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I am hosting this month's edition of Speakeasy Cinema and y'all should come and join us! While I am forbidden from revealing the name of the film, from the hints below and if you know me, you might, just might, be able to guess.
So here's the info:
Monday, June 16, 2008
Time: 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location: 279 Church Street, New York City - 3 blocks below Canal St- across from the Tribeca Grand
SPEAKEASY CINEMA provides an opportunity for the film community to watch movies and talk about them a la the Algonquin Roundtable. No one will know which film it is until the lights dim.
Be forewarned: I have chosen a film that fulfills one of the very important roles that Speakeasy Cinema can play: This classic is also a drinking game, and we'll be bringing extra alcohol so anyone who gets one can take a shot anytime the rules of the game demand it.
After the screening we chat about the film, movies in general and there's more drinking. NB: At this intimate event industry talk is verboten, but your libations are welcome (read: BYOB or wine and we will have the corkscrew).
You should bring: beer, whisky, and red wine.
And if you leave standing, you never arrived.
These are some pretty serious hints, but don't wrack your brains too hard. It's a nice, fun and brilliant surprise!
Admission is $5
Every year, when I was a child, my mother would throw lavish New Year's Day parties at our house in East Hampton. They had pretty much stopped by the time I was old enough to really enjoy them, but for a few years it was a tradition and all of our friends would come over for caviar, homemade blinis, champagne, martinis and I assume, a fair amount of Bloody Marys.
Well, my mother passed away on January 9th, 2005 and my father died this past November 16th and I miss them both very much. I will be selling the apartment they (and I) lived in for much of the past 30 years and in part to honor them and in part because I consider New Year's Day a much more interesting holiday than New Year's Eve, I am preparing to host my first ever New Year's Day party.
In typical fashion, I have let my ambition and natural hosting tendencies take control over the part of the brain that controls reason (the neocortex, I believe...erm...Wikipedia believes....) So, as a result, I am attempting to serve the following during the day...I'll let you know, with pix and hopefully testemony, on what I succeeded in preparing:
Morning:
Bagels and lox, coffee and juice.
Lunch/dinner:
Bonac Clam Pie
Smoked Sausage and Black Eyed Peas
Maine Shrimp Boil
Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
Saucisson sec w/cornicons and truffle butter
Assorted cheeses, blue, stinky and others!
Sage beer cheese bread
Oysters Rattray (A family recipe from old family friends from East Hampton. Alas, sorrel was nowhere to be found, so I will have to make due with baby spinach and lemon juice to approximate the taste of the sorrel.)
Half a freshly smoked and glazed ham
And, if we have the energy tomorrow, cookies.
Here's a few shots of the prelims:
"Before" shots of my living room, kitchen and fridge:
The first chocolate bourbon pecan pie (the stuff around the edges is the sugary, chocolaty, pecany overflow. It's the stuff of gods):
I just finished the last of a fantastic bottle of white wine that I feel compelled to recommend to y'all. It was a gift from my friend and Rabbi Report contributor Adam Schartoff. It's a 2000 Tyrrell's Hunter Chardonnay Reserve from the Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia. Apparently it's very hard to find the 2000 (Smokes-Spirits claims it's "coming soon," but I ain't holding my breath), but I'd be willing to try the other vintages and varietals from this producer based on this wine alone. Dry and crisp, it had none of the "cotton ball in the mouth" feel of those oakey California chards. It was slightly more full-bodied than a Sauvignon Blanc (with much less of the "cat's pee on a gooseberry bush" effect) but still quite dry. All in all, a very nice bottle!
I have, in the not so distant past, been accused of being a bit of a stickler when it comes to the "proper" way to do certain things, be they cooking, dressing or behaving. While I'm not a total bastard about it (I think the "no red wine with fish" rule is largely pointless and have been known to wear white after labor day), there are indeed certain rules that are important, some more than others, of course. They help society get along at a small, personal and individual level. One of these rules is the naming of foods or dishes on a menu. It's important, I think, for the diner to know what he or she is getting when ordering. For example, a martini is gin (as opposed to a vodka martini) and if you order penne puttanesca, you should be comfortable in assuming it won't contain cream or meat...or shoe leather, for that matter.
The same goes for one of the all-time classic sandwiches and one of my favorite guilty pleasures, The Club. Without a doubt a guilty pleasure due to the presence of both mayonnaise and bacon, but a pleasure, nonetheless. The Club has endured since the late 19th century, the origin in dispute, with a tried and true recipe, one with very little room for interpretation. The classic Club is: a regular or triple decker (there is question on this point) creation of turkey or chicken (roasted, not smoked), crispy bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on toasted white bread, cut diagonally into quarters. Acceptable deviations include chicken instead of turkey and if you twist my arm, avocado (maybe a "California Club"?). That's not to say adding lobster or cheese might not taste damn good, but it would NOT be a Club.
The following sandwich on offer at the café at the Arclight cinemas (home to AFI Fest) and billed as a Club is most decidedly, NOT: Roast beef, bacon, turkey, tomato, provolone, mozzarella and garlic aoli on toasted bread. Yes, it contains turkey, bacon and tomato, but so would a liverwurst, sea urchin, limburger, mustard, turkey, bacon and tomato sandwich, but I wouldn't call that one a Club, either.
Here endeth the rant.
About a year ago I blogged about a post I had stubled across about the "ultimate bacon sandwich." It was disgusting in a woderfully bacon-y way. Now along comes Mahalo.com with....deep fried bacon!
Yummm!
Another day, another festival. Or is it another beer? Well, same difference, sometimes. At any rate, it is another film festival, my umpteenth + 4, I think. This time it's the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF, often pronounced, awkwardly: "K'viff") in the Czech spa town of the same name. I am currently in the lobby of my hotel, the Thermal, drinking a wonderful Pilsner Urquell at the extortionate hotel price of $1.50. Yup, you heard right. The thing is, they're 85 cents on the street, so $1.50 is rather a steep markup!
This being my first trip to the Czech Republic (or to any former Eastern Bloc country for that matter) since 1974, there is a certain amount of adjustment to be made. First of all, unlike the rest of Europe, smoking cigarettes in public places is still a national sport, here and that, combined with the lack of anything resembling dry cleaning in my hotel may prove to be a problem. I also forgot my razor, but the Czechs do shave, so I assume at least that won't be a problem. Then there's the language. While I consider myself lingustically adept, I am finding this one rather difficult to learn, but then again, I've only been in country a little over 30 hours, much of that spent either asleep or in a jet-lag/beer induced stupor.
Now about the alcohol. Cheap beer abounds and does a peculiar spirit called Becherovka. It's akin to Jägermeister, in that it's made with oodles of herbs and packs a wallop, but is significantly less viscous and purports to aid in digestion. Considering the preponderance of meat on Czech menus, I might be making copious use of it. It is usually served cold as a shot or on the rocks, but you can also have it with tonic, in which case it's called a "beton," which oddly means "concrete" in Czech. It's actually pretty tasty. To the left is a pic of a wedge of lime seemingly hovering above the surface of BAM curator Florence Almozini's beton.
So I had to take these pix. I was just kinda transfixed by the array of fish on offer at the KaDeWe's seafood department and these three were so very pissed off. I suppose I would be too, if I were....ugly as sin, dead and on ice in Berlin.
So...fish:
And the angriest of them all, the Monk Fish:
Yikes.
So last night my friend Piper and I had an excellent dinner at Cookshop, a restaurant on 10th avenue at 20th st., here in Manhattan. She had the Montauk Point striped bass and I had the whole Atlantic Porgy, which means that for dinner we had...Porgy & Bass.
Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the veal and don't forget to tip your waiter.
A dinner some friends and I had recently in what we like to call Das Fleischhaus:
It consists of: 4 Schnitzels, 4 small steaks, 4 pork cutlets and 4 small ground beef & pork links called Cevapcici, not to mention 2 kinds of rice and fries. Sheer heaven...so we ordered 8 of those on the side. My doctor would be so proud!
This is both gut wrenchingly disgusting and impossibly alluring. Don't ask me how I stumbled across this bit of minimalist cooking advice, just revel in the beauty that is the Ultimate Bacon Sandwich!
Best line: "I chose the low-sodium variety for its health benefits." Bwaaaaa hahahaha!
UPDATE: Apparently, the Ultimate Bacon Sandwich is a rather old post and the genius creator of that culinary masterpiece has since moved on to something even more disgusting, to wit:
PLEASE don't try this at home.
Remember my post a few days ago about the New York Film Festival? Remember my seared tuna "issue?" Well, I SO got that mother fucker! Dig it:
Oh, yeah!
Stay tuned for more from the NYFF, including pix and reviews.
From an alert I just received from CNN.com:
-- U.S. agriculture officials say tests on cow in the United States have come back positive for mad cow disease.
Also, according to The Associated Press, this test turned up positive in a cow that had previously tested negative for the disease and is the second case to hit the States. Apparently, the animal was a "downer," meaning that it was unable to walk, so it was barred from the food supply.
The following is the resumption of my periodic reprints of entries from the classic cookbook/bible, Larousse Gastronomique. Billed on the front cover as "The World's Greatest Culinary Encyclopedia," the book is 1,350 pages long and contains 3,500 recipes. First published in 1938, the LG is an indispensable reference for anyone who fancies them self to be a serious cook. It's also a great read for people who like to eat and like to kick around in the kitchen on the weekend. While it does have a cover price of $75 (and is well worth it), you can often find it for 30% off at Barnes & Noble (see link @ end of entry).
Larousse Gastronomique p. 385
Cumberland Sauce
A traditional English sweet-sour sauce that is usually served cold with venison, braised ham, mutton, or roast or braised duckling. It is made with port, orange and lemon juice and zest, and redcurrant jelly.
RECIPE
Cumberland Sauce
Remove the zest from an orange and a lemon and cut into fine strips; cook 1 generous tablespoon of the zest very gently in 200 ml (7 fl. oz, 3/4 cup) port for about 20 minutes. Remove the zest and add to the port 2 tablespoons redcurrant jelly, then a pinch of cayenne. Mix, bring to the boil, add the juice of the orange and lemon, then strain. Mix in the cooked strips of zest.
Larousse Gastronomique: The World's Greatest Culinary Encyclopedia
French-language edition:
Larousse Gastronomique (French Language Edition)
Larousse Gastronomique p. 416
Diablotin
A very thin, small round slice of bread (sometimes first coated with reduced béchamel sauce) sprinkled with grated cheese and browned in the oven, Diablotins are usually served with soup, particularly consommé. If a full-flavoured cheese is used, such as Roquefort, they can be served as cocktail snacks.
Formerly the name diablotin was used for a small fritter made of a deep-fried thinck sauce. It is also the name of a small spoon used to measure spices for cocktails.
cheese diablotins
Cut a ficelle (long thin French loaf) into slices 5 mm (1/4 in.) thick. Butter them and coat with grated cheese (Comté, Emmental or Beaufort, which melt, or Parmesan, which doesn't). A thin slice of Gruyère or Edam which may be used instead. Brown the slices quickly and serve with soup.
diablotins with walnuts and Roquefort cheese
Cut a long French loaf into slices about 5mm (1/4 in.) thick. Mix some butter with an equal quantity of Roquefort cheese and add some coarsely chopped green walnuts, allowing 1 tablespoon per 75 g (3 oz, 1/3 cup) of the mixture. Spread the mixture on the slices of bread and quickly heat in a pre-heated oven at 240ºC (475ºF, gas 9).
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