Our Studiofeast Sunday dinners are our more intimate 10-12 person affairs, with seating in an open kitchen similar to a chef’s table format. Ask questions, poke around, smell things right as they hit the pan–everything is out in the open for you to interact with.

This is the second of the series and we have a plethora of new dishes, really weird ideas, and questionable jokes to share with you. We take our food seriously, but not much else.

The following is our menu, with two wine pairings and an assortment of cocktails for $100:

1. Lobster, Burrata, Green Apple, Micro Arugula
2. Winter Vegetable, Bagna Cauda, Chili
3. Split Pea, Bacon, Creme Fraiche, Miso Toast
4. 72 Hr Short Rib, White Bean, Fennel, Carrot
5. Zeppole, Sichuan Pepper Hot Chocolate, Fig

Please RSVP with your donation at this link:
http://studiofeastsunday02.eventbrite.com/

Wine pairings and cocktails will be by our good friend and bartender, Brian Quinn. He’s awesome and is a wealth of adult beverage knowledge. (http://www.brianquinn.co)

Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.

I do hope you’ll join us and can’t wait to cook for you.

As the year draws to a close, we all have a tendency to look back and reflect on what happened in 2011. For Studiofeast, it was a great year filled with events where we had the privilege of bringing people together with food. You can surf this site to see the things that ensued in 2011–through prose, video, and photo–but a less visible reflection of our year comes in the form of the responses to that question on our invite form, “You’re about to die, what’s your last meal?”

Of the 564 new names added to our invite list this year, we’ve compiled the responses into an infographic that was also the basis of our Last Meal dinner on December 18th. It has become an annual tradition to close out the year with a dinner influenced by the year’s responses, and for this year we created a 5 course meal that used the top items from selected invitee segments. This resulted in a dinner rooted in cheese, lobster, chicken, duck, and chocolate, for which a full menu and photos are listed below.

The Last Meal 2011 Infographic
Created by Soomin Baik. Click image below to see a larger version, or download a PDF or JPG. 

To draw these ingredients from our 2011 dataset (a.k.a. “The Death Row Class of 2011″), we looked at the available data about our audience and split them into segments: geography, gender, occupation, email domain, season, and time of day that the invite request was submitted. Using Google Refine to scrub and structure the dataset, Mechanical Turk to categorize the dizzying array of answers we received for various categories (e.g., the “Administrative” occupation category derived from far flung answers such as: “Secretary,” “Admin,” “Assitant,” “Exec Asst,” etc.), and Textalyser to analyze the most popular words/ingredients in each segment’s datteaset, we created a top items list for each segment.

What resulted from the analysis was a top 3 items for each segment we looked at. Some results are what you’d expect (e.g., Massachussets includes “Lobster”) and others present amusing/puzzling results (e.g., Pennsylvania: “Scallop, Vermouth, Heart.”). At times, the results remind us that we’re not so different after all, (e.g., Men & Women both list “Cheese” in their top 3) and at others they highlight how rich a tapestry we are as a people (e.g., Businesspeople want “Duck, Cheese, and Soup” while engineers/architects requested “Potato, Korea, and Chocolate”). We are reminded how the seasons subtly influence our cravings, (e.g., Spring includes “Salad,” Winter asks for “Potatoes”) and but also how we could benefit by rethinking conventional wisdom of how time and food are related (e.g., Breakfast time submissions requested “Fresh, Duck, Pho,” which I hope to God becomes a food trend for 2012). We unearthed a few new things since doing this in 2010, that’s for sure, but I’m still happy to report that “cheese” remains the overall #1 request for a last meal. It’s good to know that despite our shortcomings, we as a society still have not lost our goddamned minds.

In the end, our goal with this dataset was to create a conversation piece, one that served as both an inspiration for a menu as well as a natural ice breaker for dinner table conversation. This isn’t hard science and we don’t expect Proctor & Gamble to come calling for the dataset with hopes of launching a Last Meals product line based on this research. But this sort of thing exemplifies one of the things we strive to do with Studiofeast: spurring conversation over a meal, which leads to a great social experience for all.

And having witnessed the vibe at the Last Meal dinner, seeing strangers find common ground in the things they wanted to eat for their last meal, commiserating over the food and wine, and ultimately forming new friendships and enriching old ones, I can assure you that it worked. The food and the concept simply got people at the table talking and great things happened as a result. Hopefully, we can extend that night’s conversation here. I encourage you to share the infographic and let us know what your last meal would be. We look forward to hearing what you have to say and hope we can cook for you sometime soon. It’s been a great 2011 and we have much in store for you in 2012.

But until then, we hope you have a Happy New Year and we look forward to one day making you a last meal worthy meal.

Many thanks to the talented Soomin Baik, who crafted this infographic as well as helping to execute the Last Meal.

The Last Meal 2011 Menu

— CHEESE —
Halloumi, Parsley, Lemon, Foie

— LOBSTER —
Lobster Bisque, Crouton, Roe

— CHICKEN —
Sichuan Chicken, Charred Scallion, Pickled Carrot

— DUCK DUCK DDUK —
Duck Breast, Duck Confit, Dduk Boki
Crispy Kale, Potato

— CHOCOLATE —
Chocolate Ganache, Caramel, Bacon, Bourbon

— WINE —
2005 François Raquillet Mercurey 1er Cru Les Veleys
2009 Domaine Monpertuis “Vignoble de la Ramière” Côtes du Rhône

Last Meal Dinner Time Lapse

Last Meal Dinner Photo Gallery

For the past few years we’ve been doing events that have become more and more ambitious in scale, concept, and execution. This has been a good thing, as we’ve been able to push ourselves to create some really great dining experiences for our guests. These events have been our way of continuing to explore the culinary & social gray area between a high concept restaurant and dinner at your best friend’s house.

We recently kicked off a series of dinners we’re simply calling, “Studiofeast Sunday,” which will seat no more than 12 guests and serve anywhere from 3-6 courses. While things like the L Train Lunch or the Doppelganger Dinner were larger, more bombastic concepts on a spectacular scale, the Studiofeast Sunday series aims to be smaller and more unassumingly awesome. If Doppelganger is the Per Se, then Studiofeast Sunday is the Ad Hoc.

Rest assured, we’ll still be doing the more extravagant dinners, but these smaller dinners will be a way to connect on a much closer level with you on a more frequent basis. We look forward to forming much closer bonds with all of you at these dinners. We look forward to telling more ridiculous stories at these dinners. We look forward to balancing tried and true favorites on the menu with more experimental things that we honestly have no idea about. For what we subtract from size and scale, we will add back with intimacy and camaraderie.

Below are photos, a video, and the menu from our first Studiofeast Sunday, on December 4th 2011. A great time was had by all and the night ensued with wonderful cocktails from Brian Quinn, a primer on how to make Sichuan peppercorn hot sauce & vodka, the serendipitous NASA Space Camp connection between our guests, and big fun with warm brie through a nitrous whipper.

Studiofeast Sunday #1 Menu

• Raw: scallop + foie + oyster + tarragon
• Salad: broccoli + shallot + sichuan + pork floss
• Soup: cauliflower + apple + salsify + chive
• Main I: rib cap + asparagus + mushroom
• Main II: ribeye + scallion + kimchi + tteok
• Dessert: brie + honey + lavender + cranberry

We hope to cook for you soon.

—-
Photos by Jamie Moy & Brian Quinn

I hope this message finds you well. As the end of the year draws near, I have the pleasure of inviting you to our final meal of the year: The Last Meal 2011.

For nearly 5 years we have had a question on our mailing list form that asks, “You are about to die, what’s your last meal?” Over time we’ve collected some great responses from all of you and last year, we created a meal using the top 20 ingredients from our entire dataset.

This year we’ll be creating a meal inspired by the “Death Row Class of 2011′s” submissions. To do this, we’ve sliced and diced the dataset into segments and will prepare dishes inspired by the favorites from various segments: Brooklyn vs Manhattan, Male vs Female, Spring vs Fall, Gmail users vs AOL users, etc.

Which Studiofeast segment has the best taste in death row food? You decide:

• DATE: Sunday, December 18th.
• TIME: 5:30pm – 9:30pm
• LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY
• FORMAT: Five courses that deal with duck, chicken, lobster, sichuan peppercorns, bourbon, whipped foie, more.
• WINE: Two wine pairings; BYOB if you wish
• DONATION: $100/pp

Seating is incredibly limited, so act quickly to secure a spot at the table by visiting this link: http://sflastmeal2011.eventbrite.com/

Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.

I do hope you’ll join us, but if not, have a great holiday season and we’ll see you in 2012 for more ridiculousness.

–

Photo by: David Christiansen, http://pop-up-studio.com

“And on the seventh day, we ate awesome”

On Sunday, Dec 4th in Williamsburg, we will be kicking off the first in a series of intimate Sunday dinners that we’re simply calling “Studiofeast Sunday”

These dinners will be 10 person affairs, with seating in close proximity to an open kitchen. Our aim here is to cook awesome food for you while holding an informative / hilarious / titillating dialogue with you about everything and nothing, all night.

We’ll be doing brand new recipes for you over five courses with two wine pairings for $100:

• Raw: scallop + foie + oyster + tarragon
• Salad: broccoli + shallot + sichuan + pork floss
• Soup: cauliflower + apple + salsify + chive
• Main I: rib cap + asparagus + mushroom
• Main II: ribeye + scallion + kimchi + tteok
• Dessert: brie + honey + lavender + cranberry
• Wines: two pairings + you are also welcome to byob

Please RSVP with your donation at this link: http://studiofeastsunday01.eventbrite.com/

Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.

I do hope you’ll join us and can’t wait to cook for you.

Check it! Here’s the Food[ography] segment I was featured in on the Cooking Channel. This episode’s focus was sugar and I made a Sweet Corn Financier, with Passionfruit Pop Rocks and Powdered Caramel. For more info, visit the Food[ography] website. Enjoy.

I don’t always post recipes to this site, but when I do, I post recipes like this. A good friend of mine, Anna Larsen from Eat Retreat, asked if I could write one for her recently founded Sustainable Seafood CSA, Siren SeaSA, and I happily obliged. The recipe below is for Black Cod, one of the wonderful offerings Siren SeaSA provides, and I describe a way to hack a sous vide setup without all the expensive equipment. It’s a great technique for this kind of fish and I hope you’ll give it a whirl. We’ll get to the recipe in a minute, but first a few words about the great stuff Anna is doing out in California.

Siren SeaSA connects young fishermen directly to customers, which encourages the fishermen to continue practicing sustainable fishing methods. Anna supplied all the seafood for Eat Retreat, and I can personally vouch for the gastro-orgasmic inducing powers of this stuff. You’ll never be able to stomach supermarket seafood ever again. On top of all her fishmongeress duties, Anna is also a prolific opera singer, which makes me feel bad because I got to hear her sing at Eat Retreat but she, being one of my roommates, only got to hear me snore. I hope my cooking made up for that awful injustice, and I hope you enjoy this recipe.

If you’re in the Bay Area or love someone who is, please check out Anna’s Siren SeaSA operation and buy a seafood share. Then you’ll be eating tasty seafood like a boss. And now, the recipe…

Hacked Sous Vide Black Cod w/Tomato & Brussels Sprouts

Ingredients
Serves one. Score some Black Cod from Siren SeaSA if you’re in the Bay Area. If in NYC, try Wild Edibles, The Lobster Place, or Citarella. 

• Black Cod w/skin, 5oz
• Campari Tomato, 3-5
• Brussels Sprout, 4-6
• Olive Oil
• Fresh Tarragon
• Fresh Thyme
• Kosher Salt
• Butter
• Balsamic Vinegar

Hacked Sous Vide Equipment

• Ziploc bag, freezer quality, 1qt
• Large stockpot, approximately 9 qt capacity
• Digital probe thermometer

Method: Tomatoes & Brussels Sprouts

1. Peel the outer few layers of brussels sprout leaves, wash, dry, and reserve.
2. In a medium saucepan, heat a thin layer of olive over medium high heat.
3. Add tomatoes to saucepan and toss until skins are blistered and tomatoes are heated throughout. Deglaze pan with a half tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. maintain on heat until vinegar/butter reduce slightly to a shiny, syrupy glaze.
4. Remove tomatoes from pan, allow pan to recover some of its heat and add new oil and sprout leaves. Toss. Once leaves are bright green and heated, remove from pan.

Method: Black Cod

1. Remove skin from cod in one piece. Salt generously on both sides and place on a sheet tray lined with a Silpat/parchment paper and bake in oven at 300F for 35 min, or until crispy. Remove from heat and reserve.
2. Create a brine with 5% salt / 95% water and leave fish in brine for 1 hour. Remove and pat dry on paper towel.
3. Fill stockpot with water (ideally should be an inch short of being full), insert probe thermometer into water and place on a med-high burner until water temperature reaches 125F. Once water reaches target temp, turn down flame to a simmer and add a cup of cold tap water to cool down if need be. The idea is to hold the water on 125F as steady as possible. Having a large volume of water is crucial, as it will be able to withstand slight variations in temperature more successfully.
4. Place fish into Ziploc bag and fill with just enough oil to nearly submerge the fish; add a few sprigs of thyme and tarragon into the oil.
5. Dunk the open Ziploc bag into the water while still holding onto the open lip. Allow the water to force all the air out of the open top and once you as much air out as possible, seal the bag. Pull bag out to check that the plastic bag is clinging tightly to its contents, and if so, drop the entire bag into your 125F water. Let fish cook in water for 20 minutes. (if you have proper sous vide equipment, you probably know what to do and all you need to know is: 125F/51.7C – 20 min. don’t forget to wrap the herbs in a layer of cling film in your vacuum bag, to prevent the flavor from aggressively burning into your fish)
6. Pull fish from bag and plate with the crispy skin, tomatoes and brussels sprouts on the side. Dress fish with some lemon juice and oil from the Ziploc and enjoy!

• Q: Why not just poach this in olive oil like, all traditional and what not?
• A: Because it requires much more oil, mainly. With this method, you can use much less oil since you only need enough to cover the fish. You can use nicer oil if you want, or butter if you’re so inclined. Of course, if you have a use for a ton of black cod/tarragon/thyme flavored oil, then awesome…poach away!
• Q: There’s a dirty rumor floating around about how sous vide concentrates flavors much easier in the bag than in traditional methods. Can you confirm or deny this?
• A: You can concentrate flavors into things easier with sous vide–flavors in the bag (like herbs) have very little room to move, so they will probably end up in your main ingredient. This can be a bad thing though, like the time you put 9 sprigs of rosemary into your sous vide bag with that steak which came out smelling like a Christmas tree. N00b! Use herbs in lesser quantity than if you were cooking non-sous vide and always wrap the herbs in cling wrap before you seal them into the bag to prevent the flavor from penetrating the protein too aggressively. This is less important if you’re going hacked sous vide with fish, since the pressure isnt high enough and fish doesnt take long to cook, but if you’re doing something like 72 hour sous vide short ribs, you better wrap that herb up if you don’t want a gross tree-like flavor on your meat.
• Q: I had a horrible accident with crispy, perfectly seasoned fish skin as a child once and I hate it now. What’s in this for me?
• A: Well, that sucks. Crispy, perfectly seasoned fish skin totally rules. But if you insist, you can get that crispy protein taste (Maillard FTW!) back into this dish by giving your fish a nice hard sear in a hot pan after you pull it out of the bags. Careful though, that fish is gonna be delicately flaky as hell coming out of the bag.
• Q: I’ve got like a million things going at the house and can’t be bothered with this precision timing. What do I do?
• A: Fine. Sous vide is pretty forgiving in terms of cooking proteins to temperature and holding them. While I don’t advise keeping your fish in the water too long beyond 20 minutes, you can drop the water temp about 5 degrees (add cold water slowly, read your thermometer) and hold the fish in there for up to 30 min or so. You should be fine and have nicely done fish, but beyond that timeframe, you’re on your own.
• Q: I’m allergic to tomatoes and brussels sprouts, what now chef?
• A: Weird! Ditch the tomatoes and sprouts and feel free to use something else–the world is your oyster. This recipe isnt written in stone after all, I was just in the mood for tomatoes and brussels sprouts. Other things that go with this fish: bacon, kale, squashes, spinach, buttery breadcrumbs, garlic, grains like cous cous or rice, anything miso flavored, snap peas, glazed carrots…the list goes on and on, this fish pairs nicely with a lot of things.
• Q: I have a FoodSaver Vacuum sealer but I keep mucking it up with all this olive oil getting sucked out of the bag. Halp!
• A: This is easy: freeze the olive oil! I too don’t have a fancy $4000 chamber sealer, so I keep an ice cube tray filled with olive oil in my freezer at all times. This is good strategy for anything liquid you want to get into a sealed FoodSaver bag. For anything I need to sous vide with olive oil, I simply pop a frozen olive oil cube into the bag and call it a day. Also, butter is an even easier move because dairy cows think ahead.

If you have any more questions, feel free to email me at mike [at] studiofeast [dot] com and I’ll take care of you. Good luck!

A recap of our Twitter antics is below. Take a look, have a laugh, and if you enjoyed them, please consider for a moment to donate to the Red Cross to help with the recovery effort in places that were way less lucky than NYC.

Again, Irene sure wasn’t the haymaker we all thought it would be to us NYC-ers, but don’t forget about those in places like Vermont, North Carolina, and Upstate New York where they experienced catastrophic flooding and even fatalities. Let’s all be grateful that we could sit back with a drink and some food while watching the rain out the window, but throw a little love out to those who couldn’t.

Here’s that link to the Red Cross again.

We have new dinner events in the works that will be a bit more intimate than what you’ve seen in the past, those announcements should be coming soon for the Fall.

Get on the mailing list and follow/like us on Twitter & Facebook to stay in the loop.