We’re getting close to the end of white asparagus season, a time particularly prized by some Europeans. Andrea Calstier of La Bastide in North Salem, N.Y., is celebrating the season by dressing the vegetables with seaweed pistou and lardo made from jamón Ibérico.
And we’re in the throes of soft-shell crab season, which Todd Gray is observing at Equinox in Washington, D.C., by serving it with flavors from the Eastern Mediterranean.
New York City-based celebrity chef J.J. Johnson, apart from his projects in that city, is also the culinary director of Blue Llama Jazz Club in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Is giving leeks a Senegalese treatment there.
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Pearl Steffie, head chef and co-owner of a vegan omakase restaurant called Kusaki, is offering a seafood-free version of calamari.
And in New York City, bartender Nazar Hrab of Pineapple Club is taking the down-market cocktail Long Island Iced Tea, clarifying it, and rounding out its flavors.
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
