Winter at the Pig

Another must visit place when in Lawrence...The Bourgeois Pig on E. 9th Street. We had a big snow this past few days and the two places I love to be when the snow hits are Teller's and the Pig. The Pig is a coffee shop and a bar, but more than that it is a community hub. I can't honestly say how many hundreds of hours I have spent at the Pig in my life, but it always feels like you're supposed to be there. This is the place my wife pestered me into asking her out 12 years ago, the place I had a cocktail to work up the courage to propose a few weeks later and the place we hit now when we have a babysitter for an hour. This place, like Krause, has the ability to transport you to New York, to Europe, to any number of places. A small but thoughful and affordable wine by the glass selection, great baristas and inevitable conversations make the Pig a favorite. The rotating art shows feature some of the best work in town. Peppermint Rose tea can take the chill off quickly if you're not quite up for a drink. They'll be closed for a week or so in early January to fix some things up, but don't let that take the Pig off your radar.

Weekly Internet Travels

I visit dozens of food related websites every week. One of my favorites is the New York Times Wednesday Dining and Wine Section. This week they have this obsessive list of 101 appetizers you can make for parties. I wish I got invited to that many parties.

Holiday food related shopping stops to make in Lawrence...
The Bay Leaf
Weaver's Department Store (Basement)
Wheatfields Bakery and Cafe
Great Harvest Bakery
Au Marche
Checker's Grocery
J and S Coffee
Z's Espresso

Dinner at Krause Dining

Had an amazing dinner last night at Krause Dining.
Salmon caviar on smoked salmon and bilini.
Sturgeon caviar with traditional accompaniments.
Wasabi caviar on ahi tuna.
Hawaiian sugarcane prawns
Butter-poached beef tenderloin with sunchoke-potato puree and black truffles.
Warm chocolate cake with praline ganache and Frangelico drinking chocolate. Gracious service, beautiful & warm atmosphere, a great experience. You could be anywhere in the world when dining here, but you're on Delaware Street on the eastside of Lawrence. Remarkable.

Spring 2007 NYC

A few months before we went to Italy we went to NYC and ate at 20 restaurants in 3 days. The true highlights were...PO, Babbo, Casa Mono.
Surprising letdowns were the highly rated Esca (we were frowned upon for not ordering a $100 bottle of wine with our lunch!), Fiamma (They tried way too hard to be fancy and missed on some of the basics like food temps, and L'Impero-grandiose style but uninspired execution of the dishes.
PO was Batali's first restaurant. A small, intimate place, we snuck a few seats at the bar and had some of the best food of the trip. The bartender guided our entire experience and I'd go back to NYC just to eat there again.
Babbo-another Mario Batali-his flagship Italian dinner place was amazing. Fried pig feet, hand made pastas, again our entire experience there was guided by a bartender. Every dish, every flavor worked. Bill Buford's book, Heat, follows the writer on his journey of work in the Babbo kitchen. I didn't read it 'til after we went, but a combination of a read and a visit to Babbo will make you want to work in a restaurant.
Casa Mono is Batali's Spanish place. I honestly thought I would be letdown by celebrity chef restaurants but Batali came through at these places. Casa Mono was set up much like a sushi bar-we sat at the counter and watched all the cooking take place literally 4 feet from us. The food was sensational, the atmosphere exciting and we forced ourselves to stop eating and drinking so we wouldn't miss our flight.
Regarding the celebrity chef thing...we ventured into Bobby Flay's BOLO and it felt tired and sad. It was recently disclosed that the restaurant is closing which is probably OK. It was stuck in a mid 90's time warp and the servers said we missed the kitchen by a few minutes.

Summer 2007 Italy

Michael (the chef) and I were fortunate enough to be sent to Italy this past summer to basically eat, drink and take in the culture. Our mission was to bring back whatever ideas we could to make Teller's a better restaurant. Michael went to culinary school in Florence so that's where we went. We spent a few days there and a few days in Donini hosted by Sandro Benini an opera singing baker and friend of Merc cheese guy John SanMarco.
In general, my first trip to Italy was nearly overwhelming. The people, markets, architecture, the culture...I can't wait to return.