Posts for December 14, 2012 -- Grub Street: New York Magazine's Food and Restaurant Blog

Posts for December 14, 2012

12/14/12 at 5:25 PM
Leftovers
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Learn How to Make Kimchee at New Amsterdam Market; Eat a Whole Pig at Barraca

• Hakkasan will launch a pre-theater menu this Sunday. From 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. daily, dine on three courses plus a glass of wine or cocktail for $38. The prix fixe menu includes a choice of appetizer from the dim sum menu, an entrée accompanied by pak choi and steamed jasmine rice or egg fried rice, then macarons for dessert. [Grub Street]

• Barraca's Christmas celebration will feature the Iberian pig in all its forms. December 23 through December 30, the Spanish restaurant is serving up every part of the animal. Homemade blood sausage, white-wine chorizo, grilled Catalan sausage, braised pork belly, crispy pig ears, stewed pork cheeks, and more will serve two people for $85. Sides, including roasted carrots with honey and thyme, sweet and sour cabbage, and pickled cauliflower are an additional $5 each. [Grub Street]

• Lauryn Chun, author of The Kimchi Cookbook, will lead visitors to New Amsterdam Market in a Kimjang on Sunday from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. Learn how to prepare jars of kimchee for winter fermentation and make your own Poggi kimchee with brined cabbage halves and a chile paste filling. Tickets are $20 for admission and ingredients or $35 for admission, ingredients, and a signed copy of The Kimchi Cookbook. All you'll need to bring is a quart-size wide-mouth glass jar. Purchase tickets here. [Grub Street]

Would you like to be on television?

12/14/12 at 5:05 PM
Quote of the Day
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The New Yorker, by the Slice

"Making himself heard over the rhythmical racket of the radio, the boy ordered a slice of pizza and an orange soda from the equally youthful-looking counterman. When the food and drink came, the boy flicked off the radio with a practiced thumb, freed the leather strap from his wrist with a circular arm motion, and laid the silent apparatus down in front of him, making sure that the strap was coiled neatly on top of the case, so that no part of it touched the greasy counter." —The city has a long history of flour-covered pizza men, of course, but The New Yorker really only started paying attention in the sixties, when the really rebellious teens all ate slices. [Culture Desk/New Yorker, Earlier]

12/14/12 at 4:10 PM
Video Feed
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Watch the First Episode of ‘Epic Chef,’ the Competitive Cooking Show From ‘Epic Meal Time’

By Hugh Merwin

Suitcases filled with bacon strips, self-hate, Top Chef, and "sushi-grade lard" all collide in the first episode of "Epic Chef," a new web series from the makers of "Epic Meal Time." If you're already familiar with the team most responsible for this year's bacon shortage, then you already know what you're in for. The first installment pits chefs David Alvarez and Ilan Hall against each other. The pair are tasked with reinventing breakfast, and this is probably the first time you'll ever hear a judge preface his or her comments with the words "I would just like to say that both meals were shitty." If you can stomach it, click on through.

"I'm going for the baby snot."

12/14/12 at 3:20 PM
Dinner Parties
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Mark Bittman and Sam Sifton Team Up for Civilized Feast

Here are the two Times writers demonstrating how to put together a meal for fifteen people without breaking a sweat. The menu includes cold poached lobster salad, soubise, roast chicken, and poached pears. However, much like Seal once sang, midway through cooking up a storm, the pair realizes they're never going to survive unless they get a little bit crazy, so they stuff cumin and a little preserved lemon under the chicken skin, then ditch their harissa plans in favor of reducing lobster stock into a concentrated base for their homemade lobster mayonnaise. The feature has a video and timeline so you can follow and cook along at home. [NYTM]

12/14/12 at 2:40 PM
Morimoto
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Morimoto, Master of Swimwear, to Judge Miss Universe

By Sierra Tishgart

Arbiter of beauty.

Weird news of the day: The Iron Chef is one of the esteemed judges of the 2012 Miss Universe pageant. He’s in good company: His fellow arbiters include reality television personalities Nigel Barker, Brad Goreski, and a Real Housewife (they’re interchangeable), professional athletes Kerri Walsh and Pablo Sandoval, a random actor we’ve never heard of from Rock of Ages, and, finally, Scott Disick. What’d you expect? This is a Donald Trump extravaganza. The married Tribeca Canvas chef will survey the swimsuit, evening gown, and interview categories in Las Vegas on December 19. We would tell the 89 ladies competing to show off their knife skills or something, but there’s not even a talent portion. Classy. [Miss Universe via Morimoto/Twitter]

12/14/12 at 2:05 PM
Besitos
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Lonestar Taco Selling ‘Besitos’ to Help La Newyorkina Rebuild

By Hugh Merwin

Muchos besitos.Photo: Courtesy of Robyn Lee

A number of commissary spaces were knocked out of commission by the storm, among them La Newyorkina's production kitchen in Red Hook, which owner Fany Gerson graciously makes available to small-batch food producers. Chronic do-gooder Wayne Surber of Lonestar Taco wanted to help bring Gerson's kitchen back up to speed, so he's adapted her recipe for besitos, a typically sweet treat, from her book My Sweet Mexico, adding cayenne and pasilla pepper to spice things up, and he's selling besitos by the dozen for $15 to benefit La Newyorkina. Details are here. [Lonestar Taco]

12/14/12 at 1:00 PM
Getting Schooled
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Elizabeth Falkner Will Start Cooking Classes at Krescendo Next Month

By Beth Landman

Yo, teach!Photo: Michael Pisarri/LILA PHOTO

Earlier this week, some of New York's best chefs flew down to Florida for the annual Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival. Among those in attendance was Elizabeth Falkner, who said she was eager to get back to Krescendo in Brooklyn. In fact, the chef said that starting next month she plans on starting classes (klasses?) at the restaurant that will continue through March. Final details are still being worked out, but they'll cover pizza, pasta, and dessert, and there's also a class called What's for Dinner Tonight? The classes will take place on weekend mornings and Mondays (when the restaurant is closed). "I love showing people how to make things," Falkner says. "It brings out a passion, and people love to get their hands in it."

12/14/12 at 12:40 PM on Grub Street Boston
Crime Scenes
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Dark Meat: A Brief History of Pork-Chop-Related Violence

By Kara Baskin

Worth killing for?Photo: Konstantin Sergeyev

Yesterday, a Florida man shot his drunken roommate in a pork-chop dispute. Thomas Hahn objected to his roomie's views on how to properly cook pork chops, so he planted three bullets in his head. At first blush, this might seem like a slight overreaction, no matter how important it is to get a nice char and a juicy center. But careful research reveals that arguments over pork chops are frighteningly common. Ahead, a short social history.

12/14/12 at 12:15 PM
Video Feed
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Lunch Lady Loses Her Job for Feeding Needy Kid

By Hugh Merwin

A Missouri elementary-school cafeteria worker named Dianne Brame was fired on Tuesday for feeding a fourth-grade boy whose mother hadn't renewed him in the school's free lunch program. The rules at Hudson Elementary in Webster Groves state that children whose eligibility lapses are entitled to a few freebies but thereafter are given a carton of milk and a lowly cheese sandwich. In the local news video below, Brame says she served the fourth-grader a free full lunch for two months in order to prevent the other students from bullying him. On Monday, however, a co-worker reported her to the food-service company that has a contract with the school, and though she has now lost her job, the former lunch lady says she has no regrets.

The video.

12/14/12 at 11:45 AM
Food Politics
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Bloomberg Limits Food Stamps for Sandy Victims

By Sierra Tishgart

The Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP) is an initiative to provide temporary food assistance to New Yorkers in hard-hit areas. Since it's a USDA-backed food-stamp program, it's the state's job to apply for federal dollars to help "major disaster" regions. Of course, the Bloomberg administration requested a limited amount of aid after Sandy. Eighty-two zip codes were eligible for special post-storm food stamps in November. Now Mayor Bloomberg wants D-SNAP to go toward ten zip codes and two partial ones.

The change will impact tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

12/14/12 at 11:30 AM on Grub Street Philly
Booze You Can Use
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Vodka Saves Stranded Siberian Elephants’ Lives

Here's a story everyone can relate to: After his trailer caught fire, Russian circus trainer Leonid Labo found himself and his two middle-aged elephants stranded amid Siberia's brutally bone-chilling landscape. To keep his pachyderms from freezing, he fed them ten liters of vodka (each) diluted in warm water. A zoo director later said the move "saved the animals from frostbite and pneumonia, without harming or even intoxicating them." [AP]

12/14/12 at 10:30 AM
Celebrity Settings
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Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio Dance at Avenue; Daniel Radcliffe Gets Bombed at Beauty Bar

By Monica Burton

Foxx.Photo: Brian Lindensmith/Splash News

With much of the celeb world in Miami for Art Basel, things were a little slower in New York — but not much. Jamie Foxx celebrated his SNL hosting gig, upcoming movie, and December 13 birthday at Avenue; Daniel Radcliffe was Jager-bombed at Beauty Bar; and the omnipresent Les Miz cast regaled everyone with tales of on-set antics and renditions of their favorite musical tunes at Joe's Pub. See who else stuck around in our weekly roundup of celebrity sightings.

12/14/12 at 10:00 AM
Proofing
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Mighty Forces of Pastry Are Uniting This Weekend to Help Almondine Bakery

By Hugh Merwin

Help the Dumbo bakery get back on its feet.

The basement production kitchen at Dumbo's beloved French bakery Almondine was flooded with East River surge during the storm, blowing out its electrical panels and leaving its confectionery machines, stand mixers, sheeters, refrigerators, and ovens submerged for more than a day. By the time owner Hervé Poussot was able to pump out his kitchen at 85 Water Street, there was nothing left to salvage, forcing him to close his flagship and Park Slope locations, possibly forever. Determined to keep the baker in business, however, Poussot's customers and friends have banded together to encourage him to rebuild, and they're holding a big event this weekend you might want to check out.

Daniel Boulud, Dominque Ansel, Francois Payard.

12/14/12 at 09:25 AM
Cakes and Ale
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Dickens and Kerouac Are Now On the Menu

By Hugh Merwin

Your waiter for tonight will be very old and cranky.

Now through January 6, Amali on the Upper East Side is doing something both festive and unexpected: The restaurant has transformed the second floor of the brownstone it occupies at 115 East 60th Street into a dining room inspired by Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and is offering guests a meal inspired by passages from the story. This isn't dinner theater, though; there are no reenactors in funny hats seated across the table and, hopefully, no feeble English children tugging at your trousers. Instead, guests are greeted at the door with a mug of "Cratchit" hot gin punch.

Take it from Eloise.

12/14/12 at 09:00 AM
The Grub Street Diet
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VH1’s Carrie Keagan Is a Jameson Girl, Craves Carnitas Burritos

By Alyssa Shelasky

"I'm an eater, but the hours don't let me eat much."Photo: Melissa Hom

Carrie Keagan, the lively, lusty host of VH1's Big Morning Buzz Live, is a woman who really eats. "I'm all over the place with my food," she says. "I love cheap takeout as much as fancy restaurants; I love classic homemade meals as much as stupid crap." After a few years of vegetarianism, Keagan is even off the meat-free wagon, making a beeline to her hometown (Buffalo) specialty, beef on weck, and gorging on "as many pork products I can get my hands on." Read all about Keagan's Jameson devotion, Doughnut Plant dreams, and $100 truffled risotto in this week's New York Diet.