Recent Articles

The Great Flood

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 9th, 2010 | 0 Comments

Saturday morning started for me in a mid priced hotel about a mile from the location of our dinner. It has been said that the best coffee shop in Chicago was right around the corner from us and to this I cannot confirm or deny. Having entered bed well after 3:00 I was slow to [...]

Friday Night in Chicago

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 5th, 2010 | 0 Comments

Upon arriving in Chicago, on Thursday 21 January,  2009, we were a flurry of action, transforming our lovely host’s beautiful condo into a functioning kitchen and dining room. We were again blessed with a painful cold snap, which we used to our benefit by turning what was supposed to be a washer and dryer room [...]

From our town to Chi-town

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 3rd, 2010 | 0 Comments

 
I departed Chicago a changed man, alive with new ideas, concepts and a much better grasp of what would be necessary to accomplish our next series of dinners in a fashion that would befitting the original hosts.
Our recreation dinners in Chicago would be our first attempts at performing such a high level of haute cuisine [...]

Stagiare

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 22nd, 2010 | 1 Comments

So with an offhanded comment in a local New York publication inviting me to come and stage (intern in French pronounced with an AHGEE like mirage) at his restaurant, I found myself just a few days later speaking with Grant Achatz confirming the details for the few shorts days I would be spending in the [...]

and then…

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 18th, 2010 | 0 Comments

In the midst of trying to recreate the series of ground breaking dinners that Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz served at their world renowned restaurants, the years of my life ticked over into another decade and with a riotous amount of celebration I became thirty. The week after, the New Year was filled with various [...]

Cooking for the sake of Photography

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 14th, 2010 | 0 Comments

After a hard fought battle with Keller and Achatz a calm settled over us as we prepared for our next series of dinners in Chicago. The preparation for those events was pushed to the back of our minds and we threw a party with our friends at PhotoJoJo in celebration of the photography of food. All [...]

A review and a conversation

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 11th, 2010 | 0 Comments

 
 
And so it was on the first night of Chanukah in 2008, Jordana Rothman a writer for TimeOut NY came to the first of our Breaking Bread and Boundaries series of dinners. She was skeptical and quiet letting the events unfold as they would, smiling in the corner and chatting among the 25 other guests.
I [...]

Le Premier Repas

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 5th, 2010 | 0 Comments

Time was lost and the minutes that were given to us to accomplish this herculean task seemed to be as inadequate as cocktail umbrellas in a hurricane. Fire was closing in on us from all sides and the pressure of was mounting by the second.
On slightly warmer than desired morning of December 12th, 2008 we [...]