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 This Fresh Forkin' Friday has me working out my dates for next week's Restaurant Week. My strategy is dine hard, dine often. I'm using this thrifty opportunity to go back to some of the places I haven't been to in a long time (life of a food editor, always eating in new restaurants, wah wah, I know). So far I'm planning lunch at Cosmos for the green tea poached chicken, dinner at Sanctuary for the smoked pork shank with chorizo, lunch at Barbette for the artichoke-stuffed portobello with chevre fondue, and snacky happy hour at Saffron for crispy mussels.
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 After reading The New York Times article on letter grading restaurant inspections, I think this is the way to go. To boil it down for you: the New York City Department of Health will be moving to a posted letter grade system (A, B, C) for all restaurants by July 2010. Los Angeles has had a similar system for ten years with great results. I have been to LA a number of times and found a lot of comfort in the eight-by-ten-inch letter posted in the front window.
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 Last weekend, my wife and I were invited to our friends' home in Chaska for their quarterly gourmet club. We jumped at the chance, as we rarely get invited for dinner in others' homes because of the chef intimidation factor. By this, I mean that people seem to think that because we chef for a living, we must sit around eating foie gras and lobster or whatever it is they think we eat. My own mother falls victim to this strange belief and gets antsy when we are to dine with her.
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 I know you're probably busy getting in all your sins and whatnot before the Lenten period begins on Wednesday, what with tomorrow being Fat Tuesday and all. Maybe you're hedonistically slamming meat products, knowing that as of Friday, your weekends start off meat-free for six weeks. If so, let's pause to consider that the tradeoff is pretty fair: Just like April showers bring May flowers, no-meat-Fridays bring Friday fish fries.
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 Last night, Kate and I went to the local screening of Merlove, a smart and funny documentary about the rise and fall of merlot and the impact of the movie Sideways on the industry.
One of the Washington winemakers that filmmaker Rudy McClain interviewed made a comment about the American vs. European philosophies on wine, in that we seem to be in this odd place where we have an "interest" in wine that leads us to read books and seek opinions and trust experts. Europeans would never do this, they just experience wine. It's like rock 'n' roll: would you ever read a book or listen to an expert to understand rock 'n' roll? No, you just listen to whatever makes you feel good. It should be the same with wine, just drink and drink a lot. So I'm brimming with merlove this Fresh Forkin' Friday as I trip it to the wine store to select a bunch of bottles that I've never tried before.
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 Quick, let's just end this torpid day and plan a run over to Surdyk's for a steal.
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 Last Friday night, I got to do a few of my favorite things: eat free high-quality local cheese and drink free Summit beer, yeah for me! My wife and I were invited to Summit Brewing in St. Paul to attend the launch of a local cheese-beer collaboration. The folks at Faribault Dairy made an interesting new cheese by bathing their St. Pete’s Select blue cheese in Summit Winter Ale to create “Winter Blues”.
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 I have been a soup guy for a very long time. My first foray into truly ethnic soups was discovering pho at Phuong Café on Nicollet in the early nineties. I would end up eating lunch there many a Saturday for years. Its restorative powers healed me from the beating I had taken from restaurant service the night before and gave me the energy and inner strength to feed the masses that were imminent for Saturday dinner service. But lately I find myself wanting something different, and I finally found it.
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Last night, after the fabulous and fun Best Of party at the Guthrie, Adam and I stopped in at Nick & Eddie for a follow-up snack. We were happy to see Steven Brown cooking in the kitchen.
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 What about a singular memento for Valentine's Day? Instead of all the hubbub of dining out and events, why not just offer up a simple, perfect cupcake? I find myself knee deep in them this Fresh Forkin' Friday as my sweet little fiver turns six today. But they strike me as a wonderful gift: personal—if you get the flavor right—sweet but not too sweet, satisfying without sickening, and iconic. Truck over to Cupcake Cafe, and see what is has on show, or get to Golden Fig on Friday or Mitrebox on Saturday where they sell the hot, hot, hot Miel y Leche cakes. Maybe a box of the Red Hot Velvet would be even better.
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 Why are the young (and not so young) so crazy about ranch dressing? Does it make everything taste better? Does the white dressing make food look more appetizing? What did we do before ranch dressing? Oh, I yearn for the days of ketchup and mustard and Heinz 57.
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 When a restaurant screws up your dining experience, how—if it can—make up for it? As I posted on
Friday, my company holiday party this year would consist of a
progressive dinner at different local restaurants. One of our
restaurant stops was totally ill prepared for the twenty-three of us. I
made the reservation at The Craftsman four days prior to the dining date and was assured it would have plenty of room for us and that we would be well cared for.
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 I have to admit that I used to be one of the V Day haters. As a young and lonely bartender, I used to gather the fellows for an after-work celebration of C. U. P. I. D. (Clueless Useless People In Denial). Yeah, pretty bitter. But being in the industry means that you either work the holiday or sacrifice you sweetie to it, knowing it's one of the biggest money days of the year. So having never celebrated it formally, I find myself in the non-traditionalist camp, offering you ideas that don't include a reservation that you probably can't get anyway.
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 We're all so wink, wink, nudge, nudge in the cool-kids club when we talk about bacon. I'm so cleverly packing my bacon wallet, sporting my bacon bandages, and wearing a bacon bikini; aren't I bad?! Isn't MST3K God Michael J. Nelson so shocking as he pledges to eat only bacon for a whole month? I just keep checking the time this Fresh Forkin' Friday on my bacon watch and wondering when I should stop using bacolicio.us so that even The Wall Street Journal can be dressed like this.
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 Last year for my company holiday party, I planned a progressive dinner at favorite local restaurants, and it was a huge hit. For those not familiar with the progressive idea, the evening starts with apps at one restaurant, entrees at another, and dessert and drinks at another, etc.
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 I had the luxury of growing up with an adopted Vietnamese brother, Tao. Later in my life, I would realize that growing up with him and the food he exposed my family to were some of my first real and most memorable ethnic food experiences. A few times a year, we would go his extended family’s home and make hundreds and hundreds of egg rolls.
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 Do you have the chops to survive a Quickfire Elimination while Rocco pensively chews your food? Think you could survive a wilting laser-sneer from the new Ol' Blue Eyes? Can you brunoise with aplomb and ease?
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Honestly, I almost done crabbing about the weather. I'm a little sick
of myself every time I whine about the salt on my car and the
permafrost on my nose. And yet, due to the economy and the
overwhelming expense of feeding four boys, I won't be traveling to
warmer climes anytime soon. But I have found an escape. I have found a way to cut through February and probably March.
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 One of the editors over here got this invitation from a pal, and I thought it was brilliant! If, even in the darkest days, we can go forth, clean out our cupboards, and gather for frivolity, we're doing just fine.
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« January 2009 |
Main
| March 2009 »
|
This Fresh Forkin' Friday has me working out my dates for next week's Restaurant Week. My strategy is dine hard, dine often. I'm using this thrifty opportunity to go back to some of the places I haven't been to in a long time (life of a food editor, always eating in new restaurants, wah wah, I know). So far I'm planning lunch at Cosmos for the green tea poached chicken, dinner at Sanctuary for the smoked pork shank with chorizo, lunch at Barbette for the artichoke-stuffed portobello with chevre fondue, and snacky happy hour at Saffron for crispy mussels. 
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