Well, I’ve since leap-frogged significantly beyond that monumental date (I was far more traumatized turning 24 than I was turning 30). So what did I do this year to celebrate my Larry Bird year?
Pork, pork and more pork.
It started with a small get-together with friends and a nine-pound pork butt. Rather than going out for dinner, I made the Momofuku Bo Ssam. Tender slow-cooked pork butt (in the oven for seven hours) with quick pickled jalapenos, rice vinegar and sesame pickled cucumber, sautéed shiitake mushrooms and big leaves of lettuce for wrapping. This was preceded by some apple cider and shallot glazed chorizo, pigs in a blanket (of course), prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella-stuffed peppadews, mac and cheese (at Anuradha’s request) and chickpea, mozzarella and tomato bruschetta (have to have at least one non-pork offering).
On Friday, I received one of the greatest birthday gifts ever from my friends at work – Sarah, Mary and Renee. At a client lunch with Mary about two years ago, we had an in-depth conversation about our five favorite things…excluding family, friends, pets, and esoteric concepts like world peace and happiness (all of those are a given for most people). After much consideration and stack ranking, my list came down to the five “B’s”: bourbon, bacon, butter, Boston sports teams, and the beach.
So here’s what they got me:
Nueske’s applewood smoked bacon, pork lardo (yep, that’s strips of cured pork fat), a bottle of Knob Creek (which may or may not have been cracked opened around 3pm on Friday afternoon), Vermont Cheese Company sweet salted butter and a gift certificate to Bliss spa. Plus the phenomenal homemade card with pictures of some of my other favorite things: if you look closely, there’s a pottery wheel, the Truffle Shuffle, Jack from LOST (Sawyer is behind the Knob Creek), Bill from True Blood, Eric Ripert, and Yoda-pug. What you can’t see are the “I love Jake Ryan” picture, a giant Stewie head and the PTI guys.
To follow this, Eric and I went to dinner at Bar Boulud, Daniel Boulud’s casual restaurant in Lincoln Center. We ordered the large charcuterie platter – a huge board of cold meats, patés and terrines including the smooth paté grand-mere, the coarse truffle, foie gras and pork paté grand-pere, slow-cooked lamb terrine combined with chunks of sweet potatoes, beef cheeks with onions and pistachios, rabbit blended with zucchini, the signature headcheese, thin slices of saucisson sec and a pile of housemade ham de Paris D’Italie. We should have stopped there…but continued on with the boudin blanc over mashed potatoes and the Frisée Lyonnaise – chicory, chicken liver, poached egg, and lardons. Both of these dishes were extraneous - we didn't come close to finishing either one. However, since one can't have a birthday without dessert, we ordered the chocolate tart and were rewarded with the most amazingly smooth chocolate concoction.
On Saturday, we braved the treacherous rain in our Zipcar mini Cooper and shopped a bit at Woodbury Commons (Eric was much more successful than me) and then spent a few hours with my long-lost adopted Korean twin sister (really, my college roommate) and her family. A day that was, amazingly, pork-free.
We closed out the birthday festivities last night with a delicious bottle of Petit Syrah that my co-worker John makes (same John from the Samoas takedown) and my bastardized version of Cuban sandwiches (leftover bo ssam with asiago cheese - the only cheese we had in the fridge -chopped scallions and parsley and a relish made from McClure's spicy pickles).
So while it may be long past the year 2000, I can’t imagine a better way to spend my 33rd birthday.
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