New Orleans Chef to Creolize Mas for a Night
Displaced New Orleaners and their culinary sympathizers have a treat in store for them Sunday night when Galen Zamarra does a New Orleans dinner at Mas with haute Creole chef Bob Iacovone of New Orleans’ Cuvée. Iacovone is one of the leading lights of modern New Orleans cookery, and the menu represents some of his takes on classic New Orleans dishes such as a blue-crab Napoleon, a crawfish bisque with vanilla crème brûlée, and a lacquered duck in pastry. Some of what Zamarra considers his most representative dishes from Mas are offered on the menu as alternates, but then of course, Bob Iacovone is only in town cooking for one day, and having eaten at Cuvée, we can testify that he’s innovative without violating the spirit of the city’s traditional cookery. The menu is $79; call the restaurant to make reservations.
NewsFeed
Unruly Patrons Force Mas (Farmhouse) to Cut Late-Night Hours Mas (farmhouse) is giving us one less reason to love New York.* As of this Sunday, you will no longer be able to get a nice plate of American Hackleback sturgeon roe at 3 a.m., because Mas is cutting its hours to 6 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. daily. Daily? Here’s the good news: Starting this week Mas will be open on Sundays, with a new room seating 25 people — available for à la carte service and private parties — that will make the restaurant 40 percent larger. Since this is truly the end of an era for industry types craving a good cocktail and some Gruyère-laced choux-pastry puffballs after a hard shift, we asked owner Galan Zamarra to tell us the new deal.
NewsFeed
Urgent All Points Bulletin for Spring Vegetables
You don’t have to look far to see spring vegetables on menus all over New York. But look for local spring vegetables, and you may find they’re AWOL. Unseasonal weather has put the kibosh on many area sources, and for chefs that pride themselves on local ingredients, it’s a problem.
In the Magazine
Sensitive Foodies to Take It Slow TonightThe Slow Food movement is only picking up speed — it seems that hardly a week goes by without a celebration of heritage pigs, indigenous fruit, or other ethics-stamped edibles. Tonight’s “Fertile Ground: Celebrating Our Food Community” is something of a slow-food blowout. There will be a silent auction of “artisan foods, sought-after wines, and exciting excursions” and a meal prepared by Mas chef Galen Zamarra that features ingredients from Slow Food’s “Ark of Taste,” their endangered-foods list, including gulf shrimp and Newtown Pippin apples. (Let it be said that eating off this “endangered” list is not the same as making bald-eagle soup — these are items that will gain support and be cultivated all the more if demand rises.) The dinner will be a who’s who of the movement; shrimp-boat activist Poppy Tooker will be honored.
“Fertile Ground: Celebrating Our Food Community” [NYM]
What to Eat Tonight
Gulf Shrimp Make a Comeback
You can’t keep good shrimp down. Hurricane Katrina nearly wiped out the tasty specimens inhabiting the gulf, but replenished stocks mean that in the past week white shrimps have begun to reappear in New York. Big and sweet, with a hint of iodine, the fall shrimp are the best of the year. (Their brown brethren, which were brought in over the summer, also have a certain charm.) Here’s a short list of restaurants that buy them fresh from Louisiana.
