Planning any wedding can be a stressful experience.  Planning a memorable wedding within a reasonable budget in Manhattan can bring about feelings of helplessness, rage, confusion, and possibly a series of worrisome facial tics.

Luckily, Astor Center is here to help.

We know that NYC couples and their families are different than most; that they expect a relaxing experience in a warm venue with more personality than, say, your standard hotel ballroom.  Most importantly, these couples know and love food. 

They understand that their day’s menu, from the hors d’oeuvres to the champagne to the cake, is what their guests will remember most; what they will walk away talking about (besides the blessed union of the two souls, of course). 

Recently Astor Center underwent an expansion that positions it as the premier wedding venue for serious food-lovers and wine enthusiasts.  To celebrate this evolution and to showcase some of our favorite vendors, wines, and wedding cocktails, on the evening of March 11 we are presenting a very special wedding expo called “Eat. Drink. Be Married.” 

For the cost of your average Manhattan cocktail, brides and grooms-to-be (as well as their families, friends, and planners) will experience the tasty offerings and signature wedding cocktails from our favorite caterers, bakers and chocolatiers, and sample carefully chosen champagnes and wines from the experts at Astor Wines & Spirits. Momofuko Milk Bar, Fatty Cakes NY, LiddAbit Sweets, The Cleaver Company and a dozen more local food businesses will be in attendance.

You’ll walk away with all of your venue questions answered; menu, cake and edible favor ideas, an enviable gift bag, and one lucky couple will receive a personalized Astor Center cooking class and dinner party for up to 14 guests – a great idea for a bridal shower or bachelor/bachelorette party. 

You’ll also walk away completely stress-free.

Tickets are available on the Astor Center site.

Dale DeGroff is a smooth operator and just about as handsome as Dean Martin. He was among my instructors for the BAR certification program and I can vouch for his storytelling ability, and is a living legend in the mixology world. So imagine my delight that he'll be at Astor Wines this evening from 5 - 8 pm, shaking up drinks to go alongside his wife Jill's book signing.

While you may not have the benefit of sitting next to the Astor Wines tasting bar (I can get cocktails without even stepping outside!), you are invited to come on down and taste Dale's wares. For free! I'm sure you plan to be very abstemious during Lent, so it is only right that you should celebrate tonight with something rummy and yummy.

Aside from running the most outstanding culinary center in New York City, our fearless leader Jenn Smith is currently working on one of her life's goals, creating a different cocktail to compliment every American president. Here she shares with us #39, James Earl Carter Jr. or the "Jimmy Carter" The Jimmy Carter
by Jenn Smith

• Crushed salt, sugar, peanuts on the rim
• Castries Peanut Liquor
• Anchor Porter
• Nutmeg

We here at Astor are overwhelmed with sadness at the devastation in Haiti. In order to help, we have added an "Elements of Wine" class to our calendar on Monday, January 25th, and will pass on 100% of ticket sales to support the relief effort.

 
Every year Saveur magazine asks for their readers to submit their ideas, inspirations, and favorite food finds. Everything from family recipes to treasured cookbooks to time-honored tips. And thanks to y-o-u Astor Center is ranked #68 on The 2010 Saveur 100 List.

Here's to another delicious year!

See for yourself

On my most recent of Sunday morning bloggings, I came accross a little piece of fun called Roboexotica. It's a festival held in Vienna that adresses a long standing issue. This is direct from their homepage.

"Until recently, no attempts had been made to publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication. Roboexotica is an attempt to fill this vacuum. It is the first and, inevitably, the leading festival concerned with cocktail robotics world-wide. A micro mechanical change of paradigm in the age of borderless capital. Alan Turing would doubtless test this out."

Needless to say, you can take a few minutes out of your day to check this out.

Below is a robot that mixes cocktails based on how you play Mario. Needless to say, my drink would be elegant, potent and delicious.

Hi my name is Kent.

I might be what some consider a nerd. The way that my colleagues at Astor Center speak about locally produced goods and interesting dishes they made from scratch at home, I can akin to the way I speak about smartphone OS's and robust websites that don't use Flash. You can often hear me going off on my extreme distaste for Apple products the way Michael Pollan might Fruit Loops.

I am also a big fan of the Gross Food movement.

I am also 50% Japanese.

So this, as no surprise, tickled my proverbial fancy.

Happy Windows 7 Day!

I'm not speaking about the proper temperature to serve a chablis. (50º-55ºF says Jancis); nor am I speaking about the temperature at which the middle of a pork roast should be (I didn't feel like looking that one up); but rather something to me that is much more intriguing.

Allow me to temporarily kidnap you from sitting in front of your computer screen and propose to you this scenario: You have just brought home your piping hot General Tso’s chicken and have set it down in front of a nice fresh episode of  “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” You take the first few bites and are in heaven. The outside is crispy, the inside is juicy and tender and the sauce is spicy, sweet and it is the perfect adhesive for the chicken fried rice (that’s right, I double up on my poultry) ::SINCE YOU’VE BEEN GONE:: exclaims your cell phone as it begins your Kelly Clarkson ringtone. You pick it up and it’s Dave, your best friend calling you from the west coast. You get up and walk away from your noisy telly, and towards your bed. You catch up and he tells you about firing his friend’s gun using RC cars as targets, and you tell him about that girl that wouldn’t call you back. After you both stop being interesting you bid each other adieu and you return to your dinner of exotic cuisine, only to discover that it’s no longer even warm, it’s damn cold! It immediately becomes up appetizing as you think of the best way to reheat it. Stop…

Right there… Why? Why is it better warm? Why are so many foods better warm? I understand that you can eat it cold, but it’s not the same. I know that there are people out there who enjoy cold pizza, I’m one of them. Although there are the few who say that cold pizza is better than warm pizza and there is a very simple explanation for that, they’re lying. Probably to seem more interesting, but I digress…

I’ve done my fair share of thinking, conversating and researching this phenomenon, but interestingly enough the internet has very little to say on this matter. Here are some of the possible answers I have compiled. Perhaps you could contribute some of your own ideas. It would certainly make you seem interesting… to me at least.

-         An expectation of certain foods to taste and feel a certain way

-         A solidifying of fat, affecting texture and taste

-         A nurturing factor, similar to taking a hot shower

I attended Farm Camp this past weekend, an experience developed for food industry professionals by the folks behind Flying Pigs Farm in Shushan, NY.  My time there was profoundly life-changing, and is sure to be the subject of many a post here but, for starters, I wanted to share some egg freshness tips from Jen Small, one of the co-founders and farmers of Flying Pigs, that certainly came as news to me.  For example, I had no idea just how long a good quality egg would last under refrigeration (two months or so), or that the albumen (the white of the egg) is slightly cloudy for the first few hours after the egg is laid, and then eventually clears – a subject with which one is only concerned when making one’s breakfast out of very freshly laid eggs, as we had the great fortune of doing yesterday morning.  The eggs from Flying Pigs are always top notch thanks to the well-treated birds that are granted generous access to good quality feed and have plenty of room to roam around the rolling hills of Shushan to feast on bugs.  But, how do we always know for sure if our eggs are fresh?  There are a few checkpoints, according to Jen.  First and foremost, you can drop your eggs into a deep container of cold water – the very freshest ones will sink to the bottom and lay on their side.  But just because they float doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad.  Older eggs will rise to the top because the air cell within them gets larger with age.  These are the eggs Jen chooses to hard boil, as the larger air space makes them easier to peel. 

Cracking the egg open will reveal much more about its freshness.  You’ll know right away by the smell (foul) if it’s turned.  Once out of the shell, the yolk of the raw egg should sit up straight in the whites.  The older the egg, the flatter and softer the yolk will be.  The thicker the whites, the better.  If the chalaza (stringy white bits on either side of the yolk that anchor it to the center of the egg) are in tact, you know your egg is very fresh as the chalaza will deteriorate with age.

Helpful tips, but I recommend always buying your eggs from Flying Pigs (available Fridays and Saturdays at the Union Square Greenmarket) or other local farms doing things the right way, as they’ll be gobbled up long before they have any chance of losing their freshness.