The Last Meal 2011 Recap
As the year draws to a close, we all have a tendency to look back and reflect on what happened in 2011. For Studiofeast, it was a great year filled with events where we had the privilege of bringing people together with food. You can surf this site to see the things that ensued in 2011–through prose, video, and photo–but a less visible reflection of our year comes in the form of the responses to that question on our invite form, “You’re about to die, what’s your last meal?”
Studiofeast Sunday #1 Recap
For the past few years we’ve been doing events that have become more and more ambitious in scale, concept, and execution. This has been a good thing, as we’ve been able to push ourselves to create some really great dining experiences for our guests. These events have been our way of continuing to explore the culinary & social gray area between a high concept restaurant and dinner at your best friend’s house.
The Last Meal: Death Row Class of 2011
See the recap of this feast here.
I hope this message finds you well. As the end of the year draws near, I have the pleasure of inviting you to our final meal of the year: The Last Meal 2011.
For nearly 5 years we have had a question on our mailing list form that asks, “You are about to die, what’s your last meal?” Over time we’ve collected some great responses from all of you and last year, we created a meal using the top 20 ingredients from our entire dataset.
This year we’ll be creating a meal inspired by the “Death Row Class of 2011′s” submissions. To do this, we’ve sliced and diced the dataset into segments and will prepare dishes inspired by the favorites from various segments: Brooklyn vs Manhattan, Male vs Female, Spring vs Fall, Gmail users vs AOL users, etc.
Which Studiofeast segment has the best taste in death row food? You decide:
- DATE: Sunday, December 18th.
- TIME: 5:30pm – 9:30pm
- LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY
- FORMAT: Five courses that deal with duck, chicken, lobster, sichuan peppercorns, bourbon, whipped foie, more.
- WINE: Two wine pairings; BYOB if you wish
- DONATION: $100/pp
Seating is incredibly limited, so act quickly to secure a spot at the table by visiting this link: http://sflastmeal2011.eventbrite.com/
Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.
I do hope you’ll join us, but if not, have a great holiday season and we’ll see you in 2012 for more ridiculousness.
–
Photo by: David Christiansen, http://pop-up-studio.com
Studiofeast Sunday #1
See the recap of this feast here.
“And on the seventh day, we ate awesome”
On Sunday, Dec 4th in Williamsburg, we will be kicking off the first in a series of intimate Sunday dinners that we’re simply calling “Studiofeast Sunday”
These dinners will be 10 person affairs, with seating in close proximity to an open kitchen. Our aim here is to cook awesome food for you while holding an informative / hilarious / titillating dialogue with you about everything and nothing, all night.
We’ll be doing brand new recipes for you over five courses with two wine pairings for $100:
- Raw: scallop + foie + oyster + tarragon
- Salad: broccoli + shallot + sichuan + pork floss
- Soup: cauliflower + apple + salsify + chive
- Main I: rib cap + asparagus + mushroom
- Main II: ribeye + scallion + kimchi + tteok
- Dessert: brie + honey + lavender + cranberry
- Wines: two pairings + you are also welcome to byob
Please RSVP with your donation at this link: http://studiofeastsunday01.eventbrite.com/
Participants will be emailed the location 24 hours before the event. Reservations are non-refundable and are first come, first serve. We cannot make any menu substitutions, nor do we have vegetarian options.
I do hope you’ll join us and can’t wait to cook for you.
Time Lapse: Doppelganger
A time lapse of our Doppelganger Dinner on July 17th, 2011
Photos & Recap: The Doppelganger Dinner
I had a thought once about couples where one person was a vegetarian and the other was a meat eater. It seemed like they could really never share a meal and have the same experience without one person–usually the omnivore–compromising to suit the mutually agreeable meal. To a normal, well adjusted human being, this is a totally banal observation that wouldn’t warrant losing sleep over.
But to us at Studiofeast, we thought it’d be cool to do a meal where an omnivore and a vegetarian could both share the same meal without the former forgoing meat or the latter having to try flesh. That was the seed of an idea that grew into our most recent dinner: a 7 course meal with an omnivore and vegetarian option where each corresponding course looked identical across the meat/vegetable line. And on July 17th, we seated 40 guests–20 omnivores on one side of the table, 20 vegetarians sitting opposite them–and served them our Doppelganger Dinner. [Full menu & photo gallery after the jump!]
Last Meals: Menu Design – Pt 3
Part 3 of 3, recounting the inspiration and process behind Dec 2010′s Last Meal. Here are the first and second posts.
After about a day or so to come down from our brief bout of cheese-choco-chicken-shoe gazing, we settled in on the task of building our meal from all 20 ingredients. A couple non-food items made it to the list: mom, fresh, red, etc, but we liked that. It added a subtle hint of high concept to the dinner without sending it into outer space.
Last Meals: The Top 20 Items – Pt 2
Part 2 of 3, recounting the inspiration and process behind Dec 2010′s Last Meal. Read the first post here.
Our initial approach was to read through the list one by one and flag the meals we thought were most interesting. Dishes that were clearly of a certain ethnic origin and that we had never heard of made the cut instantly, or at least until we could Google the dish and decide if it’d be a good (“Kokoretsi“) or bad (“Turron de Dona Pepa“) idea.
Last Meals: Thinking About Pleasure – Pt 1
For four years we have asked this question on our mailing list request page: ” You’re about to die, what’s your last meal?”
There are no right answers to this question, just having an answer that you believe in is enough. If you care enough about food and what it provides beyond mere sustenance then you’ve hopefully thought about this question before. You were who we wanted to cook for.
