[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: December 9, 2013]
Thanks to some down-time for site maintenance, we're playing catch-up with the vintage diary entries this week, taking us through Thanksgiving, 2003.
And turning the pages brought back some memories--places I no longer visit much, although they're still around, like the Old Town Bar; and places I no longer visit because they're gone, like the Gotham Book Mart. I was a frequent visitor to the 41 West 47th Street location, amidst the jewelry stores, and across the street from a very good corned beef sandwich.
I spent plenty of lunchtimes browsing the poetry stacks, to the background sound of Flip explaining the world to callers. It was ten years that it moved across Fifth Avenue to East 46th, and soon thereafter (or it seems soon) expired. Berger's, purveyor of the corned beef sandwich, made the trip east too--and seems to have survived in a reduced state as a take-out on East 39th.
Speaking of places I used to go all the time, Craft. And ten years ago, received wisdom was that the way to experience Craft was to go with a large party and ask the kitchen to send out pretty much everything (cold fish, cold meat, hot fish, hot meat, was the mantra). I think the reason this appeared to work was that the dishes which were misses--and there were always some--were lost in the rush.
Anyway, we all ate--by course:
Hamachi, tuna sahsimi, raw scallops, arugula salad
Rabbit ballotine, duck terrine
Red snapper, barrimundi, skate
Short ribs, roast guinea fowl, roast sirloin
Mushrooms, brussels, escarole gratin, pommes purées
Desserts
I was cooking at home too. Saddle of rabbit with a fricassée of liver and kidneys, and vin jaune sauce. An odd accompaniment, given the sauce, but it seems I drank a Primitivo. On another evening, confit de canard (I was making my own), sweet potato mash, and Bobolink's Drum to follow.
Casual dining featured Italian wine and sandwiches. Panini, tramezzini, and Aglianico at the recently opened 'Inoteca on Stanton Street. Panini, bruschetti, and Umbra Rossa at Bar Veloce on Second Avenue.
I guess my daughter had just turned three, and I took her for gelati at Otto. I suspect I was the one eating the salumi, octopus, and cotechino with lentils. But she was a precocious eater, so who knows?
More Italian at Al di Là in Brooklyn, coming to the end--ten years ago--of its reign as one of the few really enjoyable non-red-sauce Italian restaurants in the city. Dinner concentrated on the braised meats: tripe, beef cheeks, pork ribs. Baccalà with toast to start. That big, wintry, warmer of a wine, Ripasso Zenato to flourish with richly sauced meats the meats.
And so, Thanksgiving, and I made a dinner for a long table of people:
Rosemary and olive oil roast capon, vin jaune sauce
Sausage meat stuffing
Marinated braised pork shoulder
Roast potatoes
Swiss chard with toasted pine nuts
Sweet potato and onion fritters
Époisses, Shepherd's Dream, Chèvre
Home-made pumpkin pie, bourbon-cinnamon syrup
***
Primitivo di Salento 2000
Rotllan Priorat Amadis, 2000
Armagnac Domaine de Teoule, 1962
Cheers, and I hope you all had a good one this year.
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