Outstanding in the Field

Yesterday we were honored to cook for Outstanding in the Field at our friend Lee Hudson's farm.  Virtually all of our produce came from Hudson Ranch - garlic, beets, radishes, carrots, mesclun, suckling pigs and guinea hens - which made this an honest farm-to-table event.

Lunch is Live!

We've been serving lunch for about a week now and it's becoming busier as the news spreads.  Customers will already be familiar with our salumi and our range of antipasti, pastas and pizzas.  The innovation for lunch is a small and daily-changing selection of paninis.  With the aid of a sheet of cast iron, we turn our range into a griddle, upon which we press and sear buttered bread and the delicious fillings within.

This sandwich:  roast leg of mutton, creamed frisee, mint, young raw mustard greens and Pecorino Romano.  Other options over just the last couple days have included roasted pancetta-wrapped rabbit saddle, smoked mackerel, grilled zucchini with mozzarella di bufala, and deep-fried soft-shelled crab.  The panini selection, and the entire lunch menu, will change the same way our dinner does: we rewrite the menu every day to showcase the best ingredients we can get our hands on.

An Andouillette Experiment

Here's a final report on some of the fun we had with our 500 pound Berkshire pig.  Our hog literally arrived with a bucket of guts.  Within said bucket was the stomach (as previously detailed) and plastic bags swollen with intestines.  What does one do with bags of intestines?  Andouillette!

Stomaco alla Milanese

Much of our food falls under the designation of semi-authentic.  With a daily changing menu and whimsical ordering, it's not always practical (or desirable) to recreate Italian standards with all possible accuracy.  And so, when I publish this page, it will be the first use of the phrase "stomaco alla milanese" in all of Google's registers.  But this is just a classic dish with one small and logical substitution, and we think that even the purists of Milan couldn't resist the satisfying, grandmotherly flavor.

We start with the stomach of our 500 pound sow.

Unusually Large Pork Shank

This is the foreshank of a 500+ lb. Berkshire pig.

Here I'm removing the skin, delicately.

The Patio is Open

Al fresco season is upon us, and on Sunday we opened our patio for the first time since the fall.  Rain will probably keep it closed over this weekend, but outdoor dining should return next week and remain an option for the following months.

Sant'Olcese Salami

We've been wanting to do a smoked salame for a long time.  But we weren't aware of any traditional Italian varieties that were smoked, and, in the name of authenticity, we held back, and resigned ourselves to offering only smokeless sausages.
A few months ago we learned about the namesake salami of Sant'Olcese, just north of Genoa.  This village has been producing smoked sausages for centuries.