Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver's Grub Street Diet. At Kings County Imperial. Photo: Miachel Breton. For the past 2. 3 years, Garrett Oliver has worked as the brewmaster for Brooklyn Brewery — a job that entails bridging the worlds of beer and food, while brewing special recipes for some of the world’s top chefs, including Thomas Keller. He even managed to turn some leftovers into an impromptu feast at home. Read all about it in this week’s Grub Street Diet. Friday, February 2. As soon as I get down to the kitchen and pick up my phone, the first email is “urgent”! First item: sliced carrot with hijiki (edible, brown algae paste), carrot, soy sauce, sugar, almond, and olive oil. Hijiki? Can I get coffee first? I can’t do this without coffee. Using other people’s research or ideas without giving them due credit is plagiarism. Since BibMe There aren’t many things I can do without coffee. Even though I usually only drink one cup a day, it’s a cup that would jump- start a Bugatti. I’ve got standards and rituals. A few months ago, I got rid of the feisty, old Braun power pulverizer that my coffee friends say makes sad coffee. At first, offended by the C- note- plus price of a burr grinder, I got a manual burr grinder. ![]() Create custom t-shirts and personalized shirts at CafePress. Use our easy online designer to add your artwork, photos, or text. Design your own t- shirt today! Cheap cheap fish! The above is an ad (from one of the large supermarket chains in France) for the fish known as Pangas (also called, Pangasius, Vietnamese River. Get the latest international news and world events from Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and more. See world news photos and videos at ABCNews.com. Yesterday was Father’s Day, so, Prestone, one of the leading makers of coolants, antifreeze, radiator flushing compounds, and other car-juices, put up some. ![]() But it turned out I couldn’t use it . So I gave it away and got a power burr grinder. It’s pretty good. French press, heated. A 1. 92. 0s Sheffield stainless knife, bone- handled, as the stirrer. Workday cups are from Crate & Barrel. Leisure- day cups are sunflower yellow, bought on a ’9. Provence. The thing I lack is hipness, apparently. Yeah, I drink Peet’s Major Dickason’s Blend. Sorry, coffee friends — yes, it’s “heavily roasted.” I don’t know who Major Dickason was — I hope he didn’t do anything terrible — but his coffee is good. ![]() ![]() No, it doesn’t “taste of Burgundy.” I can’t deal with pale- ass coffee that tastes like Burgundy. Not until after I’ve had coffee. Greek yogurt — half- cup, no flavors, full fat. Granola by Granola Lab, Garrett’s Blend (I hope he didn’t do anything bad). ![]() I see hazelnuts. I know that granola is really candy, so shut up, okay? Muesli tastes like horse chow (because it is), and I lost Irish oatmeal in a breakup a while back, so what am I supposed to do? I dice Fuji apple on top, and that’s breakfast, nearly every day. I sit down, drink the coffee, eat the granola, look up hijiki. Apparently it contains questionable levels of arsenic. Lunch is a homemade, leftover sandwich: baguette, prosciutto, Robiola Osella fresh cheese, apples, arugula, black pepper, and olive oil. I got a system for the leftover bread. You take a 5. 0- 5. Fahrenheit. Boom — just like new, sometimes better. You should try it. Today, Dennis “Dee Jay” Mc. Nany, second of his name, celebrates the 4. Dee Jay has summoned us, all other business to be put aside, to appear before him in the Lillie Langtry Room at Keen’s Steakhouse. Last time I was at Keen’s was 1. I’m a Luger’s man. I regard Keen’s like the Statue of Liberty; sure, it’s beautiful, but we don’t go there. But Dee Jay does, and it’s apparently his happy place. When I climb through the warren of rooms and arrive upstairs at the Lillie Langtry, I see why. All of the gang is in the room, the booze/food/music mafia. This thing of ours. Dee Jay’s band is called Museum of Love, and this is the museum. In the room are filmmakers, musicians, rock stars, Horsemen, food writers, wine people, tincturers, and various assorted ruffians — all 4. I know all but maybe three of them. It looks like a scene from The Godfather, and I half- expect a gold telephone at any moment. Crazy- ass wines reaching back into the ’7. I order: mutton chop, duck hash, creamed spinach, mashed potatoes, and cheesecake. It’s all awesome, and the mutton chop is the size of two fists. Eventually, I pick it up. Who’s going to see me? I think about rolling up some duck hash in a napkin, and putting it in my pocket for morning eggs. I think about finding duck hash in my pocket in the morning. I forget the duck hash. At the end of the evening, Dee Jay sits, alternately scowling and beaming, with a golden crown expertly fashioned from Champagne wire cages sitting on his slicked- back mane. The Don ain’t slippin’. Saturday, February 2. Sorry, it’s still coffee and granola, so late that I never actually eat lunch. Sunday gets better. Wait for it. Today is the opening of NYC Beer Week. Not long ago, we were the only brewery in town; but now there are 5. Bataan death march of stamina. A man has to be careful. The first event is at the Brooklyn Expo Center. Mostly, I man my booth and pour my beer alongside beer from our sister brewery in Stockholm, Nya Carnegiebryggeriet. I get around the floor a little, and taste some other beers. The sours from Hudson Valley Brewers are really nice, complex, and elegant. I ghost out a side door and head for the No. Mad. Now, it’s my friend Jim’s second birthday party. He’s a wine marketer based out of Healdsburg, California, but he still has some NYC burning in his heart. He’s in town for the weekend to stoke the embers. Thursday, we were at Le Coucou with his husband, Deacon; but now we’re at an alcove table in the main room, sitting on red and gold velvet, with his pals. The house sends out raw bar fruits de mer — lobster salad, beautiful diced scallops, oysters, and a sea- urchin panna cotta that goes straight to my brain. Now it’s on. Mutton still coursing through my veins, I order the seared foie with chestnuts and duck- confit- stuffed lady apple, and of course, the roast chicken. Along with it, we order a couple of wines and Le Poulet, the beer that chef Daniel Humm asked me to brew as the chicken’s perfect accompaniment. The foie, of course, is spectacular. I think about how to up my foie game, how to make better demi- glace, and my lack of terrine skills. Great meals always make me want to cook. The roast chicken is, essentially, the One True Chicken. One Chicken to Bring Them All. The chicken you can’t cook, even if chef tells you how. Brown as an antique mahogany table, the magic chicken is waved in front of us like a wand; and just like that, we are ensorcelled. As you probably already know, the skin, crunchy as dream bacon, has a layer of foie gras and truffle- brioche stuffing underneath it. The breast, carved off as a tranche, is perfectly cooked. The leg meat has been braised in a pomme pur. The beer sings with the dish, as it was born to do. All is right with the world. Then it’s on to pear cobbler with spiced- pear ice cream, and roasted pineapple and brown- butter cake with Kaffir- lime ice cream. We leave the table and retire to the Library, one of my favorite rooms in the entire city. I decide to be good. Instead of one of the excellent cocktails, I order a ’9. Broadbent Colheita Madeira. Jim and Kimmy share a Zombie, delivered in a large, glossy, black skull; adorned with a magnificent pineapple crown; and spiked with three copper straws. My delicious Madeira now looks sad. There are three straws, right? As we leave the No. Mad, we realize that we’ve closed the place. There is no one left in any of the bars, or in the restaurant. The next day, a friend said, “You closed No. Mad? Today, I’m going to deploy the freezer. I defeated the Zombie, and I feel really good, but something restorative is in order. A few weeks back, we had a Super Bowl chili cook- off at the brewery. I don’t care about football, but I do care about chili. So I made a huge pot and threw down hard. Lior’s spice blends, smoked jalapenos, serranos — the works. Three types of beans — sorry, love ya, Texas, but NYC rolls with beans. It was excellent chili. Eric, on our brewing team, a CIA grad, worried me with his glassy, dark, tangy sauce, but I figured I still had him. In the end, Walker, the organizer of the cook- off, walked away with the prize. It was a stitch- up, I’m telling you. Walker has bright- red hair, and a beard like a beacon. It’s cheating; you can’t win a chili cook- off against that. The dude is a walking chili commercial. I make a chili omelette. I know, you think this is weird. It’s completely delicious, and I’ve loved making it since I was a kid. I ate it with tortilla chips, and my face glowed for a half- hour. I text a few friends: “Wanna come over for dinner? Nothing fancy, 7 p. I wasn’t getting serious. These were friends for whom you pick up your socks, but really only spot- check the bathroom. What will I cook? It’s bizarre February weather, sunny and getting well up into the 6. I start thinking ahead to springtime. And my stocks. I’m soon going to be in six different countries, and by the time I’m really back on the ground, it’s going to be 8. I fast- forward to mid- autumn, when I open my freezer; pull out my tubs of magnificent frozen stocks; look at the dates (“1/2/1. Oh, hell no. I specialize in leftovers. All my friends know that no scrap of meat ever sees my garbage pail until the very last bit of flavor has been wrung from it. If you eat at my house, you might eat that same duck two more times over the next couple of months — once again as a taco, and then again as a stock. I decide to deploy all my good holdings. I go up to the roof and clip some rosemary. The rosemary asks why the thyme got brought inside for the winter and he didn’t. I say, “You’re still alive, aren’t you?” mutter something about cassoulet, and go back downstairs. On New Year’s Day, in a beautiful gesture, one of our gang threw a party. The party, shaggy after the previous evening, centered around an entire classic Spanish ham — complete with a stand and the special knife — given to the hosts as a gift. I’d gone home with ziplock bags of fatty trimmings; and the next day, I’d made a stock that would wake the dead. Borlotti beans, rosemary, Spanish ham stock, pancetta, and onions. The house smells amazing, but by midafternoon, I’ve gone wobbly. Perhaps I did not defeat the Zombie? Did it bite me? Anyway, I slow down, and by the time Paul shows up, I’m an hour behind, and am loading all this bean slop into a blender. I can cook, but I would be a terrible chef, I think, as a pink ooze emerges from the bottom of the blender jar. Forgot to screw it tight. Breathe, keep going.
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