More Monk’s, including a tip of the hat to Lew and my chat with the daughter of a very famous man.
Looks like I don’t have to go into much detail about the Monk’s Xmas Dinner, since that’s already been taken care of by The Big Guy. You know, it’s almost like having an intern. Granted, interns will do some silly, embarrassing things, like forcing one of the nation’s top publicans to place a huge bottle of beer on his head and smile, but you live with that rather than destroying youthful exuberance and hope for better when maturity sets in.
Anyway, quite a meal, as you can see on Lew’s site, and some wonderful beers to go along with. Highlights for me were the De Struise Tjeeses and Scaldis Prestige with the Elk and Cheese courses, but there wasn’t a bad match-up in the bunch (plus it’s always nice to see my annual recommendation for putting down the Sly Fox Xmas and allowing it to mellow into a very drinkable strong ale with minimal spice character born out once again. As I commented last night, those three cheeses were superb and not only did that main course make Brussel Sprouts palatable and it turns out that replacing the mashed potatoes in a Stoempf with sweet potatoes is a neat way to make the latter tolerable as well. Monk’s has been the only place ever to get me to eat asparagus since I got old enough to say no, so chalk up another two achievements for the kitchen.
Also nice was getting to meet and chat with Christine Cellis, Pierre’s daughter, who’s now a sales rep for C2 Imports, especially since I had a tentative appointment to interview her at Teresa’s Monday afternoon and somehow let it slip my mind. She’s a charming, talkative lady and she had great stories to tell about her father, including how he would design his own labels. If it heard it right (terribly noisy in the house last night), she’s working on having him due one last recipe to create a beer called Pierre which she have brewed in his honor. Sounds like that would be a grand tribute to man, 85 years old and housebound these days, who contributed so much to beer culture around the world.
Finally, I took very few photos and all are terrible so I am now waiting, hoping, praying that that nice Beer Fox Carolyn Smagalski is going to forward me a photo taken by the bartender of Lew, her, me & departing chef Adam Glickman, not just because I’d like to put Adam’s last night at Monk’s on the record here, but so I can tell you why the photo was not taken by Joe Sixpack.
That tale is one of the great moments in photojournalism.
Why is Adam leaving? He’ll be missed.
It’s not entirely clear. The official statement is that it was time, after nine years, and both sides said nice things, plus he left a few weeks ago but was invited to do this dinner. Somebody mentioned a television possibility last night while we were all hugging and talking, but Adam was non-committal.
[...] I promised you a “Joe Sixpack takes a photo (sorta)” story down near the bottom of this post and will not selfishly withhold that from you just because I don’t have a lovely photograph to [...]