There really is a ton to catch up on… photos from the birthday party and the trip to New Orleans to give them names. But they will have to wait for another day or 2. Here’s one from the vault for the meantime.

A promise is a promise.

So seeing as how I just won this challenge and $500 for the above linked Moose Island scallop dish and bare bone account of my competitive nature, I will be donating the $500 prize to a charity.

And as a gesture of good will to the pursuit of heavy partying and Chef Art Smith – who’s throwing his 50th birthday  party with his Common Threads group on the evening of my 4oth blowout - I have bought 2 tickets and am officially auctioning them off for the world of Phil-anthrophy.

2/28/ Update - As I was cleaning dishes this morning, I recalled reading about a benefit for a member of the hospitality industry who had just fallen on hard times. So thanks to Tatianna who is an old friend from my first tour of Chicago in 2000 that now goes under the name of The Gourmet Rambler, I learned that the family of the former Paramount beverage manager, Shawn Koch was in need. And then I also recalled a local business that is on the market (considering for my wife’s venture). The owner of the business has been forced out by cancer and whose business is being liquidated. I haven’t spoken with either of the families yet, but will split half of the donations to their respectful families. I have a hard time believing it won’t be accepted, so help anyway you can.

3/1 Update – Seeing as how Oprah just donated $250,000 to Common Threads, I am happy that the proceeds to this have been redirected. Then again, we have only one responder after about 1000 views of the post! And that was for $100 by a friend who I know needs his funds likely as much as I could’ve used the $500 in the first place.
As such, this $100 starting bid for the pair of tickets.  I encourage anybody and everybody to donate even $1, and I will be donating my tips from the bartending night to these 2 families in desperate need.  Be generous. As a member of the food service industry, this strikes very close to home, and I can’t help sounding like my Mom when I write, that there but for the grace of God go I.

FINAL UPDATE – Ok, this whole concoction has been very fly by night and I’m making it up as I go. I have reached out now to parties close to the families and will have the names of the funds to donate to. So – if you are looking to, just send me a quick email to thepickledtongue@gmail.com and I will get back in touch as soon as possible. What is likely to happen is that a facebook group will be formed, but be please be patient.
Additionally – If you’re planning on bringing gifts to the party tonight, bring green as this will go directly to these soon 2 be formed funds. Finally, as the guest bartender gets tipped out at the end of the night, my portion received from gratuities will as well, so be sure to invite  Benji, Jack, and Andy to the party!

The tickets for the event are officially gone!

A very big thank you must also go out to Carl Galvan and Supreme Lobster Carl is a true artisan that is always pushing the envelope, and has  brought me more close to more great product than any fish purveyor I’ve known in my 23 year career. A very big thank you also goes to Eleanor Leichenko of Common Threads for being so understanding of my being a weasel, and to the incomparable Louisa Chu for getting the whole thing turned around so fast.

So – for all the times I’ve either entertained or repulsed you on The Pickled Tongue blog – I would like for my 40th birthday gift from you to be remembered as the day good was done. So please be generous.

And many thanks to all who have been part of my first 40 years in this crazy thing called Life, and most of all to my family!

Dear Thirties,
You were so very, very good to me. You will be remembered so very fondly.
Love,
Phillip

If I had the time right now, I might reminisce here.
But I don’t.
Even if there are many good stories to be told… Brazilian authorities, terrorist attacks, jilted spouses, so on and so forth…. But not now.
If there may be one resolution I can make going into my next decade in this game of life, it will be to say that my 40’s should be a more mellow variety of exciting. All in all, I’m bona fide stoked in many facets to how it looks like the 40’s are going to get started, but that’s as far as I’m elaborating on that.

The concept of my 40th birthday party is 3 fold.

1. I’m the guest bartender at Pop’s for Champagne.
2. Since this is the final day of the Jewish holiday of Purim, I thought about a costume party. This in turn opened up the possibility of rubbing shoulders with Chicago’s fine food critics with whom it may be deemed inappropriate to meet under non-costumed pretenses.
3. Finally the idea of pairing my signature drinks with the miracle fruit came into my head. Then I had a mini conversation on Twitter with Homaro Cantu on the subject. Next day I received an email from Charles Lee of mberry,who stated that he wanted to donate some of the product. So here we are.

The party should be able to hold it’s own to Art Smith’s 50th birthday party going on earlier in the evening. If not, I will take back the above resolution and start getting less mature as fast as I can.

Below are the drinks and above is an open invitation for all who may wish to join in the festivities. All guests in costume will receive 4 mberry packs (while supplies last) to take home that evening.

The first 2 drinks were designed with John Kinder of Death’s Door Spirits to pair with the miracle fruit. The other 2 are The Hummer (I take all blame for the name) which was designed with Adam Seeger of Hum Spirits, and the final one is this crazy concoction of cachaça, guarana, cocoa, cinnamon, and condensed milk. I remember (in the vague sense) getting wacky on this on the streets of Bahia during Carnivale.

Ok, maybe time for one story from the Carnivale. I think it was the 3rd day, and I was in the middle of the madness when I had one girl I had just met pulling my arm in one direction. About a minute later 4 more girls saw me and started pulling the other way. A tug of war ensued and the 4 girls easily won and we started dancing. A minute later the single girl jumped back out of the crowd, grabbed me, and we lived happily ever after (for that evening). I don’t foresee anything like this happening to me in my forties.

The Pickled Tongue
Served with Mberry – Death’s Door Gin, Cucumber, Yuzu, Koval Ginger Liqueur, Powdered Pineapple

Berry Balsamic
Served with Mberry – Strawberry & Rare Tea Cellars Pu-erh Infused Death’s Door Vodka, Balsamic Vinegar, Black Pepper

The Hummer
Sparkling Wine, Hum Botanical Spirits, Pomegranate, Aloe Nectar, Wet Kiss

Brazilian Capeta
Cachaça, Guarana, Condensed Milk, Cocoa

Seeing as how this has been on the menu for about 3 weeks – and more is said about it with fewer words – this post has been sitting behind the blog’s walls. As today is the final day for entries to the Supreme Scallop Challenge  (which happened to threaten the Trojan Wars for the Guinness title of, ‘Longest Continuously Run Contest Since Forever’), I’m pouncing on the opportunity to free the chains that bind it and submit it to the kind judge’s discretion.

I’m really sorry to all of you who are here looking only for new dishes… on second thought, no I’m not… There are plenty of new things to come soon, but I’m stepping back for a moment to display the best my meager existence has to offer.

Though my first daughter is most likely to have my wife’s touch in the bakery, the little bundle below has more of Daddy’s ‘hot line’ mentality.

This consumed a couple of hours of my very busy day today and was born out of a guest request. I could easily enough have said no, but I try to avoid that at all costs. Perhaps if I ever open a fast food concept I can adopt a “Soup Nazi” philosophy, but as long as I am striving to over achieve, the answer more frequently than not from my kitchen is yes. Most of the time I feel good about it in the end, but this was an exception. A group of four came in tonight having requested the Beef Wellington earlier in the week. So I left home roughly an hour before I would normally have to so I could get this done amidst the huge laundry list of tasks after getting taken to the cleaners the night before. Hmmm, one would surely think that if I was taken to the cleaners  my laundry list would be short, but strangely it’s the opposite. Anyhow, here’s the process:

Clean the tenderloin, season and sear.

Stem, wash, season, and flash steam a lot of individual spinach leaves just until pliable. Lay out on clean toweling and arrange as displayed below.

Top this with a duxelle made from (in this case) hedgehog mushrooms and micro planed black truffles.

Season and sear foie gras slices and place on the duxelle.

Top this with the seared filet mignon.

Top with more truffles and duxelle, wrap completely in the spinach, and compress with a kitchen towel to remove any excess moisture.

Wrap this in puff pastry and be as soft, cuddly, and sentimental as you can on Valentine’s Day… brush with egg wash.

Par-bake in a convectional oven at 375º F for about 8 minutes and finish on order for about 12 minutes.

And finish plating with sauce bearnaise and bordelaise.

Send it out to the dining room…

… and have it returned because all four guests want it cooked WELL DONE!!!!
Whatever.

When I think of an ‘out of the norm’ flavor combination – or when I simply am stuck on finding accompaniments for a particular ingredient – I will pull out what has become my most valued book, The Flavor Bible by Andrew Dornenbug and Karen Page. There is nothing flashy about the book in terms of photos or design, and it doesn’t even have any recipes (though I rarely will use a recipe from a book anyhow). What it is, is an alphabetical dictionary of ingredients. Underneath a particular ingredient is then a list of other ingredients that would pair well with it. Then, if it pairs very well with an ingredient – like fish and fennel - it appears in bold. And if the pairings are made in heaven – like truffle and pasta – they appear in bold and capital letters.
In addition to ingredients, the book takes on entire cuisines and flavor sensations, and features the descriptions of what some big name chefs (no, I am not one of them?!) are doing on their menus with those ingredients. And though I will generally pick up the book when I am at a stand still in conceiving the next flavor to introduce into an idea, there are times I will be taken in an entirely different direction just by paging through the book. Anyhow, it is a rare breed of book that is suited both for the professional and amateur alike, and this one is definitely in that class.

In this concept however, I veered down my own path. My idea was to serve bacon with caviar, so I looked up ‘caviar’ in the book to see if by some chance I’d find it there. Not to my surprise, I didn’t. Considering both bacon and caviar are cured, it would kind of be in contrast to say that they could pair well together. Then when you consider the smokiness of the bacon, there is a good chance that it would do nothing more than mask the flavor of the caviar. Nonetheless, I took the leap since I wanted to add another element of salinity (aside from the caviar and the oyster) in a way that would also bring more ‘body’ to the dish. Not really too terrible of a leap though as I’m sure you’d find bacon (probably in bold) under the heading of oyster!

I decided to proceed cautiously so that I wouldn’t kill the expensive caviar. Several factors were taken into consideration: First, the accompanying ingredients (which I had already decided on) needed to have ‘legs’ to carry the flavor through. They did…. the earthiness of the beets and leeks, the sweet & sour crispness of the granny smith apple (likely the most vital ingredient), the strong acidity from the finger limes, and the velvety crème fraiche. These all needed to provide plenty of amusement for the mouth on its own. Last but not least, I took into consideration how the guest was most likely to eat it. I wanted the caviar and the oyster to be the first sensation, and the remainder of the ingredients to come in after, but without dominating the finish. The key was to only serve a couple of slivers of the bacon, to blanch and shock it (instead of cooking it crisp), and toss it with a little lemon vinaigrette. This removed some of the smokiness.

The finger limes I was introduced to by Curtis Duffy when he brought one from his kitchen as we were heading out one recent evening. To open them, tear the rind away with your fingernails and then pinch at the base of the lime. To my intrigue that evening, ‘caviar’ sized bits of sweet lime came out. Leave it to Curtis to find all of the cool stuff and for me to be the Johnny Come Lately!