Recent Articles

A foolhardy gift

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Dec 14th, 2009 | 1 Comments

The days were long and grueling. The mornings were filled with recipe writing and research on ingredients suppliers, purveyors and manufactures. Deliveries would arrive between 1000-1300 and testing would begin about 1600; lasting into the wee hours of the evening, with a rotating cast floating in and out of my apartment with casual regard an [...]

Obessing about the details

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Sep 2nd, 2009 | 0 Comments

When attempting to attack something of this nature, the best thing to do, in my opinion, is just abandon all hope for being casual and relaxed about it. I say spend every waking moment obsessing about every detail and let yourself only be properly satisfied with an unusual amount of desired perfection in the outcome. [...]

The most triumphant success of the evening

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Sep 2nd, 2009 | 0 Comments

It was decidedly the most triumphant success of the evening. It was one of the most simple but thought provoking dishes in the whole menu. It was Chef Achatz Black Truffle Explosion, a riff on a Chinese soup dumpling but with a truffle stock and butter liquid center wrapped in a rich and dense Italian [...]

Our battle with Lamb, Fennel, Pernod, Coffee-Scented Air

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Sep 1st, 2009 | 0 Comments

One of the complete failures of the night, and what would become one of the more difficult dishes to decipher, was Chef Achatz’s Lamb, Fennel, Pernod, Coffee-Scented Air. Not having any idea what this would be like we started making wild guesses and decided on trying to make spheres of Pernod sauce and braise lamb [...]

…a series of adventures

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Aug 31st, 2009 | 0 Comments

About one year ago we decided to embark on a series of adventures. It was our hope to learn through emulation and execution of what would be some of the most exquisite food in the world, cooked by two of our generation’s greatest chefs.
It was last September 17th when Grant Achatz and Thomas Keller announced [...]

24 hours of Le Mans

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jun 24th, 2009 | 0 Comments

A time lapse video of our 24 hours of cooking this past weekend. Thank you very much to Colin McCabe and Mike Lee / Studiofeast for putting this together. Thank you to everyone who made this possible, especially those at 90N 5th for the space! www.aptsandlofts.com
More to follow.

A Stark Meal

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Mar 12th, 2009 | 0 Comments

At the end of October we sat down with our good friends Alex and Aki from Ideas in Food and wrote up a menu for a seven course meal that we had been kicking around for a little while. It was a difficult balancing act getting four such divergently creative minds to come together to [...]

Fall – Pig Roast 2008

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Feb 19th, 2009 | 0 Comments

So with a total sense of irony and ridiculous timing I would like to share with you today some photos from our most recent pig roast. It was a bit of a Korean/Asian influenced affair with hint of the Carolina’s and Texas as usual.
Most of what is included below would fall under the heading “food [...]