Homeboy: Ten Years Ago

[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid:  December 13, 2010]

Resolved as I am not to re-invent my decade-old doings just to entertain the reader, I have to recount a further series of home-cooked meals in the early days of December 2000.  One curious restaurant visit, though.

It was a good time of year, as it is now, for cassoulet, and I set about preserving duck's legs and gathering ingredients.  My diary calls it "cassoulet de Castelnaudary," so it must have been a big production, probably with lamb as well as fatty pork and various kinds of sausage.  I followed it with some fresh goat cheese - curds, as we used to say.  A bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape with it.

Less ambitious, I see we also did some meatballs with fettucine, and if I ate partridge two days running I must have picked up a brace of birds from the Bayard Meat Market in Chinatown.   The first was rubbed with a Chinese spice mix I learned from the daughter of a Chinese chef many years ago;  the second was simply roasted and served with plantains and a salad.

I made baked beans as well, a comforting and easy thing to do.  I use a claypot and flavor the beans with molasses, tomatoes and, yes, tomato ketchup.  Hunks of smoked pork too, of course.  Ate them with some Italian sweet sausage I am confident I didn't make.

So the restaurant of the week:  Porter's.  This little bistro on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea was relatively new when I visited, and although now closed it did survive for several years.  Not sure why.  Stuffed Oregon quail followed by a filet with herbed mash and mushrooms sounds okay, but it was very much the work of an average home cook.  Disappointing, leavened by a ridiculously cheap '95 premier cru Beaune on the list at fifty bucks.  I dropped by that hardy survivor Pete McManus's for some refreshment too.

The usual godawful work holiday party crowned the week.  Never mind: next time, Eleven Madison Park.