Entries associated with the tag "Paul Kahan":

It was a six-act pork circus last night at Blackbird.

I'll probably be accused of some bias when I say our multicourse mulefoot aporkalypse was spectacular, but I was surrounded by exacting, discriminating eaters. After months and months of me telling them that this was a special pig--something you've never tasted before, really, you gotta believe me--70-some folks, friends and strangers, took the bait and put their money down for Slow Food Chicago. All I had to do was look around the room as they took their first bites of Jason Hammel's braised belly to know I wasn't crazy.

It certainly didn't hurt that Paul Kahan had assembled a formidable array of talented chefs to work on these animals. Most work directly for him (or had in the past), and as Mike Gebert and I followed them around over the last week, a palpable sense of family surrounded them. I couldn't have dreamed a better team, and I couldn't be more grateful to them for allowing us to stick our cameras over their shoulders and pester them with endless questions.

I'm going to save description of the prep work of these dishes for later, and let the attached photos of the talented Ron Kaplan do the talking for now. But I have to let you know that Valerie Weihman-Rock raised some incredible animals, who produced more meat than was needed. So if you wanted a seat at the table but missed out, you have a few chances to try some yourself. Brian Huston of The Publican has an extra porchetta he'll be running as a special tonight, along with a surplus of skin for chicharrones. Justin Large, whose head cheese whole-grain mustard ravioli en brodo was my favorite course, has two extra quarts of the filling he'll be using at Avec sometime during the next three days. And Mike Sheerin is going to be curing one of the hams--you'll have to wait about six months for that one, but I'll track its progress.

One of the objectives of the Whole Hog Project (it goes on!) is to take a good look at what it takes to produce real food. Does anything in these photos resemble a living, breathing animal? Of course not. But just five days ago three mulefoots were roaming wide open, green pasture, eating quackgrass, chicken eggs, corn, oats, alfalfa, goat's milk, and Swiss chard. On November 13, in our food issue, I'm going to write about exactly what happened on the way from the farm, to the slaughterhouse, to Blackbird's basement, and finally to the dining room. The chefs have promised to contribute recipes based on their courses, and at this moment Gebert is toiling away with hours of footage he shot for an accompanying Sky Full of Bacon video podcast.

You really need to see Mike Sheerin break down a pig. He's a surgeon.

Blackbird sent along a rough draft of the menu for Sunday's mulefoot dinner. I'm speechless but for the wave of saliva breaching my lips.

Mike Sheerin- Blackbird

Braised "country style" ham with preserved plums, cippolini onions, royal trumpet mushrooms, and butternut squash-miso

Justin Large – Avec

Head-cheese ravioli with whole-grain mustard pasta, cavolo nero, pork consomme, lemon oil

Paul Virant – Vie

Roasted caillette, Tuscan kale sauerkraut, plum and pinot noir jam, country bacon with pickled onions, smoked hock pork jus

Jason Hammel – Lula Cafe

Pork belly and house-cured sardine with local honey, celery, and green apple jam

Brian Huston – The Publican

Ham chop cooked in hay with lobster mushrooms and lentils

Tim Dahl – Blackbird/Avec

Cheese & Chicharrones

Keep in mind things could change after slaughter this week.

The collected Whole Hog Project.

I know, I know. We make a big production out of buying a mulefoot, we track her progress for a year and half, and now we're eating some other pigs. Believe me, it's complicated.

Dee Dee, you may recall, got herself pregnant last winter. So that delayed any thought of harvesting her through her three-month, three-week, three-day (average) gestation. And then her piglets needed weaning for six weeks or so, and we wanted her to have a long happy summer out on the grass. By then she was getting pretty big. Really big. I worried that she'd be too fat--as in too much fat, not enough meat.

I wanted some insight on what we could expect from Dee Dee at her size, so I tried to call Arie McFarlen, South Dakota steward of the largest herd of mulefoots in existence. After repeated attempts I got her husband on the horn, who seemed angry--outraged even--that Dee Dee had gotten herself "with pig," as the discreet say. Once she's pregnant the meat is "ruined!" he declared. It was a short conversation. Further attempts to reach McFarlen have been unsuccessful, but I was a bit skeptical about the assertion. See, Linda Derrickson and Mark Kessenich, the original Whole Hog Project farmers, have been eating a sow since December. Remember Cherry? They froze her meat after butchering.

"It's an amazing culinary experience: juicy, flavorful, plenty of texture while still being tender," Linda told me. "And the fat! Oh my gosh, a gastronomic delight."

I contacted Heath Putnam in Washington State--he raises Mangalitsas, aka Wooly Pigs, an unimproved lard-type breed. I asked him what motherhood does to a sow's meat.   

"A sow's condition changes when she's got pigs," he wrote. "If you eat her belly when she's lactating, it won't taste the same as when she's dry. After she nurses pigs, she'll have smaller reserves of fat. By the time she's had a few litters, she's a few years old, at which point she'll be tough." But . . . "As long as you finished the sow properly after weaning, I'd eat her."

By the time we met with Paul Kahan to start planning October 19th's dinner, we worried Dee Dee was too big. Kahan's more comfortable working with smaller animals, and in the end, Valerie Weihman-Rock offered to switch Dee Dee for three younger pigs, and to slaughter Dee Dee herself in September. But then, Dee Dee got herself pregnant again. So she has another few months at least.

I still have high hopes for her, and I'll be following her story until Valerie decides it's her time. Meanwhile, October 19th approaches.

The collected Whole Hog Project.

Maybe Creative Loafing should have invested in mulefoots.

Yesterday I sat in on a strategy session for our October 19 six-course, all-mulefoot dinner at Blackbird with Paul Kahan and the other principal chefs. We announced it last Tuesday, and it was booked solid in two days.

"We've never sold out anything that fast," said Kahan. (You can still call Blackbird and get on a waiting list for cancellations.)

As I mentioned earlier, Valerie Weihman-Rock is providing three young mulefoots for the dinner, each predicted to weigh about 160 pounds when their time comes. If that's accurate, after slaughter the chefs will have about 120 pounds of pork from each pig to work with. The meeting's purpose was to assign the primal cuts (which will be broken down at Blackbird), to brainstorm some ideas for dishes and wine pairings, and to map out a few logistics.

Kahan, who has previously worked with mulefoots supplied by Michigan farmer George Rasmussen, gave Jason Hammel from Lula and Vie's Paul Virant first choice. Hammel, who took the bellies, was thinking about doing something with preserved ground-cherries. Virant, who chose the shoulders and the offal, was going to collaborate with Kahan on a dish. Avec's Justin Large got the heads and the feet, for a possible ravioli in brodo. Blackbird's Mike Sheerin is going for the hams and the Publican's Brian Huston will work with the loins. Each will get a bag of bones for stock.

Blackbird/Avec pastry chef Tim Dahl, who faces an interesting challenge in coming up with a nongimmicky pork dessert, took some ribbing from the others:

"I thought he was gonna jump right at offal."

"You're not gonna use head and feet for dessert?"

"How about the blood? You want the blood?" 

"How about making cups out of the ears?"

In the end he decided to do a cheese course, possibly based on a Spanish dish with chicharron and a spicy syrup.

Of course, at this stage, menu planning is still theoretical. If you didn't reserve a spot you can follow along here on the Food Chain to find out what happens. Mike Gebert from Sky Full of Bacon will be along for the ride, videocam in hand.

You can read the collected dispatches from the Whole Hog Project here.

In a conversation with Monica Eng, some local top chefs (Michael Altenberg, Graham Elliot Bowles, Paul Kahan, Bill Kim, Carrie Nahabedian, Jackie Shen) discuss their secret pleasures, favorite cheap eats, and pet peeves. Bowles:  "They come in and order three courses, and it's a 10,000-word essay that includes stuff about the placement of their silverware. Why this obsession with food online? You don't see people blogging about their new shoes in the same way." Speak for yourself, GEB.

Well, after nearly a year and a half, it's time to see how mulefoots perform on the plate.

Back when we bought our own mulefoot with the aim of following the care and feeding of one of these rare heritage pigs and eventually hosting a public snout-to-tail dinner, I knew there was one chef who'd make the most of it--Paul Kahan. To my great delight, not only has Kahan agreed to cook for us (even in the midst of the frenzy surrounding the opening of his new restaurant, the Publican), but he's enlisted a formidable lineup of talent to help out. 

On Sunday, October 19, Kahan will be joined at Blackbird by Paul Virant of Vie, Jason Hammel and Amalea Tshilds of Lula, Blackbird's Mike Sheerin, Avec's Justin Large, and the Publican's Brian Huston in preparing a six-course mulefoot pig dinner--and you're invited.

Tickets are $125 (including wine but not tax or tip). It all starts with a champagne reception at 6, followed by dinner at 6:30. Proceeds benefit Kahan's choice of Slow Food Chicago. 

Blackbird, 619 W. Randolph, is taking reservations now at 312-715-0708.

Note: The Reader's pig, Dee Dee--for a variety of reasons I'll get into in an upcoming post--has won herself a reprieve from the dinner table. Instead Valerie Weihman-Rock will be providing three third-generation mulefoots--possibly Dee Dee's offspring--for the dinner. In the coming weeks we'll be following the pigs and the proceedings--from the farm, to the slaughterhouse, to the kitchen--right here on the blog.

In the meantime, if you want to catch up, see the entries in the whole Whole Hog Project posted in chronological order.

It's ramp season, occasion for Hammond to go picking (see podcast for 4/3) with John Bubala and Paul Kahan for Eight Forty-Eight.

If there's one local chef I'd like to see a cookbook from it's Paul Kahan. In yesterday's New York Times magazine, in a story about the charitable work of name chefs, Michael Ruhlman included an adaptation of Kahan's Sauteed Sweetbreads with Beets and Molasses. It's not the sort of thing anybody's going to whip up after a hard day in the mines--it requires lots of soaking and draining. But if you make the time for it (and I plan to) it looks like a valuable lesson in what to do with the fifth quarter [via]. Kudos to the NYT for giving a practical nod to what Chris Cosentino calls the "whole animal ethic."

Today's Times Dining section previews New York's fall restaurant openings. In a sidebar writer Melissa Clark singles out some notable blips on Chicago's dining horizon and magically manages to avoid using the word "gastropub" to describe Paul Kahan's sweatily anticipated Fulton Market "restaurant with a long beer list." 

In other news: 

An object lesson in overeager brand expansion: local Krispy Kreme franchisees file for bankrupcy. (Tribune)

"Beer Hunter" Michael Jackson has gone to the great brewpub in the sky. (h/t the Stew) 

What happens if you smoke it? Microwave popcorn may cause lung damage. (h/t Chow)

". . . these fighters sit down around a table where they are first served 'Drum Roll of Colonial Fish' then some "Raw Meat Torn by Trumpet Blasts.'"

Say what you will about the excesses of celebrity chefdom, I'm happy to live in a world where people will pay $300 to see Mario Batali sonorously narrating those words from The Futurist Cookbook, accompanying a new music sextet's playful, jarring, and discordant performance of Aaron Jay Kernis' La Quattro Staggioni dalla Cucina Futurismo ("The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine").

That was the scene early Thursday evening at Flatfile, where the hometown ensemble eighth blackbird was raising funds to launch a concert series at the Harris Theater. The gallery's folding chairs were filled with musical patrons and curious food nerds like myself eager for a look at Molto Mario, but perhaps more anxious about the five-course dinner at Blackbird to follow (OK, I was anyway).

The intentionally lowercased eighth blackbird, which takes its name from a Wallace Stevens poem, has been around for 11 years, the last seven of them in Chicago. You'd think with all the love they've received (The New Yorker, The New York Times, NPR, tons more), they'd have a higher local profile, but that's not the case. "We're trying to change that," said pianist Lisa Kaplan, who invited me to the event. 

Kernis, who was in attendance, based the piece on Marinetti's delightfully absurd, but scary, late Italian Futurist text that proposed "a complete revolution in the nourishment of our race," part of which, sweet mercy, involved a repudiation of pasta. This wasn't the first time the group had performed the piece with Batali. They did it five years ago at Lincoln Center, with dinner at Lupa afterward, and have remained friends ever since.

Batali played his role with mock gravitas, looking, in his chef's whites and orange clogs, like a giant bearded pumpkin. He barely broke character to utter such lines as "Each mouthful is divided from the next by vehement blasts on the trumpet blown by the eater himself" or, after the musicians broke in with a series of barnyard noises, declaring that they "seduce all the beasts of springtime."

Afterward he climbed aboard a trolley with the audience for the short ride over to Blackbird, sitting in the back and chatting amiably with guests about his dinner at Schwa the previous night (he liked it). The menu prepared by Batali and Paul Kahan was supposed to be inspired by the piece but that seemed a stretch. (Click on the thumbnails below for pics of the dishes.) The first course was a poached egg with salt cod (colonial fish?), sea beans, and green garlic broth. Next was homemade orecchiette (memorably detailed in Bill Buford's Heat) with broccoli rabe pesto. Third was beef cheek ravioli with crushed squab liver and black truffles (a sensational dish, on the menu at Babbo). Next, braised pork belly and knackwurst 'choucroute' with fingerlings, crunchy sauerkraut, and celery root puree, a pretty plate brought around by a surprising blast of vanilla in the puree. Desert was toasted cornbread with blood oranges, medjool dates, and Sicilian pistachio ice cream.

Music and food should always be this much fun.