There is little better on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of winter than a hearty bowl of stew, and the version perfected in France, the Cassoulet, raises the concept to an art form. While there is no standard recipe, ingredients usually lean heavily on meats such as lamb and pork, slow-cooked in a savory mélange, and beans are essentially mandatory. At a previous cook-off one attendee remarked that he didn’t like beans – to which I retorted “going to a cassoulet tasting and not liking beans is like going to Bill Cosby’s house and not liking roofies.”
Category: Robert Stepanek
Nightlife
BEER, BOURBON & BBQ 2016
While January annually brings cold weather, it also avails New Yorkers a great and singular opportunity to indulge in the kind of pleasures one normally associates with the long days, warm and sunny weather, and open-air celebrations of summertime – namely, the feast presented by the Beer, Bourbon & BBQ event, slated for January 30th. Once again taking place at the Tunnel, at 608 West 28th Street, the Manhattan installment – the 7th annual – of Beer, Bourbon & BBQ is the opening event in a multi-city tour; future stagings are set for February 27 in Tampa, Florida, April 1 & 2 in Timonium, Maryland, May 7 in Charlotte, North Carolina, May 21 in Atlanta, Georgia, June 11 in Richmond, Virginia, June 17 & 18 in National Harbor, Maryland, August 5 & 6 in Cary, North Carolina, August 20 in Virginia Beach, Virginia and September 17 in Leesburg, Virginia. Named by Fest Forward the ‘Best of the Fests’ 2015 Award Winner, it is indeed a welcome gustatory escape from the rigors of winter.
APAP 2016 – JANUARY IN NYC 2016
While New York is justly celebrated as a center of culture year-round, in January this distinction is magnified by the confluence of several events concentrated not only on the presentation of diverse practitioners of the performing arts, but equally dedicated to the business, aesthetics, logistics and issues involved with the realm of live performance. Given New York’s situation as a gateway to the US and its distinction as a global city, this entails both national and international aspects.
THE 66TH NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS FINALISTS
The Finalists for the 66th National Book Awards have been determined, with the Longlist of 10 titles being winnowed down to a Shortlist of 5 in each of the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry and Young People’s Literature respectively. It seems every year there is a category wherein any number of the Finalists could possibly get the prize, whereas perhaps in another there is often a book that seems foreordained to get the top honor – due to aspects ranging from a Finalist nominee being a notable author with prior nominations yet no Grand Prizes; a groundswell of popular or critical acclaim distinguishing one of the titles from the rest; or circumstances in the political or social sphere in America that serve to make a certain book timely or “important” in terms of the national dialogue.
EXPLORE & ENJOY GEORGIAN WINE! – PART 1
Following up from the great ‘Discover Georgia in New York’ event that took place in the Chelsea Market from September 25-27, and which enabled visitors to acquaint themselves with the fashion, art, food and wine products of the ancient Caucasus nation, aficionados of that land’s culture had an opportunity to savor the viticultural products of the region in depth at a wine tasting held at the Astor Center on October 6. Although Georgian wines have been available in the US for some years, the occasion was only the second time that a “critical mass” of these – representing many different wineries and major areas – have been presented to American oenophiles, with the broad assortment poured displaying the diverse styles and rich history of over 8,000 vintages cultivated.
2015 FANCY FOOD SHOW LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS
By any measure, it is truly a golden era for food in the United States, and particularly with regards to the specialty foods industry. A niche that hardly existed 50 years ago, specialty foods sales have achieved a record high of $109 billion, accounting for nearly 15 percent of all retail food sales in the U.S. While it may now seem to have been inevitable that a nation with a populace as diverse, large and steadily growing as that in America would embrace the development of an increasingly abundant variety of food products and cuisines, it nonetheless took some visionaries to recognize the potential for the growth in this area and to cultivate the means of delivering such a bounty to what has become an ever expanding marketplace.
2015 SOFI™ AWARDS
The first time I laid eyes upon the statuette given to the winners of the SOFI™ Awards – the annual honors recognizing outstanding achievement in the realm of specialty foods – I detected a distinct familiarity about the form, but couldn’t immediately place it. While the figure is fundamentally modeled on ‘Oscar’, the three-dimensional logo of the Academy Awards, in that it is bisymmetrical, golden, standing erect, and holding an object (appositely a serving platter instead of a sword), there was another aspect to it that struck me as reminiscent of an iconic predecessor – namely, the head. The SOFI statuette, you see, is apparently wearing a chef’s toque, but not one that is clearly delineated; rather the sculpting is more evocative than realistic, so that the abstracted headwear resembles as much a bulbous projection extending the cranium as a hat sitting atop it.
And then I had it – the SOFI statue is a Kanamit!
TARTAN WEEK 2015
While so many aspects of Scottish heritage have influenced North American culture that it’s easy to take them for granted, it’s always a grand occasion to celebrate them during Tartan Week, which will be unfolding from April 6-11. The expanding slate of events, featuring daily concerts, parties, and of course capped off by the 17th Annual Tartan Day Parade down Sixth Avenue on Saturday, April 11th, was announced at St. Andrews restaurant, at 140 West 46 Street – a site of a number of the events in store.
BEER, BOURBON & BBQ FESTIVAL 2015
Lots of folks dread the winter, spending the colder months on the calendar biding their time and pining for the days when they can once again venture out of doors without layer-upon-layer of clothing to protect them from the lower temperatures and occasional inclement elements. Poor souls. Even though that doesn’t describe me, as I prefer colder weather, there is something I have in common with many of those with a more delicate constitution even during the short days and longer nights of January – an appreciation for the heartier fare in food and drink both more available in and more apropos to wintertime.
THE 65TH NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS
It’s traditional for the National Book Awards Dinner and Ceremony to be hosted by an emcee who straddles the worlds of publishing and celebrity, and often these luminaries will have had a book of their own released during the previous year – which enables them a good opportunity for cross-promotion, as their books may be included along with the finalists’ titles arrayed on the dinner tables for attendees at the gala to take home with them after the proceedings. Recent previous hosts have included actors John Lithgow and Eric Bogosian, and while the 2014 master-of-ceremonies Daniel Handler isn’t as known for film or stage performances as the aforementioned, his literary alias as Lemony Snicket is the publishing world equivalent of a character role. Of course, he also publishes under his given name, and it was in that guise he carried out his duties on the evening of November 19th.