Baste it, taste it and tweak it again. Showdown is a cookbook about feeding the conversation along with the person.
This week, we sat down with Greenpointer and self-described “meat-head” Jenn de la Vega to talk about how competing (and winning) local competitions sparked Showdown, the cookbook.
GP: Hey Jenn! Tell us about Showdown.
De la Vega: Showdown is a compilation of 100 recipes I’ve entered into competitions. It’s not only about the ones that won. I think the big part of the story is the failure and journey along the way, building a strange cooking career out of competition, creativity and personal challenges.
GP: Did you always want to be a chef?
Jenn breaks out into a big grin. De la Vega: Actually, I never had intentions of being a chef.Continue reading →
Black Flamingo may appear to be all about the vibe, with its splashy seventies-in-Florida décor and stylish downstairs dance club that feels like a Norwegian sauna accidentally fell into a Dan Flavin installation. The space was designed by Hecho Inc., who worked on The Box, Stanton Social, Beauty & Essex, Speedy Romeo, Baby’s All Right, and these dumpster pools.
But the latest from David Shapiro and Etan Fraiman of Battery Harris (another destination restaurant where you can while away your evening hours and dollars in a beautiful tropical environment) is all about the food and the drinks, so far. The hordes of dance mobs have yet to descend.
The recent Sunday Suppers have been such a blast, and tickets have sold out in one day, so if you want to get in on major homemade tater tot action, plus other amazing dishes by Chef Annie Berger on March 3, 2013, from 7-9pm at Diamond Bar (43 Franklin St) – don’t wait!
MENU:
Shaved Brussels Sprouts Slaw / Creamy Garlic / Parmesan Crisp
Puff Pastry Hot Dog / Onion Bacon Jam
Homemade Tater Tots
Carrot Cake Whoopie Pie
Selected Beer or Wine
Greenpointers is excited to announce a monthly dining event for 2013. Every first Sunday we will host a casual Sunday Supper at a different Greenpoint location with a new chef each month.
Think of it as a unique homemade meal in your favorite bar (or other unexpected location.)
The meal will include an appetizer, main, dessert and special cocktail for $35.
Our first dining event will take place on Little Christmas, Sunday, January 6th, 2013 from 7-9pm at Beloved (674 Manhattan Ave) with a TBA chef.
Little Christmas is also known as the Feast of the Epiphany, when the wise men visited the baby Jesus and presented him with gifts. In my family on Little Christmas we do what we do on all holidays, stuff our faces with food.
As such we are making a call for local chefs, home cooks and food makers of all kinds. (No culinary school required.) This is a great chance to show off your cooking talent, share family traditions, make people happy and promote your own supper club, food blog, product or future restaurant. You will be paid and given a food budget. Email greenpointers (at) gmail.com and tell us a little about yourself.
If you are a venue interested in hosting, please email greenpointers (at) gmail.com.
I made a Sicilian Rice Ball Supper for a similar weekly dining series that took place at Veronica People’s Club. It was a great night and I am hoping to recreate the same fun and delicious vibe.
The most satisfying dishes are often the most easy and simple to prepare. When I met with Chance Jones, the new chef at Greenpoint’s Milk n’ Roses, a cafe and wine bar that has just rolled out a new menu, I asked him to show us how to make the simplest dish on the menu.
He chose the Acuasale all’Uovo, which is Traditional Southern Italian Bread Pudding, Broccoli Rabe, Soft Egg & Chili.
This was the first time I have ever seen bread being boiled! It was a fascinating technique and the results were very delicious.
Boil day old bread with chopped and clean broccoli rabe in generously salted boiling water. Meanwhile, fry an egg in chili oil, and top it with more chili flakes. Cover it. Then drain the bread and broccoli rabe and toss with more chili oil. Add the egg on top and that is it!
It was the perfect rainy day lunch.
Don’t you agree that Milk n’ Roses should add this simple hearty dish to their brunch menu?
I am definitely going to try to make this at home… perhaps sweeten it with some milk and honey (no egg of course!) and maybe top it will some berries.
On Saturday, September 22nd at 8 p.m., Kerry Jones, owner of The One Well and fellow foodie Niki Jackson will be hosting a delicious Autumnal Equinox Supper through Feastly, a website that connects passionate cooks with hungry eaters to offer homemade meals prepared and served in a cook’s home.
Tickets are $40, but Greenpointers’ readers get $10 off!
The Menu • Local Kale Salad with Toasted Almonds and Dried Cherries: Farmer’s market kale salad with toasted almond slivers & dried cherries, tossed in balsamic vinaigrette made with local honey from The One Well.
• Summer Meets Autumn Roll: Rice paper wrapper stuffed with roasted butternut squash, sauteed shitakes, pear slivers, scallion, toasted pumpkin seeds, and Farmer’s Market lettuce, served with a curry coconut dipping sauce.
• Sweet Shepherd’s Pie: Spiced sweet potato over curried lamb shepherd’s pie with carrot, parsnip, green peas, shallot, roasted garlic, and sauteed shitakes.
Seasonal Fruit Crisp: Apples and pears from local farms topped with spiced gluten-free crumble and local maple syrup from The One Well.
To sign-up: email info (at) eatfeastly.com and mention Greenpointers. Hurry there aren’t many seats left!
Soup? In this heat? Bear with me. Making hot soup or anything on the stove in this weather blows! But if you’re sitting in a freezing cold office building in Midtown right now you might really enjoy a nourishing bowl of soup rather than going out into the blistering sun and paying $20 for a crappy salad that was probably grown in California.
Nicole Chaszar is the Greenpointer behind a one year old soupery called Sea Bean Goods. She prepares her locally sourced creations out of Paulie Gee’s kitchen, where they appear daily on the menu and you can buy pints to go at Eastern District.
Sea Bean Goods is now available as a subscription service delivered to your door weekly. Nicole visited Greenpointers HQ to give us a taste. Aside from being a soup genius, this girl is a doll and a hard-working self-starter. Continue reading →
When it comes to food, I gravitate towards the simple and familiar. Hand me a bowl of rice and a side of kimchi and it’s a happy belly. I can be that Korean. But when an invitation to the inaugural Electric Gourmet Supper Club promised “high vibrational, local, living food prepared with love,” I was all too ready to step outside my comfort zone and broaden my gustatory map. Four courses of living food that vibrates with love? Let’s dance.
It’s as if Kerry Jones, a former personal chef to the Hamptons crowd, opened her doors and found a place for you at her table, offering “clean and righteous” food — all the pleasures of new, indulgent flavors without the post-meal, Boy-I-need-to-detox regret. Plus, there’s a strong emphasis on the use of local ingredients and vendors. Continue reading →
48 hours ago Daniel Delaney’s paypal had a balance of $0. Since then he has sold 2500lb of brisket at $25/lb. Do the math. It’s a lot of money to make in 2 days for someone when asked, “What do you do?” jokingly answered, “Nothing.”
The Smoker
But Daniel, who started VendrTV, has been up to something called Brisketlab. After driving an 18ft smoker from Texas to Brooklyn, he devised a genius marketing plan with a “strong viral backbone” and essentially brisket mind-fucked everyone.
“I didn’t disclose a lot of information… and the way that the copy was written, it was very lavish: ‘I’m forming an underground smoked meat guild. I’m recruiting tallow loving carnivores.’ It was very colorful. But also very ambiguous. That combination drove a lot of interest. Folks had a sense they had to shit or get off the pot. They had to act quickly.”
I shat. Daniel used the fundraising platform Launch Rock. When I logged in there were 800lbs, the next day when the likes of Brooklyn Based and The Brooklyn Kitchen were tweeting all over it, only 7lbs were left, then none. As we ate biscuits at Marlow & Sons, Daniel received email after email from disappointed brisket lovers, “Is it too late?” For now, it is.
Don’t worry, Daniel isn’t stopping at 2500lbs and plans to open a restaurant in Brooklyn, so there will be plenty brisket for everyone. In the meantime he has corralled a drooling bunch of “brisketeers” who will be the first to taste and critique his brisket skills in 100lb increments at over 25 pop-up events over the summer, which he envisions “underneath bridges and on rooftops and on a boat.”
Don’t let my Nonna read this. Shame on me for having to attend a pasta class. But boxed pasta is so damn easy! So is going out to eat.
When I got the email from EAT, it mentioned that Nick, the pasta teacher, has been cooking since he was in kindergarten. That seems dangerous, but at least he has a lot of experience.
The class began perfectly: with a cocktail, a really earthy beet cocktail served really strong by Jordon, the owner of Eat.
