If my first post wasn't about food, this just wouldn't be right. Coincidentally, I may have just had the best meal of my life last night. What a perfect day for my first official blog post!
Last night my friend Laura and I took our husbands to Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown, NY. This was our surprise Christmas gift to them, kept them guessing up to the moment we pulled in. If you've never heard of this place, you either don't live in the NY Metro area or aren't a foodie. Stone Barns is a complete working farm and greenhouse, with Blue Hill being the restaurant on the property. Blue Hill also has a sister restaurant in the city, but the location at the farm "upstate" is known to be one of the best restaurants for farm fresh food. Everything Chef Dan Barber prepares is fresh off the farm (or other local farms in the Hudson Valley area) from that very day. Whether a picked vegetable, an egg laid that same morning, or some form of mammal or fish. They call the meal "Farmer's Feasts", and they aren't kidding! There is no menu, list of food, or choices. The waiter asks a few questions to see how adventurous an eater your party is (raw fish, brains, tongue, intestines- the list goes on), or if there are any allergies they should be made aware of, etc. They chef has already decided on the freshest ingredients for the day and how he would like to prepare them. All you have to do is tell the waiter if you want the 5 course or 8 course feast.
Do you even need to ask which we chose?
After much anticipation, they finally started with the vegetable courses. It's plural because throughout this meal, none of us had any distinction which number course we were on. It felt like they just continued to bring massive amounts of food out. The first grouping of vegetables were raw, I don't even think there was any seasoning on them, nor do I know what some of them were. A carrot, a broccoli/cauliflower thing, some sort of cross between an apple/pear/fig/beet thing, grouped with a celery-apple juice and a side of smoked kale (literally a kale "potato" chip). I've never tasted such fresh and juicy vegetables before in my life.
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| Toasted Kale, Celery Apple Juice, vegetable medley in the back |
After we polished off the veggies and did the celery shooters, they threw beet "sliders" at us. Yes, a teeny tiny hamburger looking thing, except it was a beet, that proved to be one of our favorite items of the evening. Salsify (had to google thing one) wrapped in panchetta was next, pretty much tasted like a heavenly, juicier french fry (but there was nothing fried about it). Then some cured Berkshire ham and speck. Maybe the best beet salad with yogurt dressing on one side, leafy greens, and a pine nut "peanut butter" type spread. Put them together and you have culinary fabulousness. The next plate (or slab) they brought out for each of us had a roasted red onion with 3 choices of tapanades (olive, beet, green onion) to top it with. After the onion we had fresh baked warm bread (hello gluten! yes please!) with farm fresh butter and celery root and shitake mushrooms salts to try. Next "course" (what number are we on?) was a second favorite, butternut squash puree, done similar to a creme brulee, torched on top with spiced bread crumbs and ginger foam. This was pretty much the epitome of a winter comfort meal, without all the crap that make a meal considered "comfort". We then feasted on razor clams with celery root puree, followed by Stone Barns' take on breakfast with "today's egg", soft boiled and fried in bread crumbs coupled with homemade pastrami, black trumpet mushrooms, squash, and lettuce froth. This pretty much tasted like a really fancy-adult egg sandwich the second you broke the yolk into the bowl.
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| Soft boiled "today's egg" with pastrami, trumpet mushrooms and lettuce foam |
Next course was the venison with herbed grains and brussels. I'm pretty sure Ive had venison maybe one other time in my life. I remember a tough piece of a poor mans steak. This experience was the complete opposite. The venison was cooked to perfection, fabulously salty, and literally melted in your mouth with every bite. Thank you Bambi.
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| Perfectly cooked venison with herbed greens |
This was the point in the meal where we all said to each other "when are the brains coming out? Is this the most outrageous they can do?" To which I got a little nervous. Do I really need to eat brains, or tongue for that matter? This meal has been perfection so far, why muck it up with something too ridiculous? I'll pretty much try anything once, but I'm not one to push the issue. If the chef says the venison is fresher than the brains, let's just go with that. But Jeff and Joe couldn't resist.... Joe summoned the waiter over to ask him when the brains were coming. To their disappointment, brains were not available today. The waiter said they just ask those questions to find out what kind of party they are dealing with, and if the chef has to restrict himself at all. Well certainly not with this table!
Waiter leaves the table, comes back about 5 minutes later with little narrow spoon-like tools and places them at each of our place settings. "The chef has come up with something" he says and walks away. If anyone knows me, you know I hate surprises. They make me nervous and uncomfortable... except with food. I love food surprises, but I wasn't so sure with this one. Well turns out, I've never been surprised with something so scary, yet fabulous before in my life. What felt like another 5 minutes later (surely it had to be longer?!), out come 4 waiters with 4 slabs of wood in their hands. Placed in front of each of us was a "Hudson Valley veal bone topped with liver and duck gizzards. We were to use our tools and scoop out marrow. Now, I've tasted bone marrow before, but this was unlike anything I've seen. Pretty much looked straight out of a horror movie- as you can see from the picture- the veal bone was essentially sawed in half and secured by a metal clamp on our wood slabs.
I don't think any one of us even hesitated. We dug right in... literally. The oohs, ahhs, and ummms that came next were actually pretty amusing. To say we were pleasantly surprised would be the biggest understatement of the year. This was amazing. The best fatty, salty, indulgent, goo I've ever had. I hope I haven't offended any of you calf-lovers, but you should've seen my husband. He practically took the bone out of the clamp and started sucking on it directly from his mouth. I wouldn't have wanted to witness what he would've done if a straw was handy.
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| Hudson Valley veal bone marrow with duck gizzards |
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| Empty Hudson Valley bone marrow |
The desserts, yes there were 2 for each of us, cue full bellies here, were green apple sorbet with cold oats- which went down smoothly. It wasn't until they served the final course, a spiced bread pudding with poached pears that our stomachs were stretched to the absolute max.
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| Green apple sorbet with cold oats |
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| Spiced bread pudding with poached pears and vanilla ice cream |
Although a few bites were left in my hot skillet, I couldn't have been more satisfied with Dan Barber's culinary genius. Both desserts were perfect endings to an absolutely fabulous winter meal. I think the husbands were more than satisfied, and the best part??? I may have finally introduced Joe to his favorite meal ever. Which if you know him and his food snobbery, is a near impossible thing to achieve. SUCCESS!
Job well done Mr. Barber. Thank you for making our Christmas gift one to remember. And thanks to Jeff and Laura for being total troopers with us and enjoying every second of that foodie meal. I can already see many more foodie posts in my future, with you both included!
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| Jeff finishing his meal with his Pansy... oops I mean Peony, tea. Pinky up! |
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| The happy, purple-lipped and very full, DINKS |
I'd also like to credit my boss Alicia for the term DINKS. This will be used for MANY more posts, as it seems to sum up my life these days. Double Income No Kids. Thanks to my husband for being able to share these fabulous DINK-memories together.... we know we are very lucky and very blessed. Many more DINK posts to come!
