This week the world-renowned butcher (or at least borough-renowned) Tom Mylan opened his chop shop in Brooklyn. The Meat Hook has been alive on the internet for some time, with Twitter and Tumblr keeping carnivores up-to-date with the progress at 100 Frost Street in Williamsburg.
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One question has been floating around Tom Mylan after he quit his position at Marlow & Daughters: What will he do next? Well, Brooklyn Based has answers! Today, Mylan revealed his newest project: a "food dork megaplex" in Williamsburg. It will be home to two endeavors. The Lab will be "New York's first real cooking school for home cooks", with a full supply of cooking, baking and beer making supplies, as well as an entire room dedicated to spices. The Meat Hook will be a sustainable butcher shop run by him and Brent Young, also formerly of Marlow & Daughters, offering cuts of local meat and ready made sauces and stocks. Mylan says "permits, construction and the gods willing we should open our over-stuffed doors in late October for end of year food mayhem." Considering there's something called a "Wild Turkey wild turkey" on the menu, we believe it. Maybe a Buffalo Trace buffalo steak could be next?
Last Sunday Tom Mylan cut the tip of his finger while hustling to turn a 200-pound hog into pork tacos for hundreds of hungry hungry hipsters at 3rd Ward. WNYC was on hand to document the process from the beginning, and though they missed his dramatic injury, their video is still sickeningly fascinating. Or deliciously fascinating, if you're the kind of person who enjoys swine.
Pork and bacon, of all things, are decidedly the new engines of charity events: First off, Tom Mylan and Brooklyn Kitchen have decided to auction off 10 upcoming seats at Mylan’s immensely popular pig butchering class to benefit Just Food and the Greenpoint Interfaith Food Team, according to Serious Eats. Secondly, the “Park Slope Pork Off” next month at Loki Lounge will garner the winner $100 and bragging rights; moreover, all proceeds benefit survivors of toxic waste in the Philippines. “Fakin’ bacon,” the organizers advise, is also acceptable, however “you best fool us but good.” We hear that Jonathan Proville, winner of last month’s epic Bacon Takedown, is angling for a second victory at next month’s event. More information on the “Pork Off” here. On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the New York Times has an excellent piece this week on vegan advocate and author Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, and across the pond, BBC correspondent Richard da Costa has spent four days eating, cavorting, and sleeping 24/7 in a sty with pigs. The resulting documentary called My Life as an Animal plays tonight; more information here.
In today’s Times story Brooklyn's New Culinary Movement, Edible Brooklyn (and Edible Manhattan) editor Gabrielle Langholtz is quoted comparing the borough’s burgeoning, largely independent small batch and craft food scene to the one found in “Berkeley in the 1970s.” The article describes a wave of brewers, picklers, cheesemongers, chocolate bar makers, and a genuine return to old-school butchering at locations like Marlow & Daughters, and the upcoming Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens. Frank Castronovo (of Frankies 457, and the upcoming Delightful Coffee Shop) summarizes the approach of the food movement, which involves using (for the most part) locally produced food, as the following: “Pre-industrial revolution tactics with food.”
A former barbershop on Broadway by the Williamsburg Bridge has become the latest addition to the expanding South Williamsburg culinary corridor, which includes (but is not limited to) Bridge Urban Winery, Marlow & Sons, Diner, Dressler, Miss Favela and La Superior. Now add Marlow & Daughters to the list; and before you get all "die yuppie scum!" please note that the barbershop closed only because the owner passed away over the summer, according to Brooklyn Based. (Of course it's possible he died from a heart broken by gentrification.)
Plated is a new feature that delivers the origin story of a dish, as told by an establishment’s chefs and owners. Maybe even once in a while by its dishwashers.
If you're going to eat meat, it's always good to know where it comes from. Not just how it was raised and if it was humanely slaughtered, which are both important, but where on the animal it came from. Many people (shameful carnivores?) are loathe to make this leap and prefer to think that their chops come straight from a pink styrofoam package, but for those who do, now's your chance to learn.
Last year Tom Mylan and Sasha Davies went head-to-head with the Fancy Food Show, held at the Javits Center, with their first Unfancy Food Show, held at the East River Bar in Williamsburg...and this year they're back for seconds. Expect everything from pickles to cheese to beer (including Hop Obama) this coming Sunday (more details here). While Davies left the city to explore the craft of hand-made cheesemaking, Mylan is still in town, occasionally airing his grievances about NYU students, and serving as the butcher at both Diner and Marlow & Sons.



