DAMON BAEHREL, 2nd course.

As I was saying! The next course from chef Damon Baehrel was really many mini-dishes in one, arrayed in a beautiful oval on a gorgeous plate (Baehrel joked that his accountant told him he could have either a sports car, or his exquisite set of dishes). 

Clockwise from top center, is a radish with a sauce of flax seed oil, red pepper and sorrel vinegar, poised atop a nasturtium leaf.  The ball of cheese is a three-week-old chèvre with a dollop of red sugarbush sauce, topped with a pea flower. To the right of that is a blue cheese aged four months, topped with a wild chive flower, accompanied by pickled mulberry purée and baked fig leaf ash. In the 3 o’clock position is a five and half month old camembert-style cheese made with 80% cow milk, 20% sheep milk, dusted with dried cantaloupe seeds and paired with pickled peach purée and a bee-balm leaf. Below that is a tiny wild micro-strawberry. The triangular cheese is a cow cheese aged 7 months curdled with fermented apple and grape juices and rennet, paired with a carrot top.

The pink rectangular meat is cured Tamworth hog with fennel leaf. Still going clockwise, the next round meat is a lamb spicy salami flavored with pine needle powder. The next is a duck salami aged one and a half months, with bell pepper powder, garnished with sawtooth lavender. Then we have goose pepperoni with sea salt and tomato powder decorated with celery root flower. The last round one is guinea hen sopressata with sea salt, spiced with arugula powder in place of black pepper, and garnished with Russian sage. The bright red rectangular meat is venison leg, aged 14 months. This dish was the perfect way to warm up the salivary glands for what lay ahead.