian pane e cioccolata. Later, I learned to join my chef at the time, Takashi, in his daily pre-service ritual of tearing open a chunk of warm baguette, folding in a dab of butter, a few pistoles of chocolate, and a pinch of salt. And more recently, when developing a menu for a Spanish restaurant we were consulting on a few years ago, a dessert of chocolate, toasted bread, and olive oil seemed as natural as churros and crema catalan.

Regular readers here may have noticed that I'm a big fan of Amedei, the exceptional chocolate produced in Tuscany. A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Alessio Tessieri, who, with his sister Cecilia, founded the company. What began as a small operation producing pralines, has since evolved into a globe-trotting quest to find the best and rarest cacao beans used in manufacturing their own couvertures. Mr. Tessieri was on a whirlwind promotional tour of North America, and I was honored to host a small press dinner for him during his brief stay here in New York. Among the five courses of desserts I created to highlight the range of Amedei products, I decided to revisit the idea of bread and chocolate.

We began with Amedei's Chuao couverture, a 70% single origin dark chocolate from the renowned village in Venezuela. To best preserve the flavors and nuances of the chocolate by not obscuring them behind too many ingredients, we produced a soft ganache where a good portion of the cream had been replaced with water, with the addition of agar agar to create more stability, thus allowing us to mold it to our whim. This ganache was then minimally adorned with thin slices of toasted bread, a pinch of Maldon salt, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Mr. Tessieri pronounced this course among his favorites of the evening, as he felt the complimenting flavors best highlighted those of the chocolate. I liked it so much that we've since added the dessert to one of our tasting menus

There have been many inventive uses and interpretations of bread in contemporary pastry. One of the more interesting ideas I came across several years ago involved a deconstruction of brioche: if I recall, the dessert included a bread ice cream, the base itself fermented with yeast (I've searched in vain for the original link to Will's AKWA website where I encountered the recipe). More recently I saw a similar technique courtesy of Martin Berasategui. Of course there is the "low tech" method of infusing breads into a base that I mentioned in the post about "found objects", but I hope to investigate such fermentation possibilities in the future. And like most people who didn't grow up with it, I've been slow to embrace the strong flavor of Marmite or Vegemite. But I think it has potential as an ingredient in some fashion. Olive oil has always presented some interesting dessert possibilities as well- ganaches, sorbets, ice creams, cakes, encapsulation. I think I'll file that away too, to revisit in another more in-depth post.

Download Chocolate-Olive-Oil.pdf

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.

Liquid Inspiration

For whatever reason, I've never been one to use a lot of alcohol or liqueurs in desserts. I guess they just don't immediately come to mind when constructing a palette of flavors. And though I'm a fan of wines and beers, and I appreciate the odd bourbon, pastis, or even grappa, I'm just not much of a cocktail kind of guy in general. For better or worse, a lot of that stuff just doesn't make my radar, if anything simply as a result of my own ignorance. But I have a huge respect for the craft of mixology, especially the new breed of "molecular" mixologists, like Tailor's Eben Freeman, whose work matches the creativity of that restaurant's chef Sam Mason. And there are aspects about the history and traditions of spirits that I find fascinating, as I do of the stories behind any number of foods. Perhaps it's those products that are either rare or artisanal that pique my interest the most, which is how I came to know Eric Seed.

Based in Minnesota, Eric is known in the world of spirits as a detective of sorts, unearthing lost or little known items, then making them available to the greater number of us. His first big project was the importing of two spirits from Austria: Zirbenz, flavored with the fruit of a particular indigenous pine, and Lauria, a cream liqueur from wild Alpine pears. It wasn't just the unique flavors that immediately made me a customer of Eric's, but also because of his own love of the products; he spins tales of scaling trees high up in the mountains during stone pine harvest just so that he could learn more about how it was made. It's with a similar passion that in the years since, he's introduced other rare products through his importing company, Haus Alpenz, such as a violet liqueur, and newly available spirits like falernum and allspice dram. Two of my favorites, along with the Zirbenz, have been the Nux Alpina, from green walnuts, and Batavia Arrack, an aromatic rum-like product from the East Indies. While I've already confessed to a lamentable alcohol apathy, I did find immediate inspiration to experiment with these three in particular, using chocolate as a vehicle.

Zirbenz is produced by macerating the fruit of the Arolla Stone Pine, which grows at the upper reaches of the Alpine tree line, in a neutral eau-de-vie. A few years ago, when Eric showed up in the kitchen with his tiny vial of Zirbenz, the notion of cooking with the flavor of pine had certainly become common in certain circles. Another early supporter of Eric's was Will Goldfarb; while at NYC's too-short-lived Room 4 Dessert, he wittily dubbed a Zirbenz based cocktail the "Mr. Clean", which also incorporated lemon and Champagne. In my mind, the pleasing herbal pine flavor of the Zirbenz best pairs with a good milk chocolate, taming its edge without overpowering it. On the rare occasion I have access to young, unsprayed pine needles, I would also give this ganache a boost by infusing a pinch of them into the cream beforehand.

Among the few liqueurs that have always held my interest, most have some sort of herbal component- Herbsaint, Chartreuse, Amaro, and others, not to mention bitters. Not only do I enjoy these intense flavors, but I also appreciate, again, their origins and unique ingredients.I especially enjoy Eric's walnut liqueur as a digestif, particularly during these colder months. With every sniff and sip, I try to isolate the different components that make up its complex flavor. Such intensity will stand up to a dark chocolate; here a ganache spiked with the Nux Alpina is in the "old school" form of the traditional muscadine, usually flavored with Cointreau or Grand Marnier. The ganache is piped into thin lines, then cut, dipped, and rolled into cocoa powder.

One of Eric's investigations involved the spirit Batavia Arrack, which in recent years was limited to a cult following of bartenders and classic cocktail aficionados. Originally produced in Java, and traded far and wide by the Dutch, this sugarcane and rice spirit gained popularity during the 18th and 19th centuries as an integral ingredient in various punches. Often flavored with citrus, sugar, and spices, such beverages were the drink of choice, not only in Europe (Swedish punch being one of the most celebrated), but also in the quickly developing New World. As Eric was researching Batavia Arrack and planning its distribution here in the US, he discovered that its current primary market was that of European and Japanese chocolatiers, sought for its ability to heighten aromatics.

To my palate, the Batavia Arrack has a wonderful aroma like that of molasses or palm sugar, and in general, I've found that it works well as a replacement for rum in many recipes. Here, I've tried to recreate the idea of a classic punch, but in the form of a white chocolate ganache, flavored with citrus zest, clove, cardamom, and vanilla, along with a healthy dose of the Arrack. The sweet, neutral white chocolate harmonizes the flavors of this ganache, which has been molded and garnished with dried orange zest and cinnamon.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is not only discovering, and then sharing such products, but also getting a chance to meet the people behind them. Whenever Eric comes to town, I know there will always be a new flavor, and a new story, sealed in one of his tiny bottles.

(Downloads)

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.

 

Thinking Green

No, I'm not necessarily thinking of green in the ecological sense that everyone -rightly so, of course- seems to be these days. And definitely not the green inspired by the impending St. Patrick's Day. Actually, the green I have in mind is that of Spring produce. And at this time of year, when the cold just never seems to break, at least all of the rain we've been having in these parts promises the sweet smell of green and a new season.And one of the earliest announcements of Spring? One of my favorite fruits: the greengage plum.

Like I said, of all the seasons, Winter is the most stubborn: not really welcome in the first place, it tends to over-extend its visit to boot. All the others- Spring, Summer, Fall- always seem fleeting. And for chefs, I don't think any other season is as eagerly anticipated as Spring, when our cooking suddenly lightens after months of typically heavier and richer fare. It's those first few products of longer, warmer days that inspire us again; a true symbol of renewal. For savory cooks, it's pencil-thin asparagus, English peas, and ramps. For a pastry chef like me, the first hint of things to come is the greengage, the tiny, sugary plum with nearly neon green flesh. Hailing primarily from New Zealand (OK, I do admit that it's late Summer there, but it is Spring for us), its commercial season is ridiculously short. Available for only the first two, maybe three weeks of March, it becomes a "get-as-many-as-you-can" situation. In years past, by the time I remembered that it was greengage season, they were history. I now know to start asking for them once we've hit Valentine's Day.

In this age of chef-as-manipulator, sometimes it makes sense to set our technical prowess aside and allow a single ingredient to speak for itself. A perfectly ripe greengage deserves such simple treatment. Perfection, in my book, is a dusting of sugar and a quick pass with a blowtorch: the plum is just warmed through and the thin crunch of sugar contrasts the soft fruit. To compose a full plated dessert, I like to approach complimentary components with a similar simplicity. Rhubarb is another favorite early arrival, and I also like the idea of bridging the seasons with a holdout from Winter- the last surge of citrus, blood oranges in particular.

I tend to prefer the earliest, bright pink rhubarb over the thicker, more fibrous stalks we see by time Summer hits, even if those first few cases come from hothouses. Reserving the thinnest pieces for dried chips, the remaining rhubarb is peeled and diced, then added to a small amount of barely caramelized sugar. Because its water content is so high, a fair amount of the rhubarb's juices evaporate instantly as it deglazes and dissolves the sugar. Once nearly all of that water has cooked off, we finish the fruit (or vegetable, botanically speaking) with the juice and zest of a blood orange. The resulting compote is thick and shiny, tart and sweet. A blood orange curd, crushed sablee, and yogurt sorbet complete the dish.

A version of this dish will grace our menu for as long as the short season allows. Check local markets, or look to Chef's Garden or Sid Wainer for immediate availability. I'm looking to hoard as much as I can this week, perhaps giving them some sort of confit treatment, in hopes of preserving this sweet memory. At least until next year.

Download Greengage-Rhubarb-Blood_Orange.pdf

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.

Mixed Media

I love the energy and spontaneity of working service, directing traffic and touching nearly every plate that leaves the pastry kitchen. I also like putting my head down, and quietly, methodically knocking out production work. Every day in a busy, high-pressure restaurant kitchen is a new day; there is truly never a dull moment. Yet one does learn what to expect from any given day. Sure, there may be moments of barely controlled chaos, but at least it's fairly routine, to the point where you can set your watch by it.

In kitchen life, there can be a... how can I describe it... a normalcy. Monotony is too strong a word. So I feel that it's important to keep everyone inspired and excited from day to day, through menu changes, experiments, and brainstorming new ideas. For myself, it's often the "extra-curricular" projects that keep me fresh, the stuff above and beyond the workaday stressful environment, putting up a few hundred perfect plates everyday. Most often these are a result of the "PR" aspect of my job: having been given modest success and recognition, I guess some look to me as an authority of sorts, and I do feel extremely lucky to be considered for all kinds of press inquiries, events, and collaborations. Sometimes the most beneficial projects are those that involve the collision of cooking with other disciplines. The simple idea of linking two seemingly disparate endeavors, say, cooking and architecture, inspires discussion and new ideas.

I find this notion of "mixed media" quite interesting. Recently, I was interviewed in connection with a documentary, currently in production, from legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker. Mostly known for exploring the world of artistic genius and political conquest, this newest film of his will examine the culture and rigors of France's prestigious Meilleur Ouvrier de France, specifically its intense pastry competition. While I was initially surprised to hear that he was behind the film, it isn't too much of a stretch to draw similarities between the creativity, passion, and drive of pastry chefs with those same qualities Pennebaker documented in rock stars like Dylan or Bowie. I was interviewed by producer Flora Lazar, who is also writing an even broader companion book. Both should be quite fascinating, of interest to anyone outside of the business, as well as those of us in the thick of it. I'm excited simply for the fact that it merges cooking with the art of film.

A favorite book in my library is one I discovered quite by accident. Almost 15 years ago, very early in my career, I happened upon a copy of French photographer Herve Amiard's Portraits des Chefs in a used bookstore. The book, which I assume is long out-of-print, contains simple black-and white portraits of the chefs du jour. What is fascinating is Amiard's ability to capture each personality through styling or witty caption, which, one could argue, describes each chef's cooking philosophy just as much as if their food could speak for itself. Pierre Gagnaire, one of the 60 chefs Amiard shot for his book, is someone who recognizes and embraces the fluid, improvisational aspect of cooking that, like jazz, is ultimately fleeting and of-the-moment. We do our best to codify cooking through recipes, or achieve a sense of consistency from plate to plate, but only through other media can we convey grand culinary ideas to those not readily able to taste the food firsthand.

I guess this whole blogging thing is really the attempt to express ideas by linking "mixed media"- cooking and writing about cooking. And though I'm pretty much a "low-tech" guy, and was slow to jump into the age of digital photography (I still have much to learn), I also try to present the images I post here in a similar aesthetically pleasing, story-telling manner, rather than as cold, straight forward documentation.

But in this post about inter-disciplinary collaboration, the photos you see come courtesy of Michael Harlan Turkell. Though I've long admired his work and have occasionally bumped into him around town for the last few years, I've only recently gotten to know him better, as result of his visiting our pastry kitchen last month. We just did our thing, and Michael simply hung back and clicked away.

A former cook himself, Michael appears more than comfortable in the kitchen, and has a keen eye for detail. Like any good documentary artist, he often captures compositions and juxtapositions that most of us wouldn't notice otherwise. Because of his love affair with all things edible, not to mention that he seems to know every chef on the planet, it's not surprising when you find him at virtually every important food event in the city, more often than not, camera in hand. His knowledge of New York's culinary upper crust, as well as its hidden underbelly, is encyclopedic. And most people I talk to agree that he's simply of the nicest guys they know.

The handful of photos here represent a larger number of images from that first shoot together, and I look forward to working with Michael on a couple special projects in the future. In the meantime, do check out his work on a few different sites, www.harlanturk.com, www.harlanturk.com/photos and harlanturk.blogspot.com.

The chocolate peanut tart above has become a perennial favorite at the restaurant. The rather basic composition of the tart- caramel, salted peanuts, and ganache- is offset and refined with a healthy dose of acid and texture from lemon confit, lemon puree, praline citrus sorbet (which hadn't yet been plated when Michael snapped this picture), and peanut butter, which playfully appears in powder form.

Download Chocolate Peanut Tart.pdf

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.

On The Road: Low Country

After years of saying "yes" to every event, every opportunity for travel, every invitation to take our show on the road, I made a resolution of sorts this year, that I would scale back a bit. I'd like to think that I've earned the right to finally be able to weigh my options more carefully. Granted, most of these events support worthy charities and provide wider exposure for both me and the restaurant, not to mention that they are also rare moments when I actually get to spend time with some of my colleagues. And really, I look at such opportunities as a perk of the job. But these days, I'm reserving all of that extra time and energy for the most important events, or at least sometimes, those that might be fun as well.

Each year I do, however, make sure to save the date for the annual Food and Wine Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. Now in its third year, I've been involved since the beginning, having been initially invited by friend and former mentor Mickey Bakst, now the Maitre d' at the Charleston Grill. But I've long had a connection with the city and its chefs, and even further back spent time in Savannah and Hilton Head, all within the same marshy coastal area commonly referred to as the Low Country. This is the land of shrimp, grits, rice, huge oysters, and she-crab soup. Not only is this "Gullah" cuisine well represented in Charleston, the city boasts a vibrant culinary scene that runs the gamut, right up to Sean Brock's modern fare at McCrady's.

And the larger national trend of relying heavily on local products is quite strong in Charleston; Sean even has his own farm supplying vegetables for his restaurant. His cooks work both in the kitchen and in the fields. He also let slip that he is poised to acquire a number of pigs, and of a rare local breed at that. This infectious attitude has been shared among a lot of the chefs here, many of whom I've come to know over the years: Ken Vedrinski, Bob Waggoner, Robert Carter, etc. Another disciple of all things local is Mike Lata of FIG, which is one of my favorite Charleston restaurants. It was Mike who called me nearly a year ago, inviting me to participate in a guest chef dinner held this past weekend, one of many in connection with the Food and Wine Festival.

These simultaneous events, happening at over a dozen restaurants within a few square miles, attract chefs from all over the country. Again, one of the few opportunities to see old friends and meet new ones. This year, those in town for the Festival included David Chang, Michael Schlow, Gale Gand, Carrie Nahabedian, a NoCal contingent made up of Richard Reddington, Michael Tusk, Stuart Brioza, and Nicole Krasinski, not to mention nearby Southerners Frank Stitt and Chris Hastings. Even native Carolinians Sam Talbot of Top Chef fame, and writers Ted and Matt Lee were involved in the Festival. And my co-conspirators for the dinner at FIG were Heather Carlucci and Suzanne Goin; another New Yorker, Kevin Pike of Terry Theise Selections, was brought in to sort out the wines.

This type of event is my favorite to do: one dish, usually around 100 guests, and you get to work in a real kitchen, with your friends, and assisted by a bunch of young talented cooks. No stress, though it must have been my "say-yes-to-everything" alter ego who agreed to do two desserts back to back! After some Low Country inspired hors d'oeuvre, the menu opened with Heather's almond shorba and white Carolina shrimp, reflecting this former pastry chef's immersion into the cuisine of India. Her course was followed by Mike's "over-easy" ravioli with truffles- an entire egg yolk wrapped in pasta left wonderfully runny after cooked, which if I had a vote, was the dish of the evening. Suzanne rounded out the savory phase with veal cheeks, local greens, and an amazing truffled risotto.

The pre-dessert was a slightly smaller version of my yogurt panna cotta with grapefruit, basil, and avocado, which I wrote about a few weeks back. The menu finished with an Amedei Gianduja parfait, with organic hazelnuts in black truffle honey (yes, there was a bit of a truffle theme going on), caramelized banana, and beurre noisette ice cream. Kevin's wine pairings were inspired, the highlights being the side-by-side tasting of two vintages of an Austrian Riesling (Salomon Pfaffenberg 1982 and 2003) with Mike's ravioli, and the Margaine demi sec Champagne served with the panna cotta. And as I write, I happen to be sipping a tiny vial of Heidi Shrock's golden botrytised "Auf den Flügeln der Morgenröte" -"On the Wings of the Dawn"- early morning being the best time to pick such noble "rotten" grapes. The tiny bottle I received serves as Heidi's business card, while the wine poured from regular bottles accompanied my Gianduja dish.

My work, however, wasn't over, as the next day found me in Vincenz Aschbacher's pastry kitchen at the Charleston Place hotel, prepping for that night's event, the Festival's "Bubbles and Sweets" party. This gala assembles most of the local pastry chefs, along with the handful of us out-of-towners, to dole out desserts to several hundred attendees, with plenty of Champagne to go around. This is great for me, because it allows me to meet a lot of young chefs that I might not notice otherwise. Among them were Claire Chapman, whom I worked with on my first trip to Charleston many years ago; Kelly Wilson, who helped organize the event and who paid a visit to Le Bernardin recently; and Winburn Carmack of McCrady's, someone to seriously look out for on the national level.

By the end of that second night, I was more than ready for the informal party back at FIG, complete with a whole roasted pig, and amazing pizzas courtesy of EVO's Matt McIntosh, direct from his mobile wood burning oven.

And of course, at some point in the wee morning hours that followed, I accepted an invitation to attend next year.

 

Download Amedei Gianduja Parfait.pdf

For general notes on the recipes posted here, please read About the Recipes. And for hard to find ingredients or equipment, please refer to Resources.