Brooklyn and the Pain that came with it.......

A little over six weeks ago my boss came to me and told me that I would be cooking for a very intimate but informal bloggers lunch. It was being put together by the fine people of James Clay Distribution and us at Mr Foley's in Leeds. I tried to prepare a menu in the best of my ability and hopefully I delivered a meal people liked and will hopefully remember.
Thank you to a buddy of mine Rick Furzer for helping me put together some of the menu sadly some didn't get used but I did use the starter he came up with my special fried then baked chicken wings in a spicy yet fruity sauce to pair with an exceptional DIPA Brooklyn Blast.

http://beerprole.wordpress.com/

I also served a side salad put together by my assistant on the day it  was served with a ranch dressing, a mayonnaise and milk based dressing with a smothering of different herbs and spices to give the heat from the chicken wings a bit of a cool down so the taste buds of my guests didn't get too over worked in the beginning of the meal.

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Next I went with a real crowd pleaser a 38 hour marinated pork shoulder that was sold to us by Mr. Meats in the Leeds Market if you need some meat and are in pinch the guys at Mr Meats will try and accommodate anything you can throw at them, I marinated it in a special dry rub and a maple syrup and bourbon glaze and then roasted it in a very low oven at 120'C for what seemed like forever but in reality was about 14 hours. I choose to served this with a very special beer that was a pleasure to drink and very rare on these shores. Mary's Maple Porter was the beer of choice and I think it paired well seeming that all the plates came back quite clean. I also made a couple of sauces with the sandwich a Mutha Sauce and a spicy mustard based sauce, some might think this a sacrilegious act but since most people don't know BBQ in the UK I thought I was safe but did get called out by Mr. Oliver but if I had a choice I'm a Tomato and Molasses based sauce which gives out a real smokiness to the pork. I believe it went down well with the amount of clean plates that came back.

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For dessert I went with a very special Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout and Vanilla Bean Ice Cream Float. Now I knew this was a firm favourite of the guest of honour and I hope I did it justice but Leigh from the Good Stuff might tell a better tale than me about it seeing that I'm quite biased.  Overall I hope I delivered a meal that people enjoyed and maybe a meal people might try to recreate or seek out again. Loads thought and planning went into the meal and I hope it showed through the food that I served. So all in all I consider this a personal success seeing that I have never ever done anything like this before and I just hope I didn't make a fool of myself talking to the group of great bloggers, food writers, radio presenters, peers, friends, and local business people and I hope I truly delivered something that you all enjoyed on the day. A special Thank you goes out to Mr. Garrett Oliver and Ben Hodgkinson for coming and enjoying and dealing with my rambling and self doubt on the event. So I hope everyone enjoyed the food as much as I did cooking it even though I didn't get to taste any of it the empty plates confirmed my thoughts on it being a crowd pleasing lunch.

Thanks to all those that blogged about the lunch as well;
Broadford Brewer David Bishop
The Good Stuff Leigh Linley
The Beer Prole Nick Mitchell
Ghostdrinker Wont reveal the name.