Pig Island 2020

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The 11th annual Pig Island Festival was held on Saturday, September 12th. It was presented by Food Karma which hosts several foodie events throughout the year.

Pig Island is an annual BBQ pork festival which pitted over 20 Chefs, Pitmasters and Vendors in a competition using locally sourced pork to create the best pork dish of the day.

This year the event change location from it’s long time spot in Red Hook Brooklyn to the Snug Harbor Cultural Center located at 1000 Richmond Terrace Road in Staten Island which is a 10 minute bus ride from the ferry terminal.

The Snug Harbor Cultural Center is an 83 acre parkland. The home of a 19th century charitable rest home for sailors, it’s been converted to a park open to the public and contains museums, an arts center, an urban farm and several gardens.

It was a “socially distant picnic” where there was more than enough open space at the event to comply with the social distancing mandates with more than enough room to walk around while sampling the food and drink, lay down a blanket and enjoy the beautiful late Summer day.

For the adults there was beer from Flagship Brewery and Kills Boro Brewing Co., ciders from Austin East Ciders and Romilly Cider and whiskey from Knob Creek and Laphroiag.

Chefs and Pitmasters:

Tank Jackson	Matt Fisher
Rodrigo Duarte	Cenobio Canalizo
Mario Chape	Mike Lape
Jesse James	Jase Franklyn
Mike Petrovitch	Luis Riviera Jr.
Joe Tacoronte	John Fucks
Pete Calascione	Vinny Ferrante
Mathew Worgul	Leland Avellino

Cochon 555 2020

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Cochon 555 is a “nose to tail” culinary event that covers nine cities on its U.S. tour. The organization was created in 2008 with a mission to support family farms and to educate buyers about heritage breed pigs. The signature event featured 5 chefs, 5 pigs, 5 winemakers in a friendly competition for a cause where the winner is crowned “Princess/Prince of Pork”. Sommeliers were on hand for a to pour wines and to participate in a Somm Smackdown.

The New York City leg of their tour was held on March 8th at the Altman Building event venue at 135 West 18th Street in Manhattan. The venue is a landmark building dating from 1896 and was the carriage house for the B. Altman department store.

This was one of the last events I was able to attend before the virus lockdown and fortunately it was one of those consumer events that had a good crowd enjoying a good mix of food, spirits and wine. They had oysters, cheese and steak tartare for those who were pork adverse though it seemed they didn’t get the logistics of the new venue down right, some of the lines for food were way too long and that was before general admittance was let in. But with a couple of floors of food, drink and music people were enjoying what was probably the last party that were able to attend.

Pig Island 2019

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The 10th annual Pig Island BBQ fest was held on September 7th.

The event was held on the waterfront at Erie Basin Park in Red Hook Brooklyn. The neighborhood of Red Hook is an old industrial waterfront area that in the 1990’s Life magazine called “one of the worst neighborhoods in the United States”. That has changed as the neighborhood has been going to a resurgence. Box stores such as IKEA and Fairway have made their way into the neighborhood and many of the warehouses have been converted to galleries, artists lofts, breweries and distilleries.

The event was produced by the Food Karma Project helmed by Jimmy Carbone who along with Josh Ozersky conceived Meatopia back in 2010. That wanted a farm to table event using pigs from small farmers.

With the cancellation of the Big Apple BBQ block party this year, this event was the premier bbq event of the year in New York and “the last great bbq event of the Summer”.

I attended after a two year hiatus. The park is on the waterway with expansive views of the harbor most of the way around. It was a big outdoor bbq with people and families spreading blankets on the grass while strolling from vendor to vendor.

Since my last visit more spirit vendors were in attendance this time around. Some of the interesting ones was Irish Whiskey from Kilbeggan and Tyrconnell which had a wide range of whiskey styles that I didn’t think Irish whiskey had. There were some nice single malts from Laphroaig, Auchentoshan and Bowmore, a couple of nice rye from Ragtime Rye and Knob Creek was on hand to make a smoked to order Old Fashioned.

When general admission was let in some of the food lines grew long, it seems that there’s a hierarchy of bbq vendors and some of the lines were longer than others.

BBQ to be sampled:

Puerco a lo Cubano	Vietnamese Larb
The Foxy Burger	Mixiotes de Puerco
Apple Cider Brined Hog	Pulled Pork Tacos
Puerco Ahumado	Smoked Chorizo
Half Pig Porcetta	BBQ Pigtail
Pulled Pork Bacon Cups	Roasted Pernil

Cochon 555 2019

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Cochon 555 is a culinary competition featuring heritage breed pork. The competition is a 10 city tour that stopped in New York City on Sunday April 13th.

It’s a “nose to tail” culinary event with 5 chefs, 5 pigs and 5 wine makers. The mission of the tour was conceived as a way “to educate buyers about the agricultural importance of eating heritage breed pigs”.

The event was held at the Weylin, a former Williamsburg Savings Bank at 175 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It’s an architectural gem with a beautiful copula in the center of the room.

As far as food festivals are concerned, this is on of the better ones with good wines, spirits and pork centric dishes from local restaurants.

There were a couple of cheese tables with excellent cheeses paired with various wines. A Sommeliers table that featured a rotating selection of eclectic wines throughout the evening. Spirits made a good showing with a good selection of brown spirits with some white spirits as well. I did have a nice cannoli too.

A butchering competition had a contestant breaking down a whole hog into kitchen ready parts.

Pigs & Pizza

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Food Network held its 11th annual New York City Wine & Food Festival (NYCWFF) on October 11-14. It’s New York City’s largest food and wine festival with four days of 80 events and 500 chefs featuring a grand tasting, culinary demos, rooftop parties, late night parties, dinners, cocktails, spirits and classes. A foodies dream with something for everyone concerning food, drink and parties. This is the sister event to the South Beach food and wine fest held in February in Miami. 100% of NYCWFF’s net proceeds benefit the No Kid Hungry campaign and Food Bank for New York City. I was able to get the party rolling by attending some of the late night parties starting with Tacos & Tequila on Thursday night and Rock & Roll Sushi on Friday night. On Saturday I spent the day eating well. I attended:

The Ultimate Pizza Party presented by Slice and hosted by Jeff Mauro

Who doesn’t like pizza? At this fest several pizza establishments served their wood-fired creations with a wide range of toppings that in addition to the traditional red sauce with cheese included toppings with various meats and cold cuts, cheeses, vegetables, and even egg and with red sauce or no red sauce. Some of the rotating restaurants sending hot slices out of the wood-fired ovens included Motorino, Speedy Romeo, LBK and Sottocasa to name a few.

The event was held at Fornino’s Pier 6 restaurant located at Brooklyn Bridge Park which has a stellar view of lower Manhattan. To keep with the Italian theme I washed down those slices with shots of Fernet.

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Pigs & Pours presented by Whistle Pig and hosted by Robert Irvine

Later in the afternoon, I attended the pigs & pour event held at The Standard High Line Biergarten at the Standard Hotel located at 848 Washington Avenue in the Meatpacking district of lower Manhattan.

It was a walk around fest of local restaurants serving all things pork and pork centric that included everything from a whole roasted pig to bacon desserts with everything in between. To wash all that down was beer from Modello, cocktails made with WhistlePig whiskey and surprisingly, a nice selection of pinot noir from Oregon and California that included:

Cambria Julia’s Vineyard, La Crema Sonoma Coast, Siduri Willamette Valley, Willakenzie Estate Gisele and Kendall-Jackson VR.

Upcoming Wine Event: On November 10, Robert Parker Jr’s Wine Advocate Matter of Taste is hosting one of the best wine tastings of the year at the Conrad New York Hotel. At the Grand Tasting there will be an opportunity to try some of the finest wines of the world.

Promo code for $50 off the Grand Tasting: SVNYC18

Cochon 555 New York 2018

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Cochon 555 is a multi-city culinary tour to “further the conversation of heritage pigs on dinner tables across the nation” and whose goal is to “support family farmers and to educate influencers ultimately making them a better, more knowledgeable teacher”.

The 14 city tour kicked off in New York City on January 21 with a “friendly competition for a cause” featuring 5 chefs, 5 pigs and 5 winemakers.

The event was held at the Kimpton Hotel Eventi at 851 6th Avenue in Manhattan and showcased pork centric dishes from local restaurants (and the outlier steak tartare bar) and competitions that involved bartenders, sommeliers and butchers.

Of course to wash all that down were punches, Manhattans from the Manhattan Project and international wines some of which included:

2016 Mariotti Campi Rosato

2015 Chateau Carbonnieux Blanc

2015 Ronco dei Tassi Sauvignon Blanc

2015 Antica Chardonnay

2013 Antica Cabernet Sauvignon

2013 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon

2013 Chateau Carbonnieux Rouge

2005 Marquis de Riscal Rioja Gran Reserva

Pig Island 2016

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This past Saturday afternoon, September 10th I attended the 7th annual Pig Island Porktacular BBQ festival.

Pig Island was created in 2010 to support New York pig farmers with hogs sourced directly from small farms. This year the pork was provided by Flying Pig Farms in Shushan New York.

The outdoor festival was held on the waterfront at Erie Basin Park in Red Hook, Brooklyn which is surrounded with plenty of reminders of its industrial past with monolithic cranes and rotting piers.

Over 25 Chefs served pork-centric dishes for us to sample along with craft beer, artisan spirits and cider, and the beer and cider came in handy since this Saturday was brutally hot, with temperatures atypical for this time of year in the mid 90’s (34°). I have to give Kudos to the pitmasters who practiced their craft over a hot grill in these temperatures.