Bistro 82

“Ability takes you to the top. Character keeps you there,” boasts the Bistro 82 website. It’s a good motto, and it sets a tone for the experience of Bistro 82 that carries through everything they do.

Antietam

Walk in to Antietam, feel the warmth. Mid-January: a curtain around the entryway billows to announce new guests, but the cold air is muffled by the heavy velvet. A room replete with wood paneling, a wall of overpopulated coat-hooks, and straight ahead, something out of a 19th century jewelry shop—a large glass cabinet, and high wall shelving behind it. To your left is a doorway; pass through and the bar is to your right, an art deco masterpiece.

Beignets

Who doesn't love a doughnut? Almost every culture that fries food has an equivalent, scraps of sweetened pastry thrown into boiling oil, fished out when golden brown, and served with something sweet on the side... sugar, honey, walnuts, lemon curd, jellies, custards... the list goes on and on.

Beignets are French. They're typically made with something that resembles choux pastry, and depending on your source, the differences are minimal. They're absolutely coated in powdered sugar, and down in the French Quarter in New Orleans, they come in a paper bag with chickory coffee in a paper to-go cup.

At Roadside, we served them with lemon curd and chocolate ganache.

Words, words, words

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been writing reviews for the Detroit Metro Times; recently, the Detroit Free Press published their Best New Restaurants for 2014. I managed to review four of them for the Metro Times, and I figured that publishing those for your perusal would be a good way to start this blog back up. After all, this blog is part of what helped me land the job...

So coming up next Monday, I'll begin with my review of Antietam, as written. I'll let you know what's next then. Until then, be well and have a good weekend!

Chapter 2: The Return

It's been a long and unintended hiatus from this blog, punctuated by a post that, in and of itself, contributed to the very hiatus it had hoped to bring to an end.

That's a little convoluted, so let me be more direct:

First, I've been working my ass off for almost 3 years at the same restaurant, turning into a night shifter through and through. Four to five nights a week, from a few hours after I wake up until a few hours before I pass out. I won't recapitulate all the tropes about kitchen workers and chefs who don't do anything but their jobs, but that's pretty much me these days.

Second, I wrote that last post about cooking macaroni and cheese, and by a few winding routes of friends of friends, I ended up with a side gig writing articles for the Metro Times—food reviews, to be exact. I might syndicate them here, if I feel inclined.

Third, I bought a house. I mean, that was pretty recent, but in the meantime I'd been living in an apartment with a roommate, which precluded some amount of midnight cooking experimentation...

Fourth, I suppose, is that cooking for fun happens at work mostly now, where before it had largely happened at home.

Fear not, my dear readers!

For one, I have composed several dishes that I'll be bringing over here with recipes and reasonings behind some of them—or at least the ones that I think fit this blog's ethos.

For two, I've been given a project by my corporate chef—I'm writing desserts each month, to be featured daily and produced repeatedly. It'll be a big deal if they go well.

That project comes with a directive: it's to be based on "Tavern desserts," of the '30s-'50s... which happen to mostly harken back—at least in the early part of that range—to the desserts of the late 19th century... Hmm.

Seems oddly fitting to document the evolution of dishes based on what I do here, and at work, on here, while I serve them at work... yes. That.

So, starting with Saturday, when I'll have some pictures of beignets and a recipe for the dish, I'll be trying to post at least once a month about the evolution of my desserts.

And maybe, like I said, I'll syndicate my old restaurant reviews, and if we get really lucky this blog might be considered active again!