Hors D'Oeuvres 3 (Gallery Style)

After a long unstimulating class in the morning all about food service health and safety practices, had a fun afternoon with L and the kitchen crew banging out a few hundred mini-pizzas. This was essentially the same item I made for the grand buffet of my culinary arts program, only this time they were....good. Done right.

We were hired to deliver a few hundred mini-pizza to a gallery opening on 29th St on the far west side, whatever that neighborhood is called. We rolled 1 oz dough balls last night, and today they were rolled out to about 3 inch disks. Some were red, some were white, and as we cooked off batches of 20, L started rolling, artichokes on here, anchovies there, pepperoni on those, parsley on the whites, a twist of mint on the red.

It was fun just making it up as we went along, and for the final iteration, L chopped up an apple. He asked for input, and I suggested a dead simple treatment: dough, 1 slice of apple, olive oil, light sprinkle of sea salt. We spoke of ricotta earlier in the day, and we both vibed that a squirt of the creamy ricotta out of a star-tipped pastry bag as a finish would be niiiice. Small mint leaf for sparkle and color, viola! What it really needed was a quirt of honey (me) or a sweet desert wine mixed in with the ricotta (L).

As it turns out, it was the apple dessert pie that got the biggest reaction from the crowd, and a few people even asked L if he'd have a dessert pie like that on the menu! Haaa! I've been lightly jabbing him to have a dessert pie or two on the menu for weeks now. So tomorrow when I go in, I'm bringing ingredients and we're going sample some of my recipes. My simple stuff with L's Sicilian funk gonna be cool, even if it doesn't get on the menu!

I've refrained from describing L on this blog, other than that he's the restaurateur/owner/chef I've been toiling with & under lately. Well, a picture is worth a 1000 words, so here he is from this evening with a random gallery goer. Why yes, he is wearing a kilt!



BREAKFAST: 7am, toasted onion bagel with the good butter, .75 bowl, hunger 3/5

AM SNACK: 9:45am, cart chocolate croissant, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
It was sad eating this pastry, as I remember making these in school and they were sooooo good. This was not.

LUNCH: 1pm, 2.5 slices of Sicilian, 2 small bottles sprite, 1.4 bowl, hunger 4/5
L's Sicilian is over the top. The mint version could be a signature dish of the restaurant.

RICOTTA TASTING: 2:30pm, a few spoonfuls of 3 different kinds of American ricotta, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Salesman in the shop, showing off his ricotta. We're leaning towards an Italian sheep's milk ricotta, but one of these American were pretty pleasing (and a whole lot cheaper!)

DINNER: 7pm, one and half little pork loin sandwiches from Porchetta, 2 glasses white wine, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING WATERING: 9:30pm, quart