The New Yorker recently profiled Will Goldfarb, an insanely creative and cranky pastry chef. I'm spellbound by his ideas and wish I could visit "Room 4 Dessert" in New York. Here are a few of his past and present excesses, not all of them desserts:
- "Picnic", pancetta, tomatoes stewed in olive oil, and vanilla (yes, as a vegetarian, I'm not really in favor of bringing meat over into the one area of the menu which is traditionally meat-free, but I love craziness in food),
- a rose-petal vapor served via gas mask,
- tobacco sabayon,
- "an interactive Futurist menu that included a starter served on silk and sandpaper, a dish that required the customer to be blindfolded and bound, and a desert that a waiter injected with a syringe of hot oil at the table";
- "St Barts May 2001", meant to capture memories of a beach vacation, served with a beach towel and spray can of salt water;
- "Mr. Clean", a cocktail including a very strongly scented pine liquor (this I actually would not want to try).
You'd think the man behind these ideas would be a genial performance artist type, but instead, he is a tightly wound control freak who is obsessed with how the kitchen towels are folded. I don't think I'd last a day in his kitchen, but I'd like to experience some of his concepts.
4 comments:
On my recent trip to New York, the high point was dessert at Chikalicious. Very interesting and unique. Beautiful and unusual. I think you'd probably love it!
Oh yeah, and have you ever heard about this place?
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/activities/food/story/0,7447,819330,00.html
Methinks you should put it on your list - sounds right up your alley!
im pretty genial
wg
I've been hearing about El Bulli for years, but I have not heard anything to suggest that as a vegetarian I'd get much of anything to eat there. Of course, I'm dying to go, anyhow.
To tie it all together, W.G. apprenticed at El Bulli.
And W.G., if that is really you, I appreciate your reading my humble blog. Rock on with your bad, insane-dessert-making self. I'd suggest a cocktail called the Drunken Housewife, but that sounds so dreary. My own kindergartener came home one day and invented a drink called a Saint-Saens, and I was so filled with pride. I myself didn't invent a drink until I was in college (the Trash Fairy, legendary among my friends), but children are so much more advanced these days.
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