A Seasonal Affective Dinner: In Medias Res

After much scheming and sketching, Cliff and I have hammered out a menu. That's the amazing Cliff Allen of The People's Pig (downtown at 9th/Alder). And we are excited that Tressa Yellig of Salt Fire Time is running the bar (think horchata and hibiscus tea) and contributing some food fun as well (see below). It's still a proposed menu and subject to change—something might catch our eye at the market, we might figure that there's too much of this or that, or want to add something at the last second. But this is a really good idea of what to expect for next Fri Feb 24. Tickets available via Eventbrite.

First, we always start with "Cocktails and Commerce." I encourage people to bring info or products for their cottage industries, DIY ventures. This has ranged from books to embroidered napkins to Japanese tea ceremony lessons. It's a great way to encourage people to mix and talk. So the first course of appetizers, small bites is served up while people circulate and chatter. After that, we all descend to table for the rest.

Oh, and a quick note: the genesis of the theme. I was thinking about how we are between winter and spring (I am seeing carpets of violets and crocuses and early fruit trees blossoms, yet I am still wearing wool and slogging through frost and mud and cupping hot coffee close to my chest). I love chilly winter splendor and the accompanying and necessary coziness that allows us to survive. My heart also leaps for spring and the promise of sun and more sun. So land of ice/snow made me think Scandinavia. But I wanted to include Icelandic recipes so it became, more properly, "Nordic." And then as a corollary, The Kingdoms of the Sun in the Americas, so Mayan/Aztec/Inca. There's more to say on that front as far as Pre-Columbian and etc. but I'll save that for later.

1st Routing:

Gravad Lax (Cured Salmon), Gravad Lamb Fillet (Cured Lamb)

Buckwheat Cakes. 

Roasted Potatoes and Turnips with Maple vinegar. 

 Skyr (Icelandic soft cheese). *Made by Tressa Yellig of Salt Fire Time. 

Sweet Mustard Sauce.

Cucumber Salad. 

Aquavit-Pickled Onions. 

2nd Routing. Svalbard Beet Soup with Duck Stock. Rye Toast, Dill Butter, Grated Horseradish. (Vegetarian version available). 

3rd Routing. 

Roasted Fish rubbed with Achiote. (Veg option available)

Corn cakes stuffed with black beans and shredded turkey. White cheese crumbles. (Veg. option available). 

Amaranth Greens and Toasted Grains.

Tomatillo salad *Made by Tressa Yellig of Salt Fire Time 

        Sauces Available: Recado or Xak’ (Chile Paste Sauces):

        Relleno Negro. Toasted Garlic, Onion, Chile. 

        Ku’ut bi Ik (Crushed Red Chile Sauce). 

        Naranja Ik (Sour Orange and Chile Salsa). 

Final Routing: 

Pink Snowballs.

Aztec Cocoa Pudding. Chile, Cocoa Nibs. 
Lime Granita. 

Cook's Notes: Book Release for Lisa Wells' "Beast" (Bedouin Books)

Photos in the blog post are courtesy of Ryan Fish

Flying Fish Roe, Shiso leaf, tofu custard and orange

Tender Boiled Egg. Caper and shallot oil. Smoked salt. Matcha Green tea.  

Flying Fish Roe. Shiso leaf. Tofu custard. Orange zest.

Gravlax and Buckwheat Blini. Brandy, dill seed.

Black Bean and Kimchi Quesadilla.

Muhammara. Roasted red pepper, walnut, pomegranate molasses.

Za’atar. Thyme, sesame, sumac.

Chorizo. Marinated in olive oil and aromatics. Sherry vinegar.

Lemon Chiffon Puff. Lemon curd. 

So I am riffing on the death/rebirth imagery with eggs and also with the food items that traditionally were buried in graveyards to cure and ferment (gravlax, kimchi). I was also struck by the intense color palette so I'm thinking about the color of bruises (pink, purple, yellow, green, blue) and inks dispersing underwater; we are also doing some stuff (I think) with shards and glass-fragility, fracture, food as "freeze frame." Also, I'm trying to work in something with ashes and also maybe with beer-recurring, high-frequency mentions in the poem collection. —excerpt from menu notes correspondence to Michael D'Alessandro, Publisher of Bedouin Books

Gravlax and Buckwheat Blini

Last Friday (the 13th!) we catered the Bedouin Books release party for Lisa Wells' brilliant new collection of poems called "Beast." I wanted to take our menu cues from the poems and above is an excerpt from my initial menu notes correspondence with the publisher, Michael D'Alessandro. I wanted to connect our readers on a food-level with the work, so of course an emphasis on the feral, primordial quality expressed in the title and throughout the book. What interested me most was the idea of a "reader response" expressed through food. There are many images of death and mourning and loss and fracture in the work and this powered the menu planning: 

The sky

rains silver pins across the glass

and each drop rings a tiny fractured bell.

Eggs are symbols of the life cycle in many traditions. They are associated with birth, the soul and also with mourning. I was thinking about mourning and comfort, a funeral feast in a sense, and the movement of menu tastes is from bitter to sweet, but even the lemon chiffon puffs, the dessert, have some bitter from citrus in the cake and in the lemon curd. 

The green tea on the tender boiled eggs was a note of bitter against the creaminess of the egg; it also promoted the color palette, what I thought of as the colors of a bruise that is healing: green, purple and yellow. I played around with some sugar brittles—pumpkin and candied crab—as well as a beer jelly that is stirred to look like broken glass—but did not end up serving. Experiments that did not pan out—but I will try again. I used organic, unrefined sugars for the brittles so they were cloudy and I wanted them to look like glass. And the beer jelly was wincingly bitter. 

I was moved by a kitchen scene in the collection:

Raise the dough,

grate the cheese, lay down

green leaves of fragrant basil.

Then, I eat

I then tried to capture this visual with the za’atar heavy with green thyme on rounds of toast:

Za'atar (sesame, thyme, sumac)

There are a lot of references to driving in "Beast:" 

The road’s yellow stitch hems me to earth,

fragile as a swatch of sun

From this couplet I became obsessed with the idea of a yellow dessert. I loved these lines as they made me think of W.S. Merwin's "Separation:" 

Your absence has gone through me

like thread through a needle.

Everything I do is stitched with its color.

I thought about trying to line up the tiny lemon chiffon cupcakes like highway divider lines, but happily discarded the ideas as possibly impractical and too literal. 

Planning and executing the menu was a really engaging project and I hope that we have more opportunities for such collaborations and impressionistic renderings of responses to works of art. 

Please visit Bedouin Books to purchase a copy of "Beast." 

Some of the beautiful work published by Michael D'Alessandro of Bedouin Books

http://marrowmag.com/

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. 

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

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! 

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