at the sign of The Pink Pig

Les Assiettes de Belcourt: Matt Hamilton's EV Brasserie

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 26, 2007]

Will you look at this?  Food for grown-ups.  Pristine simplicity

And a piece of fish as good as any you might eat between the Bronx and the Battery.

Allen and Delancey Was Never This Fancy

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 26, 2007]

It's very fancy, on old Delancey Street, you know..." mused Lorenz Hart to Richard Rodger's jaunty melody.  But that was back in 1925.

The LES has emerged from some hard years, but who expected a raviolo of sweetbreads on this still dark, abandoned and ratty corner?

When Things Were Beautiful: Seurat's Drawings at MOMA

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: October 26, 2007]

Very occasionally, you know even before you see it that an exhibition will be completely beautiful.

This is not the same, of course, as being pretty.  There is an unbridgeable gulf between Paul Signac's glittering pointilliste rivieras and these brooding studies by his pointilliste master.

(The exhibition opens to the public on October 28 and runs through January 7.)

From The Remington Room To The Hallowe'en Parade: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: October 26, 2007]

Blowing the dust from the pages of another volume of memoirs, I see with a sigh of relief that glamor returned to the Pink Pig's daily round as November 1997 approached.

First up, I organized a reception in The Remington Room at the 21 Club - so called, if it isn't obvious, after the Frederick Remington cowboy pictures which ornament the walls. 

Cray-zee for Gray-Zee

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 15, 2007]

Yes! so Gray-Z right now/Most edibly/It's your chef G/It's your small plates/Restaurant in the making...

Okay, I admit it, the restaurant is called "Grayz" as in graze, as in a buzzing elision of the Gray-Kunz brand.  I don't like the name, and I insist we all call it Gray-Z instead.  But who could not like the food?

Pamplona: Back For The Piglet Burger

[Pigging by Wilfrid: October 19, 2007]

Seeing it carried back and forth by servers when I dined there...

I had to go back and eat it.

October Odds And Ends: I Do This I Do That...

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: October 19.2007]

Is there no peace for pigs?  Readings, art shows, drama and poetry, recently seen.

(Scroll down for Molly O'Neill, Larry Clark, Lee Krasner, Simon Armitage and the Yankees.)

Sometimes You Just Want To Give Up: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: October 19, 2007]

Sometimes you just want to forget about eating out, because such a high percentage of meals are at best unmemorable, and one isn't actually a bad cook oneself.

I seem to have had one of those weeks in October 1997.

Correct Dining #2: Caul Me!

[Correct Dining by Wilfrid: October 12, 2007]

Charcuterie  in its various forms may require relatively advanced cooking skills, but anyone who can season, flavor and shape ground meat can make...what shall we call them?  Sausages?  Rissoles?  Faggots, even?  How about crepinettes?

Now any of these can be made to hold their shape, and be cooked, without any skin or casing, although of course you lose some texture, some snap that way.  Sausage casings are inexpensive, but you are also going to need some gadget to stuff them and a good deal of patience.  Easy solution?

Midtown Bibliomania As Merc Stacks Open!

[New York Peasant by Wilfrid: October 12,2007]

The "Merc" being what we initiates call The Mercantile Library Center For Fiction, on 47th Street between 5th and Mad.

Of course, when it was founded, a mere 187 years ago, by culturally-minded Manhattan merchants, it was just The Mercantile Library.