A little interruption from your regularly scheduled recipes to talk about this years Food and Wine Festival in NYC. I spent a couple days going to a few events and just generally wandering around the city.
One of the food related events that really stood out was Charcuterie 101. This was essentially a guided tasting of nine different meats paired with wine. The event was held in the cellar of Macelleria and presented by Herb Eckhouse of La Quercia and Jake Dickson and Chef Gabriel Ross of Dickson’s Farmstand Meats. Prosciutto, coppa, pancetta, a terrine, pastrami (served cold!), and a chicken liver pate were among the meats we got to sample. The speakers were very informative and lead us from one sample to the other explaining the differences in the preparation and flavors present. See more of the meats at this link.
sooooo tasty
I also attended a whiskey tasting at Abe and Arthur’s led by Matt Purpura of Beam Global Spirits & Wine. We all had 10 different drinks to sample. Perhaps the most interesting, but least tasty, was an unaged sample of new bourbon whiskey–or “white dog”, as it’s known. It’s essentially raw bourbon, clear in color and much more of a neutral, grainy flavor than you would expect–like straight grain alcohol. And really, that’s essentially what it is–none of the wood flavor has been imparted to the drink yet. While it was interesting, I wouldn’t recommend drinking it often. Comparing several whiskeys, aged to different length, aged in differently charred barrels really led to a greater appreciation of whiskey, and I’m not even the biggest fan of the drink! (I could drink gin all day though.) Click here for a list of all the whiskeys we got to taste.
This was actually really interesting. Anyone interested in having a Whiskey tasting here?
Apart from the Food and Wine events, I again stopped by Little Branch for some very good drinks. I wandered through Chelsea Market looking for coffee (Ninth Street Espresso) and some kind of chocolate (Fat Witch Bakery). Beyond that, I must recommend the awesome bakery Two Little Red Hens. This place has some very amazing muffins, biscuits, cookies, cupcakes, cakes, coffee, pies, scones, and, well, you get the point. Look, go there, get the apple muffin. Calling it a muffin is almost wrong. It’s terribly moist, flavorful, and just sweet enough.
My only regret is not packing a bunch of bagels to bring back home. And maybe trying to freeze some NY pizza. There is always next time.
Two Little Red Hens Bakery, By Richard Berg on Flickr
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