Food and Drink

Both still bronzed from their vacation in Tuscany, Beth and Buffy hosted the MBA’s highly successful mixer last Thursday, serving as a refreshing reminder that Babette’s Kitchen now serves beer and wine. The members also enjoyed a variety of delicious hot hors d'oeuvres. Earlier that day I sat down with Buffy to learn what new ideas they picked up in Italy. She related just how tasty the fresh vegetables were and remarked on how inexpensive simple, good-quality food is: lots of salads, fresh soups, frittatas and fresh pasta dishes featuring luscious and healthy legumes, such as fava beans, and many other veggies. Most surprising was a very hard to find vegetable native to Italy called Agretti.

Readers may remember that in February 2012, this page featured an article entitled “A Revolution in Cooking,” in which I predicted that we would soon be eating wonderfully prepared gourmet meals that we received and cooked “sous vide.” Longtime Millbrook weekenders Sam Metzger (most famous for having created the Chipwich in the 1980s) and Peter Morrell (retired CEO of the Morrell Wine Group) are now partners in DCuisine, which offers just that. You can purchase these magnificent soups and main-course dishes on the Internet at dcuisine.com and warm them up in their pouches in boiling water, just as chefs do in their kitchens. At $12- to $16 a serving for the soups and $18- to $24 for the main courses, this is not for the fainthearted. These are restaurant prices at home—but they are actually better than what you get at most restaurants. People who frequent fine-dining restaurants and those who enjoy a good bottle of wine are prime targets for this new “fine-dining at home” concept.

I guess I am a snob—a food snob. In the three years I have lived here, I had never set foot in the local deli. I always looked for the “gourmet” and “fine food” vendors—until I attended the Fire Department dinner, where I had a perfectly cooked sliced flank steak prepared by the Millbrook Deli. I decided I needed to check them out. I met with proprietor, Marcus Gonzalez, who was born and raised in Millbrook, as was his partner and father, Ramon, whom I met when he served me the sliced steak, with a smile. The father-and- son team decided to take over the deli when it was for sale seven years ago. Because he had always loved to cook, Marcus added more elaborate dishes to the normal deli fare. So you can get your soups and sandwiches, coffee and bagels, as you would in most “Boars Head” delis.  In addition, however, Marcus offers a blackboard full of both daily and weekly specials—a choice of freshly cooked entrees; Panini, hot-pressed to order. Muffins and cookies are baked on the premises and consequently are often still warm when you arrive for breakfast.