Fact: when you stack things, they taste better.

Proof: ice cream cones, layers of cake, s’mores, and now this. What is this, you ask? It’s the silver lining. Yesterday I failed, albeit deliciously. Today I succeeded.

I turned a soggy pile of oxtail mush into a panko-fried cake and I put it on a round of polenta. Then I topped my savory “sundae,” but not with a cherry. Instead I used a port-poached plum. I love dessert, I really do. But as I go through life, the savory courses captivate me in a way no sweet ever could. I think it’s because you can tuck so many flavors into something savory- it can host salty, sweet, acidic, bitter and the elusive umami all in one bite. The alchemy is achieving the right balance between all five. With dessert, there is generally just sweet, with maybe a little saltiness thrown in if you’re feeling edgy. Read more

A delicious failure. This could be the title of my autobiography rather than the title of my dinner. There’s just something so tragicomic about it, no? If my life was full of exquisite meals yet devoid of the true tenets of success, I suppose I would be ok- who needs a white picket fence and neighbor’s named the Joneses anyway?

However I won’t be satisfied in my career if I only make food that tastes good. It has to be well-executed renditions of my original vision, too. I’d rather eat a terrible meal that is interesting than a delicious one that is boring. I know that pot roast and corn-on-the-cob have an undeniably-visceral appeal, but I’m confident I can make them passably 10 times out of 10. Instead, I would prefer to invent rather than to simply reproduce. Which is why I tackle some of the meals I tackle.

They start as inklings and get jotted into the notes section of the iPhone. A recent note read “foie gras. Peanut butter. Consider grape jelly from champagne grapes. Cupcake gone mad!!!. PBJ hot dog with foie gras.” The results of this stream-of-consciousness have yet to hit the plate because the idea isn’t fully congealed. Kind of like the demi-glace that ruined the dish I’m about to describe. Read more

A few weeks ago I visited a little resort town called Hailey, Idaho. I was in a biker bar, and by biker bar I mean place where mountain bikers go to tune their bikes and drink glass steins of beer with shots of Jaegermeister dropped inside. In this bar it was obvious that the focus was more on shot-taking and gear-tuning and less on quality control. The first thing that clued me in to this fact was the menu. They had what I must assume is Ketel One on offer in half a dozen of their specialty cocktails. The only reason I can’t be completely sure is because one place it was written “Kettle on” whereas a second drink had it listed as “ketle One” and yet a third cocktail boasted mixing “Ketil One” with “rootbear”. Never once was it written as its creators intended, and I had a great fear of ordering it mixed with “rootbear” not knowing if it would arrive tasting like sarsaparilla or if a bear attached to some tree roots swilling vodka might jump out at me from the bottom of the glass.

Many of us like to play the “spot the typo on the menu” game, and generally we don’t blame the restaurant for dropping an “I” here or there. This menu was different. In two pages I spotted 47 errors after a cursory, three minute perusal. I know because it was so glaring I had to take out my pen and start correcting. A slightly more obsessive grammarian than I would surely have run to the nearest bike spoke and poked his own eyes out in horror. Read more