Two weeks ago, I was standing in the kitchen at Alinea. It was the coldest day of the past 15 years and the beginning of my short stage, my brief glimpse into one of the best kitchens in the world.

In the Kitchen at Alinea

One week ago, I was standing in a kitchen of apartment off Lake Shore. It was the second coldest day of the past 15 years and we were deep into our preparations for our Chicago recreation meal, which would be attended by one of the contributors to the Alinea cookbook and one of the sous chefs I worked with in my short stage.

In a Kitchen on Lake Shore Drive

Today I am standing in a farmers market, with a hint of the ocean breezing past me. It is threatening to become February and I am in short sleeves and with a cold beverage sweating over my fingers. The intense selection of organic and local produce betrayed my current location and deliciousness that the northern California weather was pouring upon us was a brilliant release from the brutality of winter.

Where to find Liquid Nitrogen

It would fall on Jonny and I to handle all of provisioning, as we were the only two cleared to drive the rental Town and Country and use the credit cards. Being San Francisco, the only real problem was choosing which amazing market to frequent and where to find liquid nitrogen.

Being on the west coast was the most delightful way to end this extreme cross-country tour. Except for the fact that we were cooking 6 new dishes that we would not have a chance to test until the moment we were serving them.

In hindsight this seems like an amazingly stupid move. In actuality it was based upon an intense trust of the ability of our knowledge, team and specifically the talent of Brian Sullivan. Brian was extremely proficient in the modern ingredients and techniques and was driven beyond all to recreate these mystical dishes to the exacting letter of the minds that created them. So with just a few long conversations stolen on flights and some casual note taking, the two of us had planned our the execution of the new set of dishes. The vague brutality of the naked ingredients and conceptual executions was exciting in it own right but turned out to be the crowning achievement of this final event.

Proficiency in modern techniques for napping

Welcome to San Francisco - Welcome to the Houseku

We left Chicago exhausted but with a profound sense of accomplishment. We had lost Mayur to rug replacement and some kind of warranty battle with an ice cream maker and we made our way to the smaller of the city’s two airports. Excited by heading home and being able to get some Potbelly’s sandwiches and Chicago style hot dogs before our flight would leave.

Without rest or comfort, just hours after we woke, we fought with all our strength to not overwhelm our conversation with talk of our trip to San Francisco the following weekend. There were many things we had learned over the past 72 hours and many new challenges that lay ahead. Spurred on by the staff of Alinea and our new-found confidence in our recipes, we set forth into reworking our next event to try and overcome that last 20%.

Cathy Erway

It was decided that we would be hosting one large meal in San Francisco as the space was large and majestic with two separate kitchens that could handle the task of serving thirty people twenty-five courses. We would be executing two dishes that required finding 20 liters of liquid nitrogen, which because of work and scheduling issues, we would not able to test until the day of the event.

Daniel was not going to be able to make it, as he had to return Colombia to check on Emilia Romagna and finalize some details for the new restaurant he would be opening in Cartagena that summer called Vera.

Jonny Cigar

Mayur as well had to succumb to the demands of real life and was relegated to cooking with us every night in preparations for the event but was not able to come with us.

In their place were three of the most enjoyable human beings I have ever met, Andrew Rosenberg, Cathy Erway and Jonny Cigar. Along with two San Francisco locals Keiko Takano and Jen Freeman as well as Melissa M. Martin, a friend of a friend who flew in from New Orleans we had assembled a formidable team to once again try to climb this great mountain of a meal.

Andrew Rosenberg

Once again our flight was scheduled to leave at some ungodly hour and having learned from our last experience with TSA, we were much better prepared for travels. It had been three weeks now where I was sleeping less than a handful of hours during any given night and the long sparsely filled flight was the perfect place for me to fall off into oblivion. All of my dreams were laced with frozen spheres of chewy candy canes or licorice syrup and seared scallops fueled by Brian and Akiko’s heated discussion of the best process and procedure for tackling this new menu. Jonny sat quietly a few seats away polishing his tie and reciting what I assumed was French poetry – delicately dancing with the elegant pronunciations in a way that was only possible by a man that learned to speak English in upstate New York farm country.

San Francisco provided us with the exact opposite weather conditions from Chicago, welcoming us with warm sunshine and soft floral sea breezes that made Jonny’s poetry seem all the more salient, I would assume. We picked out another very nice late model Minivan in a glistening shade of metallic dirty and headed off to find the Houseku and home for our final recreation.

A gratuitous display of pasta

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 celebrations befitting such a monumental accomplishment. My family got together for nice Italian meal on the date of my actual birth and a collection of good friends and I went to Mr. Castaño’s restaurant in midtown the next night for some serious brutality. All of this was wrapped up in a weeklong celebration showered over me by my lovely lady friend. It was a delicious week and I was very grateful for the much need break from the grueling hours of prep, cooking, planning and trying to squeeze in my day job between dinners.

So when Saturday came around I believed it was time to get back to business. We had the first of four test dinners to prepare ourselves for menu changes that Keller and Achatz executed at Alinea and the French Laundry. Being the creative forces that they were they did not just rest on their laurels and serve the same menu at all three restaurants, but they changed about 40% of the menu each meal. This kept us quite busy, writing recipes, researching techniques and then testing everything before our next series of events in Chicago and San Francisco.

We were going to split the menu up into pieces and practice some of the new elements while refining some of the harder elements we had come close to perfecting at our first series of events. Each night we would be serving eight of the twenty-four courses, paired with wine, and as you can see from these photos, a long series of cooking lessons and demonstrations.

Needless to say I was not aware of the fact that on Saturday after our test dinner my lovely lady friend had planned a huge surprise birthday party for me! So as we were cleaning up at the Whisk and Ladle, a steady stream of my friends and loved ones started to roll in carrying presents and copious amount of tasty beverages and treats. The very coy team that had been working with me all night whipped out all of their surprises and converted our dinner from a Keller/Achatz themed evening to a custom made party for me. Resplendent with special treats, fancy cocktails dreamed up by Mayur just for the evening and a very dangerous piñata which severely injured my lovely lady friend.

As luck would have it our good friend Steph Goralnick was there and was able to take some amazing photos of us cooking, the food and just some amazing interactions.

That evening’s menu:
Thomas Keller and Jonathan Benno (chef de cuisine per se):
“Galette” Hudson Valley Moulard Duck Foie Gras, Italian Pistachio “Financier,” Compressed Red Sensation Pear and Garden Mache

Thomas Keller's Foie Gras "Financier"

Thomas Keller and Cory Lee (chef de cuisine the French Laundry)

Salmon Cornet – Black sesame tuile and red onion crème fraîche
White sturgeon caviar – Lemon verbena gelée, cauliflower

Just seconds before plating all of the evenings Lemon Verbena Gels

Japanese Greenup Abalone – yuzu, tapioca, seaweed, matsutake mushroom broth

Snake River Farm’s “Calotte De Boeuf Grillee,” brisket and cabbage dumplings, horseradish pudding, sour cherries

Thomas Keller's Calotte de boeuf with sour cherry reduction and brisket dumplings

Chocolate S’mores – graham cracker ‘crunch,’ chocolate ‘crémeux,’ creamy “fluff” toasted marshmallow, chocolate emulsion

Thomas Keller's "S'mores"

Grant Achatz

Hot Potato-Cold Potato, Chive, Black Truffle
Black Truffle Explosion, Romaine, Parmesan

A delicate collection of pasta wrapped around a black truffle juice enriched eith butter and topped with wilted romaine lettuce Parmesan and a slice of Black Truffle

Prepared with: Jesse Carter, Cathy Erway, Deborah Gorman, Mark Losinger, Akiko Moorman, Andrew Rosenberg, Mayur Subbarao

Deborah Gorman, Andrew Rosenberg, Cathy Erway

…and a very special thanks and love my lovely lady friend for throwing me the most amazing thirtieth birthday party (week) ever!

For more information please click on the photo and read along with the captions.
All photos taken by Steph Goralnick © 2009

Sunday Dinner – July 27th, 2008
Cold Service

So after weeks of fighting the oppressive heat that my kitchen was able to create this July we decided that the best thing to do (instead of baking, braising, or sautéing with all of our burners on high) was to gave in and cook a meal based entirely around cold and room temperature dishes. Although this accomplished the goal of reducing the amount of BTUs being unnecessarily dumped into the room, the idea itself created a stress on our meager home refrigeration equipment and our ability to prepare everything on the day of service so our guests could watch, participate and learn as we constructed dinner. Note to those of you who were not at this meal: do not attempt to make and serve ice cream, granita, gelée and aspic in the same day without a serious amount of cold- a very serious amount.

This meal was the first in which ideas that we set out to accomplish were unable to be executed, but these failures led to what I can easily describe as my favorite moments in a kitchen this year. As with most meals, dinner was around dusk but preparation started mid-day; and on this particular Sunday we had a great group of people show up early to get dirty and participate in creating that night’s meal. Our hope was to shut off all burners by 18:00 and get the room nice and cool by dinner. This lofty goal was attained, but as dinner started we noticed that the large white box in the room that was supposed to be making our food cold was doing a “poor” job at best.

Its lack of coolness presented the greatest challenge to our pot lickies aspic, which at 15 minutes before plating still refused to get solid. So we took our problem to the room and to the 18 guests and chefs. Over wine and carbonated beverages, we turned a broken aspic into a beautiful pan sauce to dress the pâté.

I say this was one of my favorite moments in a kitchen because it accomplished everything that we hoped to have happen with our cooking: to get our guests to not be passive participants in a meal but active members of a dining experience, with a vested interest in everything that happens and to take ownership of the food they eat. This was no longer just a meal we were presenting to them; this was a meal they created with us throughout the day and together we were able to overcome the problems that our less than ideal conditions created.

Menu
Peach Gazpacho – White peach and mint gazpacho, finished with balsamic pickled strawberries and lime purée

Insalata Caprese – Buffula mozzarella, roasted tomato gelée, with basil oil and balsamic syrup

Wild Mushroom Brulée – Maitake and gorgonzola custard with pancetta brulée

Pâté En Croute – southern style pork pate with collard green pot lickies aspic wrapped in puff pastry

Raisin Granita – Raisin, Ancho and Serrano Ham Granita topped with candied Serrano chilies

Honey and White Pepper Ice Cream – locatelli and black Cypriote salt

Menu created with Daniel Castaño and Mark Low.
Cooks: Andrew Rosenberg, Daniel Castaño and Mark Low

Peach Gazpacho – White peach and mint gazpacho, finished with balsamic pickled strawberries and lime purée
I have never been a fan of gazpacho. I used to work next to a very well respected and critically acclaimed Mexican restaurant which had their gazpacho mentioned in every article or review but even its elegancy escaped me. Until one equally hot afternoon in July where peaches became the new shellfish and a frozen peach soup was born to help cure the heat. This is an evolution of that dish which garners nice compliments every time we serve it but still has not completely sold me on the idea these types of cold soups.

The addition of pickled fruit really helped to brighten the dish and give it better balance. With something like this the refreshing quality is what is important and I think the next time we take a stab at this I would like to see it equally as spicy as it is acidic. Giving the spice balance a little kick might also step up the cooling factor as well.

Insalata Caprese – Buffula mozzarella, roasted tomato gelée, with basil oil and balsamic syrup
This was just a reinterpretation of the classic Italian dish that will become a fixture on my table over the next month as this summer’s tomatoes come into season. Here we just replaced the fresh tomatoes with a concentrated roasted tomato gelée, hoping to create a smooth uniform mouth feel that would be able to sit in unison with the creamy density of the mozzarella. The flavors and textures were almost perfect and Mark’s superb knife skills saved the gelée which like the aspic refused to completely set.

Wild Mushroom Brulée – Maitake and gorgonzola custard with pancetta brulée
This was my favorite adventure of the night. Being a fan of Italian cooking I frequently enjoy room temperature dishes that you might see served cold or hot. This savory dish was something that I am happy to say was delightful at any temperature.

I know you can say “add bacon and blue cheese to anything and you pretty much have a winner,” but the consistency and creaminess of the savory custard was just delightful and the crack of the spoon on the pancetta was just as satisfying as breaking through a crust of turbinado sugar.

Pancetta Crackers

Pâté En Croute – southern style pork pate with collard green pot lickies aspic wrapped in puff pastry
In hopes of fusing southern pork flavors with a French preparation,this very standard pork shoulder and offal dish was designed to be our entrée in this meal. This, of all the dishes we have ever attempted to serve, was wrought with the most difficultly and failure, but was one of our greatest accomplishments.

• The pork protested the attack of the food processor
• The puff pastry cracked and refused to hold the aspic
• The aspic rejected the cold and did not set

But the dish was a success of flavor and texture and we accomplished it as a group.

Raisin Granita – Raisin, Ancho and Serrano Ham Granita topped with candied Serrano chilies

With six courses of cold food, two deserts are only to be expected if not demanded, but not wanting to give into our sweet tooth too easily we tried a semi-savory Granita. This was based on a simple Serrano Ham stock which we clarified the night before and added raisined fruit and peppers to flavor the dish until the sweet caramelized flavors overtook the rich creaminess of the pork. The candied chilies gave just a kick of spice that reminded your palate that you had not completely been given desert yet.

Honey and White Pepper Ice Cream – Locatelli Cheese and black Cypriote salt
This dish was dreamt up one night, many months ago with my friend Danielle over a glass of wine and a lifestyle and food magazine. As Ms. Florio flipped through the pages we talked about dessert, my aversion to it, and her quickly growing mastery of ice cream and granita making. At some point we got to talking about the ridiculous flavors of ice creams that we had been seeing around the city and how it seems as if people were trying to out silly one another. Not to be outdone we started on a verbal journey of nonsense that produced a long list of ice cream ridiculousness that we decided we had to try. This dish was the one I felt was the strongest and I believe was inspired by a brand of perfume that was either advertised in said lifestyle and food magazine or that was being worn at the time by Ms. Florio.

Locatelli cheese was added for its amazing salt and MSG levels, with the smoky flavor of the volcanic black Cypriote salt adding a touch of savory into the otherwise light and sweet dish. The white pepper gave each bite a touch of kick which you attempted to satisfy with the next bite of sweetness only to be placed at the beginning of the circle again. The slice of cheese was the savory ending to the brutal cycle of spice and sweet and left the cold meal finished.

Here is just a collection of food pornography from our pig roast collected by a good friend Tim Ireland, dangerous drummer and all around good dancer. I will try to be witty and explicit as I make mention of the situation in which the dark and devilish images were captured in, and when they are light and beautiful I will try not to let that same wit over power the beauty of the image.

Photo – Tim Ireland ©2008 www.irelandscaped.com

When cooking Collard Greens you are unknowingly producing two separate and equally delightful dishes; the collards themselves and the pot lickies. Now you might think that something called pot lickies is mildly off putting in name alone please try to remember that this viscous liquid that remains after the cooked greens have been served is based with bacon, sautéed onions and an assortment of chilies. It is then thickened with the hours of steeping green and cider vinegar; not to mention the smoky delight of the ham hocks that splinter and dissolve, adding a certain gelatinous delight to the broth. Eat your greens and then reserve this for making out with whenever you get a pork hangering. Some old creole friends of mine used to say that it was medicinal and would give it to the sick, I completely believe them.

Pickling is my new favorite thing. Think about it and get back to me. No I mean really think about it.

I will show you some of the more unexpected delights that I have endeavored into recently that will shock you with a repulsive drive to say, “you are wrong my friend. That is disgusting and I refuse your pressures.” You might be right to say such things when you hear about strawberries, peaches, pasta, laser beams, but that prejudice should be completely put aside when I tell you that right now, this very second you should go pickle five head of garlic. After quietly snacking on them while watching TV or with cheese and dried meats in bed with your naked friend, or on your salads with dieters and healthiers, over the next two weeks and then you decide to pickle ten heads for the second round say thank you to me and come back for the expanding list of things you should pickle and add to the collection in your cupboard.

This pile was the one of the hardest thing for people to deal with. To say that there was some anticipation in the crowd waiting for the food to be served would underestimate the skill of the team of people involved in seasoning, cutting and slapping pig around all morning. These ribs needed to rest before being portioned and there was a palatable anger emanating from the people who were standing right next to the butcher table just wanting to grab one rib, one quick bit, just one snack before the meal was served. Good things come to those who wait, better things come to those who wait patiently, the best of releases come after hours of teasing and flagrant tantalization.

I am not sure that this means anything to you, but this was 12” across and 36” long. It was 60C (140F), it seared the gloves onto your hands, it steamed in your face, it splattered on your shirt (and vest if you are named Jonathan). It was spiced, its spice burned your eyes, whetted your palate, flaked apart under your hand. It wait and drove tens of people to the point of furious desire, it was covered in sauces; dirty and sweet, bitter and pungent, homemade and delightful (thank you Hunter).

This is just gratuitous and I know that. You are also welcome; even you vegetarians. I know you secretly covet this. I have seen your reaction to it on my table, in restaurants next to me, in the backs of cabs as you hover over my lips after a meal as we head over bridges and under tunnels. It is ok, it is really that good and we all happily will keep enticing you until you come back into the fold.

This is the start of so many of the things we eat it is almost impossible to separate from our diets. If only the government could figure out a way to grow onions with corn; direct oil injections, corn oil fertilizer I am sure our c4 ratios would be near complete. Until then we can sit back and delight in the sweetness of onions in and on everything.

Getting it done

Roasted pig skin, glazed with apple cider vinegar mop that had just a touch of pepper sauce and a schmear of ketchup to allow for a slight caramelizing. Undoubtedly at some point it will rupture and spill the delicious fat back out on to the hot coals, but just pray that you are close by when this happens so you can enjoy the fuliginous haze that will settle over the campfire and coat your skin with a fine glaze.