the second wandering goat dinner has come and gone.  another evening filled with good food, tasty beers, festive music and of course fun people all around.  it has been fun working in various kitchens, working with old and new friends and developing new traditions (hector the pinata and the mannequin with the animal head who will appear at all of the dinners), though i must say it is making me look forward to getting into the kitchen at the drunken goat.  a place i will be able to call home.  until then we will keep hopping around the city cooking and getting ready for the new year.

this party was a celebration of bacon day, and we sure did smoke a lot of bacon.  allen brothers was generous enough to donate close to 200 pounds of pork belly… i am not sure how big the pigs were that they came from but those were some hungry animals.  huge bellies with lots of delicious fat throughout.  we tried a few different rubs in preparation for the bacon we will make in house at the new place.  most of it came out quite tasty, but i think we are going to keep testing new rubs, cure time and smoking time and temp until we get it just right.

it wasn’t hard to come up with dishes using bacon since i usually have to stop myself from putting it in everything i make, but it was hard writing a menu and sticking to it.  there was so much at whole foods that is in season right now that is was hard to narrow things down.  in the end we had a nicely balanced menu with bacon in all forms.  i think my favorites were the sunchoke and bacon soup, the tofu with ground lamb bbq and braised bacon (if you are going to serve something healthy like tofu, why not serve it over lamb and top with with bacon), and the carmelized figs with tomato/melon sauce and fresh ricotta.  of course the black dog gelato dipped in chocolate was a hit and the bacon bread that my good friend jason made in madison was to die for.  wash it all down with a couple (or a half dozen) cups of three floyds beer and call it a night…then take a day or two to recover.

special thanks to alexis from kitchen chicago who was generous enough to donate her new beautiful space for the event.  the kitchen is great and the warehouse space for special events has a similar rustic feel to the interior of the upcoming restaurant so it worked perfectly.

stay tuned for info on the next dinner which will be all about goat… braised goat, smoked goat, goat flatbreads, goat cheese, goat milk gelato…. so many possibilities.  the exact date is still being determined but planning on a mid october party (an early celebration for my birthday perhaps).  going to have a little fun on twitter along with red eye for ticket sales this time around.  more to come….

recipes from the night:
yorkshire pudding
crisp oysters with bacon aioli and quail eggs
caramelized figs with fresh ricotta and tomato
steamed clams and sausage with horseradish creme fraiche