08.14.07

FOIE GRAS DEATHMATCH

Posted in First Blog at 10:20 pm by Erik

Sunday, August 19th.  7 cooks.  7 Courses.  7 pounds of foie gras.  Double Magnum of 13 year old riesling.  An undisclosed home at an undisclosed time……the invited shall come.  The rest should not come.

Sorry to be elitist.  We will all have small heart attacks in your honor.  There will be foie gras egg-salad, cippolini awesome onions, FOIE GRAS POUTINE, some salt cured torchon with peaches, and brioche french toast with bacon ice cream, and Maine blueberry compote….adorned with whole roast foie gras lobe.  Sorry.

Cooks will compete for absolutely nothing.  Everyone wins when the entire menu is foie.

I “heart” foie gras, and the cooks who craft the foie.

I also “heart” Joe Ricchio.  And ducks.  If Joe was a duck, i would force feed him foie gras, corn, marrow, german riesling, figs and shallots.  Then i would remove his liver and discard the rest of him…..well, not the belly……

erik 

08.13.07

baloney

Posted in First Blog at 10:37 pm by Erik

Bar Lola, aside from being my current employer, is a restaurant to be reckoned with.  Simplicity and without pretense.  Take, for instance, The Fried Baloney Sandwich. 

Now, as a child ( I was a fat kid) I devoured grilled cheese sandwiches with a slab of fried baloney and mustard.  Simple white bread, baloney and processed american cheese from The Market Basket or Demoulas’.  Mind you, back then, 20 years ago, processed american cheese was actually pretty good.  Honestly, these days, it pretty fucking tasty.  It’s not good FOR you, or even politically and socially correct.  In fact, it is downright BAD.

However, in a situation where i am in someone else’s kitchen, at 1AM, and most of us have consumed many alcoholic beverages (not me….but so i have heard) it is A-OK to fry up some old-school grilled cheeses, with whatever is available.

Pepperidge Farm’s Sandwich bread, Hannaford’s pre-sliced American blend, Kate’s butter.  Maybe the occasional Grey Poupon.

At Bar Lola, it is a little bit different.  I have my own responsibilities there, but Guy, in all of his glory, comes out with dishes I would NEVER think of.  So pure, so simple, so…dare I say…….a child waiting on his or her grandma’s best dish. 

FRIED BALONEY!!!!

The crispy, possibly overcooked surface of thick slices of Mortadella, (mortadella is made in Bologna, the poppa of our Baloney…..suck it up…we all grew up with it…)

New maine heirloom tomatoes; so big and fat and juicy, with their little hearts still beating.  I saw them throbbing, i promise.  When i sliced one of them, I heard an “uuuuuggghhh” from the little, pudgy, uneven ball of juice and puckerness…..the leftover juice and seeds on my knife was delicious when i wiped it on one of 158’s baguette slices, probably baked by Molly. 

Back to the Baloney.

Now, I have personally been baking brioche for a foie gras dish at Lola, but Guy has wrapped his fingers around 1/2 of the loaf (smart move on his part…..it is a french formula, and totally buttery)….so the baloney sandwich has heirloom tomatoes, mortadella, and handmade brioche.  The lettuces come from a few local SMALL farmers……guy buys the greens off the back of the truck.  They come in still scattered with the earth from the farm.  AWESOME. 

 When they come in, we take a bite without washing, and the bittersweet, green, wet with dew, crunchy with earth, and delicious greens make the entire kitchen silent.  Well, it’s just me and Guy and Josh or Kate….but we still shut up.

The open faced sandwich is built on the housemade brioche…toasted…with spicy mayo…then the tiny garden greens, and the heirloom tomatoes, still pulsating and breathing.  Sprinkle them with maldon Sea Salt and Telicherry pepper.  Drop a seared slice of Mortadella on top, with a few shavings of cheese (I think it is provolone….I asked Guy once, but i spaced it……)  either way, everytime the sizzling mortadella sandwich passes by me as I expedite, I pause to listen to the crackle, and smell the rendered fat, toasty brioche, and bruleed cheese.   mmmmm.  

A simple fried baloney sandwich, brought to a level that buddah himself can appreciate.  I don’t think buddah would eat mortadella, but you see what i mean.

 The shirred egg dish, old school as it gets, was orchestrated by Guy as well.  Two of my favorite dishes at Lola.  The entire menu is fucking delicious.  I have eaten there many times, but now that I have a firsthand view of what Stella and Guy are doing, I have a new appreciation.

Erik