Googa Mooga: I Came, I Saw....I Ate Horse.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen...I ate horse this weekend.

But that's getting ahead of myself.

This past weekend was Prospect Park's Great Googa Mooga Festival . Organized by the same folks who put on Outside Lands and Bonnaroo, Googa was billed as "an amusement park of food and drink" featuring food loves such as Big Gay Ice Cream, Do or Dine, Calexico, Luke's Lobster and others. There was music too...but we're just gonna talk about the food because that's the exciting part!

Most of the restaurants and food vendors at the festival, I enjoy on a pretty regular basis, so I tried to limit my consumption to foods and restaurants I'd never tried before.

Since I pretty much fail at life, of course I would forget to bring more batteries for my camera....but I did manage to squeeze off some shots of the foods I really liked.

1. M.Wells - (Horse) Bologna and Foie Gras Grilled Cheese

So nice, I had to take the picture twice. Please note that in their sign, they don't mention the horse part. That's a pretty smart idea, because I'm not sure how many people would have tried it if it was up there.

I trust anything M.Wells does, so I didn't hesitate to try it. I'd only gotten to go to its Long Island City location once before it closed its doors, but it was an unforgettable experience. So was this sandwich. 

The bread was hearty, perfectly crisp and buttery. The bologna and foie worked together in gamey/salty/creamy harmony; the cheese was only there to glue the two together. Mustard kept everything in check with a vinegary tang to cut through all the fat. I was pretty sad when I finished it, and I'm sure this was the best and most original thing I had all day. It was as adventurous as a comfort food could become, using two unorthodox meat products to transcend a dish from simple to sublime. 

2. Landhaus - BLT by Landhaus

Landhaus's specialty is their thick cut grilled bacon which they serve maple cured and spiced on a stick, and in a BLT with lettuce, tomato, and herb mayo. They were serving the latter at Googa. 

I know the dude who runs Landhaus because he works in the communal kitchen that my bakery operates out of, but I've never once tried any of his pork based delights. I knew I had to remedy that. 

Cool, crispy lettuce layered with the juiciest tomato I've ever eaten, a huge slab of delicious bacon, all lightly dressed with creamy herbed mayonnaise. The roll itself was perfect, soft and pillowy inside, and chewy outside. It was served with potato chips and pickled veggies, but I don't remember eating those because the sandwich was so good. 

3. Cookin' With Coolio - Soul Rolls

I'm a huge fan of Coolio's web show, Cookin' With Coolio, and when I first saw the list of restaurant/food vendors appearing at Googa, and saw his name...I knew damn well I was gonna hightail it over to his booth. If you have never seen an episode of his show, please, make your way over to the link above. Not only are the episodes funny, but he also makes some tasty looking dishes. Plus, he portions his seasonings into dime bags. DIME BAGS, PEOPLE. 

Coolio (who was actually AT Googa, but I missed him) offered up his Soul Rolls: fried spring rolls stuffed with a mix of seasoned turkey and beef, cheese, and shredded cabbage. They came with either a peach or pineapple BBQ sauce. I requested both because I'm greedy. 

These were damn good. Savory, cheesy, crunchy, and made even better with the fruity BBQ sauces. If egg rolls were more like these, I'd be more inclined to eat them. Gotta give you some props, Coolio!

I also had a strawberry rhubarb ice pop from People's Pops that was refreshing and delish, plus an absurdly expensive coconut water from a company that I can't remember. I could have just went to the fresh fruit cart near my house and picked up a fresh coconut for about 2-3 bucks that would have been better. Bah humbug. Aside from that one hiccup, I had an awesome time, and I'd definitely go again next year. 

Did any of you guys go to either day of Googa? What did you love and what did you hate? Also did anyone get to try the Foie Gras Doughnuts from Do or Dine??? I'm still pissed I missed out on that.

NYC Honey Festival Part 2 - The Dinner

Even though the honey festival itself had ended, the main event was just beginning.

Motorboat and the Big Banana, Sharon Is Karen, and Caracas Arepas Rockaway (three vendors on the Rockaway boardwalk) came together to offer a delicious honey themed dinner at the sweet price of 20 bucks a plate.  Kira and I stuck around to take part in this pretty righteous bounty.

There was fried chicken with spicy honey butter sauce (the chicken was soaking in a big buttermilk bath and was fried fresh), collard greens with bacon, honey baked beans, and blue cornbread. I'd never eaten baked beans made with white beans before, but they still tasted delicious. The cornbread? Well...I can be rather picky with cornbread, and this was a little dry. So, I just slathered it in the Mike's Hot Honey I had bought earlier. Kira did the same, and soon it was all gone.

And for dessert, a beautiful honey tres leches cake, with raspberry coulis and walnuts:

Perfectly moist and sweet. The raspberry coulis added some lovely tartness and the walnuts lent their toasty crunch. I think this was all 20 smackers well spent, don't you?

And best of all, we got to eat with this beautiful view:

NYC Honey Festival 2011 - Part 1

An incredibly sweet way to spend the day, yes? The Rockaway Beach Boardwalk in Queens played host to the first New York City Honey Festival (hosted by the Queens based Brooklyn Grange) this past weekend, and two of my friends and I decided to check it out.There was no better way to celebrate the first year of legal NYC beekeeping.


It was a gorgeous fall morning/afternoon....really glad that the weather was behaving itself.

This tempting delight was our first stop:

Why hello there, Mike's Hot Honey! This spicy blend of honey, vinegar, and chilies has long been on my wish list. Mike's assistant was slicing up chunks of Manchengo cheese and crusty bread for samples, and of course we pounced upon it like hungry mice.

The burn of the honey is warm and complex, rather than astringent. Sweet, but ends with a tingly bite.

Commerce! And a happy customer.

As we walked through the tables we spotted:

And silk-screening, courtesey of the Bushwick Print Lab:

 And:

I was this close to getting a little bee painted on my cheek, but I held off because I thought I'd look silly.

We then ran into the Backwards Beekeepers NYC table:

which was covered in:

BEES!!!!

Nothing to fear though, for they were all under glass. It was crazy how busy they looked.

Behind the boardwalk concessions, local beekeepers were demonstrating how they extracted honey from their hives throughout the day.. Tim O'Neal of Borough Bees talked about his hives and explained how the bees made the honey.

After the hives were uncapped (the bees seal the combs with wax when they're full) , they were ready to be spun in a honey centrifuge (the hand crank kind was in attendance, so you had to use some elbow grease to spin it):

And there's the honey coming out of the spout. From there it can be strained to get out stray pieces of wax, or just bottled as is.

I also bought a wee bear of Summer honey from Seward Trail Honey, which has liquid gold from various parts of the year.

Sixpoint Brewery was also on hand to quench our thirst with some honey brewed beers. I chose the pale ale, Little Buzz. It was smooth drinking with just a kiss of sweetness. There was another brew, I think it was called Medium Dark? But I think Little Buzz won my vote.

Kira and I, all smiles.

John, taking a sip. 

But, I think the COOLEST part of the day, was helping beekeeper Ralph Gaeta of Buck and Billie's Honey get some honey out of some particularly stubborn combs. Kira and I really got our hands dirty; She held down the centrifuge, and I used my very long arm to scrape every drop of honey towards the spout. Nary a drop was wasted!!!

Let it begin!

Teamwork! On the left, Kira. On the right, Ralph.

Straining the liquid gold. The wax bits left over, Ralph will use to make candles.

And here are some humorous photos of me not wasting any of the honey that had stuck to my arm:

You really can't take me anywhere.

Since we were so helpful, Ralph reserved two jars of his amazing honey for us before he sold out and it was definitely money well spent.

Here is a little bee enjoying some honey from the Honey Tasting, where Ralph got second place!

Please don't sting me.

After all of this carousing, it was time to take a relaxing walk on the beach, and catch a bit of the sunset.

But after all of this honey and other treats from the Rockaway Boardwalk, we were still hungry. Thank goodness there was a honey themed dinner in store for us.....stay tuned for the thrilling and belly filling conclusion in my next post!

Girls Don't Drink Cask Beer? Get Real! - Get Real NY Cask and Food Fest 2010

Now I warn you in advance, some of these pictures are blurry. REAL BLURRY. Over the course of this awesome 3hr event, I proceeded to imbibe over 12 different beautiful cask and regular beers. TWELVE. And I'm not counting the other ones I drank quickly because I wasn't crazy about them.

I weigh 127 lbs.

The pictures are gonna be blurry. I'm sorry.

Seeing as that it's NY Craft Beer Week, and that I love beer, I knew that I'd have to go to at least ONE awesome event. I decided to make Get Real NY my event because of its focus on cask beers. Cask beers are unfiltered and unpasteurized and served without additional carbonation. The soft bubbles that you feel are from the yeasts that are still fermenting. Apparently, this is how it was done in the olden days before modern kegging and refrigeration.
Flat warm beer, you say? I think not! Time for me to do some drinking.

I got to the Altman Building in Chelsea about 15 mins in, and I was greeted by a fantastic sight.

LOOK AT ALL THAT BEER! 40 damn casks, and I had no idea where to start. I was given a super pretty GRNY glass, and I was relieved that I was getting a a nice full glass of beer, instead of a dinky sample cup. I gave the beer list I was given a look over, and really, the best way to handle this was to walk around and get a feel for everything...then dive in.

First beer up? Smuttynose's Pumpkin Ale. It was....not nearly as pumpkin-y as I'd hoped. Or spicy either. I've been forever searching for the perfect pumpkin beer....it didn't need to be sweet, just be delicious! This beer was okay, but I have to admit, I was disappointed.

For my next one, I decided to stay in the same brewery, but try a different flavor. Smuttynose's Chai was definitely different...but totally spicy and delicious. Traditional Chai spices shone in this dark, spirited porter. It was super herbal, deep, and smooth. Mmmhm.

I'm not too sure how I landed a glass of Elland's Beyond the Pale. It was a VIP ticketholder beer, and I wasn't one. Oh well. I'm just glad I had it, because it was fantastic. Light, fruity but not cloying, and it smelled like Christmas. I drank this one quickly, and asked for another glass even quicker. So delicious.FOOD! I decided to give my stomach something to hold onto, and ventured over to the food vendors.

I used to work in the Lower East Side, so I'm more than familiar with Roni-Sue's amazing handmade chocolate. But she was offering...Beer Corn???

Beer reduced to a delicious syrup, tossed with popcorn, pretzels, and mustard seeds. RIDICULOUS. Sweet, crunchy, salty, and tangy pop from the mustard seeds. Utter, beautiful insanity.

I decided to go for a bitter beer recommended to me from...an interesting gentleman. Sly Fox's Chester County Bitter was definitely that. I didn't like it at all, the bitterness was so overwhelming. Blech. Thankfully, a helpful and friendly volunteer pointed me to St. Louis's Schafly Imperial Stout. I'm a huge stout fan, but one cannot live on Guinness alone. This stuff was STRONG and assertive, and I was more than willing to obey.


To supplement all this cask goodness, Brewery Ommegang (one of my favorites) had some of their beers on hand, the cold kind. I was loving how the room temperature really let the cask beer flavors sing, but after a while the flavors were muddling my taste buds. Time for a cold one.

I tried the Maredsous Blonde and the Ommegang Zurr, which was a limited edition. ZURRRRRRRRRR!! Sour! Cherries! Snap crackle pop! I was in love. I was also refreshed by the chilly brew, and was ready to jump back to the casks.

This is when things start to get a little...foggy. I tried another VIP beer, The Bruery's Autumn Maple....YAMS! Rich, with a touch of sweetness. And after another glass of that, things got even foggier. All I remember is that they were delicious.

I had maybe, 4 or 5 beers after that, all different, all served with friendly and informative hands. I was struck by how proud the volunteers and brewers were. You could tell that this was their livelihood. I could taste it.
Thank you again, Get Real NY, for an amazing Sunday night!