Seared Hanger Steak with Cayuga Grains Wheat Berries, and Parsnip Puree
Sleeper Moses Brie (Jasper Hill Dairy) Wrapped in Roasted Purple Spring Onions
The smooth malt character of this Dopelbock version of our flagship lager balances the roasted elements of this dish with the sweet and earthy notes of the parsnip puree. With a body strong enough to hold up to roasted meat and fine tuned delicate flavor to work with the subtleties of this unique cheese and onion pairing, the versatility of this beer makes it an ideal dinner guest.
[Flatbread Spring Salad from Slow Supper @ Cylburn Mansion.]
After a great weekend in Philly with my family I hopped into the car with Meg, our Event Producer, and my partner in Mash voyages, and headed for Baltimore. Hersh’s Pizza was our first stop on this rainy evening, but a tour of the kitchen and the 950 F Italian wood-fired pizza oven warmed us right up. After meeting Josh, Chef and Owner of Hersh’s and sampling some of his great pies, I was eager to start cooking the menu we collaborated on for our Local 2 Ways dinner. Charm City stood up to its name as the skies cleared on Tuesday, and the Baltimore Mash hit the ground running with the speed of a lookout boy from HBO’s The Wire. Max’s Tap House, just a block from the harbor, provided a perfect Mash HQ. We sat outside sipping cask ales before heading off to Birroteca to try another modern Italian take on the pizzeria. After living so many years in Italy, it is always nice to find good Italian food in a new city. (continued below)
Birrotecca may be known for its pizza, but the confit calamari and the house-cured meats were out of this world. I have never had calamari as tender in my life. The Duck Prosciutto was like stepping into a Peking duck house with subtle notes of star anise, so good I changed our Sunday Slow Supper menu to feature it as one of the courses. Another menu adaptation occurred when I tasted the passion fruit buddino. My mouth went wild with the most amazing puckering tartness, followed by a smooth tropical sweetness; I knew we had to incorporate it in our dinner.
Early the next morning I headed back to Birroteca to meet up with Executive Chef Cyrus Keefer, the mastermind behind these dishes, along with Aja Cage the buddino goddess/Pastry Chef. We tweaked the menu, adding some local ginger to the dessert (candied and as a cookie), and planned to meet at the market on Sunday morning to get vegetables for Slow Supper. Then it was off to Hersh’s to prep with his team for Local 2 Ways. I was excited to cook for a group of family members and 45 other guests all seated upstairs in the private dining room. Many beers where paired with an outstanding array of food, from pizza with to crab sformato paired with Sorachi Ace. For a glimpse at the whole menu check out BrooklynBreweryMash.com. As my mother praised her son to anyone who would listen, guests mingled and stayed long after their last sips of Brooklyn Black Ops.
After saying my goodbyes to the team at Hersh’s, we boogied over to Metro Gallery to catch the Soul Clap & Dance Off with my buddy Jonathan Toubin on the ones and twos. I can safely say that Baltimore hipsters could give our Williamsburgians a run for their money. Many a dancer was left in the dust, sipping Summer Ale as their consolation, as number 11 shimmied his way to the top securing himself a roundtrip ticket to New York to compete in the Soul Clap and Dance-off Finale. Follow me on vine to catch a glimpse of those dancing skills and some super duper outfits.
I knew Baltimore had some great restaurants but I was in for a treat at Chaos Cooking when I found out it was hosted by the executive chef of Moonshine Tavern. John and his lovely lady had a roof deck that overlooked the stadium with the harbor in the distance and a kitchen fully equipped to handle the chaos that ensued. Chefs and amateurs alike doled out delicious dishes and john made racks of lamb with parsnip puree and a rich demi-glace that left us all fighting over the last chops. We sipped Brooklyn and broke bread with new friends until late in the evening.
Saturday was the highlight of my trip as I headed over to the 15th Annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, one of the wildest events I have ever seen. Riders in crazy outfits took to the streets in giant whimsically constructed vehicles for a 13 mile race combining water, mud, hills and other obstacles. I watched these crazy creations hit the water then headed for The Wine Source for a cheese and beer pairing.
The Cylburn Mansion could have been a set from the Adams Family with the beautiful Nuit Blanche installation casting ghost like shadows on the walls. Instead it became our Slow Supper space. Tucked away in the Arboretum the Cylburn estate is a city landmark that inspired a meal rich in Baltimore history. Cyrus, Aja and I prepared a menu paying homage to the local bounty of Baltimore and the surrounding area. As the band played, and representatives from Slow Food Baltimore, the center for a livable future spoke, glasses clinked, and lights flickered in this old mansion a midst the background of beautiful Japanese maple trees, we almost forgot we were in a bustling city. Needless to say, it was a charming way to end our BmoreMASH.
The brightest day of the year here at Brooklyn Brewery just got brighter, with an unprecedented league of staff and friends from across great waters participating in the third annual Eric Ottaway Shirt Day (see 2012 and 2011).
But at the end of the day, there can only be one winner: Brooklyn Brewery House Chef Andrew Gerson, pictured below hand held high by Eric Ottaway himself. And a very special First Annual Runner Up Award goes to Australia’s own Phillip Chehade from Palais Imports, shown under the brazen beauty of Chef Andrew.
[Daddy Long Legs performs at You Can't Drown The Loud Sounds, a benefit for Norton Records.]
Epicenter of the Honky Tonk, former stomping ground of Elvis, The Man in Black, Willie Nelson, and home to Jack White (we stayed two blocks from his estate on Franklin Pike) Nashville is definitely a music town, but its budding culinary scene is nothing to stomp your feet at either. I can’t recall exactly how many “Wagon Wheel” covers I heard in my week stay, but I loved every one of them. Nashville has a sense of nostalgia that is evocative — music runs through this city whether you are at the Honky Tonk’s on Broadway like Roberts, or the three-tiered towering venue Mercy Lounge on Cannery Row. Music is not the only thing that trickles through this city. Nashville and the rest of Tennessee are home to over a dozen breweries, some of which I had the pleasure of visiting, others I settled for getting to know via a pint glass.
Our Mash Headquarters, M.L Rose Craft Beer and Burgers was the perfect spot to sample many of the local brews. My Fat Bottom Brewing Ruby Red had just the right bite to wash down the Brooklyn Burger special, with Brooklyn Brown Ale caramelized onions, crispy bacon and NY State cheddar cheese. Boasting a tap selection heavy on local and domestic breweries, I got intimate with some of my new Tennessee favorites and was eager to go visit Yazoo and Jackalope breweries, as well as Bosco’s Brew Pub where my buddy Drew prepares the daily specials to accompany their award winning beers.
Our week kicked off quickly and remained burger-centric with a Wednesday night collaboration dinner at Burger Up with Chef Philip Shyatt and his team. After four courses, seven beers, and the last bites of crispy cream bread pudding and sips of Brooklyn Black Ops, guests continued to drink and chatter long into the evening. Thanks to our new friend, a wine maker from Sonoma, so inspired by our beers that he brought a variety case of different styles and vintages from his vineyard to share with those lucky enough to linger after the meal, it wasn’t Vin Santo but made for a nice after dinner treat. I would have stayed out and partied with the gang over at 12 South Tap Room but it was time to get some rest for our Slow Supper dinner with Brandon Frohn and his team from Mason’s, the new chef-driven restaurant in the Loews Hotel.
I met Brandon in the maze that is the back of house kitchen for Loews Hotel and got to work making minted gnocchi and my braised lamb ragu. Although we were prepping in a beautiful full-equipped hotel kitchen, we were serving on site at the Peter Nappi Studio located in the old Neuhoff meat packing plant built in 1906, six blocks from downtown Nashville located on a rock bluff overlooking the Cumberland River. This boutique, home to the highest level of Italian boot craftsmanship, was a truly magical space to host our Slow Supper event benefiting Slow Food Nashville. Holly Williams, country artist and lover of all things gnocchi, graced the stage with her husband for three incredible songs, setting a laid back and boisterous tone for the evening. Ghost bottles abounding, we served smoke-wafting boxes of deviled eggs, seared scallops with Sorachi Ace, and a dessert reminiscent of my childhood featuring Flintstone push-pop sorbet made with liquid nitrogen and a sweet potato beignet with an oat and chocolate cremoix. As diners ate their frozen ice-cream shards, we relished in the warmth of the room, and picked out our dream pairs of shoes, but the price tags made it hard to do more than dream.
After working with two young talented chefs I was starting to understand the new Nashville food scene. Chock full of recommendations, I was excited to hit up some of Nashville’s favorite digs, while experiencing some of the newer gems popping up in Germantown and other newly developed neighborhoods. Nashville is undergoing a transformation much like that of Brooklyn, and many young chefs are finding themselves running off the beaten path to spots with rustic sincerity and attention to local sourcing, simple techniques and good homestyle flavors. Nashville seems as comfortable dishing out artisan extruded pastas as they do meat and three plates, and Rolf and Daughters along with City House have the Garganelli to prove it.
But if elegant home-style Italian is not your thing rest assured Monell’s has a seat for you at a big round table with a slew of wide-eyed strangers, awaiting their southern traditional Sunday meal, every day of the week. The shear quantity of plates that began to hit the table was astounding. Our only instruction was to pass to the left, as biscuits, grits, greens, beans, collards, mash, suckatash, corn pudding, brisket, gravy, fried chicken, meatloaf, banana pudding, pickles, chutney, and many more dishes hit the table in a whirlwind of food that would give even thanksgiving at my house a run for its money (and we feed 35 people). After this special family experience at Monell’s it was time to dance off my meal to the sounds of Jonathan Toubin at his NY Night Train Soul Clap & Dance-Off. Any chance I get to hang out with Jonathan is a good night. Besides being one of the kindest and most engaging people I know he knows how to spin a 45 and keep a crowd moving like no other, especially when they are competing for a free trip to NY, courtesy of Brooklyn Brewery.
The music didn’t stop there, Sandy Relief benefit for Norton Records in Brooklyn was a mash up of Brooklyn and Nashville talents Daddy Long Legs, A Bones, The Ettes and Weekend Babes. This line up at Mercy Lounge was killer and we stomped and stomped till the house came down. High Watt, on the top floor of the Mercy complex, which is also the home to a Sunday rock and roll church group (better attended then most concerts I go to) was the locale for Found Footage festival which is always a solid hour or two of laughs, and guest starring the beautifully awkward comedic genius of Kate Berlante.
Top this exciting week off with an impromptu stop at Taqueria San Luis for the biggest tamales ever (basically banana-leaf-wrapped pillows) with two scoops from Jeni’s ice cream in a Black Chocolate Stout float featured at our Togather literary series on Sunday, and I was holding my sides almost as hard as I had at our comedy event the night before. Nashville, I can’t wait to come back, my only regret, being too full for Princes Hot Chicken. Next year, Nashville. Next year!
[Text by Nichon Glerum]
[Photos by Nichon Glerum and Maria Teresa Salvati]
On a cold but sunny Saturday, Slideluck London celebrated its fifth show by throwing a smashing Slideluck event for the grand finale of FORMAT Festival, in Derby’s charming old Chocolate Factory.
Between 6 and 7pm the 200+ (international) guests arrived by car, train, and the special Slideluck London coach. All were welcomed with Format chocolates, Brooklyn Brewery beers and – as more guests arrived- an ever growing number of delicious potluck dishes on the buffet. All indulged themselves on velvety smooth carrot cupcakes, colorful salads, broccoli pies and much much more. Mothersmilk was also on the menu, although only for one very special little guest!! Zac, born only days before the event, is the beautiful newborn of featured artist Fjona Hill.
Then, the guests sat down to watch the slideshows as curated by Monica Allende, photo editor of The Sunday Times Magazine and founder of the pioneering photography section, Spectrum.
Brooklyn Beers kept everyone’s throats chilled, hot water bottles warmed peoples hands, and an overwhelming display of visuals and audio was overflowing the audience.
In the break people could play and have their picture taken in Kitty Walkers industrial cardboard city photobooth.
After part two Director Maria Teresa Salvati announced the winner of the Blurb award, selected by her and Louise Clements, artistic director of Quad and Format festival. Alfonso Almendros is the lucky Slideluck artist that will go home with a £350 Blurb Gift Card!
Then she announced the artists that would be featured in Spectrum, as selected by Monica Allende. Monica was originally going to pick one, but, overwhelmed by the outstanding works, decided to give 7 photographers the chance to shine at this amazing platform. They are: Fan Shisan, Alfonso Almendros, Rafael Arocha, Alexander Aksakov, Arantxa Cedillo, Jean-Marc Caimi & Valentina Piccinni and Bryan Schutmaat.
After the slideshows and a little break, it was time to taste the sound of The Developer: a unique multi-artist residency responding to the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site at John Smedley, especially created for FORMAT13.
As icing on the Slideluck-cake, a raffle was held, in which lucky winners took home prizes not only from sponsors such as Viewbook and Gup magazine, but also 7 beautiful prints kindly donated by participating artists.
All in all, the evening offered a relaxed vibe, with the guests mingling to discuss love, life, art and the universe. Slideluck London was a great succes, thanks to all that were part of it!
A massive thanks to the director Maria Teresa Salvati; the super-efficient and creative producer Nichon Glerum; Pedro Lopez Paz, who helped with all the technical aspects of this edition and was a super hero in organising the coach from London; and Kitty Walker who jumped in to support the whole team wherever needed and who designed built the wonderful cardboard industrial city used for the photo booth. Also, this night would not have been possible without the help of the amazing team of Format: Louise Clements, Federica Chiocchetti, Michael Sargeant, Sebah Chaudhry, Jill Carruthers and all their fantastic volunteers that helped us out. We thank our partners and sponsors Viewbook, GUP magazine, Blurb, Feature Shoot, Format Festival & Quad, Develop Photo, Lily Vanilli, Duckrabbit, and of course Brooklyn Brewery.
Once in a while, quite infrequently, it gets cold and windy in Barcelona…. March 14th was one of those rare days, so the Slideluck and Pati Llimona teams had to take some quick decissions: moving the Slideluck slideshow, and subsequent dinner, from the 15th century patio to the main hall in the Civic Center building.
The shifting of a few signs and the collaboration of our attendees allowed us to start almost on time, and those few minutes of waiting passed rapidly while viewing Gustavo Germano’s touching Ausencias exhibition in Pati Llimona’s lobby.
Once everybody made it to the main hall, we realized that we had a full room… Approximately 100 persons attended the Slideluck, making it the most successful event in the last few years in Barcelona!
The audience enjoyed the 15 pieces that were projected in the slideshow and we moved on to have dinner in the main hall. We enjoyed all the different delicacies that the public brought: pizza, profiteroles, “tortilla de patatas”, and four different types of pasta salad. Pasta salad is probably the staple of any Slideluck potluck!
The stars of the night were, as usual, the bottles of Brooklyn Lager and Brooklyn Post Road Pumpkin Ale that were graciously donated by Brooklyn Brewery, with the collaboration of Crusat, their distributor in Barcelona.
With the delicious food, the beer and the photographs from our friends in “Piel de Foto” that were being exhibited in the foyer, the hours passed rapidly. It was already midnight when the last guests left Pati Llimona.
All in all, it was a good night of photography, food, drinks, and conversations with friends, just as one would expect at a Slideluck…
This photograph depicts the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn around 1905. The photographer titled it “Where the Old Woodpoint Boulevard stops.” But in researching more, I realize it is actually Woodpoint Road! The photographer, Dr. Ralph Irving Lloyd, mistakenly labeled it Boulevard, but in fact it has been referred to as “Old Woodpoint Road” or simply Woodpoint Road in several places (including Forgotten NY) going back to the 19th century. Woodpoint was one of the earliest roads in the area of Bushwick, dating back to the 1630s. Back then, the road was much longer and used to zigzag its way through Greenpoint and Williamsburg until Neziah Bliss developed the area. In Bliss’s 1876 obituary he is given credit for furthering Brooklyn’s growth and development and was especially praised for making Greenpoint a destination by connecting the streets of Greenpoint to Williamsburg. Old Woodpoint Road was also mentioned in the early Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper more than a few times. One article on paving Woodpoint Road, describes the road as “ancient” in 1894! Today, Woodpoint Road is just a four-block strip between Frost Street and Maspeth Avenue.
According to the Encyclopedia of New York City by Kenneth T. Jackson, the neighborhood of Bushwick was first secured from the local Lenape people, when the Dutch West India Company secured a deed from them in 1638. Peter Stuyvesant then chartered the area in 1661, naming it “Boswijck,” meaning “little town in the woods” or Heavy Woods” in 17th century Dutch. This chartered area included the modern day Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bushwick, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint, the three neighborhoods that Woodpoint Road use to go through.
Congratulations to Brooklyn fans Beth and Eric Berg on their wedding! We were only there in the figurative sense, but it’s safe to assume with table settings like these that a grand time was had by all. Beth writes:
I just wanted to send a thank you and share some pics. You sent us a ton of brooklyn bottle caps earlier for our wedding in May. We put them to great use with napkin rings and candle covers, celebrating Brooklyn, Brooklyn Brewery beer, and the “B” for Berg, my new married name / Eric’s last name. See photos attached and many, many thanks for your kindness and awesome customer service. We’ll be drinking up for all the years to come!
“I am drawn to the photograph above for two reasons: I am writing from my perch in the gallery level of the Brooklyn Historical Society Othmer Library where I can see a section of Clinton Street from my window. Unfortunately, there is not a snowflake to be seen and for that, I am disappointed in December. However, I hear snow is coming to NYC over the weekend while friends in Vermont and family in Pennsylvania are already enjoying inches and inches of the white stuff. As a long-time skier, I say: bring it on! I would love to traverse Prospect Park on skis — who wouldn’t?
The other reason this photograph interests me is the color deterioration. Color prints were introduced in the 1940s alongside Kodacolor film negatives. Early color photographic materials are notoriously unstable. This print, and much of the Nowlan Brooklyn collection that it is a part of, show the characteristic impact of age on early color prints. It’s worth noting that this print would not have faded so much if it was stored within very strict environmental conditions: between 0 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit and a relative humidity between 25 and 30 percent — in other words, a cold, dry freezer. This is hard for an individual to do, but at the very least, you might spend your remaining holiday downtime moving your boxes of photographs down from the sometimes hot, other times cold attic and up from the often moist basement into a still dark, but cooler, more stable climate.”
UPDATE // DEC 17 After a stomach-defying, tastebud-testing year of sampling 400 original bites from amateur chefs in 15 cities, the 2012 Food Experiments National Tour came to an end yesterday in the Brooklyn Brewery Tasting Room as Chef Charles from Brooklyn (pictured above) was named Champion Culinarius, winning a shiny oversized trophy, a China Town gold medal, some good old-fashioned cash, a bunch of awesome stuff from Le Creuset, and two airline tickets to anywhere in the U.S. courtesy of Jet Blue. Full results below:
JUDGES
The Champion: One World One Kitchen / Jewel Crusted Shrimp Second Place: You’re Bacon Me Crazy / You’re Bacon Me Sweat! Third Place: Chocolate & Spice / Mexican Chocolate Mini Pies
AUDIENCE First Place / Grand Prize: Jaws 3-D / Return of the Jawndi Second Place: The Magic Hops / Scotch Dates Third Place: Bite Me, This one’s for you! / The Ox, the Moon, and the Chinese Spoon
Nick & Theo’s Prize for Experimentation: The Pork Dorks/ Smoked Pork Dumplings
Spirit Award: Per Ehrlund of Cuttin’ Chris and Eatin’ Ehrlund
Congrats to allthe chefs for putting on a great show and bringing some seriously delicious bites to Brooklyn on Sunday. It was a pleasure on Friday visiting those food producers in the Pfizer building, hitting up The Ides, and then packing into a bus with you and downing all that Crif Dogs, Mile End, Di Fara’s, Yun Nan Flavour Snack and of course… Brooklyn beer. We hope you didn’t mind having your picture taken as you stuffed your face…
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