Spring is the season of rebirth. What better day to celebrate? Happy Easter!
Alex Stupak during the opening week of Empellón (now Empellón Taqueria)
Saying that NYC has become “the pizza capitol of the world” and that “if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” Ferran and Albert Adriá announced their plans in NYC earlier today to open “Toppings,” a new vanguardist “Barcelona style” pizzeria in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The pizzeria will feature small-plate individual tapas-like pizzas prepared using the techniques of elBulli that made them famous as well as a few more traditionally styled “Barcelona” pies. It has been noted that the brothers have had a long-standing interest in pizza and have spent time in Naples, Italy learning the finer points of the traditional craft, so that they could adapt their techniques to make it even better and more interesting. Their crisp, mozzarella crust with tomato, olive and basil “spheres” proved to be a big hit with the attendees of the morning press conference. The “spheres,” in a new breakthrough, have been flattened and adapted to the shape of coins. As one attendee gasped, “The possibilities are endless! What will they think of next?” Ferran emphasized that this is just a “small labor of love” while awaiting the opening of the new elBulli Foundation in Cala Montjoi. Nevertheless, the brothers and their associates are entering this with their characteristic vigor and imagination. Plans are in process to take this concept all over the world.
Temperatures may have dropped and we may have had some flurries of snow since the 80 degree days just over a week ago, but spring continues to march on.
Nils Henkel, Sven Elverfeld, Christian Bau, Thomas Bühner & Ingo Scheuerman
If there was ever going to be a time to get a close look at the Neue Deutsche Schule of high-end German cooking, this was going to be it. With all four of the major culinary figures of this contemporary movement, representing 11 Michelin stars amongst them¹, gathered together to share the cooking, there could be no finer opportunity to compare and contrast and to finally understand what Ingo Scheuerman and other proponents of this group have been trying to tell the world – Germany has a breed of cooks currently at the top of their game and united by their adherence to the so-called “traditional German virtues” that can be seen throughout other creative areas such as engineering, painting and architecture. Scheuerman has called this school the culinary equivalent of the Bauhaus Architectural style of the last century. One of the major tenets of Bauhaus design was to unify art, craft and technology with results apparent throughout the worlds of German industrial production, architecture and art, the influences of which have been apparent throughout the arts world-wide. Continue reading →
In the 21 springs I have experienced in upstate NY, this is by far the earliest our daffodils have come out, and why not? We are finishing a week that the month of June would be envious of. Though I’m not sure that this is a good thing in the long run, I have enjoyed it for what it has been.
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