a restaurant, a horse, a dog . . and korrina

this evening my neighbor, sarah, and i visited the wine bar korrina works at. she's been here for over a year now, but i had never been to eat, only to say hello.

korrina brought us a small glass of wine from northeastern austria that is one of her favorites and one of morgan's. all of the wine at her restaurant is "natural" and many are biodynamic. this particular wine is made from muscat grapes and is from the schödl family. it has an orange tinge as the skins have been left on the grapes for a certain amount of time while fermenting (thus, it's name - bloody muscat). it's very interesting and their website goes into a little more detail. 

sarah and i left it up to korrina with what tasting dishes would be served. she started us off with "amuse-bouche" which was a carrot and burdock confit placed on a grumolo chicory leaf, topped with a thinly sliced pickled hot green pepper and a little salt. it's dressed with a tomato vinaigrette made with coconut vinegar, coriander and scallions, parsley, dill and puffed rice. the chicory is a speciality item from a produce purveyor based in london - natoora (whose little shop we visited when there.)

next came fry bread in georgian spiced oil, khmeli suneli, which is a mix of olive oil, coriander, celery seed, calendula, safflower, fenugreek leaf (methi), sesame seeds and lime pickles. the fry bread is a sourdough rye (their starter is named bea) with methi folded inside and coated in olive oil before baking.

explaining the dish to us . . 

sujuk spiced panisse which they call "fox in the snow." panisse is a french word for a firm bread-like item made of chickpea flour and sujuk is an armenian sausage, so this is their vegetarian version. it's made like polenta: coconut milk is cooked with chickpea flour and butternut squash, allowed to stand and firm up and then seared and plated with granola and lebanese toum, mint and roasted grapes. the sujuk is spiced with allspice, black pepper, fenugreek, aleppo pepper flakes, cumin and fermented black beans. the grapes are roasted with curry leaves in a pan at a very high heat, for a really short time, and then strained. the granola is made up of cashews, oats, sumac and little crunchy chickpea bits. oh, and grape molasses! toum is a lebanese condiment made with raw garlic, canola oil, a little raw cauliflower and a little salt and sugar.

radish salad which they call "conversation starter." it's comprised of winter radishes from the union square farmers market and also from natoora. it's seasoned with olive oil, ultra lemon (juice from preserved lemons and dry lemons are blended together and then strained) and salt. then it's garnished with long, thinly sliced, hot green peppers, a saffron aioli, and grey flaky sea salt (broken down in a food processor) and purple powder from dehydrated limes ground up in a blender. they get many of the spices from a specialty store around the corner from them (which i visited for the first time a few years ago with my neighbor).

here's the main entree: rutabaga kebab, titled "what about kebab." this feels like a very complicated recipe to me. i'm going to try and write as simply as possible from my notes . . we shall see if i can get through.

a rutabaga is cooked with curry oil and shallots in a pressure cooker. it's then taken out and marinated with black garlic and black shallot puree, olive oil, salt, cumin, cardamom, sumac, allspice, cinnamon and smoked paprika (also fresh mint and parsley).

i asked korrina what black garlic was. this was her explanation:

black garlic is a way of preserving garlic that is cured in a high humidity. it's put in a rice cooker that is set to warm and allowed to sit for three days. as it slowly cooks, it hardens up and it is then peeled. the peels are boiled with water and the stock is poured over the dehydrated garlic and then it is rehydrated.

i imagine the black shallots are made in the same manner.

back to the main dish . . after marinating, the rutabaga is seared to mimic a kebab and then garnished with a sauce made from pomegranate molasses and tahini, and then plated with a salad of mint, parsley and pickled red radishes.

here is dessert: corn bread with blueberries (titled "all kinds of georgia") and an apricot kasha tart. the former is a chamomile and pink peppercorn corn bread with blueberry and sumac compote. blue cornflowers and safflowers are sprinkled over.

the tart is made in the design of a traditional georgian tile and it's a kasha and hibiscus mousse with apricot gastric. the tart shell is a fennel and fenugreek crust with buckwheat flour. the greens are fennel fronds.

with the entree we had a red wine from georgia made from one of the oldest grapes: a saperavi grape from the region of kakheti by ocho vineyard. it was a nice wine, dry, which i like, and i took a photo of the bottle as i always find the label designs interesting and very creative.

it was a rather amazing and delicious meal and i know sarah really enjoyed it too. kudos to the chef! thank you so much korrina.

and here is ruffian, a very special horse so many people fell in love with in 1974 and who i was fortunate enough to see race several times in 1975 with my mom and dad. she was undefeated until her last race and always won by 2 to 15 lengths, setting records in her stakes races. watching her fly down the homestretch so far ahead of the pack was breathtaking and i still get chills thinking about it. this beautiful painting of her was done by one of the owners, or the partner of one of the owners. she's buried at the infield of belmont park where we watched her last race. i still miss her. you can read about her story in wikipedia here. 

the photo i took of ruffian heading to the field on july 6, 1975. the account of that day in wikipedia is very moving.

this is also ruffian, my family's german shepherd dog. we got her later that year (after losing our beloved fraülein who was also a german shepherd) and i named her after the horse. she was my dear companion growing up through my teen years.