Category Archives: MGFD_GCM

[UPDATED] This Little Piggy Went… in the Walk-in for a Year

Posted on February 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Meat notes of the aged kind.

Update: Great class from Thomas, we hear. Sad to have missed it, but at least we have photos of what went down courtesy Beth!

On the eve of Thomas’ first in a series of Genuine Cooking Classes at Bon Vivant’s beautiful new store in Camana Bay, I get this photo in my inbox from Beth — a gorgeous, housemade and ready-to-eat prosciutto that our executive chef in Grand Cayman made.  I had noticed two hams dangling in a corner of his walk-in on our last trip down for Slow Food Day.  Apparently it eats like a fresher, moister prosciutto. Not quite as dry or developed in flavor, but quite good for a first try in the Cayman Islands. Salty at first but the pork flavor definitely comes through. It’s making its way to the table now on Thomas’ gnocchi (which are themselves said to contain magical powers,) and he’s thinking about pairing them with Donna’s eggs, possibly poached with the sliced ham and a ham double cream.

We hear the ladies love Thomas' gnocchi.

“I started with about 2, 5-pound legs. They roughly weigh about 4 pounds each now,” Thomas explained over email after service last night. ”This one happens to be from Paul Bodden. Such an excellent product, you cannot go wrong.  When i started it, I just thought about 6 months, but 8 months passed, and I said, ‘hey why not let it stay for a year.’  I began it exactly at taste of Cayman.”

This was his first time making a prosciutto, and knowing Thomas’ love of a good experiment, he just went for it having ”only” seen, eaten, and read about it.  If ever there was an experiment, Thomas is conducting one in more calculated a way than he will admit to. Methodically, but never to without a free spirit. Continue reading →

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Posted in Artisans, Cookbook, Local Ingredient, MGFD_GCM, On the Menu Now, This Little Piggy Went...

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[UPDATED] Slow Food Day 2012 in Pictures

Posted on February 6, 2012 | 2 Comments

Here Plantation House's Joel Walton and his fennel with chef Thomas.

Update:  As promised, here are all the chefs’ recipes from the market tasting event!  Also, the Super Porkwich became a Super Borkwich (that’s a ground beef and pork shoulder mix) on Sunday night in the @MGFD_GCM condo kitchen.  Highly recommend giving that recipe (courtesy chef de cuisine Bradley Herron) a whirl, too, if the occasion calls!  Think sausage patty in non-breakfast form…  Michael added shaved red onions to the salad mix, which I thought was a nice touch.

On Saturday, farmers and chefs gathered at The Farmers Market at The Grounds to celebrate local foods for Grand Cayman’s first of many more Slow Food Days.   From chef Niven Patel of The Brasserie cooking farmer Patrick Panton’s all-natural chicken to smokey, jerky perfection in their Caboose, to the largest crowd I’ve seen turn up at The Grounds of supportive locals eager to taste the freshest products the island has to offer, it was a great day for the island. “I’ve seen this market for years, but never like this,” a seventh generation Caymanian woman pulled me aside to share. “This is Cayman.”

Line cook Richard on the all-important stuffing duty!

if things weren’t delicious enough in the morning, the celebration concluded back at Camana Bay with chef Jonathan Waxman’s farm-to-table dinner at Michael’s Genuine.  The family-style menu of dishes from his new cookbook, Italian, My Way, featured locally-sourced ingredients like lionfish, Thai eggplant, fennel, green onion, green tomato, chicken, bacon, and more — the show-stopper being what may be the best fish he has ever tasted.  2-pound yellow eye snappers were stuffed with parsley, green olives, and thick slices of lemon, and after a generous shower of extra-virgin olive oil, some Cayman sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper, roasted in the wood burning oven. The meat was as plump and juicy as I can remember a snapper being.

Secondi: whole roasted yellow eye snapper.

Click here for our photos of the entire day.  Huge thanks to Kerry Forbes from the Cayman Islands Agricultural Society and Alan Markoff of Slow Food South South for their partnership on the event, to his Excellency The Governor for championing local agriculture, and the generous support of our sponsors including Foster’s Food Fair, Camana Bay, Bon Vivant, Books & Books, Home Gas, BlackBeards, and Cayman Free Press.   And of course to the folks without whom this event would not have been possible, nor delicious: chefs Sara Mair (Ortanique,) Niven Patel (The Brasserie,) Paul Carroll (Hemingway’s,) Keith Griffin, and Thomas Tennant (MGFD,) and farmers Hamlin Stephenson (Hamlin’s Farm,) Joel Walton (Plantation House,) Donna Connolly (Healther Choice Eggs,) Paul Bodden (Old Brown Ranch,) and Patrick Panton (East End Garden.)  We will make all of their recipes available online later today in this post.

The Slow Food Day 2012 gang.

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Posted in Artisans, Behind the Scenes, Cayman Correspondence, Local Ingredient, MGFD_GCM, Recipe, Special Event

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Housemade Sausages & Dogs for Tonight’s Legendary Food Cart

Posted on February 3, 2012 | Leave a comment

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!

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Posted in Artisans, Behind the Scenes, Cayman Correspondence, Local Ingredient, MGFD_GCM, On the Menu Now, Vending

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