Dan Barber's foie gras parable | Video on TED.com

"The great blessing for chefs and for people that care about food and cooking, is that the most ecological choice for food is also the most ethical choice for food, whether we're talking about brussel sprouts or foie gras. And it's almost always, (and I haven't found an example that proves otherwise,) the most delicious choice."

Dan Barber's foie gras parable Video on TED.com

Watch this video of the incredible Chef Barber of Blue Hill in NY, discuss the most delicious and controversial of foods after visiting a farm in Spain that makes truly humane foie gras. Fascinating!

Sauced Closes Its Doors

The last patrons of the bar left, the glasses were washed, the plates dried, and the doors locked for the night. Mike and Charlotte sat in the back seat of the patrol car together for one last time. Val locked the doors with her keys, vowed to take a few days off from the business and never hire another blonde again. Saul smoked a few cigarettes as he stood on the platform, waiting for the Chicago bound train, the Ephemera vial safe in his valise. The stories had been told, the files closed, and the broken hearts laid to rest.

Another successful venture complete, Nordo tucked away Murray’s recipes for a later day. His first foray into the world of alcohol and intrigue had been a complete success. Now, winter hovered on the horizon, and it seemed appropriate to hibernate and contemplate the next great venture. The future is a wide open palette of possibilities. Maybe he will return to New York and take the city by storm, perhaps Chicago needs another three star establishment, or maybe, just maybe, he’ll settle down in Seattle for a while. Who knows?

I believe the bar will be back and maybe sooner than later. The style, the music, and the drinks seemed to touch the heart of Seattle. The Northwest likes to drink fine cocktails while being swept into an era of mystery with shocks of sexual tension. Seems like a fantastic combination to me. I will never forget the beautiful women belting on stage as the audience swooned in the dim lighting of the lounge. Another world had opened up, and those who made it in the doors fell in, swallowed by nostalgia and intrigue. The world was not a better place then than now. But we can always dream. It was like peaking into a speakeasy of the day. If life could always be like that maybe we’d all feel a bit grander. Or, at least, drunker. Let’s all romanticize the darker side of life, shall we?

Nordo feels proud of this one. He feels that he and his crew captured the essence of what it is to drink, to be in the bar of bars, to stay late into the night and stumble home, to fall for the woman at the next table, to throw caution to the wind, and forget the troubles of home, to watch the stars reel overhead, to feel high, and rich, and larger than life. It’s all in the love of alcohol.

That’s how life goes sometimes, you can either sip it or shoot it.

Peeking Into the Kitchen

The test kitchens have been wonderful, tipsy, stumble down the road affairs. Our guests have left with bright smiles and bleary eyes. The cocktails are that good. And the food, well, it’s been luxurious re-imagined bar food that pares with the history of the cocktail. Chef Nordo has outdone himself. But, he is not satisfied. He's been lumbering about, grumbling under his breath, turning in tight circles in the kitchen since a person or two mentioned the heat of the stuffed pepper and the extreme tartness of the preserved lemon. “Can’t these people take an adventure?” “What do they want, Applebees?” And so on and so forth. He never quite stops.

Today we take a peek into the menu.

We begin with a nut dish. The tumeric lime glaze sparks and then blends with the tart sweetness of the champagne cocktail called “The Slippage”. And this begins all the trouble for the evening.

Our second stop lands us in the land of botanicals and alchemy. Alcohol has been a medicine for humans since time immemorial. In the pursuit of purity, it was the Arabs who thought to distill wine and in the process discover alcohol itself. Known as “Aqua Vitae” a tablespoon a day was thought to give long life. It was the cure all. And in that spirit we serve The Secret Kiss, a combination of gin and yellow chartreuse. The aromatic concoction buoys the flavors of the Pickled Plate. Beets, cucumbers, quail eggs, and olives rest in a dill custard as an homage to all things preserved and fermented. The guests have been pleasantly surprised.

Next, we come to the American cocktail. This great invention of our country has inspired two centuries of tastes and sordid moments. We have reveled in our love of spirits, discovered the joy of ice, brought vermouth into the vocabulary, and finally arrived at the classic cocktail in the 1870’s with the Manhattan, the Sazarac, and the Martiniz. In this tradition we serve up a quiet ember of a drink- A Box of Nails- and pare it with the challenging Fried Food Platter. The two bite and soothe, bite and soothe.

We end the evening in a dream. Our final drink, The Violet Hour, pays tribute to the soft edges of time and color that is the cocktail hour, and when combined with the Raspberry Cloud meringue we hover in a final few moments of bliss. Enough said.

And that is our evening. A few more tweaks and few more twists, and this case is closed.

The Violet Hour

The violet hour, when the sun sets on the outside world and shadows lengthen with mystery, when a laugh can last a lifetime, and affections glow brightly. There’s the bar buzz at your back, and anybody who walks through the door could be somebody you want to know. It’s the cocktail hour. Time stands still.

Today Americans drink approximately 1/2 oz of distilled spirits a day per man, woman, and child. But back then, when the cocktail was born, it was 2 oz of liquor per day. The country was full of jitterbugs. It was drank at breakfast, as a medicine, at lunch break, and after dinner. Rum was the gold of the New World and the taxes on it’s production caused more furor and trouble than any pitiful English Tea. Alcohol. It made fortunes and bought votes.

The cocktail was the first American export around the world. Before we were known for our authors, our art, our steel, our textiles, or what have you, we were known for our drinks. It was something we were great at.

And what makes a good cocktail and not just some swill covered in syrup or water? The key is balance. Balance of mood. Of setting. Of ingredients. The soul of the spirit must be soothed before it can easily glide down the throat and coat the brain. It’s in the mixing, and in that there is something, magical.

Once inside the violet hour, the world outside may be an illusion and all of us here larger than life.