Some Pig!

The perfect gift for serious meat eaters. The recipe for the most comforting soup I know. And a vintage memory

Send a Pastrami to Your Boy in the Army
As any New Yorker will tell you, nobody beats Katz’s delicatessen for pastrami. The venerable establishment has, after all, been making pastrami for 136 years, and they know what they’re doing. You can buy it pre-sliced, but for the true Katz’s experience, nothing beats a whole pastrami.

Any serious cook would be delighted with this gift but it does require a little work. Here are the instructions.

1. Place in a large pot of boiling water.
2. Boil the pastrami for 3 hours, or until tender. (Use a fork to test for tenderness.) Be sure to watch the water level so that the water does not evaporate too much. The pastrami should be submerged in water at all times.
3. When tender, remove from water and heat, and trim any excess fat, particularly from the tip. We do not recommend trimming too much.
4. For best results, slice against the grain for maximum flavor and softness, and angle the blade to produce the widest slices.

Rain. Fog. Looking out at this mournful landscape I know I need a little comfort. So I’m going to make the most soothing soup I know.

No sharp edges to jar the palate, no unexpected spices. It is the perfect prescription for those in need of solace.

Uncomplicated Mushroom Soup
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 small onion, diced
1/2 pound mushrooms, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons flour
1 cup beef broth
2 cups half-and-half
Salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 bay leaf

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. Add onion, saute until translucent. Add the mushrooms and saute until brown. Stir in the flour, then slowly add the beef broth, stirring constantly.

Heat the half-and-half in another saucepan. Add it to the mushroom mixture along with salt, pepper, nutmeg and bay leaf. Cook over low heat 10 minutes making sure not to bring to a boil.

Remove bay leaf and serve to 4 very satisfied people.

I just came upon this fifteen year old post (August 2010), and it’s such a nostalgic view of a long-gone New York that I thought I’d share it with you.

So many things have changed. David Chang has, of course, become a mogul. That sweet little Torrisi restaurant has morphed into and entire empire called Major Food Group (see below for my most recent meal with them)- and April Bloomfield has the wonderful Sailor in Brooklyn.

David Chang is 33

Dark, smoky, intimate dinner last night at Torrisi Italian Specialties to celebrate David’s birthday. It was a small group: a few chefs (April Bloomfield, Jonathan Benno, Marco Canora), some major food folk (Kate Krader, Dana Cowin), and a smattering of Dave’s college friends.

It was funny; all the wine people were standing around drinking beer out of cans, and David was hopping from table to table, looking happy. Or as happy as he can.

The food was so fantastic, I want to go back and eat it all over again. The standouts were powerful little squares of garlic bread with soft warm fresh mozzarella to spoon on top, and the most intense seafood pasta I’ve ever eaten; each strand of spaghetti seemed to have inhaled the ocean. It was followed by long ribs of beef, the edges wonderfully crisped to blackness, the meat itself cut into rich, rare slabs. On the side a bitter little salad paired with achingly sweet polenta. Eaten together the meat, the greens and the corn delivered a powerful flavor punch.

We ate and drank and talked and then afterward – what else? – went off to The Breslin, still packed as the IRT at rush hour at 2 a.m.

How can you not love New York?

I finally got to have dinner at Torrisi last week (reservations are insanely impossible to come by), and while all the food was delicious, it was this innocuously named Chicken Soup that really blew me away.

Clear as a bell, it had a startlingly velvety texture that was like an instant hug. “How did they manage this?” I had to ask. The answer is that they begin with chicken stock and use it to make more chicken stock, filling the pot with chicken feet and wings to coax more collagen into the broth.

The fact that it also contained little threads of enoki mushrooms and copious amounts of grated black truffle didn’t hurt. And then, of course there was the egg.

…