Random Esquire

I come from a family in which everyone cooks.  While my mother prepares the dinner on Thanksgiving, on Christmas, everyone brings along additional food.  The result is that we have roughly 5 times the amount of food actually consumed.

This year, I was tasked with dessert.  I am more of a savory type (har har) but I gave it a whirl.  Result?  Banana bread pudding, chocolate sauce, fresh berries, dulce de leche ice cream, and a caramelized banana.  Picture below.

I hope you had a great dinner!

Torchin’ a banana.

1.  So.  Single Ladies by Beyonce.  Let me tell you how this went.

I put my laptop on the table, pulled up the video on  YouTube and announced to my niece and nephew that it was time to dance.  I hit play.

And they were thoroughly unimpressed.

They stood there and stared at Beyonce dancing and then looked at me.

My niece said, “I don’t want to listen to this anymore.”

My nephew said, “Twinkle twinkle!”

Science FAIL.

2.  Last night I ate gingersnaps before bed.  And in my dreams, I fell in love with a ginger.

BigLittleWolf asked me what would happen if I ate chocolate chip cookies before bed.  So I ran to the corner and got these.

Will let you know how it turns out in the morning.

UPDATE – 8:00 A.M.  I don’t remember my dreams, if I had any.  Clearly, chocolate chip cookies wipe your memory or prevent dream formation.

3.  As you know, I like to take pictures of food.  I may have left out the fantastic loaf of French bread and the french fries I enjoyed.  My niece made them for me.  They were delicious and I enjoyed them with a juice box.  And I may have had an apron on at the time.  A very.  Tiny.  Apron.

Man, check out those little fingers and that cute dress.  Just looking at that picture makes me laugh.  She’s a TINY PERSON.

Besos and I were graciously invited to a cocktail/dinner party on Saturday by a friend of mine.  It was very interesting – a large tent set up in the host’s back yard with candles everywhere, a large marble table with a fire in the center, heaters around and strings of lights everywhere.  And the servers?  There was talk that they were all models.  I’m unsure if that was serious but they could have been, certainly.  Did I mention that there was a film crew capturing the dinner?  I’ll be interested to see if we ended up in the short film they were creating.  We were interviewed and I suspect will be in it.  I did not bring all of my camera gear so these were taken by my phone.

The host had guests from Spain in town and decided to have a large dinner party to bring  a large group of people together over food.  Along with catching up with a friend (which was awesome), we met some really great new people and sampled food from a young chef from Chicago.  He served three spit roasted suckling pigs along with some very seasonal sides.  A really great fall dinner.

Below, the young chef describes the meal he has prepared for the guests.

Here’s my eye.

Here’s a piece of Toffifay candy.

Now you know.  Toffifay is made out of eyeballs.

I have previous written about why I enjoy cooking – especially why I enjoy cooking for others.  This past weekend, I decided to exercise that muscle and it began by going on the hunt for some good ingredients – an adventure to which I invited my mother and father as they love to get into the city and hadn’t experienced the meat packing district before.

We began early on Saturday morning by making our way to a local fish monger in town.  There, we picked up some fresh red snapper, oysters and sea scallops.  Then on to the butcher where we froze, walking up and down the rows, picking out some fresh bacon, bratwurst, and various other fresh meats.  Into the cooler everything went.

Then off to the Green City Market for fresh vegetables.  And fresh, hot apple cider donuts, eaten as we wandered.  Then back to the loft where we made quick salads, boiled some fresh fingerling potatoes, steamed green beans and pan fried the red snapper.  While all that was being prepared and cooking, I shucked oysters for the first time in my life.  Quite a meal.

This brought me to the next day when I realized that I had never made sea scallops before.  Out came the All-Clad, sea scallops, salt, pepper, oil and butter. 

And you know what?  Not gonna lie.  I’m sort of sick of seafood. Gah.

Last night, I dined at Carnivale for their Slow Food and Goose Island Brewery dinner.  Each course was paired with a beer.  Chef Mendez graciously allowed me into the kitchen for a few quick shots before dinner began.  Then it was up to a communal table to enjoy the dinner and the company.  A very cool thing – the farmers who created much of the produce were at the tables.   At the bottom of this entry, I’ve included some links to other Chicago restaurant kitchens I’ve visited.

First course was  baby arugula, baby beets, heirloom carrots, heirloom cherry tomatoes, aged sherry vinaigrette.  The peppery arugula and the beets were fantastic.

Then, platters of food were passed around the table and plates were filled in true communal style.  We ate pork spare ribs with a peach habanero barbeque sauce, roasted chicken with chimichurri, an incredible amount of very tender fresh corn in organic butter, butterball potato confit, and heirloom tomatos.  Everything was very fresh and well prepared.  Below, first is a picture of my plate of food and after that, a peek at the platters of heirloom tomatoes as they looked in the kitchen, before dinner service.

Dessert and Cheese course: A really nice goat cheese and cheddar, white peaches topped with dulce de leche cream and finally, both red and gold plums, halved and topped with a small sprinkle of sea salt.

Pictures and links to other places I’ve been after the cut. (more…)

1.  I returned from the Nassau / Paradise Island yesterday after a few days in which the Bahamas decided to experience a cold front.  Not much sun was had but it was still a tremendous amount of fun.  It was, more or less, a family event with adjoining rooms and lots of time with my niece and nephew.  It’s good to spend time with them and the more time I have, the less child-stupid I feel.  Let me give you an example of my child idocy.

The last time I visited my sister, I walked down a hall and into the bathroom and turned to close the door just in time for my niece to have followed me in, eyes watching me closely.  I said, “Uh…um…”  My sister called out from the other room, “Tell her you need P-R-I-V-A-C-Y.”  Me, being the idiot I am, looked at my niece and said, “I need P-R-I-V-A-C-Y.”  My sister said, “Don’t spell it for her!”  I said, “Oh!  I need some privacy.”  And my niece promptly left and informed me that she’d be waiting just outside I wrapped things up.

2.  I did an interview for a podcast on some of my experiences taking pictures in some Chicago restaurant kitchens, particularly L2O, as it coincided with Anthony Bourdain’s latest episode of No Reservations in which he dined in the restaurant.  (Filmed while the Seattle folks were here and despite our best efforts, Bev was not able to stalk him.)  I downloaded it on iTunes and, I have to say, it’s really strange to hear my voice like that.  I was particularly concerned that I’d have pulled a Will Shortz who, while doing a podcast, breathes so loudly into the phone, you want to knock him down and steal his inhaler.

3.  Tonight, Besos came over and I fixed dinner.  We have not had much time together in the last few weeks as I had a cold and suffer serious cold-transference guilt.   I will be happy to crawl into bed next to her tonight and reach for her.

4.  I effectuated a break up between QTMama and one of her boytoys.  At her bidding, mind you.  I’m somewhat tempted to start a service.  Everyone should have his or her lawyer do their breaking up for them.

5.  I’m feeling write-y.  Prepare for blog bombing.

We started our evening off with a fine dinner at MK.  Oysters on the half-shell and foie gras along with some cocktails to start.  MK generously gave us champagne to go with our meal.  I had their signature porkchop and my mother dined on whitefish with lobster.  We also ate, at Instigator’s suggestion, their pomme frites with truffle cream and let me tell you… I could have eaten them until I died.  They are on my “last meal request” list now.  We had a very light banana bread pudding with a salted caramel that was fantastic.  At one point in the meal, my mother said, “Are you going to take pictures?”  I said, “No…this meal is about you time so no pictures.”  I could tell she was happy but also sort of wanted pictures of the food to remember it all.  The good thing?  The manager happened to see my reservation (I assume that’s how he knew?) and came to the table and we talked about re-visiting the place to get some pictures of the food.  So it all worked out in the end.

Then we went to see Tina.  We were running a little bit behind so I hailed a cab.  The driver stopped, rolled down his window and said, “Where you going?”  I said, “United Center.” He said, “NO, no, I don’t want to go back there!” and then he started to drive off.  I barked, “BIG TIP!” and the brake lights went on.  We got in and got a fast ride over.  His tip was a throat punch.  Okay, not really.

Just before the show, Oprah walked in with Stedman and Gayle.  Flash bulb city.  Then…the show.  It was good and the first big concert my mother has ever been to.  She had a grin on her face the entire time.  My worries that she’d be distracted with thoughts of my grandmother’s health or a difficult family issue from almost exactly one year ago were calmed and that made me happy.  Anyway!  So, Tina Turner has “half-time” because, I suppose, the woman is 68 and just burned 3,000 calories in the first 45 minutes and needs to re-fuel with an Ensure.  The lights go up and my mother is glancing over at a bunch of people taking pictures. I said, “Who are they taking pictures of? Oprah?”  She said, “Some short little white guy.”

Yeah.  It was Tom Cruise.

So, just to recap the evening…

My evening involved my mother, Tina Turner, Oprah and Tom Cruise.

I’m officially gay.

1.  It’s official. I may want to be LynchSeattle.  A visit to Chicago and I’m buying an SLR this morning to I can learn to take photos that come anywhere near to what he managed to capture here, during our dinner at Marche.  You want food porn? That’s it.

2.   You know the saying “Liquor before beer, never fear” and “Beer before liquor, never sicker” ?  I get that the rhyming scheme is supposed to make it easy to remember this general rule.  But what’s to keep someone from remembering it as “liquor after beer, never fear” or “beef after liquor, never sicker”?  Which seems like a bad mistake, really.  That is, if there is any truth to it.

3.  I’m struck by the number of people who use their butt to open doors, even when their hands are free.

4.  Good Grief.  I’m sitting at the computer desk which has a pull out drawer for the keyboard.  Little Filthy just jumped to put his paws on the chair to give me a toy and he clocked his head on the corner of the keyboard drawer.  He spit out the toy instantly and looked at me.  He sneezed and then walked it off.  Attaboy.

I did go rub his noggin softly for good measure.

5.  I was invited to a tasting event at a new club here in Chicago.  The restaurant specializes in raw foods – crudo, sashimi, tartare, etc.  I took Boss and we then dined around the corner at a place she likes.  We sat down and were served two drinks and before we got far with those, they had made us 3 more.   Oy.  Blynchness.  Some pictures below.

I attended the Wine.Dine.Donate event in Chicago, sponsored by Epicurious at MK. I had been invited as a guest of Epicurious and took Instigator, foodie that she is. If you live in San Francisco or New York, these events are coming to your city and I highly recommend them as they are for a good cause (America’s Second Harvest) and, as an added bonus, you can meet Tanya Steel, editor-in-chief of Epicurious and James Beard recipient. Instigator and I were fortunate enough to be seated at her table and I had the good luck of being next to her. She was well spoken and quite charming. On to the food, yes?

The best hors d’oeuvres of the night, in my humble opinion, was the spicy bison tartare on a housemade cracker. Second to that was the wild mushroom bruchetta. We sipped on Pol Roger Brut nv Champagne while mingling. My apologies for the low lighting in the food pictures. Here’s a shot of the restaurant prior to seating.

Dinner was a yellowtail tuna (seared rare, wild watercress, roasted red pepper, new potato, white anchovy, quail egg, black olive) and duck breast (patty pan squash, roasted spring onion, chanterelle mushrooms, pancetta and a red wine sauce.) The tuna was served with a Pascal Joviet Sancerre. Instigator loved the cracked pepper and I thought the anchovy made the dish. The duck was served with a Museum Crianza.

Dessert was a cherry tart with creme fraiche sorbet, bittersweet chocolate sauce and almond streusel. It was served with a Churchill’s 10 year tawny port which tasted a hell of a lot better than my previous experience.

And a generous swag bag came at the end of the meal. Thus concludes my dake with Instigator.