Last week I took a few of the cooks from Tertulia out to eastern Long Island for an early morning of pheasant hunting. Getting up at 5:30 for cooks who often are usually going to sleep at that hour, is tough, but I commend the guys, no one overslept and the only one who was late, was me (as usual.) Our friend and brilliant wine-maker, Pepe Raventos, joined us. Pepe recently moved to New York with his family to represent the winery in the U.S. and to experience life in the great city of New York. We’ve been trying to get together for ages and we finally managed to do it…albeit in lieu of dinner, it was early morning deli coffee and .12 gauge shotguns! Jason, Dina, Brandon, Anup, Pepe and I joined up with Cap’t Dennis and Misty, Jake and Ranger and went in search of pheasants- that is to say, went in search of pheasants that Cap’t Dennis had released into the wild an hour before we got there. There were a few greenhorns amongst us, but everyone shot well and shot safely, I think on more than one occasion Pepe, who is a seasoned bird hunter, was a bit worried that we might return home short a cook or two. In the end, everything was fine and we bagged 25 beautiful pheasants, a nice mix of roosters and hens and they’re hanging in the feathers now, aging and getting ready to be turned into deliciousnesses.
When I worked for Jordi Vila at Alkimia in Barcelona, one of his friends would periodically bring us wild game he’d shot and Jordi always insisted on letting is ripen for at least 10 days, whether it was hare, pheasant or partridge, they all got hung outside, and developed a rich, gamey stink the mild Barcelona winter air. The first time I tried a game bird that had been properly aged, it blew me away how deliciously intense and complex the flavors were.
It’s amazing that even here, in the heart of Gotham, we can jump in a car and within the hour be hunting game. There is something primordially satisfying about cooking meat from an animal that you’ve harvested. It’s a wonderful reminder of how far removed we’ve gotten from our food over the years and how tasty good food can be, just remember to be careful of the buckshot!
Next stop? Ducks!
