FORK PLAY February 3, 2009
Bacon Explosion. La Fonda del Sol. Lobster Deal. Hamburger Heaven.
Dear Friends and Family,
If you are paying attention - certainly if you are a friend sharing dinners with me - you must know I am mad for bacon and a serious barbeque fan. I think I was among the first to write a rave for Fat, the cookbook. Only a deep  affection for my aging arteries keeps me from haunting Daisy May's BBQ for its supernal barbecued rack of lamb or the crusty caramelized short rib fatsicle. So of course I took note of the recipe for the "Bacon Explosion" in last week's Times Dining. Just reading about two pounds of Italian sausage wrapped in a mat of woven bacon slowed the flow of blood to my heart and filled my brain with unseemly longing. Would one of my favorite pit masters reproduce it? Could I taste? Should I make it myself?
What really hurt was the fact that 16,000 websites had linked to the blog of the Kansas City barbecue jockeys who posted it. I have recipes on my web site. No one ever links to my recipes. Obviously I need help. Please email me a decadent recipe that the world will want to link to. Don't ask me what is decadent. If you don't know, don't bother.
Alex Witchel's recipe for "Jelly Donut Pudding," in an equally out-of-control mode that same day in Dining, strikes me as sufficiently decadent. Twelve eggs. Almost 4 cups of heavy cream. It's based on a genius idea from Eli Zabar for recycling stale baked goods and charging an arm and a leg for customers to take them home. I thought of rushing across town to buy it but I am boycotting Eli now, or at least I am boycotting his Health Crisps (made from unsold bread, another recycling project) because he refused to reduce the price, $5.49 for 7 ounces, even after gas and flour prices fell. Please email me your favorite recipes for a certifiably decadent anything. Bacon is always good. Ice cream? Why not? Please, no bacon ice cream. Fudge. Yes. Yes. Yes.
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Why I Am Not Retiring to Sarasota or Big Sky
The week was full of highs. A luscious ribollita-like "soup" of oxtail with beans, greens and sheep's cheese at La Fonda del Sol. Sensational gnocchi with seafood and  savory lobster Thermidor from the discounted Winter Lobster Festival at Compass. (Click here for BITE at Insatiable-Critic.com and scroll down for more discount deals). The two of us scored a late table Tuesday at Salumeria Rosi after my appearance at a cocktail event for The Three Tomatoes. Cesare Casella sent over a few slices of his partner Parmacotto's special three-year-aged prosciutto. It was like eating silk, ever-so-lightly salted and perfumed  with well-bred pig. (Click here for tales of Salumeria Rosi).
About that Three Tomatoes evening. As always I was pressed to tell about my afternoon with Elvis. (I know this is going to be in the headline of my obituary: "Sensuous Food Critic who Seduced Elvis died Eating Bacon Explosion at 102"). It's a great food story because as I was leaving his hotel room he asked me to order a fried egg sandwich from room service and the truth is I remember that fried egg sandwich more vividly than I recall the actual sex.
I was surprised when a woman in the audience said that reading my novel Blue Skies, No Candy  had made her realize something was missing in her life. She decided to leave her husband. And her life had been full of great sex and fine food ever since. It was incredibly touching. Yes, there is that go-for-it-now message in everything I write.
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In Burger Heaven
There was nothing wrong with what we ate at Txikito, the tiny, new, over-packed Basque restaurant of husband and wife team, Alex Raij and Eder Montero (late of Tía Pol). Actually, the daily special fish soup was pretty lame. But we loved the croquetas, the veal meatballs in fish broth, and an arugula salad with fried silverfish. It's ridiculous to go somewhere that doesn't take reservations if you are six, on a Saturday night no less. Ava came early to put her name on the list and the host really juggled to create a table for us. But we were unhappy and  claustrophobic. And seized with a desperate need for hamburgers. We paid and left.
I figured tables should be opening up about 9:30ish at 5 Napkin Burger. I was wrong. It couldn't have been more jamming, with big parties waiting at the bar ahead of us. I, she who never waits, stood there for twenty minutes. What a burger! I had the one with cheddar and bacon and who knows how much butter... or is it cream? So juicy. Some short ribs thrown in maybe? Ava had her burger wrapped in lettuce since she's on "South Beach." And even she was moaning in ecstasy.
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Fork Play is My Newsletter
Every week friends, and strangers too, email or call to say what fun it is to read my blog when it comes into their email box... "I love your website," they say. "It comes right into my Blackberry." That's not my blog. That's not my website. That's Fork Play, my newsletter. What you're reading right now. And this is a chatty little note to drive you to my website, Insatiable-Critic.com, to read my latest restaurant reviews, travel roundups, and, if you're feeling nostalgic, vintage articles that I add to every week. I just posted one of my favorites, A Gourmaniacal Detour, the tale of a hilarious overnight at the house of Troisgros in 1972. It made me smile as I edited it. But then I could read between the lines.
Break an egg,
Gael
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Photographs of Daisy May BBQ master Adam Perry Lang, La Fonda Del Sol's oxtail sopa, Lobster Thermidor at Compass and the 5 Napkin Burger may not be used without permission from Steven Richter.
Fork Play by Gael Greene copyright 2009.
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