Recent Articles

and then…

Posted by Michael J Cirino on Jan 18th, 2010 | 1 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 | 1 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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]