Forge

August 21

Quite apart from the minor hullabaloo I managed to stir up over at eater.com, which was fun enough (wow, anonymous commenters embarrass themselves with their ignorance), it’s been a good week.
On Monday night I had dinner at Forge with publicist Jennifer Baum. We’ve known each other for years and years and probably last dined together at Citarella, back when it was a restaurant.
Boy did we gossip, and you'll hear none of it, thank you very much. But we also spoke of family and politics. I said my 12-year-old niece Tahirah and nine-year-old nephew Harrison surely understand that you can't invade a country and impose democracy from above, and Jennifer was sure that her seven-year-old son Griffon, an avid Obama-supporter, would easily arrive at that conclusion as well.
And we also reflected on the rarefied world we live in, in which chefs like Marc Forgione come out of the kitchen and ask if they can cook for us. I actually have a number of friends who would roll their eyes and ask if we can please just have a simple meal and escape from the restaurant at a reasonable hour.
Since I’m supposed to spot trends, I of course am happy to have the chef serve whatever he wants. What he chooses to cook tells me what he thinks is his trendiest, best or most interesting stuff. Ditto with wine pairings. Let the sommelier pick and you can see what he or she thinks is the coolest stuff in the cellar (that can affordably be poured for media).
By the way, I wrote a profile of Marc back in mid-2005, when he was chef de cuisine of BLT Prime, which had just opened. I asked him where he’d like to be in five years, and he said: "I'd like to open a small restaurant in New York City, but we'll see what happens. My dream: 75-seat restaurant; four, five people in the kitchen. My food."
Forge has 81 seats.
And this is what Marc had to say on Monday:

Tomato consommé gelée over grilled corn-basil salad
Scrambled egg and American caviar
Nueske bacon, heirloom tomato and smoked onion rémoulade with three types of basil and a black pepper crouton
Wild kampachi tartare with avocado, red radish, American caviar and Saratoga chips.
Chilled watermelon soup with jumbo lump crab and wild flower honey
Black pepper linguine with 24-hour veal breast, smoked ricotta and summer squash
Basil crusted halibut with marinated cherry tomatoes and sorrento oil
A meat tasting, including suckling pig leg as well as loin (the loin isn't on the menu) as well as hanger steak au poivre and Colorado lamb with cocoa beans.
Basil mashed potatoes, cole slaw with mustard oil and other sides
Peach upside-down cake with sweet corn ice cream and caramel corn
Plum jelly doughnuts with lemon verbena crème anglaise
Yogurt panna cotta with black mission fig, marcona almond and Pedro Jimenez reduction

Idle gossip about New York restaurant openings

August 20

Brad Blum, who in the past was a big executive at Darden (which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster etc.) and Burger King, is opening restaurants of his own in New York. Rumors say he’s opening an “American Deli” of some sort in Williamsburg, and also — perhaps as soon as in two to three weeks — a place on Union Square, possibly near Heartland Brewery. One rumor monger told us it was going to be Italianish, but Mr. Blum's PR flak said it wouldn’t be Italian, but wouldn’t say anything else because she promised an exclusive to someone else [update: previously I said it was Florence Fabricant of the Times, but my colleague corrected me; he said he asked the publicist if it was Florence and she just laughed].
That’s a common practice, but it’s still rude to other journalists, so I thought I’d just throw the information out there.
I actually met Randy McNamara, Heartland’s vice president of operations, last night at Spiegel Tent, where my friend Ben Schmerler, who does PR for Heartland (which runs Spiegelworld’s foodservice), was hosting several NRNers. McNamara said he didn't know anything about Brad Blum opening a new restaurant nearby.
At any rate, two of my colleagues here at Nation’s Restaurant News, Paul Frumkin and Elissa Elan, just headed to Union Square to knock on doors and find out what they can find out.

Stay tuned...

In other news, Ben just landed Murray’s Cheese as a client, so congratulations to him.

Souper Soup

With the weather taking a swift and decisive turn for the Autumnal, the appeal of salad and other such meals diminishes rapidly to be replaced by a desire for soups and other heartier fayre.

I know it is only August and that theoretically we have another couple of weeks before the short sleeves are replaced with jumpers and the barbecue is packed away for another year but the last few days have seen winds whipping through the branches and a significant dip in the temperature. Blackberries, perhaps the most evocative of Autumn fruits, have started to ripen to a vivid purple and the apple trees in the overgrown orchard next door are beginning to bear fruit, albeit a touch on the sour side – not that it will prevent us from making a batch of cider.



A triumvirate of peppers – one red, one green and one yellow – have sat in the vegetable draw for the past few weeks and yesterday seemed like a good opportunity to use them before they make that inevitable transition from edible to compostable.

I find raw peppers hugely unappealing, but roasted they take on a complexity of flavour that belies their uncooked state. They sweeten and lose the bitterness that makes them so unappetizing. They make great antipasti simply dribbled with olive oil, with a few grains of sea salt scattered over the top but I felt that something more filling was appropriate.

After they had been roasted, I added them to a pan with an onion and three or four cloves of garlic that had been gently sweating away for about ten minutes. Two tins of plum tomatoes, a little smoked paprika and some seasoning and you have a soup that can bubble away gently for an hour before it needs blitzing.

Alongside the soup I cooked a couple of generous handfuls of green lentils which are not only cheap but also wonderfully filling. These were stirred into the soup just before serving with a chunk of sourdough The result was a warming autumnal meal for an unseasonably autumnal day.

www.justcookit.blogspot.com

lets go to work, shall we.

Everyday we spend 33 percents of time of our life in the office, and another 33 percent will be spended at home sleeping. Some of us may add a few more percentage of sleeping hour in the office, provided that the environment of the workplace permits such action to happen.

In my case, which it does usually happen (sleeping), office is a very important place and i must try to make it as comfortable as possible so i can have a good working condition. A good environment, comfortable and, good working condition is important so we can be more dedicated, have a clear mind, and productive while working.

This is how my office looks like. But before that, lets see my favorite perfume. I keep it in the office so i would smell nice all the time.

This is one of my favorite perfume; Bvlgari Pour Homme. It is bloody expensive, and that is why i put it in the office so i would not use it too often. The one that i usually use is Issey Miyake- pour home. I will show the picture later, and sometimes i use Hugo Boss bottle.

I like perfumes because the smell makes us feel wonderful. I often realise that when i sprays different perfume for different occation at different time my mood will change according to the smell. For instant, if i wear issey miyake, i would feel more relax and calm, where as if i use the bvlgari i would suddenly feel active and happy, and if i use the boss bottle i suddenly becomes confident.

But thats just an assumption.

Back to the office.

The office is on the sixth floor. Luckily there is an elevator, so i don't have to climb the whole building to get to the office. And from the elevator i have to walk through some maze like walkway to reach here.

this is the door of my office with my name and teaching schedules and a notice board where i always write notes to student.



When we open the door, we will see my room, what else.


this is the view of my office, and if we look further, i.e. take out camera and carefully and painstakingly push out our hand out of the window and snap the camera, we will see this


the right view of the office.

This is my workstation. As you can see, the owner of this workstation is very untidy.


this is how it looks like when i sit behind the workstation and glare to the front. You can see two cubboard which i am supposed to fill in with lots of books, but i did not. Because most of my books are either at home or in the car.

In front of the workstation are two chairs for visitors.

This is my notice board in the office, where i write all the important notice and as you can see, none whatsoever. There is a picture painted by someone, and i was reminded never to clean that picture ever.

Nobody does that anymore, everything is in the computer, using the intranet, internet, and workgroup, groupware, watercooler, workflow management, PDAs, blackberry, data warehouse, digital whiteboard and so on so, the list will not end.

Every time a computer nerd think of ways to make money, some new gadget will be invented.

Other than that, inside the office i have

The McDonalds coca cola Beijing Olympic glass tumbler collection. I have the whole collection, some of it in the car. This thing is going to be a collectors item so i am keeping it.



my lappy

my PC with Patrick, Suzzy and Spongebob happily dancing away in a bubble on the screen.

some stuff i bought everywhere. The frames with embosed elephants are from Thailand, the glassware are from weddings that i went to.

this is my muzium. where i have some ornamental materials from Maidin supermarket, some item from sarawak, such as those cheap fake made in china pua kumbu and that stylist smoking pipe and a picture frame with lovely flowers in a vase.




this is when i try to be cheaply artistic, using cheap material and being artistic with it. Thats a very old songket, and some vases bought from the philippines and some from Ayer Hitam johor and i put inside it pink/red colour potpourri.

I look kinda ugly in this picture, but if you come here, you will see the redness actually gives colour to the whole office.

This is my favorite plant. Why is it my favorite, because it refuses to die!!!

Hahaha, even if i do not pour water for weeks it will still look beautiful. Real plant have artistic spiritual values because it remind me that i am not the only living thing in the office.

Oh that remind me to water the plant.

Kejab na.



Ohhh. that's me taking picture of a mirror where i check myself before going to class. Just to make sure there are no taik matas or taik hidungs or bulu hidungs or anything like that and to comb my hair.

And directly under the mirror is

my coffee and tea making facilities.

ohh,, this is very important to me. the utmost important thing my vitamins. Please be noted, this picture was taken before the month of Ramadhan, which is just around the corner,


Then there is this carpet, i bought because i like the brown colour and i was cursed by the vendor because i asked for too much discount for it.

They gave it anyway. so its mine, and i use it for... none other than ...

sleeping. hahahaha.


and this is where i kept all the pillows and blanket.


Oke, this if my office, please come in if you have anything to consult with me.

Mangkuk Jagung Kukus

Dan resep ini juga udah lama kepengen bikin, gampang banget dan cepat. Bahannya : jagung, ayam giling, udang cincang, seledri, telur ayam, bawang putih, lada, garam dan kaldu blok maggi. Campur semua bahan dalam satu wadah, lalu masukkan ke dalam mangkuk cetakan, kukus sampai matang. Mudah kan??!