Beauty and Truth Prevail

Yesterday in the Dining Section of the NYTimes,
The Under $25 section reviewed El Quinto Pino.
Here's sending love to the girls and of course,
to Eder(who hasn't come to visit me in a while).

Besos.

Indiophiles Around the World

I love this banner.
After shamelessly Googling myself in the "Image" category,
I came upon an Italian website all about Asian food.

No suprise to me. After years of working in Italy and having many
close friends in Italy, I've learned the love Italians have for Asian foods.
From any country.
Whenever I get a visitor from Italy, there are always meals in favorite
Asian restaurants for their remaining days here in NYC.
Now that I have an Indian restaurant, I am my Italian friends' favorite
New Yorker. If I wasn't sure before, I'm quite definite now.

Anyway, the website is www.corriereasia.com
There is a review of Lassi and from what I can tell, it's quite flattering.

Or I'm lying to myself.

But that aside, I love the banner image. It says tons and it makes me smile.

s.s. france trois

The following photos are of the S.S. France circa 1970.
Please scroll down to read the original France entry.

s.s. france photos

I'm not particularly ept at the computer thing.
So I'll be posting the photos of the S.S. France
and it's kitchens as best I can.
Stay tune for the rest tomorrow.
Thank you for your patience.
Happy Motoring.

S.S. France

All chefs get the same questions thrown at them left and right. The all time worst
to me is "What is your specialty?"
It's not an easy question to answer.
When I was doing pastry, I always answered with "Pastry".
I know the answer desired was to be more specific, such as "French" or "Italian".
But at a certain level a chef tries to have some mastery of everything
and to try to pigeon hole what may have a million influences is difficult.
What can you say if you make stunning wedding cakes, have a handle on
ice carving and come up with media worthy menus every season?

I'm cooking a lot of Indian these days but I still have a couple of decades of pastry
under my belt and I still do pastry daily. Now what?

The next most asked question is probably "What influenced you to become a chef?"
Another big question. If you've truly made this your career, the influence had to be big.
It's a 24/7 job. Maybe more so in New York. It's social and it's everywhere.
And now, it's even considered to be an affluent job. Go figure.

I came across some pictures the other day that made me remember the earliest threads
of what was to come for me and my dedication to the kitchen.

When I was three years old (stay with me here, it gets better...), my parents took me on vacation on the
S.S. France.
The S. S. France was at one time the largest cruise liner on the water at 316 meters. It was known for
luxury, French service and fine French food.

My mother remembers with misty eyes the steamer trunks arriving days before our departure so we
could pack with our vacation wear. The day the ship left port you had nothing to carry but a hand bag.
Someone has got to bring that back or I've got to start taking better vacations.

The memories of the ship and the people we met on the France have always remained very vivid for me.
I had my own state room and my parents had a lot of fashionable new clothes. Pucci the first time around.

There was a lot of table side service and to this day I don't think I've ever gotten over it.
I love table side. Recently, I had lunch at Jean-Georges. Phillipe, the GM, carved and dressed
a pineapple tableside. Worth the price of admission.

I am convinced that the defining moment for me---the moment I decided to become a pastry chef---
was at 3 on the S.S. France. It was my parents anniversary and my father had the pastry chef make
a baked alaska in the shape of the ship for each table in the dining room. They came out of the kitchen all
at once in traditional fashion, en flambe.
How on Earth do you not carry that with you for all eternity?
Nevermind that they didn't get their name right on theirs, it's just too fabulous.

About a year ago, I was listening to Mike Colameco's radio show and he was interviewing a writer that had
come out with a book about his life and the food around it.
I wish I could remember who he was. He is very famous. His cousin was Jill St. John, if that rings any
bells. The one thing that really caught my attention was that he talked about how if father gave him
a ticket for a vacation on the S.S. France for his college graduation. Colameco knew all about the ship
and it's culinary reputation. It was so exciting to hear someone go on about the France
and the opulence that has given my career whatever romance I can muster up about it when
I've been working too much, my feet are giving out and I'm tired of everyone's opinions.

When I was a kid, my mom was a great baker. And yes, my parents loved to go out to restaurants
that were rare in the seventies but are taken for granted now.
A pretty traditional answer to a typical question.
Luckily, though raised in the Bronx, I also was exposed to the type of culinary perfection
I've been working towards ever since.

el quinto pino

My dear friends at Tia Pol
have opened their second project, El Quinto Pino.
El Quinto Pino (the fifth pinetree) is catalan slang for
saying something is out in the boondocks, or so I hear---
not being the most linguistic of people.

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of this group
of restauranteurs and the food that comes out of
the Tia Pol kitchen. Alex Raij, the chef,and I became friends
one day when she asked me about my goat purveyor.
You can guess how that made me swoon.
Her and her husband/sous chef, Eder, were regulars at Lassi
and as soon
as I could tear myself away from the kitchen I gave
Tia a whirl and I've never turned back.

El Quinto Pino is as true a tapas joint as we have here
in NYC. No seats. Standing only. And it's giving Alex a chance to really
show how versitile she is. Over a meal last week at Next Door Nobu, she
told me how excited she was about the upcoming uni panini she was going
to start serving. I hear there is some Andalucian lemonade that is
out of this world.
Rock and Roll.

Photos of Pino to come.

El Quinto Pino
401 west 24th street
btwn 9th and 10th aves.

Goat

A few words about goat meat.

We go through a lot of goat meat at Lassi. It's always been a favorite
of mine and it's been great to work with it as much as we do.
It took us a long time to find a good purveyor. We looked in Bay Ridge,
Washington Heights, out in Jackson Heights and over on Essex Street.

We ended up at the Union Square Farmers Market--which for a New York
City chef is like forgetting to look in front of your face.
It was there we found Elly Hushaur, the owner of Patches of Star Dairy
in Nazareth, Pa.

Elly feeds her meat kids alfalfa, orchard grass and clover with
straight well water. The well water has natural minerals like shale,
calcium and magnesium phosphate.
They milk up to only 3 months and are ready at 60-70 lbs.
Sorry animal rights activists.

I'm on a little crusade to get more chefs to use goat.
One of our most popular dishes is a goat kabob. In India,
they make kabobs with ground meat. Kind of cool.
People love kabobs. They're like the Tom Hanks of the food world.
No matter who you are, you dig a good kabob.


Thought we'd share a little with you today.

Goat Kabobs

6" bamboo skewers--soaked in water

3 lbs ground goat
2 onions-finely chopped
3 tblsp grated ginger
3 tblsp garlic-finely chopped
2 tsp. chili
2 tblsp garam masala
2 tblsp cilantro-chopped
2 tblsp ground almonds
2 eggs
1/2 cup besan (chickpea flour)

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate
for at least 4 hours.

Form over skewers with wet hands.
Combine 3/4 cup yogurt with 4 tsp. canola oil
and brush over meat.
Cook 20-25 minutes until browned in 350 degree oven.
Garnish with onion rings and lemon wedges.