MARIANI’S

  December 29, 2003                                           NEWSLETTER

                                           Carole Lombard and Clark Gable at Hollywood's Cocoanut Grove, 1938

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EDITOR'S NOTE: This newsletter is also available on the very comprehensive food site www.sautewednesday.com
which has dozens of other links to food articles from around the world, as well as at  The Grumpy Gourmet at http://www.grumpygourmetusa.com/links.html

 -Readers trying to reach me through e-mail cannot do so by hitting REPLY to this newsletter. Instead, write to me directly at johnmariani@prodigy.net .

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Cover Story:  New Latino Cuisine in Puerto Rico by Robert Mariani

New York Corner: Eleven Madison Park by John Mariani

by Robert Mariani

Two of Latino Cuisine’s most prominent chefs, Wilo Benet and Aaron Sanchez (left), recently teamed up to put on a “Latin Cuisine Weekend,” an annual event  in Puerto Rico, to show off some of the newest trends in Latino cooking  at a superbly orchestrated dinner at Benet’s elegantly chic Pikayo (787-761-1194; www.pikayo.com) in downtown San Juan.  Located in the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, Pikayo, with 22 tables, is a work of art in itself, with its languidly changing colored lights, its clean, graceful blue and cream décor, and live video screen over the bar broadcasting the chefs at work.  Benet is a native of Puerto Rico, and Aaron Sanchez is co-host of the show Melting Pot on the TV  Food Network, and Chef/Owner of Paladar restaurant (161 Ludlow St.; 212-473-3535)  in Manhattan.  Together they produced a stylish menu that shows just how modern and inventive the underrated cuisine of the Enchanted Island is today, while wholly paying homage to the traditions of Puerto Rico's culinary mix.  Contrary to what some may think, Puerto Rican food in general is not about hot and spicy. Most of what I tasted on my sojourn was quite mild and focused more on familiar, comfort food type flavors.
    We began the evening with some tostones de Arroz Pegao (crunchy rice cakes filled with tuna tartar), in addition to some filo tarteletas and freshly made spring rolls de camerones con salsa de naranja (shrimp with orange sauce). The first sit-down course was an unusual pairing of terrina de foie gras with ripe plantains sautéed in a sweet, fruity-tasting syrup. (Is there anything foie gras doesn’t taste great with?)     
    The second course featured a creamy, light risotto seasoned with cilantro and laced with native “pigeon peas,” dark, raisin-sized peas that have a mild, chickpea like flavor. The highlight of the meal was Sanchez’s original Pollo en Chile Secco, a crisp, perfectly cooked, juicy chicken leg and breast topped with a sauce made from  mild chiltepin chilies, a touch of  vanilla and tangy-sweet orange juice. Simple as it sounds, this was one of the most unusual takes on chicken I’ve had in a long time, with delightful, multi-leveled tropical flavors. The dessert this night was a flan de coco—a creamy coconut and rum caramel custard served with a sweet tropical fruit salsa.  (Tasting menus at Pikayo run $65.)
   For the next event of the weekend, we traveled rain-swept highways for two hours to reach the lovely Villa Montana resort on the pristine northwest coast of Puerto Rico in Isabela (787-872-9554;www.villamontana.com.  This immaculate, gated community of white stucco villas sits on a stretch of sandy beach backed by a lush jungle of coconut trees and swaying palms. Eclipse (left), the resort’s dining room/ pub, is actually an open-air patio with a thatched roof, just steps from the beach and a great place to sip your favorite rum drink as pelicans soar overhead and the surf crashes at your feet.
    The Villa Montana’s regular menu is fairly simple and changes often. With standard items like rack of lamb, “Surf & Turf,” and linguine Alfredo, it reads more like a Manhattan steakhouse than a sea side retreat. (The regular dinner menu at Eclipse appetizers run $8.25-$12, entrees $22.50-$26.50.) But the Festival event dinner that night was another Wilo Benet and Aaron Sanchez co-production, further demonstrating the sophistication of modern Puerto Rican cuisine.   We  began with passed appetizers called “Hijo y Mama’” — some fried plantains topped with smoked salmon, chive crema fresca and salmon roe (left); white corn cakes topped with truffled short ribs, called in Spanish “Arepas de Costillas y Trufas”; and an octopus and grilled cactus salad with white coco beans that tasted a lot better than it sounds.
    By the time it was dark, the sky, which had been threatening showers all day, opened up with heavy rains. We remained cozy and dry beneath Villa Montana’s thatched roof dinning area (below, right), listening to the waves hit the beach as the first course arrived— a comforting Tamal de Huitlacoche, which is basically a soft, dark green paste made of corn masa  and “corn mushrooms” steamed in a corn husk,  served with sautéed wild mushrooms and epazote purée and accompanied by a rich, flavorful Alderbrook Pinot Noir.
    Next came the fish course, Pescado en Hoja Santa con purée de Frijol y Bacalao— a halibut steak baked in a Hoja Santa leaf and served with a delicious white bean and salt cod purée. Another gentle concoction, this course was a lovely balance of easy flavors just perfect for a rainy night. The main course was a duo of juicy veal medallions infused with a mild chorizo sausage. It was finished with a clear demi-glace and paired with lightly rum-flavored salsa.  Dessert was a martini glass filled with a creamy coconut mousse with a raspberry filling and chocolate ganache--kind of a Puerto Rican trifle.. 
     This is not the kind of cooking many people--that is, many unknowledgeable people--think of when they think at all about Puerto Rican food, which is wrongly associated with being heavy, always fried, and too sweet.  Benet and Sanchez proved otherwise, and this rainy weekend's brightest spots were at the table.

THE BEST PIG IN PUERTO RICO
By John Mariani

 The best way to appreciate a pink suckling pig is realize that he will never grow to be a wallowing hog.  Save the big pig for bacon, for Easter ham, for barbecue. But save the young, still suckling pig for those who relish the sweetest of all meats—“guiltless as yet of the sty,” as Charles Lamb said—with a lightly fatted flesh tender enough to fall from the bone at the nudge of a knife.  Then there is the sizzling, mahogany-brown skin: Is there a more sensual, onomatopoetic gustatory term than “crackling” to summon up the palate’s juices, to make one’s eyes widen, to make one’s pulse race at the thought of biting into the chewy, salty epidermis of a young pig cooked slowly on a spit?
    Religions may forbid the eating of pig, and rightists may be appalled. But for the rest of the world the pig is a godsend, an easily raised, wondrously economic animal whose every bone and sinew, every pound of lard, and all its offal has kept civilization in fine fettle for thousands of years.  Thus, eating a young pig is sheer excess, for except in times of great abundance, it would be madness to cook so small a thing for such passing pleasure. The suckling pig is therefore always a feast, ennobled with an apple in its mouth and a salute from the host.
    The best pig I ever ate was in the hills of Guavate outside of San Juan, a street    lined with lechoneras—outdoor pig eateries like El Mojito (787-738-8888), run by Pape and Haydee Colon, who care as much about the quality of their pig as any chef de cuisine does about his veal or venison.   Raindrops of pig fat drop onto the hot coals and you sit there in agonizing hunger, nursing an iced  beer. Finally, the Colons bring you a plate of the pig, along with morcilla blood sausage, red beans and, if you’re lucky, a side of  pegao--crispy, singed rice scraped from the bottom of the pot.  Afterwards you can’t really tell if you’re woozy from the beer or the heat or the pure pleasure of the pig.

        
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NEW YORK CORNER

Eleven Madison Park
11 Madison Avenue
212-889-0905

I've never been to Eleven Madison Park when it wasn't full of people obviously having a very good time and enjoying a very good meal.  This, the least well known of restaurateur Danny Meyer's NYC properties--Union Square Café, Gramercy Tavern, Tabla, and Blue Smoke (and soon to open a restaurant in the Museum of Modern Art)--has always been to my mind the best and the most consistent, thanks to the extraordinary degree of training given to the staff here and to the exquisite taste and technique of chef Kerry Heffernan, who has been here since the restaurant opened four years ago.
    Located on the ground floor of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Building, erected in 1932 and originally planned to be the tallest building in the world but prevented from going higher than it is by the economic restrictions of the Depression, its principal architectural virtues are grand ceilings and huge windows in the ground floor, where 11MP now resides.  It is a marvel of urban design, with iron chandeliers and three tiers for dining, decked out with fine black-and-white period photography of NYC.  The rear wall is the backside of the restaurant Tabla. As in all Meyer restaurants you are cordially received at the front desk and shown to a spacious, well-appointed table in a room whose decibel level has definite buzz but, for all its stone and high ceilings, is remarkably reasonable for conversation.   As recently as its opening men tended to come here in jacket and tie; that nicety, alas, has gone by the boards, and pretty much anything goes in dress.
     Heffernan's menu has never strayed from a vague notion that this would be the kind of sumptuous French and American cuisine one might have enjoyed a century ago, though you won't find items like lobster Newberg or bear's paw "en gelée" here.  Instead his cooking has a classic cast with much that is new in every dish.  Thus, we began a recent dinner with a terrine of velvety foie gras with beef shank, grilled scallions and a touch of Banyuls wine.  Seared foie gras came with an apple-Riesling coulis, the crunch of almonds and baby onions, and both were accompanied by a Clos du Bourg Vouvray '01, with its characteristic touch of sweetness.
    Spice roasted cod, white as a snowdrift, came in a broth of Portuguese caldo verde with Manila clams and a delicious potato galette studded with boudin noir.  A shellfish stew in the Mediterranean style contained Hawaiian shrimp, squid and a  non-assertive Niḉoise pistou of herbs. With this a brisk Domaine Vertagna Marsannay '99 was thoroughly enjoyable.  The meat courses  were a roasted loin and braised shank of venison with heirloom sweet potatoes and sautéed Napa cabbage--good, hearty flavors for winter--and an almond-crusted shoulder and roasted loin of excellent, succulent lamb, with Basquaise pepper, braised Swiss chard and saffron, with which we sipped a bold, bright  Ridge "Three Valleys" zinfandel/carignane '01 (Ridge has always been one of my favorite California zin producers).
   Nicole Kaplan ended off our meal with a

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NOT TO MENTION THE SMELL OF THE PATRONS

“Most importantly, what you get from a greasy spoon is a certain kind of smell that has been almost legislated out of existence.  It is cigaretty, certainly, and it also has the catch-throat quality of smoking fat.  It is a warm, companionable fug that rises to meet you as you step through the door on a late autumn day and it is how public places used to smell in my childhood in the 1970s.  It is real, it is human, and it beats anything I know.”—Kathryn Hughes, “Fags, Black Pudding: It Just Wouldn’t Be the Same Without the Greasy Spoons,” The London Times (Dec 12, 2003).

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OH. . . OKAY
          A spokesman for a Swedish hamburger chain denied it was               “standard company procedure” to wash the toilet seats in the kitchen           
dishwasher after a customer complained the seat was missing from a toilet.      
An employee of the restaurant insisted that washing the seats in the               dish washer made them “warm and pleasant to sit on.”

QUICK BYTES

* NYC's Alain Ducasse At The Essex House offers an 8-course prix-fixe menu to celebrate New Year's Eve at  $420 per person and will be available in one seating only.  Call  212-265-5535. . . . Mix In New York offers a 7-course prix-fixe dinner available in 2 seatings - 5-7pm pre-theatre and 9-10pm;  $250 pp,  $325 including wine pairings for each course.  Call 212.583.0300. . .  La Caravelle will feature a pre-theater dinner at $95 and a New Year's gala dinner at $195 pp. Call 212-586-4252.


* De la Tierra Restaurant at El Monte Sagrado Resort in Taos, New Mexico is hosting a New Year's Eve Parade of Masks. The all-inclusive evening ($295 pp) will feature a 5-course dinner with wine pairings prepared by visiting chef Kevin Graham. Open bar all night, after-midnight Breakfast Bar,  vocalist Linda Cotton. Call 505-758-3502.

* From Jan 9-April 9 Boston’s Wine Festival will be hosted by the Boston Harbor Hotel with a series of events including vintners’ dinners. For info call 888-600-WINE; www.BostonWine.Festival.net

* On Jan. 18 chef Celina Tio of The American Restaurant in Kansas City, MO, along with chefs Keegan Gerhard of the Windsor Court in New Orleans; Michael Ginor of Hudson Valley Foie Gras; Susur Lee of Susur, Toronto; Kevin Hickey of the 4 Seasons, Atl; Carrie Nahabedian of Naha, Chicago; Kevin Rathbun of Rathbun’s, Atl; and Brain Stapleton of Carolina Inn, NC, will hold the Ninth Annual Friends of James Beard Dinner with a silent auction, at $185 pp.

 * From Jan. 31-March 27  the 11^th Annual Napa Valley Mustard festival will be held, including dinner series, family nights, concerts and more. For info call 800-427-4124; www.winetrain.com

* On Feb. 7 the Santa Barbara Vintners Foundation presents “Santa Barbara—the American Riviera” wine auction 2004 at the Bacara Resort & Spa, with a silent and live auction, featuring the food of Piero Selvaggio of Valentino, and S. Barbara wines. $225 pp; $5,000 patron’s table for 10.

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MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani.  Naomi  Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson,  Edward Brivio, Robert Mariani, Mort Hochstein. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,  Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).   To  purchase from amazon.com, click on the image below.

copyright John Mariani 2003