Thomas' sausage smells great!
Tonight Camana Bay hosts singer/songwriter John Legend for a concert on The Festival Green off the harbour, so MGFD Grand Cayman executive chef Thomas Tennant thought what better excuse then to roll out our food cart! I popped into the kitchen last night to find everyone hard at work after my late bar meal of house salad with smoked yellowfin tuna and roasted local turnips, and our tuna tartare – a favorite Schwartz dish rarely seen on the menu at home.
Eddie's pigskins before & after (now ready for the frier.)
Apparently afterhours is when all the action takes place, namely prepping housemade pig products. The first stage of chef de cuisine Eddie’s famous chicharron was in the turned-off oven drying out, a two-day trick that makes for the fluffiest skins I’ve ever tasted. Thomas was filling natural pig casings with all sorts of sausage mixtures including one made from the restaurant’s pate, another of Jamaican jerk pork with allspice, as well as barbecue pork. Merguez was on his to-do list, as well as hot dog - a more complicated preparation which according to Michael includes double grinding, freezing, and blending. I’m guessing the smaller, angel’s hair-like sheep’s intestine he was untangling was for the dogs.
"The world's most tangled shoelace!!" says Thomas.
Even if you don’t have tickets to tonight’s 7:00 p.m. concert, you can still patronize the MGFD Cart, which will be rolled on The Crescent in Camana Bay beginning at 5:00 p.m., hopefully with a shorter line! I’ll be there to document the finished products, trying not to 86 our menu all by myself. And, since meat in tube form without beer doesn’t really count, I recommend washing it all down with Schonramer, Gold Fest (Schonram, Germany 16.9 oz,) my favorite new beer now on our list here in Cayman. Sign me up for a sippy cup!
The venue in the distance, from our apartment balcony. Michael thinks we should sell seats!
