Rhode Island 100 mile

…outside of the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmer’s Market there parks a truck. Not just any old truck. It’s a truck that produces some of the best mobile take out food that you can find. The owners of Chez Pascal in Providence upgraded their hot dog cart that usually sits on the sidewalk at Lippett Park to this mobile purveyor of hand made sausages and other delectable offerings. On any given day you could find turkey and rabbit sausages, a bacon-wrapped meatloaf sandwich and homemade meatball subs (just to name a few). A stop at the truck has become a must for Ingrid and I after shopping at the market- we suggest that you check it out for yourselves.

-Josh

…thank goodness for root vegetables! They still are in abundance at the winter markets- with the seasonal greens and fruit all but gone, it’s nice to have a choice of hearty vegetables to accompany our meals. Tonight, I cut carrots, turnips, potatoes and sweet potatoes into a large dice, coated them with olive oil, mixed in some minced rosemary and roasted them in the oven for about 45 minutes under some foil. For the last 10 minutes or so, we took off the foil and let them carmelize a little…the result was a tender and very sweet melange of late Fall holdovers…hopefully they’ll be around at least through February!

                                 -Josh

So Josh and I had kicked around the idea of doing the 100 Mile Challenge in February.  We like the challenge in the summer and we thought we could try it out in a colder, darker month.   However, we did pick the shortest month of the year.  This past weekend we decided that we are definitely going to take the plunge – the 100 Mile Challenge in February.  Those 20 pounds of frozen strawberries in the freezer will come in hand next month!  I’m already planning for the first week – February 1st is one week from today.  I’m not sure why but the first few days catch us off-guard when we have done this in the past but not this month.  I have some of Kenyon’s white corn meal and flour from UpinGil Farm so this Sunday, I’ll be making blueberry (also in the freezer from this past summer) corn muffins to have for the first week.

Today I (Ingrid) was up at the Pawtucket Winter Farmers Market to pick up our chickens and eggs from Pat’s Pastured.  You may remember that name as Josh and I have mentioned Pat’s Pastured a lot – I think the most recent was in relation to our new favorite chicken – the Poulet Rouge.  We signed up this past fall to take part in a six month chicken and egg CSA (community supported agriculture).  Basically, you pay for the food up front and then you pick up your goods at prearranged times.  So once a month for six months Josh and I get four chickens and two dozen eggs and it’s been great.  Pat emailed us earlier this week to remind us that today was pick-up day at the markets and also told us that he’s run out of chickens for market customers but the CSA members would still be getting their chickens.  The farmers markets have been so successful that some vendors, like Pat, have been running low.  But you know what that is causing?  There are new vendors selling these products at the market.  I noticed a new chicken vendor today who wasn’t there at the beginning of the winter market.  So if you’re looking for chickens, just mosey your way all the way down the hall of vendors at the winter market – you should find someone who has them!   But be sure to stop by Pat’s Pastured – though he may not have chickens right now, he has lots of other yummy products!

…I don’t think our synopsis of our recent visit to New York would be complete without a rundown of the beer happenings that we squeezed in during our stay. I make it a point to find the best places wherever we go to imbibe and/or purchase the malty goodness that is known as beer. Even though Ingrid does not particularly like the beverage, she is a very good sport and not only encourages my quests, but also takes part in accompanying me in my beer-y adventures (it also helps that some of these places serve excellent food!). Beeradvocate.com has become an integral tool in planning our visits to new places- all you need is an account and you can use their “BeerFly” feature allowing you to search a database for beer related businesses…in this case, there was a bounty of places to check out all within walking distance of our hotel. Two of the better beer stores on Manhattan were within a couple of blocks from each other…the Bowery Whole Foods and New Beer Distributors on Chrystie street. Both have a great selection- although I am a fan of the “little guy”, I did make some purchases at the Whole Foods…New Beer can be hit-or-miss and the lighting is atrocious…but we did get some great help while we were there. After checking out those two places, we headed to Daniel Boulud’s DBGB for some lunch. This place specializes in homemade sausages and charcuterie…and they have a fantastic draft beer list to go along with it. We sampled a bunch of sausages and a couple of beers and then we were on our way. After checking out the New Museum, we headed to Zum Schnieder for a pre-dinner beer. Located in alphabet city, this is a cash-only German restaurant which serves authentic German beer and food…

…On Saturday, we braved the chilly winds and headed over to Williamsburg in Brooklyn to stop in at the First Annual Williamsburg Cask Ale Festival and to check out the Brooklyn Brewery. The Festival was at dba Brooklyn and featured about a dozen of cask-aged beers…some of which you don’t see too often. We ended the beer portion of our trip at the Brewery by doing a short tour and sampling one of their beers…

New Beer Distributors on Chrystie Street.

Whole Foods Bowery.

DBGB front door.

A nice De Dolle Stille Nacht before lunch.

Excellent fries!

Blood sausage.

Parisienne lamb sausage.

Aventinus Dopplebock at Zum Schnieder.

Cask at the Festival.

Some cask beers- note the lack of carbonation.

Beer in front of the beer engines- the cask beer is hand-drawn.

A cask porter.

Outside the Brooklyn Brewery.

In the brew room…

Aging barrel…

The Brewery cat.

-Josh

In addition to eating donuts, Josh and I spent some time checking out some markets in NYC.  We first visited Whole Foods the Bowery Store.  We had read about it, mostly Josh read about it on Beer Advocate.  It was rated very high for it’s range of beers.  This Whole Foods has what they call a “beer room” with close to 1,000 different beers.  I was picturing a cellar with low lighting but it was a nice, bright room at street level with a very extensive beer selection.  They also had about six beers on tap.  It’s really amazing how many beers there are out there – we saw many of the beers we tried in Italy including Baladin.  I was pretty impressed with their chocolate selection but I’m sure no one is really surprised about that!

One of the other markets we went to was the Essex Street Market.  This Market was right around the corner from our hotel. I had read about it online before heading to NYC.  However, at Doughnut Plant on Saturday morning, I picked up the latest version of Edible Manhatten and saw an article about Roni-Sue’s Chocolates.  The article was about Pig Candy – dark and milk chocolate covered crispy bacon.  I’ve had bacon chocolate bars before but this was a little different – super-crispy bacon dipped in chocolate – you have to taste it, you really do!  We also tried a beer and pretzel caramel chocolate there – porter and stout had been added to the caramel which was then covered in milk chocolate.   And on the top was a small piece of pretzel – perfect combination of flavors!  Click here to read the Edible Manhatten article and see pictures.  The Essex Street Market was great to visit – in addition to getting chocolate covered bacon, you can get all kinds of cheeses, fish, meat, fruits, vegetables – the list goes on.  It’s not the biggest market but those small stalls/stores hold a whole lot of stuff!  One product that I had not see before was champagne soda.

Just so you know, we didn’t eat and drink the WHOLE time.  We checked out the Urs Fischer exhibit at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.  Three floors of the gallery space was his work.  He works in a number of different medias and it was interesting to see.  If you go to the second page of the Urs Fischer brochure from the exhibit – you will see  his piece Cumpadre, 2009 which is hanging at about eye level, danging on fishing wire from a ceiling about 30 feet up.  Cumpadre 2009 is the real name for it – Josh called it “Fishing for Ingrid”.

More to come on the NYC trip from Josh.

~Ingrid

…as you guys have probably figured out, Ingrid and I spent this past weekend in New York- primarily on the Lower East Side. We stayed on Rivington Street and we ended up eating at a variety of places on Clinton Street, a short walk from our hotel. While the primary motive of the trip was for Ingrid to get her hair cut, we always end up satiating our taste buds as well. We were able to get reservations at WD-50 and were treated to an exciting tasting menu by Wylie Dufresne on Friday night. There were more highs than lows and each course was a sensory adventure that was unparalleled…standouts included everything bagel ice cream, scrambled egg ravioli, cold fried chicken, a play on beef and bearnaise, hazelnut tart and carmelized brioche. Wylie was manning the kitchen which was good to see and our server Chris was impeccable and gave us a great lead for dinner on Satuday night which was a few doors down on Clinton Street- Falai. Falai only had early reservations for Saturday, so we got there at six and we were treated to our second outstanding meal in NYC. Falai is a smaller restaurant which I would call nouveau Italian- being down the street from WD-50 probably has it’s influence. The head chef trained at Le Cirque and was quite adept at both cooking and the art of elegant plating. The tasting menus were unavailable, but we were able to choose anything from the menu as a whole. We both split a baccalao antipasto which was very untraditional- sort of “deconstructed” but very tasty and inventive. For the main course, I had a monkfish, scallop and red snapper dish and  Ingrid had the Gnudi- a flourless gnocchi served in a broth- both were excellent! The biggest surprise came when we were treated to a couple of complimentary desserts…a fine fitting for the end of our meal! We rounded out our Clinton Street experience with breakfast on Sunday at Clinton Street Baking…just a small piece of advice- get here early- it opens at 9AM and fills up quick! We had no problem getting a seat due to Ingrid’s diligence and it paid off! I had a smoked salmon benedict and Ingrid had brioche french toast with carmelized bananas- both were excellent and a perfect send-off for our trip back home…more on our trip to NYC to come…

-Josh

Josh and I just got back from New York City and these are two of the reasons we went.  In the picture of two donuts, is the creme brulee donut (left) and on the right is the the blackout donut – both from Doughnut Plant on Grand Street.   We have lots to write about after this last trip but I wanted to share these pictures with everyone – just to make your mouth water! In the close up picture of the creme brulee you can see the crispy, sugary top of the donut and that cream that is coming out is so good!  I know I wrote about this donut the last time we went to NYC but it’s that good I needed to write abou it again.  And then the chocolate black out donut – as good as the creme brulee is , the blackout may be better.  But I think I’ll need to go back a few more times and do a few taste tests!

I have to say (this in Ingrid) that I have not valued the turnip as highly as I should have.  I never really liked it growing up, though I’m not sure why.  However, Josh has whipped up a couple of turnip dishes recently that I really like. Pictured to the left is a dish  that Josh adapted out of Alinea’s cookbook.  It’s venison, savory granola, oat foam, and on the left is the turnip with a cherry sauce in the middle.  It’s a dish Josh cooked for me on Christmas but he changed it up a little for the dinner we had this past weekend.  I loved the whole dish but was surprised that I liked the turnip.  Last night, Josh used the left over whipped turnip and mixed in some whipped potato, shallots, onion, and a little egg and we had turnip “pancakes” or maybe they would be called blinis?   We had them with a little creme fraiche and capers.  The warm, soft pancakes with the cool creme fraiche and salty capers was a perfect combination.

I’m wondering with this sudden burst of turnip dishes if 2010 will be the year of the turnip?  Anyway, I encourage you all to go to the supermarket, or better yet one of the wintertime Farmers Markets and get some turnip and see what you come up with.  Jon – maybe next year it will be turnip latkes?

This past weekend, Josh and I had family down to celebrate a birthday (my mom) and a retirement (Josh’s Aunt Barbara).  It was a fun evening and unlike past dinners, I actually helped out a fair amount – besides doing the dishes that is. We had some completely new dishes and some favorites.  One of our new favorites, the pork belly from Christmas Eve returned.  Josh is very imaginative.  The pork belly has to be prepared sous vide with this type of sous vide machine and since we don’t have it, he came up with what we call “quasi- vide”- see picture to the right.  Basically, he wraps the meat (in this case, the pork belly) is saran wrap, weighs in under water with a pyrex measuring cup, puts the candy thermometer in the water and away we go.  It works like a charm – the pork has been cooked perfectly each time.

We also had blinis with “eggplant caviar” – a Thomas Keller recipe (in French Laundry).  The pancakes were superlight and fluffy and the eggplant caviar had the perfect amount of garlic.  This recipe is what set us off on Thomas Keller’s cookbooks.  A little over 5 years ago Josh and I were looking for recipes for eggplant and I found blinis with eggplant caviar in French Laundry.  We have made them a few times but I think this was the best version.

As a “pre-dessert”, Josh made “Egg” from On the Line – the book/cookbook about Marguy Le Coze and Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin.  The full name of the recipe is “EGG” Milk Chocolate pots de creme with caramel foam, maple syrup, amd maldon sea salt.  The picture to the right shows the chocolate filled eggs without the foam, syrup, and salt.  Josh cleaned out all the eggs and then cooked the chocolate cream in the empty egg shells.  They were amazing – thank goodness there was an extra one – I had it for breakfast the next day!

Another great dinner with great company!

~Ingrid