Forking Tasty

Porkopolis

I have recently been in Cincinnati and my co workers and I were headed to the Red and Giants game on a rainy Tuesday night. We decided to get some food before the game instead of eating hot dogs all night. We stopped off at Local 127 and was not sure what we were getting into but there was a giant pig in the middle of the restaurant. That is always a good sign.

CMO Dinner

My friend and west coast supperclub counterpart have long talked about a supperclub collaboration. Until last week the closest we’ve come were a few test dinners and email exchanges over potential menu items. That all changed last Thursday night in a secret kitchen in North Beach San Francisco.

In another cross over between my food world and marketing world Ben and I served a twelve course meal for a table of sixteen marketing executives from some of the greatest companies in the world. To share the food-marketing story love I decided to post the full story over on the Manifold blog this time. Take a look.

Butter Knife Cut Steak

I had some work in Minneapolis recently and after a long day the team decided on steaks for dinner. Murray’s is one of the more known steak houses as well as one of the last family owned in the twin cities. Our waitress was wonderful, she has been there 40 years and her husband who is the butcher has been there 35 years. That is a long time of delicious beef. The team and I indulged into a few appetizers before we ordered our steaks. Shrimp wrapped in bacon, escargot, and mac & cheese followed by caesar salads…

Breakfast For Dinner

I’ve been traveling a lot….what a surprise, and when I got home my refrigorator was quite empty. So I decided to make some breakfast for dinner. I wanted to take it up a notch and make a hardy egg sandwich. I started off…

Southern Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving I headed down south with the southerner. We hopped into the car and made the normally 7 hour trip to Yorktown VA, in 9 hours. Can not believe how many accidents were on the road. We got caught in every one of them. Lucky us!

Thanksbringing 2011

This past Sunday was our third annual Thanksbringing meal. Those not familiar with the ritual can brush up here. As the name implies, Thanksbringing is the yearly potluck in which I open my kitchen up to my wonderful friends who take turns cooking and heating up their contribution to the feast.

This year we played things a bit different in the meat department. In past years we…

Hurricane Helper

Everyone did something different while Irene passed through the Tri-State area. No matter what was there is one thing we all did the same. Eat. Some of us cracked open our overstock of Spaghetti O’s and others held paella parties. Which ever end of the spectrum you fall we’d love to hear your hurricane dinner choice.

In my neck of the woods I woke up…

Sunday Standard

You can almost see the strong hand that rung the above lemon dry and tossed it to the cutting board to move onto more important tasks like eating.

The post kitchen disaster is one we all know well but most of us done’t love it like I do. No, I don’t like cleaning but I do like to review the food carnage post any good meal. Sunday suppers are always the best because just 60 minutes prior the kitchen was a buzz with at least 5 people doing multiple tasks readying the food and table for the “BIG” meal. As I walked through the kitchen on this particular evening pockets of simple ingredients, like the lemon and grated parmesan cheese, could be found in every corner of the kitchen. On the stove was a lightly oiled pan containing some remnant garlic, chopped parsley and a few spaghetti strands. In the sink a starchy calendar next to a bowl of sticky breadcrumbs and egg whites. The other counter had several glasses half full with pre-dinner wine abandoned for a proper glass and the better wine of the dinner table.

Aside from the clues around the kitchen reminding me of the meals preparation, the post supper clean up continues the conversation back to the kitchen completing the circle of dinnertime. In our house, when I was a kid, it wasn’t just about the time we were sitting and eating. It was about the before and after just the same. These days we barely have 30 minutes to eat let alone 3 hours to cook, eat and clean. So, Sunday’s make me happy. Happy to cook. Happy to eat. And, happy to clean. Of course the food is always wonderful but to slow down the craziness of life, catch up with my family or friends, hone my work ethic and relax is a mostly unrecognized biproduct of any dinnertime. I believe it should get more conscious press. This weekend take a moment and cook, talk, eat…then clean. It might just be the relaxation you needed.

Wow On A Menu Really Means Wow!

Sometimes Mother Nature causes for a cruise ship to go off the regular itinerary. In this case it had been raining so much that we could not leave Quebec City and sail to Montreal because the water level was way to high and we could not fit the ship under power lines about 10 miles from the port in Montreal. This caused for a double over night in Quebec City. This is the second week in a row that this has happened. Which means dinners out in town….

Booked Solid

One of the things that is great when you’re a crew member on a ship is when you stay at a port overnight. This will allow some of the crew to go out to dinner, which is rare on cruises. We had an overnight in Quebec City, which has a lot of restaurants. I walked around town a little early that day, around 3pm, to scout out and ask some local shop owners about there favorite restaurants in town and the most authentic restaurants. I had a few places that were mentioned a couple of times and they were not to far from the ship. I rounded up a couple people and off we went.