Dinner at home, NYC

Pan-seared strip steak, spring vegetable gratin, caper-lemon greek yogurt..

Osteria

The above picture sums up the philosophy of Osteria in Philadelphia perfectly. In a restaurant where almost every foodstuff is made in-house and from scratch, it is hard not to become entranced. Spit-roasted baby pig, a daily occurrence, is on the menu until it sells out. The smoky polenta is cooked in the same pot, over a crackling and spitting wood-burning grill, for almost 6 hours every day. The depth of flavor that can be coaxed from this type of cooking is mind boggling at times. A restaurant like Osteria reaffirms my career choice. It is everything that a baby Italian restaurant hopes and dreams for when it grows up, yet the restaurant is only 3 years old. It is a restaurant that is truly mature beyond its years. A large part of this is due to its pedigree.

Jeff Michaud is the Executive Chef and co-owner of Osteria. The other owner is none other than Philadelphia powerhouse Marc Vetri, the de facto Italian cuisine guru of the city. Michaud and Vetri go back years, with Michaud first joining the team at Ristorante Vetri as sous Chef.

Michaud then made the move of his life, packing his bags for Bergamo, in Northern Italy. Bergamo would prove to be Michaud's finishing grounds, where he managed to hone his craft to a level rarely seen in the States, and where he would meet his wife. Returning to America he teamed up with Vetri to open Osteria, a behemoth of a restaurant, but a behemoth run with surgical precision.

The sheer variety of preparations happening on any given day in the kitchen is inspiring. Whether it is making meyer lemon marmalade to extend the season of the hauntingly aromatic citrus, starting a new batch of salumi's to be cured for months and then served, fat glistening, in the dim light of the dining room, or the humble daily routine of bringing together flour and water to make the restaurants pizza dough, one of the cornerstones and highlights of the business. This is a restaurant that prides itself in its commitment to artisanship. They make their own yogurt for fucks sake! All pasta is made on the premise. Mario Batali, the most recognizable Italian Chef in the US can't even claim that. Then there are the gelatos and sorbettos. For someone as obsessed with ice cream and sorbet as I am, this was my mecca. Meyer lemon, blood orange, and kiwi topped off the flavors of sorbet, with pistachio and yogurt pulling rank in the gelato category.

"Mozzarella Carrozza"

layers of mozzarella and bread, battered in egg and deep fried,

served with oven-dried tomatoes and capers.

Obviously, this type of food takes a great deal of time and commitment from the cooks at Osteria. On days when the restaurant serves lunch, Thursdays and Fridays, they work doubles. On a busy night they can bust out upwards of 375 covers, 408 being the all-time high. All this with two pasta cooks, one each on saute, grill, pizza, and another two on garde manger, for a total of 7 cooks on the line. Needless to say the food at Osteria is built for speed, and the restaurant is clearly doing very well. All of this work, the countless hours of testing recipes, through trial and error, fine-tuning the methods used in the day to day operations, cleaning, organizing, executing the food during service, all the while holding the cooks to the highest standards has had a magnificent payoff. Jeff Michaud is one of five finalists nominated for Best Chef Mid-Atlantic for the James Beard Awards, the Oscar's of the restaurant world. Rightfully so.

Streudel

Making Streudel at Osteria. Philadelphia, PA

Rolling out the high-gluten dough

Stretching by hand

more hand-stretching

EVEN MORE

seasoning with melted butter and sugar

paper thin!

macerated rhubarb filling

rolling the filling

brushing with butter at every turn..

venting the final product, just like apple pie.

glorious.

Italian Tasting Menu, Down Into My Belly.

Vetri, Philadelphia, PA

Amuse Bouche

shaved raw artichoke, lemon oil, arugula, shaved parmesan

foie in the style of pastrami, toasted brioche, tangerine-apricot compote

Spring Salad

asparagus, fava beans, chanterelle mushrooms, citrus, pistachio, baby greens

Caramelized Onion Crepe

parmesan, truffle fondue

Duo of Pasta

almond tortellini, white truffle butter sauce, toasted almonds, parsley

spinach gnocchi, ricotta salata, brown butter

Fazzoletti (handkerchief) Pasta

duck ragu, parmesan, gaeta olives

Mesquite Roasted Baby Goat

soft polenta

Rhubarb Sorbetto

candied rhubarb

Rum Baba

pastry creme, fresh blueberries

Saint Patrick's Day

St. Patty's was a mess. Staying with Joe "the ginger" Quinn, a best friend since 1st grade back in Alaska, promised to deliver. Our night started at 4 pm, with beers and a soccer game at the local bar. By 7 we had made our way to Dubliner's, which would be the one and only stop for the night.

Joe is Irish. He likes to think of himself as a meat-head, and his mother regularly refers to him as a brut or a thug, depending on the circumstance. We grew up playing soccer together, but after high school he made the obvious choice to pursue football in college, where he could feel at home with all of his fellow meat heads. Joe is built like a semi-truck, with a quick but often misplaced wit. And, to state the obvious, Joe can DRINK. Start with 3 beers during the game, two pints of guinness, a couple car bombs, and a couple shots of Jameson, followed up by more beer, and I am drunk. Joe might be buzzed at this point. By the end of the night I am nursing one luke-warm beer, holding onto my consciousness for dear life, while Joe is mercilessly calling me a pussy. Feels like I'm right back in Alaska!

Adrianna, another Alaska to DC transplant, came out at the beginning of the night, "just to say hi" and is with us until the bitter end. We make our way to Ben's Chili Bowl for greasy chili dogs with the rest of the throngs, avoiding the fact that they have to wake up and slog through work in less than 6 hours. The late night food manages to give me a headache and stomachache, a rare combo. After a drunken cab ride home, I pass out on Joe's couch, reveling in the fact that he has to work at 7 am, as the spins slowly put me out for the night..

Our great nation's capital

My first visit to DC was an interesting one. After getting shut down on a stage at Citronelle, I continued my run of luck by getting completely snubbed at Komi, another DC stalwart. After 4 days in the city, and still with no restaurant leads, I gave up my quest to cook there. Fortunately, Washington D.C. has much more to offer than restaurants.

Noteworthy stops included, but not limited to;

Lincoln Memorial

WWII Memorial

Washington Monument, Capital in the background

With all of the Smithsonian museums free of charge, we took full advantage. Natural History, Holocaust, Modern Art, American History, to name a few. The below picture is dedicated to my little sister, Kate, who is an elephant fanatic. Elephant freak. Elephant connosieur. You would have loved it!

Citronelle, Washington D.C.

Citronelle, Michel Richard's famous contemporary restaurant in D.C., gave me my first defeat. I played it the same as most of my other stages. Walked in the back door unannounced with my resume, told the Chef de Cuisine my story and questioned him on when would be a good time to come in.

David Deshaies is as French as they come. Short shocks of brown hair, cropped close to the scalp gave him an almost militant demeanor. With his eyes spaced close together, and a nose as straight as an arrow, he seemed to be interrogating with every word. In the thickest accent I have heard outside of France, he explained to me about a recent stage they had, who had cut his hand on the meat slicer. He had no insurance and workman's compensation refused to cover his medical bills. The restaurant was forced to pony up the cash or face a lawsuit. This, he made very clear to me, was why Citronelle no longer accepts stages unless they are trying out for an open position in the kitchen, of which there were none. Fuck.

As I tried to weasel my way into a stage anyway, asking if I could just observe the kitchen, he shut me down at every pass. Citronelle has been on of the restaurants on my list that I have been looking forward to the entire trip, and now my hopes to work in the kitchen were gone.

As I cursed my luck and shuffled out through the back door my thoughts came to the only consolation I could think of. Michel Richard's wildly inventive cookbook, Happy in the Kitchen. To anyone reading this, if you want an amazing cookbook this is the one to get. It is a coffee table cookbook, heavy, hard-backed, and chalk full of glossy food porn. Fork over the $50 for it and you will not be disappointed I promise.

Happy cooking...