A couple weeks ago, I took the kids to a park to play and is often the case this time of year parks in the area are virtually abandoned, dried bushes, dried trees, plants, the water in any small pond is scummy and green, the walkways are dirty, the ground is almost boring to look at as the color hasn't come in yet and the ground is dried and crunches when you step on it. The benches rotten and still damp. As I ran through the dried bushes with my son, he laughed and it propelled me back into my childhood. that's exactly what I experienced when I was his age. He couldn't get over the branches and dirt crunching under his feet. My daughter the same started to stomp to hear the crunching. So, I wanted to have fun and see if I could create a meal.....which actually had to be a bit ugly to look at and see if I could create an abandoned spring park. The water/pond in the center as it is in some parks is scummy (a pancetta and garlic/chive soup-feedback was this was the biggest surprise of the meal) surrounded by a dirty walkway (torched pistachio meringue with grated beetroot and hazelnut praline), Rusty lumpy benches (Pork belly inspired by Heston and Chefsteps), coated in the spirit of Heston's licorice poached salmon, dirty crunchy soil (cooked and dehydrated red, and white quinoa, buckwheat and wild rice-my dehydrator got a good workout) with gross walkways (egg yolk strips), dried wood stumps, sticks and trees (nixtamalized salsify) and waterlogged stumps (nixtamalized beets soaked in raspberry/chili juice), celery root dumplings and horseradish celery root puree with basil soil as a base for some of the plants and trees.
I need to buy bigger serving platters. This is a dish that looked like....well....crap. But the feedback was "this is the most amazing dish....." I was disappointed (especially with the presentation) but the small group loved it. The pork belly was excellent!! One of the diners who doesn't like allot of fat was loving every bite. Their biggest compliment was a question......"how can a dish like this taste so rich yet not feel heavy?"
I tried it and enjoyed the flavors, but need a better way to plate this if I have an opportunity to do it again. Either a large vessel/tray or silicone table cloth....or something. I'd make the benches a slightly different color, but the plating. Ugh!
I wouldn't call the dish a failure (the flavors were pretty awesome) , but I hate the look of how it turned out. :-)
