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Bondir Restaurant Newsletter
May 2013
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Greetings!
Happy May! We've put away the firewood and filled the fireplace with flowers. We are also enjoying making good use of some of the early spring vegetables coming in, like spring onions, radishes, ramps, and fiddlehead ferns -- all of which are currently complementing our daily menu. Bondir is welcoming spring! And we welcome you to come share what the season has to offer.
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Spring Fireplace Photo: Elizabeth Marini
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As the spring and summer months proceed, we are looking forward to some special events, as well as to "breaking ground" on our second location in Concord.
We hope to see you soon, and as usual thank you so much for joining us!
Sincerely,
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| | Terre Rouge Wine Dinner |  | |
Bondir welcomes Bill Easton,
President & Winemaker at Domaine de la Terre Rouge.
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Photo: Jon Wyland
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Please join us for a special evening at Bondir when we will pair hand-selected wines from the Terre Rouge Winery in California with a four-course dinner prepared by Chef Jason Bond. The menu will be created to complement the featured wines, and the President and Winemaker of Terre Rouge Wines, Bill Easton, will join us to discuss the history, culture, and qualities of his selections.
Tuesday Evening, June 18th
6:30 PM
$125 per person
Please call 617.661.0009 for reservations.
For more information please visit our website. |
 | Bondir in Concord | |
 We are so excited to be getting underway with Bondir's second location in historic Concord, Massachusetts. The plans have been drawn, and construction is due to begin in early June.
We look forward to creating a space that offers the same warmth and hospitality as Bondir's first home in Cambridge, yet one that reflects the unique beauty and history of Concord. We are starting with a blank slate, and there is much to do to transform the new and larger space.
Our goal is to open our doors at 24 Walden Street in October and will keep you posted as our plans come to fruition. In the meantime, we have been enjoying getting to know the people and businesses of the Concord community by participating in local events such as the recent Taste Of Concord. Stay tuned for more news from Concord in the coming months! Our next newsletter will include information about another exciting development in the neighborhood of Concord. Veronica Chudick, our own gardener, is starting Bondir Gardens, a farm that will provide us with many of our ingredients. Veronica is posting pictures on Twitter about the process; follow her here @VeronicaChudik.
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| Summer Vacation | |
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| Vermont Wagyu | |
Bondir often serves beef from a very special Japanese breed of cattle called wagyu. Pediatrician Dr. Sheila Patinkin, M.D. is the owner of Spring-Rock Farm, which supplies Bondir with wagyu beef, what Chef Jason Bond calls an "unique type of meat, and only available otherwise from a great distance." Recently she was asked by Chef Bond for a few words about her farm. 
The Story of Spring-Rock Farm
by Sheila Patinkin
Spring-Rock Farm has a story, and we are passionate about telling it. Originally settled in 1790, the farm is now part of the Parker Hill National Historic District overlooking the Connecticut River Valley in Vermont. Parker Hill was once a thriving community but has faded from its past glory, with only a glimmer of the past remaining.
 In 2006, our family began to reclaim the farmland and restore the pastures from their dilapidated state. Together, my daughter, Shannon, and I ripped out invasive buckthorn and tangled brambles, and we rebuilt stonewalls. The original barns, built by the Fletcher family in the late 1700's, have been brought back into use, now hosting a cattle-handling facility and several cow/calf maternity stalls.
The heroes of our story are the wagyu cattle that arrived in 2009. They have allowed Spring-Rock to become a working farm once again. But getting the animals to the farm was an incredible feat. When we started to source them, having seen some wagyu initially at a cousin's ranch in Montana, we realized just how unique the breed is. The wagyu are an ancient Japanese national treasure, originally bred to pull mountain carts, developing intense intramuscular marbling, very high in the healthy omega three fatty acids. It is this genetic marbling tendency that makes the wagyu beef arguably the best in the world.
 Two waves of wagyu were imported from Japan, first in the 1970's, and then in the 1990's by chartered jet. Today, the wagyu number around five to ten thousand animals in this country, making them truly unusual.
Unable to find any live wagyu to buy in 2008, the farm purchased 20 embryos instead, and those embryos developed into ten live calves, our first at Spring-Rock. Now the farm is home to nearly 100 full-blood wagyu, all purely descended from Japanese foundation sires and cows. We treat our animals respectfully; they are naturally raised in pastures and consume a diet primarily of grass and hay. The steers are finished at the farm on a ration of over 75% grass and hay. This diet is completed by an additional 25% in grain for extra flavor. 
Bondir in Cambridge, Gramercy Tavern in NYC, and the Inn at Weathersfield in Vermont now purchase the meat from Vermont Wagyu at Spring-Rock Farm. The farm's goal is to make available some of the best meat in the world to those chefs who honor and respect the artisanal "nose-to-tail" treatment of the these great animals.
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| A Very Special Beer Dinner | |
This past April, Chef Jason Bond attended an auction at the Skinner Auction House in Boston where he acquired a selection of limited-edition beers, consisting mostly of Belgium Lambics and Wild Ales. Several of the Belgium beers on the list are wild-fermented, and all of them are bottle-aged. Included on the list is the Malvasia Rosso, a Belgium geuze-style beer fermented with Malvasia Rosso grape juice and bottled on October 2, 2003. The list also includes world-class American beers that can be found only in limited supply, such as the Three Floyds Dark Lord, an Imperial Stout brewed with Intelligentsia coffee, Mexican vanilla, and Indian sugar.
We are planning a very special dinner for interested beer enthusiasts. The dinner will be four courses and will include a pairing of 4 flights made up of the auction beers listed below. The date has not yet been finalized, but it will likely be sometime either in late June or mid-July.
Seating is very limited. If you are interested in attending we would love to hear from you. Please call 617.661.0009
1996, Cantillon Gueuze Brussels, Belgium
2010, Cantillon Zwanze, Brussels, Belgium
2003, Drie Fonteinen Malvasia Rosso, Beersel, Belgium
2007, Drie Fonteinen Hommage, Beersel, Belgium
2010, Drie Fonteinen Armand'4 Lente, Beersel, Belgium
2010, Drie Fonteinen Armand '4 Zomer, Beersel, Belgium
2010, Drie Fonteinen Armand & Tommy, Beersel,
Belgium
2009, Lost Abbey Duck Duck Gooze, San Marcos,
California
4 Vintages, Three Floyds Dark Lord, Munster, Indiana
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| Thank You | |
We would like to say Thank You to the guests who joined us during the week of May 6th when Bondir was a proud participant in Boston Bakes for Breast Cancer. During that week 50% of our dessert sales were donated to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Bakes for Breast Cancer, Inc. Our donation total came close to $1,300. We appreciate all the guests who helped us support such a good cause. To learn more about Boston Bakes For Breast Cancer, please visit their website.
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