gramercy tavern & how I almost got sick before the meal started

So I love bread and I love butter, right?

Gramercy Tavern has awesome bread while you wait, right?

Well we went there for our anniversary on the 18th and I lovingly slathered soft butter all over a piece of bread. I sprinkled a pinch of sea salt they provided and then I began to devour this piece.

Moments later I had that feeling.

Y'know, the feeling you get when you're allergic to something and you get nauseated?

The feeling of saliva rushing from the depths of your mouth to flush it clean of the offending item. The feeling I hadn't had since I ate a raw almond offered at a Hindu temple in high school.... yeah that one.  It hit me full force and nothing on the table could cure me of the feeling.

And I still don't know what it was. I refused to experiment lest I get sick and not be able to eat anything.

After I ran to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out with water I felt much better.

Now onto the food.

For starters I had the special which was lamb with corn, roasted baby peppers and these cute little tomatoes I forgot the name of.


He had the paparadelle with lamb ragout which looked mouthwatering, but he said had too much swiss chard. I ate what he didn't.


For the main course he had the hanger steak with fingerling potatoes, red Russian kale and bourbon sauce.


Lots of kale, not too many potatoes. I ate the kale since he's not as fond of it as he thought.

Now onto my main course... you're going to frown at me when you find out what I ordered because I let out a deep sigh once I saw it in front of me.

I got... the meatball.


It's just one huge meatball and I think I might have enjoyed the ones I got at the meatball place on the LES better.

The potatoes were the best part.

I made up for it with dessert.

He got the chocolate pudding with salted caramel brioche croûtons.


I got the apricot bread pudding with sour cream ice cream and caramelized white chocolate. I also got one of the croûtons as garnish cause he's cute.


I wasn't too enamored of the ice cream but the pudding and caramelized white chocolate combined with it to make something amazing happen in my mouth. It almost completely erased the memory of my nausea earlier.... until I crunched down on one too many hazelnuts.

mini sweet corn pancakes wiiiiith... BACON... bacon bacon bacon



This was a simple breakfast that I modified the recipe from etherfarm's mandible section.

1c milk
1/2 stick butter
1 c frozen sweet yellow corn ( I used organic, *shrug)
1/3c sugar (I used a bit to make them sweet enough to eat without syrup)
1 1/4 c flour
1/4 c cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 large eggs

Put the frozen corn, butter and milk in a pot and heat till butter is melted. Let this cool to room temp.

Dump all the dry ingredients into a medium bowl and whisk together to distribute evenly.

Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add cooled buttercornmilk mixture to eggs, sprinkle the flour on top then the cornmeal. Mix until just combined.

I made these in my 8" crepe pan so I did two little ones at a time.

I assume you all know how to make bacon.

slow roasted chicken and polenta


I set the oven to 250 degrees and squeezed the juice of one lemon over the chicken.

I was in a rush because my butter was frozen so I melted it in a pan, let that cool then covered the chicken with it in my cocotte. I used adobo seasoning (from Penzey's), ancho chili pepper and this bicentennial seasoning (also from Penzey's). I cooked the bird for 4-5 hours and towards the end covered the skin with honey.

The polenta is the same recipe from earlier.

Here's the bird (that I didn't tie up) looking a bit of a slore in the pot: