I love summer sweet corn, but sometimes I want it in a form more elegant than boiled, roasted, grilled, or in a salad. This recipe is a mash-up of three different ideas from three different sources, and is about as simple as you can get.
The basic soup has only four ingredients: the kernels from five ears of fresh corn, one diced onion, two tablespoons of butter, and four and a quarter cups of corn stock (made by simmering leftover corn cobs, suggested by Michael Ruhlman, but water can be used in the place of stock).
I melted the butter, added the onions and water, and simmered for ten minutes.
Before I removed the corn from the cobs, I made smoked paprika oil by adding a tablespoon of smoked paprika to a half cup of grapeseed oil. I warmed the oil over extremely low heat for fifteen minutes, then let the mixture infuse for an hour before straining it through a coffee filter.
This is a dish of contrasts: warm soup against cold sorbet, sweet corn against spicy jalapeño and smoky paprika, and the crunchy garlic against the smooth soup and sorbet. It’s a great summer appetizer that can become a full meal with a few simple variations: add lump crab meat or a toasted garlic crouton to change the flavor profile.
Try this soup now, while the corn is still sweet instead of starchy. If you wait too long, you’ll end up with chowder.
Thanks to Chip Denman for the soup recipe and Mark Swain for the jalapeño and paprika oil garnishes.
Before a car crash derailed their summer dining season, Journeyman had instituted a Saturday afternoon barbecue lunch, setting up a grill outside and serving to the crowds that passed through Union Square on the way to and from the farmer’s market. They’re up and running again, but, inspired by the success of the Saturday experiment, they hoisted their first pig roast yesterday.
The restaurant doesn’t have the room (or the permit) to set up a roasting pit and spit, so we were invited to an undisclosed location to view the pig being cooked, which we took as an opportunity to show He Who Will Not Be Ignored how his favorite food is prepared. The setup is was a bit makeshift, but the spit to which the pig is wired was custom-built at one of the local bike shops.
Having been introduced to the main course, we arrived an hour later at Journeyman to enjoy some appetizers while the pig rested and was transported to the kitchen. We started with prosciutto and melon, smoked cherry tomatoes, a simple salad of tomatoes in olive oil, and this ricotta, Greek yogurt, and ground cherry tart:
The guest of honor finally arrived and was laid out on the counter for final carving. He Who was invited to watch the proceedings, so he took the photo.
The pig, seasoned simply with just salt and herbs, was promptly separated into plates of delicious parts. We were served belly with crispy skin, and chunks of the butt and ham.
The accompaniments were fried zucchini with marjoram and blueberries…
…and fried rice.
I noticed a smoky flavor, which I assumed was from the cherry tomatoes, the remainder of which had been used in the rice. However, when I asked chef Tsei Wei what was in the rice, he laughed and confessed  that the flavor was from smoked pork fat, a bonus left over from the Saturday barbecue lunches. (You know I’ll be smoking my own pork fat soon to keep in reserve in the Deep Storage Facility.)
The meal ended with a roasted white peach bread pudding with rhubarb sorbet.
Before we staggered home, She Who Must Be Obeyed suggested to Meg, the GM, that this shouldn’t be a one-time occurrence. She agreed, and modified her title accordingly:
We ate at four Chicago restaurants in five days. I let friends take care of the reservations for three of them, but I knew if we wanted to eat at Next that I would have to wrangle the table myself. Chef Grant Achatz and partner Nick Kokonas had settled on a ticket-based system that would guarantee a full restaurant, but obtaining a ticket via the first come, first served, no favors granted system (“You must accommodate people like me.” [Kokonas] wrote him back, highlighted that line, and just said, “No, I mustn’t.”) would be like trying to score front row seats for a U2 gig.
Fortunately, I possessed that particular skill, so on a July afternoon I waited for the official “tickets go on sale in a hour” announcement on Facebook, fired up two computers and four browsers, and typed and clicked like mad until, at the end of almost three frantic hours, I had a table for four at the not-unreasaonable hour of 6:15 PM on a Wednesday. Much to my surprise, Next is a mere block away from Publican, and just a few steps down the block from Moto. If I lived in Chicago, I night never leave that neighborhood.
You can read Sam Sifton’s review for The New York Times, and the review in the Chicago Reader for more details, but what follows are my impressions. The menu for A Tour of Thailand has changed a bit since the reviews; I’ll point out the deviations in the sequence.
We were seated in the middle of the long, dark, energetic room at a table that was soon covered with Thai language newspapers, pink paper napkins, and plastic spoons. I had chosen the cocktails beverage pairing (one of three pairings that also included wines and non-alcoholic juices), which started off with a deceptively powerful juice-based mix of Batavia Arrack (distilled grain spirits), Szigeti Sekt (similar to a grüner veltliner),and guava, mango, and papua juices – served in a plastic cup. The plastic and paper ware set us up for the first course:
Street food: roasted banana, prawn cake, sweet shrimp, fermented sausage, steamed bun
The steamed buns were filled with green curry pastes, the bananas (to which the spoons were applied) were garnished with chilis. A fun start to the meal, which changed over to a cloth runner (the color determined by the day of the week) and silverware for the more formal courses to follow.
Tom yum: hot and sour broth, pork belly, tomato, ginger
Cocktail: gin, chrysanthemum, lemongrass, lychee
The broth was more ramen-like than the traditional version, with a nice spicy kick to it.
Relishes: chili, shallot, garlic; salted duck egg, green mango, white radish; pickles
The three relishes were served with simple steamed rice in banana leaf lined baskets. This gave us an opportunity to taste the relishes without any other competing flavors. Two additional sauces were provided: spicy green chile, and fish and shrimp paste, which our server characterized as “Ricky Martin” and “James Brown,” respectively. The condiments and rice would remain on the table for all of the savory courses, which gave us the opportunity to adjust the dishes as we saw fit. We were content to use them as a supplement to the rice, which seemed to work out well.
Catfish: caramel sauce, celery, coriander root
Itsas Mendi Hondarrabi Zuri, Bizkaiko Txakolina, Spain 2010
Served in a fish-shaepd dish over a charcoal brazier, the catfish had been cooked sous vide to maintain a moist, tender texture. The caramel sauce was neither thick nor cloying, balanced out by the crunch of the celery and the herbal notes from the shaved coriander root. The accompanying wine was a dry Basque white, identified by one of our dining companions. (It’s great to dine with a wine critic.)
Two perfectly braised, meltingly tender, beef cheeks in a curry sauce. The meat was so rich I almost didn’t finish it – almost. The dish was paired with an astringent ale, which cut through the richness of the curry.
Watermelon, lemongrass
I don’t have a photo of this palate cleanser, a few sips of watermelon juice infused with lemongrass.The drink was a pale, clear green, which leads me to believe that the watermelon essence had been distilled with a rotary evaporator (a standard kitchen tool at Alinea). It tasted more of the rind than the fruit, but was very refreshing.
Coconut: corn, egg, licorice
Di Majo Norante, “Apianae,” Moscato, Del Molise 2007
Whole cracked coconuts were placed before us and we were instructed to lift the tops off and set them next to the bottom half. Our waiter spooned coconut water ice into the empty lid while describing the contents of the full half: corn pudding, candied lime, licorice tapioca pearls, and sweet cooked egg noodles. All of the expected food manipulations missing from the previous courses were collected in this one dessert – freeze-drying, powders, gums, and liquid nitrogen freezing (the exhaustive list is in this article) – to make a memorable assault on the senses.
Dragon fruit: rose
Banks, blended island rum
This was a simple halved dragon fruit, presented with a rose sprayed with rosewater. We were instructed to smell the rose before tasting the (usually bland) fruit, which would heighten the flavor – another classic Alinea presentation of smell and taste. The accompanying aperitif – high-proof rum with a distinct vanilla note – was like rocket fuel. I think the sequencing of this dish was a misstep, it should have come before the coconut.
Rooibos tea: palm sugar, milk
Having completed our “tour,” we were returned to the street with bags of cold sweet tea with straws.
When making reservations at Next, you have the option of booking the “kitchen table” for six, which isn’t in the kitchen, but just outside it, separated by a glass wall:
A seat at that table gets you two extra courses, which we also saw served to the table next to us (“friends of the family,” we were told): a charcoal grill with skewers of strawberries and pineapple, and a green papya salad served in a crab shell. The salad and a pad thai course had been part of the original menu sequence, since replaced with the “little bites.”
The cocktails at Next were created at Aviary, Achatz and Koknas’ cocktail bar next door. Although the place was packed with a line extending outside (on a Wednesday night!), our server offered us an opportunity to have a few drinks inside. We poked our heads through the door, had a look around, and realized that more drinks were not a good idea if we were driving home. I learned later that there is an even more exclusive bar, the Office, in the basement below Aviary – something to try for on our next visit.
I don’t have a lot of experience with “authentic” Thai food, having to settle instead for the Americanized versions available at most of my local places. While I realize that Next’s Tour of Thailand wasn”t necessarily any more authentic, it was a well-prepared, detailed, impression of Thai food, which is the next (heh) best thing.
We’ll be in Chicago next year, and the menu will have changed by then, but you can be sure I’ll be chained to my computers again when those tickets are available. If you have the opportunity to dine there, Next shouldn’t be missed.
The plan was to get a reservation at Alinea. With all of the attention focused on Next, we assumed that a table at Grant Achatz’s other restaurant would be easy to obtain. Unfortunately, those lousy Chicago summer tourists managed to snatch up every available reservation for the week we’d be there. Fortunately, Claudia, an old MIT friend and recently-arrived Chicago resident, managed to find the next best thing: a table at Boka.
We made He Who Will Not Be Ignored wear decent clothes and drove to the Old Town neighborhood, where we discovered that our destination was two doors down from Alinea. I didn’t get to eat there, but I touched the building. We were led inside, where we seated at the four-top near the bar. We chose to forgo the tasting menu, instead ordering a variety of dishes we (mostly) shared.
He Who Will Not Be Ignored ordered this, which surprised the waiter as much as it did me, but he ate the whole thing before I had a chance to sample it. I’ll have to go with He Who’s “awesome” judgement.
The escargot and crispy mushrooms were a first for me, but they provided complimentary textures to the soft sweetbreads. And I’m definitely thinking about how to replicate the corn sauce.
I was certain that this dish was one of those “appease the vegetarian” entrees. I figured that everything on the plate was meant to be a distraction from a not very exciting cooked grain, but, when eaten together, the salad proved to be very refreshing.
He Who ordered this, and Claudia followed suit (“I think he’s on to something”).The breast was perfectly cooked, and He Who actually ate the vegetables – even the lima beans.
Braised beef short rib ravioli, organic carrot puree, english peas, porcinis, pickled wild lilies, summer truffle jus
She Who and I ordered this. They had us at “beef short rib ravioli,” but what put it over the top was the supplement of – say it with me – fresh black Australian winter truffles.
The adults shared this, more of an accompaniment to after-dinner drinks than a dessert course.
I didn’t know what to expect from Boka, having never heard about it before stepping through its doors. I learned that the chef, Guiseppe Tentori, had been chef de cuisine at Charlie Trotter’s before opening his own place. I could see and taste the discipline and attention to detail on each plate, but enjoyed the informal setting. I still plan on eating at Alinea during my next Chicago visit, but I think Boka will also be on that trip’s short list of dining destinations.
I returned from the Chicago trip with the nagging feeling I had forgotten something. As frequently happens when I’m trying to retrieve information out of long-term storage, the elusive memory revealed itself to me at three in the morning: You have to make a head cheese, and you have less than a week in which to do it. Other people have night terrors, I have dreams about mise en place and failed recipes.
After a fitful sleep, I retrieved four huge trotters and two hocks from the Deep Storage Facility and put them in the fridge to thaw while I visited my butcher, who happened to have a pig’s head in the freezer. He couldn’t tell me if the tongue was still in the head, and I was unable to locate a fresh pork tongue, so I resigned myself to making fromage de tête without it. Much to my surprise, once the head was thawed the tongue flopped out, providing me with my missing ingredient. I still wouldn’t have time to give the tongue a full cure (not unlike the cure for Canadian bacon), but I had a workaround in mind.
(And who gouged the eyes out of my pig’s head? Was it the result of some crazed pork processor, delirious at the end of his third shift, looking at the last head of the day and screaming “Stop staring at me, you hell-spawned beast!”? Seems as reasonable an explanation as any other.)
I gave the meat an overnight soak in a salt and sugar brine that also included pink salt, which gave a lovely piggy color to the bits the next morning. It also served as a partial cure for the tongue.
I managed to just fit everything into my largest pot – a lobster steamer – to which I added two cups of wine, a bouquet garni, bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns, and cloves. I filled the pot with almost enough water to cover, leaving one ear still breaking the surface.
Once the pot came to a simmer, I cut off the ear and submerged it with the rest of the pork parts. After about four hours of gentle simmering, I removed all of the meat, which was falling off the bones.
Despite their size, the trotters were nearly meat-free, but I was able to pull a good amount of meat from the head and hocks. After peeling the tongue – not something I enjoyed doing, especially after reading all of A Song of Ice and Fire – I diced it into half-inch cubes. I gave the rest of the meat a rough chop to create a mix of larger pieces and small crumbly bits. I kept both ears, storing them in the fridge until I figured out what to do with them.
I wound up with exactly enough meat to fill a plastic-lined glass loaf pan.
This is where I chose to deviate from my previous failed effort. My terrine mold is too narrow, which contributed to my last head cheese falling apart when sliced. I figured a larger cross-section would make slicing easier, hence the loaf pan.
After reducing the cooking liquid and testing it for seasoning as well as gelling power, I filled the mold with a few cups until all the meat was covered.
I should have let the gel cool a bit before covering it with the plastic wrap and refrigerating it. As the pan sat in the fridge overnight (on a quarter-sheet pan), the still-liquid gelatin wicked up along the plastic and spilled onto the tray. I wound up with rough top surface in the pan, but, when ummolded, it became the bottom.
Before unmolding the head cheese, I thinly sliced one of the pig ears.
After a quick fry in hot oil I had lovely strips of crispy pig’s ear.
I chopped some parsley, sliced a shallot, and made a quick vinaigrette from lemon juice, olive oil, salt pepper, and a pinch of xanthan gum (now a constant addition to my salad dressings). I tossed the salad together, then turned my attention to the big moment: slicing the meat. Much to my relief, it remained solid and sliceable.
I plated the salad, topped it with the crispy ears, added a slab of porky, heady goodness, and garnished it with some pickled garlic scapes.
Credit where credit is due:Â He Who Will Not Be Ignored suggested this as a dinner instead of an afternoon snack. The meat was more subtly flavored than I had expected, but now I know to boost the spices the next time I do this; and I will do it again.
As for the rest of the head cheese, there’s a sandwich in my future, but you can read about it elsewhere. The man’s a freakin’ genius.
Our Chicago hosts for the week, having recently moved to the area themselves, asked me to recommend a place for dinner that would accommodate their varied tastes, which ranged from the adventurous to the not-at-all adventurous. I recommended Publican, the newest addition to chef Paul Kahan’s empire which also includes Blackbird and Avec. The atmosphere was causal and communal, the food was served family style, and the beverage list was extensive, designed to pair well with the menu.
We arrived just after the bar opened, but the place filled up quickly – Publican is a very popular spot – and we found ourselves joined at one of the long tables (seen above) by other diners, who both offered advice and asked about what we had ordered. Nik, our friend’s college-aged son seated next to me, declared that he was wiling to try anything we ordered. His father, seated on his other side, asked “Are you sure about that? You do realize who will be doing most of the ordering?” as he pointed to me. OK boy, let’s see what you’re made of, I thought, and so the ordering began.
Nik led off with an oyster sampler that disappeared before I had a chance to take a photo. I followed with the charcuterie plate: pork pie, salami, head cheese, sweet coppa, morteau sausage, pickles, and mustards.
Up next was the taste of three hams: a Spanish serrano, a Virginia country ham, and a La Quercia ham from Iowa.
He Who Will Not Be Ignored ordered the spicy pork rinds, which he declared to be “the best cheese puffs ever”:
Nik took a liking to the potted rilletes served with plots and sourdough toast. In fact, he claimed the plate as his own once the rest of us had a taste.
I upped the ante with the fried veal brains (even He Who tried them)…
… and Nik followed with the grilled duck hearts.
Our last “small plate” was the grilled head-on shrimp with corn, polenta, and Calabrian chills. Nik opted not to suck out the shrimp heads.
Before the “large plates” (these terms are all relative) arrived, I ordered a palate cleanser of radishes with butter and salt, a French country classic.
With the culinary dare portion of the meal concluded (Nik matched me, but I didn’t order the blood sausage), we moved on to simpler grilled fare. First up was the chicken with summer sausage:
Because He Who can never get enough smoked pork, we had the ham chop “in hay” with peaches and pecans.
And finally , the dry-aged sirloin with cucumbers, feta, lemon, and onions – the same flavor profile as a gyro sandwich.
Somehow, we managed to eat almost all of that food:
Grilling food may seem simple, but it takes quite a bit of skill to do well, and the cooks at Publican clearly have the grill skills to pay the bills. The food, combined with the atmosphere and an exceptional wait staff, convinced me that I’d eat at Publican every week if I lived in Chicago.
We were somewhere around Park Ridge on the edge of the Chicago when the fatigue began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge hot dogs, leering down at the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour. And a voice was screaming “Holy Jesus! What are those goddamn sausages?”
Then it was quiet again. “What the hell are you yelling about?” my attorney muttered, staring up at the sign with her eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Little Blue Box toward the entrance of the drive-thru. No point mentioning those hot dogs, I thought. The poor woman will see them soon enough.
OK, it really didn’t go down like that. We had arrived in Park Ridge, a whitebread suburb northwest of Chicago, to visit old friends. By the the we stopped, we had been driving for hours, driven to distraction by the utter sameness of the Ohio and Indiana countrysides (corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans, corn, soybeans ad nauseam), a landscape so unvarying in its flatness and straightness that the GPS screen was a simple white rectangle bisected by a red stripe. We were tired and hungry, and He Who Will Not Be Ignored was insisting on hot dogs for dinner.
Much as we had done in Montreal, we figured we should establish a culinary baseline and try a classic Chicago dog. Our hosts advised us the we were a short drive away from Superdawg, a place He Who had seen on a travel show (“Hot Dog Paradise” or some such), so off we headed to nearby Niles, where we were greeted by this terrifying sight:
I don’t know why the hot dog is dressed like Tarzan, but the glowing red eyes aren’t particularly welcoming. Perhaps his threatening stance is a promise of what is to come if you don’t drive in, so we meekly complied. The drive-in was a parking lot with a menu board and intercom at each space, but since none of us were familiar with the ordering system, we opted to order at the window and then eat in the tiny dining area.
I had been informed by more than one resident that the classic Chicago dog consisted of a steamed natural casing all-beef hot dog (usually Vienna Beef brand) on a steamed poppy seed bun, topped with yellow mustard, neon green relish, chopped white onions, tomato slices, a dill pickle spear, pickled sport (hot) peppers, and a shake of celery salt – a style referred to as “dragged through the garden.” The Superdawg variant omits the celery salt and tomato slices and substitutes a slice of pickled green tomato.
None of us went for the works: She Who had everything but the peppers, He Who opted for mustard and onions only, and I chose onion and pickles. Our dawgs arrived in blue boxes:
There’s a large helping of corn served with the dog: “Your Superdawg lounges inside, contentedly cushioned in … Superfries, and comfortably attired in …” the list of toppings. Printed on the flap you can read “From the bottom of my pure beef heart … thanks for giving me the chance to serve you!”
Sure enough the dog was resting in a pile of hand-cut crinkle fries.
The dog had a nice snap to it, and was juicy and well-spiced, but the crisp, hot, salty fries almost stole the show. Not a bad start to our Chicago hot dog tour. Some local teens volunteered that the best dog was to be found at Gene and Jude’s, advice we would hear more than once.
He Who ordered the Roaring Buffalo Chicken Dog, a truffled chicken sausage with celery root slaw, blue cheese and hot sauce:
She Who chose the Italian Dog, an Italian sausage with tomatoes, basil and basil aioli:
Soon after the Bizarre Foods episode aired, the Foss Hog won the iron chef challenge and was added to the permanent menu as the Brunch Dog, which was my choice.
They all tasted as advertised – buffalo wings, sausage pizza, or breakfast, respectively – and were all delicious. The surprise here was the use of specially baked New England style buns, which were almost brioche-like in their consistency.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention our side dish of triple truffle fries: Yukon Gold waffle cut fries, truffle oil, truffle butter, truffle salt & freshly chopped herbs.
We fought over these, figuring they would be the best fries we ate on this trip. We would soon be proven wrong.
On our last day in Chicago we visited an old friend, the very talented artist Tony Fitzpatrick, whose etching of another Chicago dog – his pet, Chooch – graces the top of this post. He took us to lunch at Hot Doug’s a place I had seen on the Chicago episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations:
Watch the intro segment again, where Bourdain is walking down the sidewalk and complaining about a line. We joined a line that extended beyond the iron fence you can see about half a block back, and waited on that line for more than an hour, time well spent catching up with Tony and learning where hot dogs came from:
By the time we got to the counter – which was manned by Doug himself – we were ravenous and ready to order. Tony introduced us as friends from Boston, to which Doug replied “What’s up with the restaurant scene in Boston? It’s boring.” My reply: “Four words: Cambridge, and Barbara Lynch.” His unprompted response of “You eat at Craigie on Main?” was enough to convince me that Doug knew something about food. Tony, being a regular, asked for “the usual,” while we took a few minutes to decide.
He Who had a Frankendog, a plain half-pound dog with mustard and cheese. She Who ordered the Turducken Dog, a turkey, duck, and chicken sausage garnished with pate de Campagne, brie, and smoky bacon sauce:
If you know anything about me from what you’ve read on this blog, you know I ordered the Foie Gras Dog, a foie gras and Sauternes duck sausage with black truffle aioli, foie gras mousse and fleur de del:
Being the third time in a week that I had eaten foie gras, I figured I’d be a bit jaded, but the combination of flavors and textures was just about perfect. I could nitpick about the pedestrian bun, but anything fancier would have extracted from the perfectly grilled sausage.
And, since we arrived on a Friday (probably the reason for the overly-long line), we upped the duck quotient with a helping of – say it with me – duck fat fries:
What could improve on hot, crispy, salty fries? Duck fat, and lots of it. These fries tasted like the Lyonnaise potatoes I’m fond of serving with my own duck dishes.
Tony, a lifelong Chicago resident, knew where we had eaten, and had assured us that he was saving the best for last. He wasn’t wrong – we all agreed that Hot Doug’s was the best of our hot dog experiences, summed up on the back of his t-shirts:
There are no two finer words in the English language than “encased meats,’ my friend.
We have returned from out vacation trip to Chicago, a drive that we thought best to split into two days each way. On the westbound leg we decided to stop in Cleveland for the evening, knowing the next day would begin with a visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I also viewed the stopover as an opportunity to have dinner at Lola, chef Michael Symon’s restaurant in the heart of the city. I had heard good things about it and there didn’t seem to be a better option.
Before I get to the food, I should mention the zany antics that ensued as we tried to park near the restaurant. As we drew closer to our destination, I noticed that the streets were crowded with people in Indians shirts and young girls in cowboy boots. Not knowing anything about the city, I assumed c’est normale. After plowing through both of those herds, we were informed that no parking was available near the restaurant. Just as we were about to give up, She Who Must Be Obeyed noticed that our supposedly full garage was next to the Cleveland Hyatt. It turned out that the garage also provided valet service for the hotel, so She Who slipped the attendant – an appreciative Red Sox fan – 20 bucks and told him we were dining in the hotel.
Once through the hotel doors, we were informed that a wedding was underway and that pedestrian access through the Victorian arcade was blocked. We slipped into an elevator with some other guests, made our way across the wedding celebration, and exited out the other side to Lola. The hostess there informed us that in addition to the wedding there was an Indians game  and a Taylor Swift concert, which explained the fans and the cowgirls.
On to dinner, and some less than ideal low-light photos that I corrected as best as I could:
Shown in the photo above, this was He Who Will Not Be Ignored’s choice, a plate of crispy pig’s ears, rinds, and pork belly. I was lucky to get a taste of the ear before he wolfed the rest down.
Fois Gras:Â strawberry, thyme, poppy seed cracker
The foie gras was served like a parfait, with the requisite fruit component layered on top. The poppy seed crackers were a welcome change from the usual brioche.
This is Symon’s signature dish, always on the menu. The chop was sliced, but the double-cut meaty bone was also served, which made Hw Who very happy. After ordering this, our waitress remarked “I already know what he’ll have for dessert.”
Quail & Pork Belly:Â sweet and sour bean salad, cornbread
Some meaty quail legs and breasts, a few cubes of belly, and cornbread croutons; just enough for She Who.
Rib Eye:Â smoked garlic bone marrow butter, preserved lemon, arugula
There was no question that I’d order this dish. Say it with me: smoked garlic bone marrow butter.
Chocolate:Â chocolate ganache, chocolate gelato, lavender salt
The 6 a.m. Special:Â brioche french toast, maple-bacon ice cream, caramelized apple
The dessert predicted by our waitress, breakfast on a dessert plate. Much to our surprise, He Who declared the ice cream to be “too bacon-y,” as if there was such a thing. Clearly, more education is in order for the boy.
It was a fine dinner, worth fighting through a wedding to eat. On our return trip trough the hotel we were in time for the bouquet toss, which I urged She Who to crash. She refused, so I’m still on the hook.
There is undoubtedly other food to be had in Cleveland, but we hit the prime dining spot and were rewarded with a meat-centric meal that was perfect for a group of starving travelers. But it was time to move on to Chicago and its culinary delights, the subjects of the next few posts.
Starting tomorrow, She Who Must Be Obeyed, He Who Will Not Be Ignored, and I are taking a well-deserved vacation. We’re driving out to Chicago by way of Cleveland (Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Lola restaurant), spending a week sightseeing and eating (Next, Publican, Boka, and various hot dog emporia), then returning by way of Buffalo (Niagara Falls  and wings at She Who and He Who’s insistence, respectively. I’ll take notes and photos, and may post a few quick updates. I also intend to settle once and for all whether Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
Our road music will start with the classic “Going to Chicago Blues,” a version performed by Lambert, Hendrix, and Ross with the Count Basie Orchestra and the immortal Joe Williams, from Sing a Song of Basie:
Today I received a comment from Matt, one of the judges of the Charcutepalooza competition. It was a follow-up to yesterday’s post about my salami-making adventure, which I am reposting here:
I would highly suggest against drying salami at 75F. At that temp you run the risk of growing some really nasty bacteria inside the salami that you cannot see or taste. The nitrate will prevent botulism (hopefully) but there are other baddies that can grow, especially at the temps you are talking about.
The high temp for that long will also mean that your lactic acid bacteria will have made the salami maybe a bit more sour than expected.
I ate the sliced salami link seen here, and have suffered no ill effects, but the scientist in me tells me that anecdotal evidence is no substitute for proper food safety. Consequently, I am disposing of the remaining links, even though it kills me to have to do so. I’ll treat my recent effort as a practice run, and will wait a few months until the temperature in my basement drops below 65 °F.
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