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For the last two weekends New York’s cerebral supper club A Razor A Shiny Knife traveled to California to put on three events in Los Angeles and San Francisco with LA’s Room Forty and New York’s The Noble Rot.  The title of this short cooking tour was ‘Two Perspective: Modern Meets Traditional’.  The concept being that Razor would give a modern rendering to traditional dishes which would be paired with both estate type wines done using traditional methods and ‘garage’ wines produced with modern techniques.   Read the rest of this entry →

Hosting a picnic for about twenty people, I needed to come up with a few sandwich ideas.  Sandwiches that would be big taste ‘bang’ for the buck, that people would like and, most importantly, that I was interested in making.  Immediately I thought of the Vietnamese Banh Mi.  One of my all-time favorite foods.  but could I make something that tasted as good as the amazing banh mi’s I have had from various hole-in-the-wall Vietnamese video store/delis around town?  There was only one way to find out.  And what better than to have an audience to see me sink or swim?

Searching the internets I found the very thorough Wandering Chopsticks blog and her recipe for a pork Banh Mi which called for, among other things, ‘Char Siu’, a Chinese Barbecued Pork.  I liked what I saw.  But I also came across Sam Sifton’s article in the New York Times about the pork spareribs that chef Zak Palaccio does at his Fatty ‘Cue restaurant.  I liked that also.  I decided to combine the two. Read the rest of this entry →

It took some doing but we finally summoned the courage to leave the safety of the city and head north into the wild country.  Specifically our destination was the Pocantico Hills and the storied Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant.  From the train station it was easy to get a cab to the farm.  As we wound up the drive of the farm to the entry I was immediately charmed.  The farm compound is outlandishly gorgeous.  Done in large stone, heavy timbers and slate, the buildings look from every angle like a manicured photograph of an idyllic farm somewhere in England or France.  Buildings as carefully detailed and well crafted as this are very few and far between.  A truly beautiful place.  Exploring the buildings, carefully tended gardens and pastures that make up Stone Barns is worth the trip alone.  But the greenhouses and little piggies would have to wait for another time.  Our main focus of this evening was dinner at Blue Hill.

Not having the foresight to book a table in the dining room well enough in advance, we hoped that eating at the bar would be an available option.  Initially, it looked like all the bar seats were already taken.  But through some sort of miracle that only super-professional and generous staffs can manage, we soon found ourselves seated and looking at menus.  We chose the five course chef’s tasting menu.  The fullest experience would have been the eight course dinner.  But in a foreign land as we were and concerned about return train times and babysitter attitude we decided that the five course dinner would allow us to experience most of the restaurant’s offerings without being rushed.  The big decision taken care of we settled in for dinner.  Having eaten several times at Blue Hill Restaurant in Manhattan (and the immense pleasure of working in its kitchen a couple times) we knew we were in for a treat.  Chef Dan Barber has become very well know for his sensitive use of seasonal vegetables, herbs and fruits.  So we were excited by the prospect of chef Barber having all of the farm’s varied and carefully grown produce right there at his fingertips. Read the rest of this entry →

If you are a westerner with a pulse you have most probably been in a Starbucks.  With its over 11,000 stores in the US alone, Starbucks has grown to become the assumed go-to location when someone says, “let’s get a coffee”.  In fact, they might even say ‘I want a Starbucks”.  Very few brands can boast of having their name become interchangeable with the common noun form of the product that they produce.  And if you have been in one you have probably stood in line in one.  Can you remember what the experience was like?

A similarly (but not quite as) large number of you have also been into a Dunkin’ Donuts.  And invariably stood in line in that Dunkin’ Donuts.  How did that waiting experience compare to the Starbucks line?

I have been thinking recently about how similar both Starbucks and Dunkin’ Donuts are.  Yet how different.  Both brand’s core products are more similar than it might seem.  Coffee drinks, pastry-type edibles and a few extras.  But I would submit that the experiences in both stores are so different that we might have a hard time thinking of them as competitors. Read the rest of this entry →

On May 25th the New York Times reported that chef Jonathan Benno’s new restaurant being built at Lincoln Center for the Patina Restaurant Group did not yet have a name.

The next morning I sent a letter to Nick Valenti, head of Patina with a suggestion for a name I thought would be fitting for the new restaurant.  I did not receive a response.  I wasn’t really expecting one.  I knew it was a long shot anyway.  I just came up with the idea and thought it wouldn’t hurt to present it to Mr. Valenti.

Well, today I just read on Grub Street that the name ‘Lincoln’ has been selected for the restaurant.  Fairly straightforward choice I guess.  Not too surprising given some of the other names on Patina’s roster.  But now that the die has been cast I guess I can share with you the name that I had suggested for the restaurant.  Here it is along with my explanation for it that I sent to Mr. Valenti: Read the rest of this entry →

Another chapter of New York Restaurant Week has begun.  And with that another case of the butterflies for me.  I see Restaurant Week as a dual-edged sword of incentives.  The cheaper price fix is an incentive for more diners to eat out.  As well as an incentive to try restaurants they might not normally go to.  But the cheaper price fix is also an incentive to the chefs and restaurateurs involved in the promotion.  Sure the PR will put more butts in seats but the price ceiling is an incentive for chefs to present less than they normally might to a diner.  Of course this is to be expected to some degree.  After all, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  So the foie gras doesn’t make it onto the Restaurant Week menu.  But this downward pressing incentive can be taken too far, chefs seeing this as an excuse to ‘phone it in’ as it were, and present a mediocre meal that they otherwise would not serve.  I have experienced such Restaurant Week meals.  And reviewed them.  As I have here.

This negative incentive for chefs to shovel uninspired food to the deal-seeking eaters I find to be a real bummer of a product of the Restaurant Week formula.   Read the rest of this entry →

I know it’s kinda silly but I couldn’t resist submitting an entry for the Chiquita Banana Sticker Contest.  Judging by the entries that are already posted I am not even sure if this is a real contest.  But the only issue for me is that the submission requirements are slightly limiting.  The Chiquita website allows for only one sticker file to be uploaded.  My idea, however, would require two stickers.  Well… hopefully the Chiquita judges will look at this post…

If my design makes it to the finalists be sure to vote for it on August 23rd.   I’ll get a free hat if you do.  Thanks!

I took the opportunity recently to speed through the Fancy Food Show, the great confluence (purportedly) of all things gourmet and culinarily high-brow held every summer at New York’s Javits Center.  At first blush the floor of the show looks like a mash-up of Disney’s Epcot Center, Whole Foods, The Euro-Zone Dairy Farmers Union, an orthodox kibbutz and Trader Joe’s with booths that stretch on into the distance with seemingly every nationality and/or food type represented.  One thing was clear through the culinary cacophony… cheese is king.  I have never before seen so much cheese in one place.  It was everywhere.  Not to mention that its funk could be smelled over all else no matter what booth you were at.  I began to feel sorry for the ruminants of the world that must be working overtime squirting out all the milk needed to quell humanity’s obviously insatiable appetite for the stuff.

Anyway, it wasn’t cheese I was seeking.  Well… it might have been.  I wouldn’t know until I found it.  The ‘it’ that I came to the Fancy Food Show in search of was innovation.  Specifically, innovation in food that would help to bridge the gap between today’s young people and the healthier eating habits that seem to continue to allude them.  And society at ‘large’ for that matter.

And what did I find? Read the rest of this entry →

The National Trust For Historic Preservation is launching a major exhibition this evening at the iconic Four Seasons Restaurant in New York to raise money for the restoration and repair of Philip Johnson’s Glass House and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House.  The exhibition, entitled ‘Modern Views: A Project to Benefit Farnsworth House and the Glass House’ ,  has invited one hundred architects, artists and designers to contribute a work inspired by Philip Johnson’s Glass House and Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House as well as the relationship between the two architects.

Honored to be a part of it this is an image of one of the prints that I contributed:

For detailed information about the exhibition and my prints please click on the ‘Modern Views’ Prints tab at the top of this page.

I was surprised to find out today that a menu I designed has been accepted into the New York Public Library’s Menu Collection archive.  I was also surprised to find out that the New York Public Library has a Menu Collection in the first place.  In retrospect it does seem obvious that the NYPL would.  But evidently the obvious can sometimes pass unnoticed right in front of me.  Anyway…

Last month curator and writer Nicola Twilley, who writes the fascinating blog ‘edible geography’, put together an exhibition at Storefront for Art and Architecture entitled ‘Landscapes of Quarantine’.  As part of the exhibit Nicola commissioned Michael Cirino of ‘culinary experience’ A Razor A Shiny Knife to put on two nights of dinners based on the concept of ‘quarantine’.  Being a sometime collaborator with A Razor, Michael asked me to design the menu for the dinners.  The menus were a lot of fun to design, allowing me to play with imagery of virus and bacteria close-ups as well as the graphic language of pharmaceuticals and health care.  A detail of the menu is shown above but the full menu can be seen here: Read the rest of this entry →