Saturday, September 24, 2011

Fabrication Feast Cook's Notes (9.17.11 Event)




It was exciting to design a meal for ADX’s fabrication festival.  I wanted the dinner to feel interactive and so guests were invited to bring their own dining kit and table story; for the meal, diners “finished’ their dishes with the sauces that were served alongside the courses, the idea is that the dish didn’t come together until the diner added the sauces, in the amounts and combinations that suited them.

The inspiration for the menu was “communities of builders” and somehow these three sprang to the fore: bees (honey, hives, comb), Amish barn raisings, and Carthage.

Here is how I expressed these themes for the feast:

Bees: I bought a full bar of honey for diners to “harvest” honey from the comb. We served hexagonal pastry cookies (honeycomb is hexagonal) for diners to ice with a pea, feta, mint “icing.”  The space at ADX buzzed with our conversation, like a hive, and Bill Taylor of PD(X) Lab brought a digital system that cast light patterns that shifted in accordance with the noise levels of our diners; we also called this a “digital barn raising.”

Amish Barn raisings: The whole notion of coming together for this fabrication feast felt like a barn raising. We invited numerous collaborators: Abraham King of Discourage records DJ’d, Tressa Yellig of Salt Fire & Time brought kombucha and kvass for cocktails, as well as a classic lemonade (think Harrison Ford in Witness, gulping down a glass of lemonade in one draught while Kelly McGillis watches and sweats), we convinced Cliff Allen of The People’s Pig to smoke and roast the lamb legs, and of course our hosts at ADX and our diners all made or brought things for the feast. So the Amish part of the feast was milk, honey, oats, jams, pork, all of the food that feels “heartland.” I kept thinking of the refrain, a land of milk and honey.

Carthage. Ok, Rome was a first reflex, but I thought Carthage, ancient Rome’s chief rival, would be more fun, especially as the founder of Carthage, Queen Dido/Elissa, was a Phoenician (Phoenicia is present-day Lebanon, Carthage is present-day Tunisia), so we could reference both Lebanon and Tunisia, so do more middle east, north African, southern Mediterranean foods. Dido was also a clever mathematician and there’s the whole Carthage foundation story of the oxhide and how after being promised land encompassed by an oxhide as a joke by the locals after she landed at Carthage, she cut the hide into tiny strips that encompassed a large territory. Perhaps apocryphal, but a great story, and there’s a math theorem named after this principle, called “Dido’s Theorem.” So the fresh figs and green pistachios belong to this flavor palette, as do the black olive oil, chickpea puree, the lamb rubbed with za’atar, and served with preserved citrus, harissa, yogurt, vegetable tagine and freekah (green wheat). 

 Final Menu: Fabrication Feast at ADX 9.17.11

Honey in the comb
Fresh figs
Black olive oil with anchovy
Chickpea puree
Shredded pork maple, paprika

Hexagonal pastry cookie
Pea, feta, mint “icing”
Smoked corn, cherry tomatoes, alder-smoked salt (farewell to summer)

Roasted leg of lamb with za’atar
Vegetable tagine (looking to fall… root vegetables: beets, parsnips, potato and kale)
Freekah
Preserved citrus (grapefruit, lime, lemon, orange, honey and curry)
Harissa (Aleppo pepper for less heat than traditional harissa)
Yogurt, cucumber, mint

Oat shortcake
Raspberry and white peach jam
Chocolate and pear jam
Goat cheese, goat milk and cream
Young Pear
Green pistachios




 See full pic sets on our facebook

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

All hands in.... September 17 fabrication feast at ADX

OPEN CALL: Diners, please get in touch if you want to help fabricate tables and seating for the September 17 supper at ADX. snowsupper@gmail.com xo, Heather

Monday, September 5, 2011

collaborators for the Sept 17 event at ADX

Updates to the Saturday Sept 17 Fabrication Feast. Our collaborators: 

6:30 Cocktails & Commerce. Cocktails by Tressa Yellig of Salt Fire & Time. Music by A.D.D.J (Abraham King) of Discourage  Records. Bring info/goods from your cottage industries, DIY projects, small businesses. Appetizers will be served. 
7:30 dinner commences. The food inspirations are communities of builders: bees, Amish barn raisings, and Carthage (present-day Tunisia). Cliff Allen of The People's Pig will be guesting in the kitchen with us.  See our blog for the proposed menu listing

Stay tuned for more updates. Cheers! 

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Sat Sept 17 Fabrication Feast: Proposed Menu and details

Buy your tix at eventbrite


Saturday Sept 17 at 6:30 pm. Please join us at ADX at 411 SE 11th. Food Inspirations are communities of builders: bees (hive, wax, honey), Amish barn raisings, and Queen Dido/Elissa who fled Tyre (Lebanon) to found Carthage (Tunisia), one of the largest pre-industrial cities, and ancient Rome’s chief rival: feared, reviled, respected, mythologized in art and literature by Timaeus, Vergil, Spenser, Purcell, among others. Any mathematicians want to talk about Dido's theorem (isoperimetric problem?). 

Some of the interactive components may include: diners shaking cream into butter, chipping ice from blocks, and inviting volunteers to bake bread with active yeast starters that will pick up the “terroir” of each baker’s neighborhood/kitchen microclimate, so we can consume and compare to see if we can taste the difference. Get in touch if you’d like us to supply you with the bread materials.


Please contact Meredith Frengs at mfrengs@adx.com to inquire about a 1-month membership if you are not an ADX member but would like to check out the ADX shop and make something for the feast.


We want to crowdsource aspects of the event such as greenery for the table, documentation (photographs, video, sketches) and entertainment. Offer it up if you feel so moved: snowsupper@gmail.com


Proposed menu-subject to change. 

Curried mustard pickles
Peach chutney
Pickled cabbage
Amish friendship bread
Butter from cream
Honey from the comb

Smoked tomato soup flecked with roasted corn
Pea Tartlet

Vegetable tagine
Harissa
Roasted leg of lamb with zaatar
Preserved lemon
Mint, yogurt
Sautéed watermelon and watercress
Grains with oat milk

Raspberry and white peach jam
Praline milk jam
Goat cheese panna cotta with herb syrup
Cornmeal cookies
Oat biscuits

Sat Sept 17 Fabrication Feast: Proposed Menu


Here is what we’re thinking for the menu-subject to change, but this gives you an idea:
Curried mustard pickles
Peach chutney
Pickled cabbage
Amish friendship bread
Butter shaken on site from cream in a jar
Honey from the comb

Smoked tomato soup flecked with roasted corn
Pea Tartlet

Vegetable tagine
Harissa
Roasted leg of lamb with zaatar
Preserved lemon
Mint, yogurt
Sautéed watermelon and watercress
Grains with oat milk

Raspberry and white peach jam
Praline milk jam
Goat cheese cooked cream with herb syrup
Cornmeal sugar cookies
Oat biscuits

Final Menu: Victorian Feast

Toast
Bacon drippings (sweet butter for vegetarians)
Spiced beer jelly
White cheddar
Baby radishes with tap root
pickled radishes, pickled onions
wild grapes

Chilled cucumber soup garnished with purple allium flower
Potted shrimps with curry on radicchio leaf
Water cracker

Chicory and watercress salad with creamy mustard dressing
Roast Beast
Savory pies of game (rabbit) and summer vegetables  (all-veg) with crispy fried sage leaves

Meringue: rose cream, citrus chip, rose hip conserve
Rice pudding with condensed and evaporated milks, bay, rum raisins, lime and basil syrup, banana powder, wild plum