Tertulia: The Weekend Warrior

Last Friday, May 11th, marked the start of Tertulia's late night bar service.  The bar will now be open until 2am on Fridays and Saturdays.  The restaurant has also opened their outdoor space and welcomes guests for lunch, weekend brunch, and dinner.

Chef Seamus Mullen spent the afternoon last Friday at 92Y, talking about his new cookbook, Hero Food.  The book is a candid look at Chef Mullen's life living with rheumatoid arthritis, which he was diagnosed with five years ago.  The book focuses on 18 ingredients that he calls "hero foods" that help maintain a healthier lifestyle.

"Seamus's "heroes" are real food, elemental things like good meat, good birds, eggs, greens, grains, and berries. He cares about how his vegetables are grown, how his fruit is treated, and about the freshness and sustainability of the fish he uses. His hope is that you will eventually forget about why these recipes are good for you, and that you'll make them just because they taste good."

In other Seamus Mullen news, Tertulia is now part of the Extra Mooga ticket for this weekends Googa Mooga event.

Two Stars for Midtown's Cafe China

Pete Wells awards two stars to Cafe China this week in a review that is just as playful as the heat and tingle experienced from the bounty of sichuan peppercorns that are in Cafe China's food.

"The chile heat and the Sichuan pepper tingle intensify each other until your mouth vibrates the way Wile E. Coyote does when he is hit on the head by an iron beam."

There is a bit of Sichuan 101 throughout the review as we learn "Sichuan cooks call the heat of chile peppers la. Ma is the word for the mouth-numbing zing of their region’s prized peppercorns. Stir them together and you have ma la."  We are directed to Land of Plenty, a cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop that notes "ma la is one of 23 distinct flavor combinations in Sichuan cooking."

Wells finds the use of sichuan peppers to be controlled and well executed in the robin's-egg-blue room at 13 East 37th Street.  "Even his spiciest recipes hold back from obliterating your palate, so you can taste the other dishes."

A Girl and Her Pig Hits Shelves Today

Today is April 10th Bloomfield.  April's new cookbook, A Girl and Her Pig, goes on sale today.  It is the chef's first cookbook and includes recipes and stories from her years in the kitchen.

"Bloomfield's innovative yet refreshingly straightforward recipes, which pair her English roots with a deeply Italian influence, offer an unfailingly modern and fresh sensibility and showcase her bold flavors, sensitive handling of seasonal produce, and nose-to-tail ethos."