Sophisticated Autumn

A meet and greet for their children’s classmate’s parents.  We took our favorite wheatgrass display and added illuminated floating white pumpkins, white phalaenopsis orchids, a few gigantic sugar pine cones and a touch of bittersweet to make this display.  To lend to the autumnal feel one of the hors D’oeruve served was an Orange Marinated Roast Turkey breast with an Apple and Cornbread stuffing with dried Cranberries and moistened with Cider laced Cognac Sauce served in Asian spoons.

Want to feel like it's warmer?

Unctuous Beef Brisket. Cornbread, moist but crumbly with gritty perfection that needs neither butter nor honey. Smoked Prime Rib, rare, sliced thin and served on a soft potato roll with a Cajun Remoulade. Chicken wings, large and shellacked to juicy perfection in the custom smokers brought up from Texas served with a tangy buttermilk bleu cheese dipping sauce.Crisp and tender rings of fried Calamari with a Smoky Chipotle Sauce that have severely addictive qualities. Rounds of crisply fried green tomatoes with Pecorino Romano and drizzled with a spicy savory sauce.

These were some of the foods I sampled at Billy Joe’s Ribworks a couple of weeks ago and am still drooling over. With all the snow we’ve had I think we all need a break and I urge you to take the ride across the Newburgh Beacon Bridge and head to the river to eat at my new favorite place to hide out. Cavernous with a honky tonk feel, this new venture on Newburgh’s waterfront restaurant row has so many of my favorite things in a restaurant. First, it’s barbeque, hands down, my favorite thing to eat. Second, it’s on the water, and by on the water I mean, ON THE WATER. The Hudson flows directly beneath the considerable deck that is slated to be ready at spring’s first blush. Honestly, listening to the ice flow under my feet while looking across the Hudson, a bridge to my left and one in the distance to the right, the ferry landing just yards away, well, it was romantic even though it was freezing! Third, it's clever, clean and the guest is paramount being attended to by cute waitresses and waiters with just enough sass to make this fun. BIG drinks. BIG plates and something for everyone from the cue lovers like myself, to the ever dieting friend, vegetarian and even your mother in law who doesn’t like anything.

In the interest of full disclosure, my mentor Joe Bonura, Sr. and his family opened this place and invited me to stop and sample some fare while they were preparing for the official opening. But this family (who are referred to in a previous post - March 11, 2010) knows how to do it and do it well. Come by land or sea, yes you can dock your boat right outside, on two wheels or four. If I’m not at your house doing a party I will be there with a plate of wings in front of me!

Did I mention the Banana Pudding?

http://www.ribworks.com/

Drinking as a Metaphor?

Got this off the New York Magazine Blog for a cocktail that has hit the New York bars via England....

The Sully

From the oft-apocryphal British newsletter Popbitch: “Most popular cocktail in New York — The Sully, named Capt. Chesley B. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger. It’s two shots of Grey Goose and a splash of water.”

The witty combination of vodka and a splash, while nothing new, led me thinking about the news that has dominated the last few weeks. Hope, fear, tragedy, hope.

I love television. There I’ve said it. It was the bane of the intellectual crowd while growing up and I turned my nose up at it for many years, oblivious to the fact that I was on the opening credits to the Mary Tyler Moore show for two years. Ok, I still watched All My Children, cable was new and WILD (anyone remember the original Ugly George with his silver hot pants and camera the size of a small breakfast table?) and some PBS, and I was out a lot in the 70’s and 80’s, a lot. But now that I am on the other side of the middle age hill, I have TV’s all over the house, at least one is on all the time so all the news that’s fit for propaganda gets into my view.

So when Captain Sullengerger and his amazing crew came in for a landing on the Hudson, I watched. When our newly elected President was inaugurated, I watched, and then this week, it was late, I was flipping through the channels and there was another plane down, this one not as lucky and I watched. The news of a failing economy, a stimulus package that confounds me and must give all parents pause as it is their children who will pay, empty restaurants, caterers going out of business, a woman who has had a liter of children implanted by a mad scientist of a doctor and I am left here shaking my head. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE? And then the fear sets in.

I am getting on a plane this week to go to a conference I look forward to. While a grueling experience of classes that start HOURS earlier than I like to be awake, this conference, energizes me, gives me new ideas, creates avenues of thought on how to do my business a little better, fresher and more exciting. (I still need to work on profitability, maybe next year…) BUT it is the plane ride that has me a little freaked. I don’t care about the shoes, or how they made you throw out toothpicks and carry teensy tiny bottles of stuff for years, it is the randomness of luck. It is the Ponzi scheme that is Washington, heartless executives who knowingly let tainted food be distributed and then go out of business, physicians that use women who might not be “all there” to conduct experiements and weather, something no one has any control over.

So when I see a recipe for a cocktail that is mostly something that can both help and hurt with a splash of something that makes life possible, I wonder if I can use that as a metaphor for coping. I think I need to turn the TV’s off and drink more water.