This Is Not a Vegan Dinner Party

Including: Roasted Mushrooms and Lentils, A Vegan Chocolate Cake, Breakfast at Gjelina NY, and Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros.

Hey everyone,

What’s the worst thing you can do to a vegan entree? Call it a vegan entree.

That’s my philosophy, anyway, when cooking for vegans. I just think of it as another opportunity to cook a delicious dinner for friends with a few more limitations. And as anyone who’s ever written a play for school about two people trapped in an elevator, you know that limitations can be your friend when it comes to creativity.

My good friend Diana (who you’ll see later in this newsletter) has a vegan brother named Brian who she cooks for a lot and so she suggested two recipes to me for this dinner. For the entree, she suggested Gabrielle Hamilton’s Roasted Mushrooms with Black Lentils and Croutons (that’s a Gift Link so you can get the recipe by clicking).

It’s a pretty brilliant recipe. In a pot, you cook black lentils with onions, fennel, and garlic, and just enough water to make it thick like a risotto. Meanwhile, you roast a bunch of wild mushrooms, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, in a 375 oven for 20 minutes. What a great technique for wild mushrooms!

It’s so simple and so elegant when you plate it all up with quick croutons you make by tossing cubed bread in olive oil (the original recipe says butter, but this was for vegans). And speaking of vegans, look at our happy dinner guests Joseph and J.S. — old friends from before we moved to L.A and now back to NY.

For the appetizer, I made one of my favorite appetizer recipes (vegan or no vegan): Gregory Gordet’s Cashew Hummus with Harissa.

Props to Craig who picked out those radishes at the farmer’s market.

For dessert, I followed Diana’s advice and made Samantha Senevirante’s spiced chocolate cake from one of her cookbooks, subbing a mashed banana for the egg (Diana’s good idea); I also stirred in some bittersweet chocolate chips (vegan) for good measure.

The cake came out looking like a giant brownie, in the best possible way.

I can’t find the recipe online, so here are the pics Diana sent me of the recipe from the book:

Speaking of Diana, here she is at breakfast at Gjelina NY, which is soft-opening right now in NoHo.

We each had the Moroccan baked eggs and I scorched the roof of my mouth by piling the eggs on the bread and the taking a big bite before realizing how hot they were. The ricotta pancakes were just okay; not as fluffy as the ones we both make at home:

Plus the whole vibe in there was a weird combination of formal (stiff welcome at the door) and lackadaisical (we both had empty coffee cups, but they only refilled one). That said the room was lovely and we’ll most definitely go back.

Finally, on Saturday I cued up a movie I’d been meaning to watch for a long time on the PBS app: Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros by Frederick Weisman.

It’s a four-hour documentary about a Michelin three-star restaurant in France that’s been there for generations. The movie could’ve been four hours longer and I would’ve kept watching.

Wiseman’s signature technique (he’s a legendary documentary filmmaker) is to render himself invisible. There are no talking heads, no piped in soundtrack, no outside commentary; he just lets you be a fly on the wall — only here you’re a fly on the wall at one of the most extraordinary restaurants in the world.

I loved this movie for many reasons: (1) it’s extremely meditative and will lower your blood pleasure while raising your IQ; (2) the degree of care the chefs take over the food here is thought-provoking and inspirational; (3) it’s actually a moving story of a father needing to let go of his life’s work and to pass it over to his children; (4) inversely, it’s also the story of two sons trying to impress their father — winning his respect as they experiment with new techniques and flavors (kidneys with passionfruit and Sriracha, for example).

After our dinner at Noma, the thought of a multi-course Michelin-starred dinner hasn’t held much appeal to me: it feels out of touch with the world today, especially considering that the people who can afford to eat there are also the ones destroying the very environment these restaurants are built to celebrate.

This movie changed my mind. It’s a reminder of how extraordinary a restaurant experience can be; how loving an act it can be for someone to seek out the best cheeses, the best wines, and to offer them to you in the most pleasing, welcoming, and comforting environment. How intense focus over a dish is the work of a real artist who’s attempting to maximize the impact of the thing they’re creating with the tools at their disposal. Unlike art that hangs on a wall, however, the art a chef creates is intended for a specific person at a specific moment in a specific space at a specific time. How lucky for the diner who gets to gobble it up.

The only bad part of this documentary is that now I want to book a trip to France to stay at the Hotel Troisgros and to eat at the restaurant. Who wants to take me? My birthday’s in two weeks!

Hey, let’s look at some links:

• Susan Spungen’s supermarket salads look like a burst of sunshine in the middle of winter (Susanality);

• Muji opens a food market in NY (Eater NY);

• Rethinking Blue Zones as a thing (NYT).

That’s all for today, folks!

Time to serve up some cashew hummus for lunch….

Your pal,

Adam