One of the best things about being a food writer — aside from all the hot groupies, of course — is the fact that you’re invited to so many cool events. Just this past weekend I was called upon to judge a meatball contest, on one night, and then a cassoulet contest on the next. Both were in funky foodie spaces in New York, areas where bloggers and cooks congregate, the kind of spaces that didn’t really exist ten years ago. And I was gleeful to have been invited to judge both.
The meatball contest was at The Meat Hook, a big combination butcher shop / kitchenware space recently opened up in Williamsburg. If you live anywhere, near by, you ought to visit it; it’s not necessarily the final word in meat, but it’s without peer as a fantasy of what you and a few of your friends could do if you had a little bit of time and a little big of money. I am sort of in love with it. (It has its own facebook page, in case you were wondering.)
The meatballs were done by the pros — various Brooklyn restaurants, as well as the Meat Hook itself. My choice, as usual, didn’t win: a souped-up sicillian meatball loaded with pine nuts and raisins and escarole from the Frankie’s Spuntino guys beat out the house version, with its own secret weapon of guanciale. But the whole affair was fantastic, and infinitely more enjoyable than the Meatball Madness mega-event that I participated in last year at the New York Wine and Food Festival. Maybe it’s because I was the judge.
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The Cassoulet Smackdown was at Jimmy’s No. 43, an East Village bar / gastropub owned by a good-natured mook named Jimmy Carbone, whom I have great personal affection for. Jimmy’s is a beer bar, with a major commitment to weird German and Belgian ales, but the food program has always been adventurous and courageous and four times better than it needs to be. The Cassoulet Smackdown was every bit as intense and contentious as I expected — but the cassoulet was a lot better. As usual, my vote for the best entry went in vain. I felt that the best by far was an ultra-orthodox Toulouse-style number, with plenty of goose along with some preserved duck and bacon. There were a bunch of nontraditional ones, though, like this one.
Like the meatball contest, it was a chance for a lot of people who loved food and cooking to go into a public space and present incredibly elaborate foods to each other. The judges are just there for the ride, and to validate their work. It’s a new kind of communal, pro-am cooking contest that blurs the lines between chefs and cooks, in much the same way that the distinction between “the public” and “food writers” were blurred by blogs. In these cases, at least, it was a happy development.
Josh Ozersky is a James Beard Award-winning food writer, as he will tell you immediately upon meeting you. His most recent book, The Hamburger: A History (2008) is available in paperback.
02.16.10 @ 10:54 am
If you want to see a Cassoulet competition goes to Toulouse and goes for the Lucien Vanel contest. You will found what we call a Cassoulet in France and not a bean stew. Please keep the tradition and try not to reinvent Dishes like this. You should invent name for your dishes that will be better.