[Pink Pig Time Machine by Wilfrid: December 23, 2013]
After the indulgences of Thanksgiving ten years ago, I turned to some sober home-cooking. Salt cod (prepared the quick--but absolutely reliable--way*), served with braised cabbage, then next evening with onions and black olives. The cheese was a Bobolink, aged in Zinfandel must; the wine was a 1998 tempranillo from Valencia, details now lost.
And then I got back on the dining out bandwagon.
A more elaborate dinner was at Morrell's wine bar, then occupying the large space on Broadway which is now Craftbar. The 0ccasion was our friend Vanessa Treviño Boyd showing up their as sommelier (she's been in Houston for some years now, at Philippe until recently, shortly to be at 60 Degrees Mastercrafted.
We took a long tour through the menu:
Fried oysters
Lobster and parsnip soup
Seared Hudson valley foie gras, apple galettes, pomegranate
Veal porterhouse, crisp potatoes
Cheeses
Quite a number of wines were served, including a New York state méthode champenoise, a 1964 Madeira with the foie gras, and red Chambolle-Musigny with the veal. Vanessa never quite approved of my obsession with red Burgundies.
Then snow! In mid-December, imagine. I explored In Vino, a new little bar on East 4th serving a long list of southern Italian wines by the glass (the list long ago retrenched). We returned a few days later for dinner: sausage with polenta, baccalà, polpettini, bagna cauda with truffle oil. A bottle of Librandi, Gravello 2000, that lusty gaglioppo.
Then it was off to the L'Absinthe for some of the most consistent classical French cooking in the city:
Cervelas aux truffs et pistaches
Choucroute
A 1997 Cornas with the meal. And to finish the week, a good fringe performance at the Greenwich Street Theater--"Duet," based on the lives of Eleanora Dusa and Sarah Bernhardt, and supper with spongy bread--yes, inerja--and vegetable stews at Meskerem.
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