Pat LaFrieda
You may not have heard of him. He’s a hot new guitarist, discovered by Jimmy Iovine. Over the past few years, Pat’s been woodshedding with Dr. Dre, creating a new rock/rap hybrid, set to take over the world when GaGa’s album finally fades out.
No, I’m bullshitting you. Pat LaFrieda’s certainly an artist, but his medium is MEAT! No, not like Meat Puppets, Pat LaFrieda’s a butcher. Purveyor of artisan hamburgers throughout New York. From New York’s finest, Black Label, sold as a $26 hamburger at Minetta’s Tavern, to the famous Shake Shack burger. Hell, LaFrieda even supplies the beef for Paul McGuinness’s $17 Spotted Pig burger. Do I care?
Yes. Well, now I do. I didn’t until Friday. When I came across this article about Pat LaFrieda in "New York Magazine". Which has gotten better. The magazine’s gone upscale, not in ads, but content. So I turn every page, checking out every article, reading few, but getting some few choice bites.
And the Lady GaGa piece was so well done, I delved into the next one, "The Magician Of Meat"
First and foremost a story must be interesting, subject matter is secondary to readability. Remember that when you put fingers to keyboard. And I suddenly found myself hooked by this article about a butcher, how he concocted high end hamburger blends, which were sold by his partner in crime, his cousin, Mark Pastore, who used to promote nightclubs but now promoted beef.
I guess I’m a sucker for anybody who takes their profession seriously. This is the key to Steve Jobs’ success. Sure, you can buy a computer for half the price, but it’s not the BEST computer. Do you want the best? I want the best. Especially when it’s not that outrageously priced. I’ll give you an example. Why buy Chips Ahoy! when you can get fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies for a few bucks more? This is the key to Starbucks’ success, hell, the Seattle company has raised the quality of coffee across America. You may not be able to buy a house in a gated community, but hell, you can afford the best coffee!
And by time I finished this "New York" article, which I was reading slower and slower, as I do with something I’m fascinated by, I was eager to try the $26 Black Label Burger, especially after the author testified:
"On first inspection, it looked, well, like a hamburger. Bun, meat, some caramelized onions. Yet as I prepared to take my first bite, Mark offered a bit of commentary to help me better understand what I was about to place in my mouth. ‘Notice how there’s no cheese or ketchup?’ he said. ‘That’s on purpose. They don’t want anything to interfere with the flavor.’
At that, I took a bite. Like all Pat LaFrieda burgers, the Black Label left a pleasing slick of fatty goodness that kind of rolled down the back of the tongue. But there was clearly more going on here, an almost jarring richness that had little in common with my idea of what a hamburger traditionally tastes like.
A wide grin broke out across Pat’s face. ‘Incredible, right?’ he asked. ‘One thing I do is, I don’t clean all the bone dust off the meat, so it retains that funkiness. You taste that?’
Indeed, the burger’s charred exterior contained the sort of flavor notes one expects from dry-aged steak, not ground beef. That intense, crusty outside then gave way to a buttery interior that seemed to dissolve as I chewed. Suddenly, the $26 price tag didn’t seem so absurd. What had first struck me as a ridiculously plutocratic experience now seemed to be a cheaper way to savor the glory of dry-aged meat – a worthwhile life pleasure."
Whew, that’s how writers used to talk about going to rock shows, before they drained all the passion, recited what had been performed and came to a dry conclusion. Hell, we loved Lester Bangs because he had passion.
Like Pat LaFrieda.
Food’s got everything music used to. A plethora of artists striving to create the new and different, to titillate. And so much of it’s done privately. For those in the local market, not for worldwide domination. Who came up with that? What does that get you? You’ve got to work so hard to market that your art suffers!
Googling, I found Pat LaFrieda had a Website:
With a better music video than most bands.
Videos can be mini-movies, but they really should be just an advertisement, to interest you in sinking your teeth into the music.
I’m interested in sinking my teeth into a Pat LaFrieda hamburger.
