Wine dinner August 12th at La Petite Grocery featuring Old World Winery
So we are hosting a wine tasting with Old World Winery in a Few weeks and I thought I would give everyone the lowdown. I tasted the wines last week and they are all very intriguing. A chardonnay that smelled like roasted coffee and tasted like butter pecan goodness and a 15.1% alcohol zinfandel on the sweet side so I am thinking chocolate dessert.
The menu is gonna be something like this:
smoked line caught sockeye salmon creme fraiche, salmon roe, dill, chive blini
steak tartare aioli, red wine mustard, quail egg
chicken rillettes apricot jam, chicken cracklin’
2007 “White Night” Rose
First Course
chilled roasted beets spiced pecans, smoked bacon, arugula, goat cheese
2008 “Bon Temps LaBlanc” Sauvignon Blanc
Second Course
kurobuta pork belly mezzaluna grilled gulf shrimp, fresh jalapenos, preserved lemon
2008 “Tweek Block” Chardonnay
Third Course
roasted duck breast carrot-ginger angnolotti, edamame, confit garlic
2005 Pinot Noir
Fourth Course
old fashoned chocolate pudding bourbon vanilla bean cream
2004 zinfandel
Price 60$ (all inclusive)
That’s where I am at now I may change a few things. We will see. Its gonna be a great night so come taste some great wine and food and hang out.
Blackberry Cobbler (hold the antivenom please)
I have been picking tons of blackberries on the banks of the Mississippi river. There is plenty for everyone just watch out for snakes. The habitat is perfect for eastern cotton mouths and I had an encounter with on on a recent trip. But, here are the directions: Take river road from the Orleans parish line toward the Huey P. Long bridge pass by ochshner hospital (which is really close if you get bit by a snake!) and look for Newman St. park on Newman close to river road. hike over the levee and look for a path toward the river that is surrounded by bamboo. Walk that path about 200 yards and start picking. I have my favorite spots once I am back there and I am sure you will find your own!
This is what to watch out for!!!!
I AM BACK!
After a short hiatus from the blogosphere i have returned with cool new things. Check out the new pictures from the LPG kitchen. Also, I am slowly learning the art of hand crafted cocktails using raw ingredients to make bitters and infusing liquors in my spare time. So I have some pics and things to say about that.
Roquefort on the rocks?
According to my very reliable cheese monger, the end of roquefort as we know it may be near. Apparently, in an attempt to strike back at the EU over their policy of not importing cattle that has been genetically modified, in his last hours at bat George W raised the duty on select EU imports. One of these included a 300% increase for roquefort. The beloved cave aged french sheep’s milk cheese (and feature on our apple and celery-root salad at LPG) will now cost us Chefs somewhere between $40-$60 a pound. But at that high of a price a lot of importers will probably just forgo the hassle of worrying about such a high cost inventory item and opt for other french blue cheeses. Although, there are a lot of great blue cheeses in the world and I am not the least bit concerned about finding one to fill the hole left by Roquefort, I do know I will never be able to replace it. Maybe Mr. Obama can fix this after he fixes everything else. This will go into effect March 1st and I am going to have some sort of au revoir to Roquefort at the restaurant the last week of this month.
neat article featuring lpg
copy and paste link:
http://www.countryroadsmagazine.com/ViewArticle.php?articleid=839&ignoreDate=true
NYC/James Beard Weekend/astronomic gastronomic marathon PT. 2
I have been wanting to eat at Morimoto pretty much for ever. Thursday evening we had dinner reservations. Coincidentally, the week prior to our trip Jamison (who is the Chef de cuisine at the massive Chelsea foodie heaven) stopped by La petite grocery for a bite to eat. I had a chance to make it out to the dining room to have a nice chat and we talked a little about New Orleans, restaurants, New York and the upcoming trip. So, I was definitely excited about eating at Morimoto.
We showed up a little late after what was the worst cab experience I had the whole time in NY (I’ll save that for another post.) One of Joel’s good friends joined us last minute making our party six people so we had to wait a minute while they prepared our table. No Problem. We love cocktails! Down stairs was a totally modern lounge complete with techno music and club lighting and some very delicious libations. I had the orange blossom. it was light and very refreshing. I also finished Mia’s first drink because she opted to try something else. I think it was sort of like a ginger margarita. I thought it was great.
They gave us a nice big table in the front room and we got the party started. Our group consisted of Mia, Brian, Dan, Joel, Melissa and myself. We decided to order a bunch of items and eat “family style”. Mia took a look at the wine list but we concluded that it would be only fitting to drink nice sake with such a japanese driven meal. In this case it was unfiltered, with almost a creamy texture and flavors of apricot, peach and lychee…..mmmmm Our first round of food was freakin’ unreal and foreshadowed what was in store for the rest of the evening. Oysters paired with uni and foie gras, hamachi lightly cured in a pastrami spice, waygu beef tartare and fugu all came out looking stellar. I think we were all most intrigued by the fugu, which is a japanese pufferfish known for making you feel slightly high due to the residual toxins found in its flesh after its poison is removed. Although we didn’t have any Timothy Leary like side effects it was still very interesting especially with the tempura fried heads served along side. Other notables were the grilled Alaskan king crab, seared scallops and my favorite hot dish of the night miso glazed black cod with sweet beans. What they called sweet beans were these large beans (about the size of an olive) that were black in color and had a very smooth creamy paste in the center and a nice sweetness. I had never seen them before that night and would hate to live the rest of my life with out them. They’re that good.
Next course was sushi. We ordered the 55 piece chefs choice. My favorites were the baby carp, hamachi and the chu toro. Its hard to pick favorites when everything is spot on and fresh all the way down the the fresh grated wasabi and house pickled ginger. The only one I did not try was the salmon which Mia said rocked. The man himself chef Masaharu Morimoto made it by the table to say hi and take a quick photo. Say sushi!!
Desserts did not let down at all. The guava sorbet was so good Joel ordered a second serving for the table to share. The panna cotta was interesting with basil ice cream and mango noodles. I could tell most of their ice cream was made in the paco-jet because the textures were unreal. A nice tray of petit fours finished up one of the best meals ever.
After dinner Jamison was kind to offer us a tour of the kitchen which was amazing. They have a freezer down stairs that stay’s at -74 degree’s. It is the same kind of freezer that hospitals use to freeze blood because it freezes so quick and intense that no ice crystals form in the item being frozen. Therefore making it perfect for sushi. The one we saw was filled with toro straight from Japan. After the meal there was no partying. Time to go to sleep and get rested for the 15 hours of cooking the next day.
NYC/James Beard weekend/astronomic gastronomic marathon! PT. 1
We landed at LaGuardia after a nice 3.5 hour flight around 11 am on thursday the twenty-third of January. Of course the biggest thing on my mind at that point was preparing dinner the following night for 80 guests and members of the James Beard Foundation at the James Beard House (167 w 12th st.) The James Beard Foundation is an awesome organization that was founded to celebrate, preserve and nurture America’s culinary heritage and diversity in order to elevate our culinary excellence. One way they acheive these goals is by having different chefs from around the nation come up to New York and cook dinner at their venue (which is the late James Beard’s residence) periodically throughout the year and we were very honored to be invited to cook last Friday night.
I was anxious to get over to the Beard House to check out the lay of the land but also, very hungry. Joel and Tarik suggested on the plane ride trying to hit lunch at Gramercy Tavern. The iconic Danny Meyer restaurant known for a casual vibe but very delicious food. Did it live up?? Yes. It was completely packed at lunch and we were sat after a short wait at the bar. To start, some in our party opted to order off the very well put together cocktail list and I decided on a large glass of ice cold pilsner. The cocktails were all really tasty and I kinda wished at that point I would of ordered one. Oh well. The lunch menu in the bar area where we were sat was prix fixe three courses for 24.00 (what a deal in NYC.) I think it was a “restaurant week” thing but at any rate it was a nice surprise. The sunchoke salad I had as a first course was great. The sunchokes were slightly pickled so they were mildly acidic and had an awesome crunchy texture still. Served with baby lettuces and super thin sliced air dried ham! Perfect lunch salad. My second course was stuffed veal meatballs with parsnips. The stuffing was Fontina I believe and the ball was HUGE, it tasted really good and was richer than Bloomberg’s bank account.
For dessert the thing that stood out for me among six plates was a chocolate bread pudding, and im not being a bias New Orleanian it was just a damn good dish. We left full and headed to the Beard House to make sure all of our shipped items made it ok.