A Pithy Meal

April 13, 2016

If you haven’t heard of Jonah Reider and his pop up Pith restaurant, you haven’t been consuming your food media with due diligence.  Jonah is the Columbia senior who started a restaurant in his dorm and set off a media firestorm. He’s been written about everywhere: The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal,…. and that’s just for starters. The list is rather astonishing.  He’s been on Colbert too.

I did not go to Jonah’s restaurant, but the other night he brought his restaurant to the home of friends.  Although Jonah’s feats have been endlessly documented, there’s been remarkably little about his food. Here, without further ado, is how one extremely ambitious meal unfolded.

It began with a slew of appetizers, including the wonderful deep-fried ramps and hen of the woods mushrooms in Jonah’s hands.

Tiny wild garlic. Impossible to stop eating….

Harissa-marinated carrots with marcona almonds.

Pate.

Foie gras.  Goat cheese.

.

Two flights of oysters – East coast and West – with homemade Champagne gelee.

On to the main event….

Yellow cauliflower soup with Fernet Branca syrup. (My least favorite offering of the evening.)

Hamachi crudo with yellow beets and a snap pea pesto.

Octopus braised in wine and smoked paprika, with a puree of the braising liquid, meyer lemon zest and sunflower sprouts.

Lamb chop (those green almond slices were a very nice touch), parsnip mash and garlic scape chimichuri, asparagus salad, and pasta tossed with black garlic and topped with grated preserved egg yolk.

Lovely little salad of blood oranges, butter lettuce, radishes and nasturtium.

Grapefruit sorbet.

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