Entries tagged with 'Dave Pasternack'
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Photograph from OS2k on Flickr Jane Black wrote a fine piece for the September issue of Boston magazine decoding the labels we all see at fish counters—"organic," "day boat," "wild" versus "farmed." The first myth she debunks is whether it's worth paying extra for organic seafood. Black correctly points out that there are no USDA standards for farmed fish, "so the 'organic' designation can mean whatever the seller wants it to." Her hilarious conclusion: "A fish without an 'organic' label is like a fish without a bicycle." Hey, wasn't that a lyric in a U2 song?...
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Last Wednesday, I was at the Union Square Greenmarket when I was waylaid by Andrew Carmellini, the chef-partner at A Voce. "Hey, Ed. Can you give us a hand with our stuff?" I said sure and loaded the four boxes and two bags of produce into a cab along with Carmellini and two of the cooks at the restaurant. We took the cab to 27th and Park, and then we schlepped the boxes one block to the restaurant. By this time, it was 11:45 a.m. and A Voce was about to open for lunch. When in A Voce, or should I say Rome, I said to myself, so I decided to have a bowl of pasta. Although Carmellini first became...
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This week's Cook the Book recipes are from The Young Man and the Sea, the cookbook I wrote with Dave Pasternack, the chef-partner of Esca, a southern Italian seafood restaurant in New York City. Dave knows more about fish and fish cooking than anyone I've ever met. I even caught my first fish, a 20-pound striped bass, with Dave's help. What's great about Dave's recipes is how much passion he brings to his food and how simple the recipes are. All you'll need to cook from The Young Man and the Sea is a good fishmonger, a grill or a fry pan, and a cold beer or a glass of wine. The first of those recipes will be along shortly....
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How could I resist this invitation (right), which gave no hint of what was to come yesterday around lunchtime? Mario Batali serving roast pig, which, from a previous appearance at his house in northern Michigan, I knew I would enjoy immensely. Dave Pasternack from New York City's Esca roasting and grilling octopus, which I knew from co-writing his about-to-come-out cookbook, was just about the most delicious tentacled morsel of food you could eat. And the hospitality of Batali partner Joe Bastianich, who apparently lives large on a few acres of prime real estate in suburban Connecticut. The first mistake I made was emailing Mario to see if he was really leaving Del Posto at 10 in the morning to...
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There were four huge bags of
Sullivan Street Bakery ciabatta rolls. They were supposed to have been split at the restaurant before they began their journey to Joe Bastianich's cookout. They were not, and someone had to split those thousand rolls before the guests arrived in an hour. "Dude," Mario said, "you ready to split the rolls?" I believe this was the definition of a rhetorical question.
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I had never been in a restaurant the very evening the New York Times rendered its verdict, but last night I found myself at Esca waiting for Bruni (instead of Godot). At 7 p.m I was dining with an old friend I hadn't seen in 30 years, and I don't know what she made of the parade of people coming to our table desperately seeking some inkling of what Chairman Bruni might say. I had to tell them I had no knowledge, that the number of stars Bruni is about to bestow on a restaurant is a closely held bit of information that is the closest thing the New York Times has to a state secret. First Simon, the managing...
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Happy July 4th from everyone here at Serious Eats. I want to apologize for being absent these last nine days. I've been working 18 hours a day finishing the cookbook I'm writing with Dave Pasternack, the chef at Esca, the Italian seafood restaurant in New York's theater district. The book is called The Young Man and the Sea, and it is coming out next spring. I'll be posting recipes from the book in the coming days and months....
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Fairly often my wife gets fed up with our eating regimen (lots of grilled cheese sandwiches (made with great cheese or sometimes Kraft Deluxe American slices), salads, hot dogs and burgers) and demands that I make her a home-cooked meal. So yesterday I bought a container of roasted vegetables at Fairway, one of my local gourmet stores, to use as a sidedish with the boneless pork roast I was going to make. After liberally salting the meat with kosher salt I browned the outside of the pork roast in a saute pan on top of the stove in some olive oil and a little butter. Put the butter in after the olive oil has heated up or else the butter...
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