You never know what you might find when you go outside to buy your groceries in the middle of winter...

We are participating in and sponsorsing an incredible event this Sunday the 16th. It is a one day market put on by this group called New Amsterdam Public. Their tag line is: sustainable purveyors, at the seaport: New York's public market district since 1642. The entire goal of this non-profit organization is to create a permanent, sustainable market of purveyors focused on providing regionally produced goods. This one day market is the first step in showing the city what is possible for these buildings that have housed many markets over the last few centuries.

Check out the NY Times posting.

Marlow & Sons is taking the show on the road and will have a stand that represents the "farm to market" table in the center of our shop. We will be selling vegetables and fruits from the farmers we work with day to day. Of course we'll also be adding our own touch to things with some house-made goods: bitters, hot sauce, granola. Sean and Cheffie will also be serving food at the market- vegetarian chili in the morning and braised beef sandwiches in the afternoon.

New Amsterdam Public is offering memberships to their organization as part of their fundraising and awareness building efforts. Each member will receive a year subscription to the Diner Journal. They posted the member info today and within two hours already had one person register.

If you can make it to the market it please do and cross your fingers that it is a lovely snowy white wonderland instead of a crapstorm of wintry mix. Either way we'll have good food and hot apple cider on hand.

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Larmandier Bernier

Category: Sparkling
Region: Champagne
Appelation: Champagne
Sub Region: Vertus
Grape: Chardonnay (Blanc de Blanc) and Pinot Noir (Brut Rose de Saignee)
Vintage: NV

The Larmandier family has owned vineyards in the famous Côte des Blancs region since the late 1700s. Today, Pierre Larmandier and wife Sophie continue this Champagne clan's age-old tradition, making fine sparkling wine from their premier cru vineyards in Vertus, at the southern tip of the Côte, and the grand cru Cramant to the north. Larmandier-Bernier is at the forefront of what some are calling 'the grower revolution' in Champagne, a small group of vineyard owners who are inspired by Anselme Selosse, a revolutionary vigneron whose philosophy is strictly biodynamic and of Burgundian influence. This renegade group is making their own wines, often biodynamically, or close to, and producing small-batch cuvées that reflect a particular vineyard site or village. The 15 hectares of vineyards (chardonnay and pinot noir), with an average vine age of 35 years, are meticulously cared for. The vineyards are all biodynamically managed and yields are kept scrupulously low by Champagne standards - 50 hl/ha on average.

Here at the restaurants we are carrying Blanc de Blanc from Chardonnay and Brut Rose de Saignee, made from Pinot Noir grapes. Most rosés are made by blending white wine with a little red wine from Champagne (Coteaux Champenois appellation). A rosé de saignée, on the other hand, is made by directly macerating Pinot Noirs. This method of vinification is more demanding and requires grapes with an excellent degree of maturity. This is the real rosé. The Pinots are destemmed and left to macerate for about two days before the 'bleeding' is carried out. Then come the natural alcoholic fermentation in an enamel-lined steel vat, the malolactic fermentation and the maturation on the lees during the winter. The bottling takes place in May. After being aged in the cellars, the wine is disgorged at least 3 to 6 months before being marketed with a discreet dosage (3 grams of sugar).

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WE HAVE CAVIAR

We selected a few types of caviar to cover the range of flavors, textures and pricing. Here is some basic information about the types we have- and also about other products we offer to accompany caviar.


All of these will keep for up to 6 weeks before they are opened. Once they are open you need to keep chilled and will want to eat within 24 hours.

TROUT ROE $15.50 100grams
A beginner's caviar- or maybe graphic designer caviar (they always seem to like orange). These are less intense in their "taste of the sea" than the other caviars. Great snap to them and totally approachable flavor. Let's call it the "gateway caviar."

HACKLEBACK $24 for 30grams
This is American caviar. The roe is harvested from rivers and lakes in Tennessee and Illinois where wild Hackleback sturgeon live. The beads are small- not jet black but more of a brown/black and it has a mild taste that has some salinity but also a smoothness through the finish. (more buttery than the others)

TRANSMONTANOUS $50 for 30grams
This roe comes from white sturgeon called transmontanous that is farmed but is also native to California. This is the value caviar I think- it has the refined and balanced flavor of some of the more expensive caviars. California was one of the early adopters in the domestic caviar industry when they saw the effects of too much harvesting in wild sturgeon habitats. Florence Fab wrote about California caviar for the New York Times this week.

ALVERTA $70 for 30 grams
Another California caviar. This one is from mature, white sturgeon in Northern California. The flavors are clean and balanced with a bit of nuttiness. Little bit lighter in color than the transmontanous. Much more of a saline/oceanic flavor to this than the less expensive options.


The classic way to consume caviar is to drop a dollop of crème fraiche on a blini and sprinkle a bit of caviar on there, maybe even some minced chives?

BLINIS $15.50 for 30 mini blini
They are just tiny, pancake-like vehicles for eating caviar. A mildly flavored backdrop that offers a contrasting texture.

CRÈME FRAICHE $4.25
Basically a fancy French way of saying SOUR CREAM. They are so much better at naming things, fraiche sounds better than sour when you're choosing what to eat… Delicious when dolloped on all kinds of things like soup, blinis, brunch, yum.

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Our relationship to narrative starts when we do, and come to think of it so does our relationship to food. We need both to live, not only to survive, but more importantly to grow. It's a bird, it's a plane please dear god eat you're peas. As the band plays on we begin to lose sight of those stories, as quickly as we lose sight of the very food on our plate. There is work, and school, and play and we need fuel. Alarmingly, some have capitalized on this, moving tragically toward distortion, a cow living in confinement on a huge industrial farm becomes a 1$ burger, becomes a burglar, becomes a cartoon friend. Billions and billions served. No one asks why a sandwich made from an animal costs so little. But they will ask why a sandwich cost so much. We have decided to use this moment to take back this formula, recognizing that in order to work with holistic, sustainable, local farmers our burger will be 10 times more expensive. The idea is the plate is where it all happens. If we can work from taste backward, we get people to ask questions. Why is this the best tasting pork chop in the world? Sir William Angus farm raise Berkshire or Kurobuta pigs and are part of the Valley Livestock Marketing Cooperative. The family farm is in or, as implied on the VLMC website, is Craryville, NY. These pigs are raised all naturally, living a life of leisure, foraging and pastured for part of the time. This practice yields a darker, richer meat. Our farmers will become our icons, our ideas as openly displayed, engaging and complex as the dish in front of you. We are eating ideas.

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Making A Porchetta

One of the cooler things I got to do at Fleischer's during my stay with Josh and Jessica is help bone out two porchettas.

For those who didn't get a chance to go to Mark's birthday party and don't already know what a pochetta is, it is simply a whole pig that has had all of it's bones removed except for it's head, making a sort of floppy pig suit. The pig cape is then brined in salted water for two to three days along with the boneless loin (or loins) of another pig.

Once the pork has brined the pig is laid out on it's back, the loin is put onto one side of the pig's belly along with fennel tops, rosemary, thyme and garlic and then rolled up like a big porky joint. Once the pig is rolled and tied it is then strapped to a spit where it can be slowly rolled over a heat source like cherrywood logs or charcoal for hours, rested and then sliced, crossways.

Nose to tail eating in one dish!

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