A Sweet Treat

Wednesday night I went to a dinner at Bryant Park Grill honoring three honey recipe contest winners. Two thoughts on the night:

1. Alton Brown was the host, and he was as friendly, enthusiastic and smart as you would imagine him to be. He made the whole process of honey production interesting: the social network of bees, the process they use to make honey, beekeeping, the harvesting process and the different "varietals" of honey. We did a honey tasting, and it was fun. You definitely can detect different flavors in the honey (the strong, molassess-y buckwheat honey was my favorite). He looked kind of schlubby, unshaven and unkempt, but that was kind of nice, too. I mentioned my husband, who works on big web sites, loves him, and he said he gets all the techies. Must be that Bill Nye-MacGyver thing he has going on.

2. If I were the honey organization that hosted the evening, I would be pissed at Bryant Park Grill. The recipes looked great, but the execution sucked. The honey cocktail was weak, the goat cheese and figs were topped with a couple of sad nuts and barely any honey instead of being rolled in nuts and drizzled with honey, the fruit salad, which was supposed to be in a dressing of mint honey and yogurt, was watery with no evidence of dressing. The dessert, a honey gelato, was way too lemony and icey. Nice atmosphere, but I'd rather have good food, crappy decor.