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The online newsletter of big Burrito Restaurant Group. Published May 2008
Celebrate Mom’s big day with big BurritoSunday, May 11th is Mother’s Day, and big Burrito’s family of restaurants has raised some irresistible ways for you to pay homage to the all the Moms in your life. BrunchesEleven and Casbah will be offering a special Sunday brunch from 10am to 2:30pm. Casbah offers a choice of an appetizer, entree and cocktail for $25. Choose from exceptional brunch fare such as Lobster and Artichoke Omelets, or dishes like our Scottish Salmon. A children's menu is also available, including house made granola. (see menu) Eleven's brunch includes an appetizer, entree, and dessert for $30. The choices exceed expectations: Herbed Pappardelle, Huevos Rancheros, Espresso-Hazelnut Tarts. Plus, children's options. DinnersSoba’s Mother's Day Tasting Menu boasts a Dumpling Sampler, Pad Thai, a Frozen Cashew Terrine and more. Kaya Eleven and Casbah will offer their daily, always mother-pleasing dinner menus. Reservations are recommended. big Burrito Gift CardsMom would love to have one, you know.
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More mad mail coming soonMad Mex is starting up a brandy new email lista. The new list will help us keep in touch with our customers and provide Mex info apart from other big Burrito goings on. (We love talking up the veggie dinner at Kaya, for example, but the folks at Mad Mex Columbus just don't seem to care.) If you'd like to join up, we're dangling a couple of juicy incentives: A complimentary lunch special for signing up, and a birthday burrito for staying on. For more info, or to jump in the pool, please see this page. Mad Packin’ WeekendCelebrate Memorial Day weekend Mad Mex style with special holiday Mad Packs, Mad Party Trays and Mad Brew Packs to go. The new margarita flavor for May is Strawberry-Rhubarb.It's tasty! |
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KayaFestKayaFest is less than a month away! Mark your calendar now (it's the Sunday before Memorial Day), and plan to join us on May 25 as we envelop 20th street with our fantastic annual party. We're planning a pig roast, live Caribbean music, and new tropical drink specials. More details to come. This month’s Vegetarian Prix Fixe Dinner at Kaya |
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East End Beer Tasting at The Warhol
Friday, May 9, 2008, 5:30 and 7:30 PM
The Warhol Café welcomes Scott Smith and a fresh foursome of his brews to The Warhol Museum. Join the city's favorite one-man-brewery to sample (and re-sample) Big Hop IPA, Fat Gary Nut Brown Ale, Monkey Boy Wheat Beer, and Black Strap Stout. Check out EastEndBrewing.com for lots more info about the beers and their brewdaddy. About the beer tastings: On the second Friday of every month, a regional microbrewery will be presented by the brewers themselves or their distributors. The $20 admission includes snacks, full admission to the museum, and goodies from the brewer. |
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Bill Fuller's 2007 newsletter pieces and the accompanying recipes are compiled here.
If you want to point out grammatical errors, typos, and blatant omissions, or if you’d just like to drop me a note and say hello, or if you want to throw out an idea for a future column so I don’t have to sit around and scratch my head for a week, or if you actually cook a recipe and want to say how it came out, email me. I would love to hear from everyone.
The recipes are saved as PDF documents. If you cannot open them, try using the free Foxit reader on the PC, or Preview (part of OS X) on the Mac. |
Keep your friends close, but your vegetarians closerbig Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller
Chefs tend to have an attitude about vegetarians. I am not sure why, but I know that I had it too for the longest time. The best way to sum it up is in the following quote by Anthony Bourdain from Kitchen Confidential: “Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for." And while his Howard Stern–of–the–Kitchen style usually draws a wince from me, I can’t say that his statement has missed the mark at all. I have heard similar phrases and attitudes over and again during my 25 years in the kitchen. I have seen greens with salt pork, risotto containing chicken stock, and Caesar dressing containing anchovies all served as vegetarian. Worse even than this unethical behavior is the complete disregard for the vegetarian, with no option other than a salad or the soggy side of the day for the hapless Buddhist. As I developed into a Chef, I discarded my Anti-Vegetarian attitude. The change occurred for a number of reasons; I was surrounded by more and more co-workers that were vegetarian and vegan, more and more customers asked for vegetarian options, and (most of all) a lot of the cute girls were vegetarians. Of course, in the hyper-macho world of the kitchen, this kind of ‘sensitive’ behavior was looked upon as a weakness. But vegetarians spend money too, and someone should feed them. Might as well be us. Of course, Mad Mex was vegetarian friendly from the get-go. Chick pea chili coupled with options of vegan sour cream and soy cheese for your burrito made us a vegetarian favorite. As we opened other restaurants, the vegetarian-friendly option followed along. Almost half the Kaya menu opened as vegetarian, Casbah too. Kaya’s vegetarian zeitgeist has evolved into a monthly vegetarian tasting menu as well. Two classic favorite appetizers at Soba are the mushroom spinach dumplings and the fried tofu. When we got to Eleven, we went all in with a daily vegetarian tasting menu. Love the vegetarian food. In cooking vegetarian, one needs to grow beyond the concept of the “center of the plate” as meats and fish are called by food vendors. If approached in the traditional Western cooking style, without a center things fall apart. There is no main protein to provide umami, the baseline, and the rhythm guitar of flavor upon which to hang the melody of the vegetable and starch. It must be written acoustically, coming together in harmony. Good vegetarian dishes are a coalition effort where various parts come together to make a greater whole. Much less paternal, outside the ken of the Chef raised in a paternal culinary brigade system, this approach is alien and a little frightening.
And in season, when one gets great fresh ingredients, letting the product speak is the most beautiful approach of all. The flavors of May are so welcome, so pretty, and so earthy that it has to be one of my favorite months. From the time the last butternut squashes disappear from local farm fields, we dream of Spring. At least five months of longing. And, after the faint teases of April, May brings Spring slam into our mouths. Eating vegetarian in May is exciting, new, and refreshing. Granted, August is like a Queen rock opera of corn and tomatoes, but May is Iron and Wine. Simple and clean and elegant and surprising. Here is how we cook vegetarian in the spring: Asparagus Sandwich with Sunny Side Up Farm Egg Magic Hat #9, Burlington, VT |
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© 2008 big Burrito Restaurant Group. All rights reserved. |