commonplace book redux

Grilled Spanish mackerel sits in warm ponzu next to plums and “yolk jam”—a wonderfully pure, almost solid egg yolk, the texture attained, according to a server, by “cooking the yolk over low heat for a very long time.” Perfect little agnolotti ooze Fontina cheese and carrot butter; Proechel adds tender braised lamb neck and a dice of pickled squash and raw carrot to take it over the top.

And then there’s the côte de boeuf, aged for sixty days, “from Kansas,” the waiter repeats to each table, in various sizes, starting, on one recent night, at $183 for thirty-five ounces (including a hefty bone), with “all the fixings.” Unlike any fixings ever, these include black-garlic jam (if mahogany had a flavor it would be this), whipped buttermilk with charred cipollini onions (like a tart, zingy whipped cream, utterly delicious), a bowl of broth with bland unsalted potato dumplings and beef-fat-soaked croutons, and an addictive Brussels-sprout slaw.

Not everything works. There’s a reason you rarely see rutabaga; its sharpness is jarring next to perfectly seared duck breast. Beets with black-sesame tahini goes too dark.

Shauna Lyon, Ferris, Tables for two, New Yorker Magazime, December 4, 2017