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Archive for the ‘wine’ Category
Monday, May 20th, 2013
This is my favorite OITF location. You can’t beat the backdrop of the Pacific Ocean and the sandstone cliffs forming the cove. The wind is a bit much but, being from the area, I knew and came prepared. Those who didn’t could borrow blankets which is an excellent plan. I brought many layers that I slowly added and used all of before I ventured to the bonfire.
No surprise, the food was amazing under the direction of Central Kitchen and Flour and Water’s Thomas McNaughton. The fish came from my longtime fishmongers, H&H Fresh Fish. We actually ended up sitting with them so it was nice to visit all evening and talk about life beyond what fish I was buying.
My favorite dish of the night was the grilled squid. I could have eaten all 8 portions put in front of us family style. I’m always interested in squid done in new ways. It’s a seafood that I’ve made and it’s been amazing and other times just not right or slimy and blechy. This was amazing.
Sadly, we aren’t able to attend another Outstanding in the Field dinner until December. I’ll just have to savor the pictures and memories of this one until then.
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Thomas McNaughton and his pet pig
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Thomas’s pig
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The first view of the table
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The table
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Jim and Leah
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The crowd is released to the table
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The menu
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Finding seats
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Finding seats at the table
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Smoked salmon with asparagus, dill, roe
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Grilled squid with potato, fennel and squid ink aioli
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Halibut boudin blank, pork belly, ramps, farro
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Meyer lemon curd, strawberries, yum
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Meyer lemon curd, strawberries, yum
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Trying to stay warm
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Post-dinner bonfire
Posted in decadence, dinner, flavor, food, organic, review, santa cruz, seasonal menu, squid, table dance, wine | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
My husband was away for a week on business. This happens regularly, it’s not unusual. My son and I have crazy busy schedules…well, he does…and the week flies by. One thing that is really different though is I cook less for that week. We’ll go out or I’ll make some simple pasta. Nothing that I consider real cooking. By Thursday I was depressed. I didn’t want to do anything. I had lots of things I could do, but I sat online, glassy-eyed, as my twitter feed rolled by. I tried retail therapy: got a really cute skirt on eBay for $10. I went to the thrift store and bought a big bag of things to rip apart and make new, cuter things out of. But still, I was just blah.
Then I realized what I was missing. Cooking! It’s my happy place. It’s what I do well and it makes me feel good about myself–as well as eating well which helps physically. Saturday night my husband got home but my neighbor and I were out seeing Eric Ripert and Tony Bourdain. I was inspired.
I invited the neighbors over for a fancy dinner on Sunday. I pulled out Eric’s A Return to Cooking and started flipping through. His are the only recipes I follow at all. I love them. Of course I still modify and cut some corners ;-)
I picked out Crab Salad with Chilled Gazpacho Sauce, Grilled Rack of Lamb and Cucumber Salad, and Pan-Seared Skirt Steak with Herbed-Butter Frites and Bitter Greens. I hit the store to stock up for the meal and they had no crab. They have had crab every day that I’ve gone in there until Sunday. They even had it when I went in two days ago. I had to go off script and decided to make my Green Curry Ceviche. The fish I bought was weird…possibly with parasites. First time I’ve ever gotten bad fish at my market…they refunded my money, no questions asked. I took that as a sign that I was trying to cook too much food.
I concentrated on the other two dishes. My husband took on dessert: Flourless Chocolate Cake with Coffee Liqueur. It was inspired by the coffee infusion that he made about three months ago. We hadn’t tried it yet. It was a pound of Panama Gesha in Hangar One vodka. It better be good (it is!).
I also wanted to play with my Porthole infuser so put some ginger, lime and cardamom pods in there with some Oxley gin and let it sit. The plan was to mix up little drinks to go with the first course. Hubby took over that project when I was up to my elbows in lamb.
I cut the racks of lamb into chops and covered them in herbs and olive oil and set them aside. I put the skirt steak in the soy-based marinade from Eric’s book and set those aside. I sliced the potatoes into thin fry-sizes and put those in cold water. I made salad dressing. I washed the greens…I used regular lettuce, not bitter greens. I had a ton in my fridge from my CSA. I thinly sliced cucumber.
I tapped hubby for the infuser drinks. He muddled some cucumber, added lime juice, simple syrup and the gin and it was really good! The infusion was pretty strong even though it only sat for a couple of hours. The design of the Porthole works really well.
Then I started searing the lamb. I had to do it in two batches, the pan was too small. But that gave the first batch time to rest while I seared the second and the second batch time to rest while I plated the first! I sliced the lamb off the bone, tossed it with the dressing and piled it atop a nice little circle of cucumbers.
I had already par-fried (is that a word?) the fries and set them aside. So I fired up the oil again to bring it to 450° to crisp them up. I seared the skirt steak and set it to rest before slicing. I then sliced up the steak, tossed the salad with dressing and plated them. This was the best skirt steak I’ve ever, ever had. Eric is THE MAN. Yes, I cooked the food but the marinade was not my recipe.
The fries were also amazing, tossed with herbed butter and crispy as can be. I didn’t get a picture of those. I was too busy getting them on the plate and eaten while still crispy to take a photo!
The cake also ended up being rich and so incredibly good. Who needs flour when you have butter and chocolate?!
Needless to say, I was in a much better mood after 5 hours of intense prepping and cooking. Not many people would say that but I’ve always been odd.
Posted in beef, chocolate, dinner, eric ripert, flavor, food, recipe, self pleasuring, wine | 3 Comments »
Monday, January 28th, 2013
Friday began just as it did last year. With the highly anticipated arrival of Jose Andres to his cooking demonstration at 10am. We just had a few bites of fruit for breakfast knowing we would be eating for hours. This may have been a slight mistake since the first thing Jose served was a drink. I’m getting ahead of myself again though.
Everyone gathered around the demonstration tent speculating on how Jose would arrive. Last year he emerged from the ocean in scuba gear holding two live lobsters. He had to outdo himself this year. He did! He came in on a water jetpack….a toy seemingly straight out of Hammacher Schlemmer magazine. Completely useless and ridiculous but futuristically awesome.
  
He shed the helmet and gear and put on a chef’s coat over his wet clothes and got to work! There was a freak storm that came through Grand Cayman on Friday that brought higher than usual tides so the surf was coming right up to the tents. They set the paella pans up on fires under the tents rather than out in the sun further down the beach. That worked out, I was sweltering last year and I thought the sous chefs were going to collapse from the heat!
  
He got the paella started with a lot of olive oil and chicken, browned all that up nicely, added squid, green beans, mushrooms (chanterelles!), chicken stock, saffron and most importantly SPANISH rice.
  
While he’s got his sous chefs manning the fires along with help from an audience volunteer, Jose gets to work on a cocktail. This one has wine and whiskey….it’s 10am!! To be more precise it has lemon juice, simple syrup, brown sugar, whisky and ice in a shaker. That goes into a glass and then you pour red wine in over a spoon so that it layers. It was quite tasty! And made for a bit of a blurry morning.
  
He keeps running around like a maniac barking orders for MORE OIL! MORE LIQUID! LESS FIRE! MOVE THIS! DO THAT! It was hectic and fun but I would not want to be his sous chef!
  
The end result was fantastic though. The key? Put the rice in, even it out in a completely level pan and then Don’t Touch! Sixteen minutes of staring at the bubbling pan. It had a roasty-toasty flavor that was so rich. The chanterelles were incredibly flavorful.
  
We grabbed our paella and ran off to catch our shuttle to eat with David Kinch of our local Manresa fame. Yes, we traveled half way around the world to eat food from a chef that lives in our hometown. Don’t judge!
  
We hopped in the shuttle bus and drove the 20 minutes to The Brasserie where David was taking over the kitchen for the afternoon. We chatted with David a bit when we got there but of course he had a few things to do! So we went out into the garden and sipped some lovely Justin Vineyards Sauv Blanc and began enjoying the appetizers.
First to waltz by us was the Garden Callaloo and Cucumber soup with Grated Coconut. A little shooter of refreshing yum. The next was a rich bite of Braised Oxtail with Java Apple and Marcona Almond on a Blue Corn Pancake. Not light, not refreshing, just rich, lick-your-fingers goodness.
  
We had a simple bite of a local tomato with basil and sea salt. A wonderful treat to get in January! I had to skip the Tuna Crudo with Pepper Escabeche and Garden Ackee. The peppers were right out for me but hubby said it was great! The dish we had to guiltily confess to eating to our son was the Cayman Turtle Stew on a Garden Breadfruit Chip. I’ve never eaten turtle. They have turtle farms in the Caymans just like we have trout or oyster farms. They are raised for food. And DAMN they’re good! It tasted like slow braised pork. I got over the guilt pretty quickly!
  
We were instructed to mosey inside and find a seat for the next round of food. David came out and told everyone about his experience with the local fare and also about Manresa and what it’s like with its partnership with Love Apple Farms. He stepped up and gave a great representation of his food and talent, that’s for sure. I think he’ll be getting people from this lunch coming out to Las Gatos. We sat at the same table as Joe, the owner of the wineries being featured at lunch, Justin and Landmark Vineyards. He got up and described their style and location (Paso Robles and Sonoma) and we continue on to the first sit-down course: Island Gungo Peas with Snapper and an emulsion of Seville orange, pimento and lime leaf. I didn’t leave a speck of anything on my plate. It was wonderful. The gungo peas aren’t like sweet peas, they’re, well, not sweet. They’re more bean-like in flavor but they’re round. It was really interesting to try all these new island flavors.
  
The Wahoo and Conch marinated with fennel and tangerine was another plate licked clean. I can’t get enough of the caribbean wahoo. I know it’s technically the same fish as Ono but it’s not even close in texture and flavor. Wahoo is worlds better! I was worried about the dessert because it was a coconut cate with passionfruit and guava sorbet. Surprisingly, the coconut cake was not coconut-y. I loved it! The guava sorbet on the other hand I couldn’t eat. On our honeymoon in 1999 we went hiking in Hawaii just after guava season which meant there were rotting guavas everywhere. It’s been over 13 years and I still can’t stand guava. Scarred for life. The rest of the dessert was spot on though.
I’m really glad David was asked to the Cookout. He really showed off his talent beautifully and I hope people fly out to Manresa to try it out. I know he worked like mad down there to make sure everything came out the way he wanted it and it showed.
We shuttled back to the hotel to pick our son up from the afternoon camp and spent the rest of the day in the ocean! Rough life.
Read about Thursday and Saturday!
Posted in chanterelles, decadence, eric ripert, flavor, food, gardening, photos, restaurant, seasonal menu, snapper, table dance, tasting menu, tomatoes, wine | No Comments »
Thursday, January 10th, 2013
We had a bit of a hectic schedule. It was the first day back to school for my son after the winter break. I was back to work at his school as well after not working for 3 ½ months since my husband’s motorcycle accident and I stayed home as a 24-7 nurse. I raced home from the day at school, prepped the chicken, tossed it in the marinade then put it in the fridge so we could head out to my son’s drum lessons.
We ran back into the house at 5:30 and I got started. I was planning on barbecuing but it was cold out and I didn’t want to spend time outside! So I grabbed my cast iron skillet and turned on the oven.
Chicken:
1 whole chicken, cut into pieces
2 cups white wine
1 red onion, sliced
1 T whole grain mustard
1 lemon, sliced
Couscous:
2 cups israeli couscous
2 cups chicken stock
parsley
½ cup pine nuts
Put all the ingredients into a ziploc and marinate for at least one hour.
Preheat oven to 400?.
Remove from marinade (reserve it for later in the recipe), salt, and sear skin side down in a hot (preferably cast iron) pan until skin is brown and crispy. Turn the chicken over. Top with the red onions from the marinade. Put in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
Meanwhile, put 2 cups of israeli couscous in a pot with 2 cups chicken stock and ½ a cup of the marinade liquid. Bring to a boil then simmer for about 10 minutes until tender. Stir in toasted pine nuts and chopped parsley.
The timing should work out perfectly if you let your chicken rest for about 5 minutes. Serve the chicken atop the couscous and enjoy!!
Posted in amateur, chicken, dinner, food, recipe, self pleasuring, wine | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
I was given the opportunity to go to a Pebble Beach Food and Wine event last weekend and while there popped in on the Ridge guys. We chat on twitter sometimes but had never formally met. I met the man behind the tweets, Christopher Watkins, and he invited me to the event he was hosting to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the Ridge Vineyards blog that he writes. I really don’t get invited to stuff very often, I just go to things like a regular Joe and pay then write about it anyway. I don’t turn down free stuff. The tasting was on the day I was picking my husband up from his trip to Sydney. He would be getting off a 13 hour flight and I was dragging him straight up the crazy twisty Montebello Road to taste wine, jet-lagged and exhausted. Sounds like a great plan!
We arrived a bit early but I love just sitting and staring out over the Ridge Vineyards view. Silicon Valley actually looks pretty from that vantage point. Before long the tasting was set up and people were arriving so we migrated to the wonderfully air conditioned room where Christopher had a projector set up scrolling through quotes from Paul Draper (the Ridge winemaker) as well as quotes from Jazz musicians. There was also a jazz tune playing. I didn’t think much of it, Christopher seems like a Jazzy kind of guy. This becomes relevant later.
Once everyone arrives and is seated, we all introduce ourselves, plug our blogs and our twitter handles. Everyone is comfortable and chatty and we’re having a grand time. Christopher then explains what sounds like a complete crack-pot idea. He has four wines, hidden in brown paper bags–reminiscent of Thunderbird, but we know they’re all fabulous Ridge wines, the distinctive silver foil is just showing at the top. He has four jazz tunes cued up. We will be listening, drinking and pairing the wines with the tunes. But that’s not all, oh no, that’s not all. We will then be put in front of a camera to explain our choices! I am becoming less fond of Christopher all of a sudden.
Christopher’s background is in jazz and creative writing. He toured Europe playing jazz but came back and got a creative writing degree where his thesis was on jazz, abstract expressionism and haiku. Not too long after, wine joined those three to form a conceptual quartet. The whole idea behind the joining is that in order to create mojo-juju-funk sounds and make it seem completely effortless, you need structure, craft and discipline. The same goes with wine. Ridge doesn’t make blending decisions in the lab reading Brix levels, it’s by flavor and instinct but behind all that is years of discipline and study. You need experience as well as spontaneity.
Wine makes you chill out, be mellow and chatty. You crave quality. You don’t get drunk on wine and start a fight. It’s cerebral but funky and a little dirty. It’s the drink for the times you’re with people whose opinions you respect and want to talk to but also can relax with. These are all ideas from Christopher and they all make sense to me.
As all this discussion is happening, we’re sipping our blind tasting and listening to the jazz. This started getting fun. Quotes like, “There’s no way this wine goes with this bass line.” start popping up. And “There’s only one wine absurd enough to pair with Theolonius Monk.”
Oh, I haven’t told you the songs:
- So What by Miles Davis
- Bemsha Swing by Theolonius Monk
- Paul’s Pal by Sonny Rollins
- Mister P.C. by John Coltrane
Once we started explaining the choices, people were coming up with things like:
Let me be alone with my wine and Miles Davis in the background.
and
Get into a groove and disappear with it
As much as we all moaned and groaned about the concept, we totally got into it. And none of us paired the wines with the same songs. We all had our reasons. Mine were purely instinctual and hard to pinpoint. I just felt like I wanted to drink certain wines with certain songs.
Here are what my pairings turned out to be:
- So What: 1997 Geyserville
- Bemsha Swing: 1999 Lytton Springs
- Paul’s Pal: 2000 Montebello
- Mister P.C.: 2001 Montebello
Everyone else was all over the map and swore by their choices and reasoning, it was beautiful. I’d say you should try this at home and you should! But good luck finding those exact wines to do this with. Instead, pick your favorite genre, some interesting grape juice and some open minded friends and see what happens! If you do this, post the results here in the comments!
Posted in wine | 4 Comments »
Monday, March 12th, 2012
If…I mean when…you go to Manresa, because you should, you’ll get two menus. One is a normal menu with dishes listed with ingredients. The other is an alphabetical list of ingredients for the “seasonal and spontaneous” chef’s tasting menu. You won’t know what will be together, in what dish, in what order, but you will know the general items that will be appearing on your plate over the course of the evening.
My husband’s evening started with a roasted red bell pepper pate de fruit with an olive madeleine. That was not for me given that bell peppers and olives are two things I detest but they knew that…I gave them my card! :)
The first thing I got was a mint sorbet in a lavender gelato. It was pretty, it was flavorful but those two flavors for me are gum and soap. It was beautifully executed and I ate/drank the whole thing…all the while saying, “Hmm…gum and soap.” This was not a miss in my book, just my weirdness.
The highlight of the whole dinner, the dish that still has us talking about it, was the Abalone with local milk panna cotta, abalone gelee and radish. I am not a fan of the texture of a huge blob of panna cotta but this was a thin, amazing layer, with a thin amazing layer of gelee (another thing I’m not typically wowed by) and crunchy, thin radishes and delicious thin slices of abalone. It was beautiful, creamy, salty, I wanted to order it for dessert.
The black radishes with savory granola were served on this gorgeous, wavy plate that had me chasing the dish around these little grooves but I’m not ashamed to used my fingers to mop up the last of the luscious saucy goodness. The granola in this had us longing for it the next morning. I hate sweet granola but I’m thinking maybe I should try my hand at making some savory instead!
A few years ago, every time I would eat a scallop, all I could taste was a metallic flavor. Like chomping into a piece of tin foil. Logically, that got me to stop ordering or cooking scallops and they used to be a favorite of mine. The only scallops I’ve had that I’ve enjoyed since then were raw at fancy sushi bars. That is until Saturday night. This one had that buttery flavor and caramelly sear that I so remembered and didn’t think I’d enjoy again. Along with the scallop were gorgeous pieces of asparagus (it must be Spring!!) and a scallop chip that I wanted a whole dish of.
Another dish that completely surprised me that I truly enjoyed was the slow-poached egg with toasted brioche and sweet onion soup. Runny eggs aren’t my thing but when added to a soup with the same or similar texture, the yolk just added a … not a depth of flavor, something else that means that!…to it…a richness…destination: another level. Now I understand why people like runny yolks! They’re quite sumptuous.
Black cod, aka Sablefish or Butterfish, is one of my favorite local delicacies. David layered every local “black” ingredient: Black cod, black truffle, black trumpet. Earthy and beautiful.
For the next course, the item on the menu was pork belly with blood sausage. I couldn’t do it…I might be able to do a blind tasting of blood sausage but I haven’t gotten to a point that I can knowingly dive into that yet…give me time, I’ll get there. My husband had it and said it was great. Instead I had duck with farro and was not at all disappointed in my substitution! The flavors were amazing. I do however like more fat rendered out and a crispier skin on my duck. Still, I enjoyed the course.
I’ve always liked the “What grows together, goes together” saying but that goes right out the window when you get Lamb with seaweed. Who knew?! Well, this surfer chef did. Maybe inspired by a beach barbecue? I don’t know. But the combination of lamb, seaweed, roasted garlic and charred green onions was great.
The cheese course came around which I obviously skipped but my husband picked out four and was struck dumb by the combination of Pim‘s marmalade and the roquefort cheese. He just kept pointing and saying, “That…..that…”
You may know that I am a huge fan of candy cap mushrooms. They’re maple goodness makes for the best cookies and ice cream. What I did not know what that you could pair candy cap ice cream with sunchokes (which are in my opinion bitterly vile things) and have it be such a magical combination. The sunchoke chips were bitter, salty and crunchy. The ice cream was rich and creamy, the doughnut hole (sure it had a fancy name, but it was a doughnut hole) was sweet and yeasty. A bite with all three components hit every sensory part of the tongue. Each component made stronger by the presence of the others.
Our waitress, Amanda I believe, was fun and accomodating and would have been as formal as we wanted her to be but of course we don’t go for that. The sommelier got the premier pairings spot on. He even helped me decipher a flavor I was getting in one of the wines that was driving me absolutely crazy because I couldn’t pinpoint it. We finally decided it was chervil and I’m sticking with that so I don’t go insane trying to figure it out. The general manager, Bobi, came and chatted with us for a while. We’ll be taking the same class from Pim in a couple of months. He was an excellent host. And Pim tipped David off that we were coming so he graciously came out to our table and talked with us a bit. We got to rave about the abalone and prod him about going to the Cayman Cookout next year. I hope it happens! We need some Bay Area representation there.
We’re looking at our calendars to plan our next dinner there. We need to hit another season, we did Spring last trip there too…oops! Summer next!
Posted in decadence, dinner, flavor, food, Michelin star, photos, restaurant, review, seasonal menu, table dance, tasting menu, wine | No Comments »
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
My CSA farm this year is Fogline Farm. We went there last year for an Outstanding in the Field dinner, had the honor of sitting with the farmers at dinner and decided we’d join their CSA next. I’ve been hopping from farm to farm each year, trying out all the variety in our county. One of the beautiful things about Fogline is they also raise Berkshire pigs. The CSA hasn’t started up yet but they are at the farmers’ market with beautiful cuts of pork. This week I picked up a nice 2lb-ish pork shoulder and tried cooking that for the first time. Man, did it work out. It was so amazingly good….and easy.
The only thing you need is time. This cooked for about 3 1/2 hours.
First, generously salt and brown the pork, on both sides over high heat, in a heavy bottomed pan that has a cover and can go in the oven.
Remove the pork and add a sliced onion, a good amount of herbs…I, of course, used marjoram and thyme…6 roughly chopped cloves of garlic. Stir that around a bit but it doesn’t need to soften or anything.
Put the pork back in atop the onion mixture.
Add 2 cups red wine (something good enough to drink, this will be your sauce too) and 2 cups chicken stock.
Cover and put in a 350° oven for 3 hours or more. I checked the meat at 2 1/2 hours, added a touch more wine and stock and turned the meat over. Then let it roast another hour.
After the pork is to a fall-apart tender stage, take it out of the pan and cover it with foil.
Carefully strain the liquid out of the pan into a saucepan. Bring to a boil and reduce it to almost half. Stir in fresh parsley.
I put this over israeli couscous…I wanted orzo but didn’t have any…and I do think it’s disturbing to serve pork over israeli couscous–so sorry. It’s what I had!
Anyway, choose your grain or starch you prefer. Spoon some of the wine reduction over it. Shred the pork and put that on top.
Serve with either the wine you braised the pork in or another good, hearty, rustic wine.
- 2 – 2 1/2 lb pork shoulder
- 1 onion, sliced
- 6 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- handful of herbs
- 2 cups red wine
- 2 cups chicken stock
Preparation time: 10 minute(s)
Cooking time: 3 hour(s) 30 minute(s)
Tags: pork
Posted in amateur, dinner, farmers market, flavor, food, recipe, self pleasuring, wine | No Comments »
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012
Posted in chanterelles, cumin, dinner, flavor, food, hardcore, mushrooms, organic, photos, seasonal menu, table dance, wine | No Comments »
Friday, January 20th, 2012
The first event of Saturday morning was one I was really looking forward to. Good vs. Evil – Ripert and Bourdain in conversation. I didn’t realize they had a schtick. They interrogate each other in quite the hilarious way. Tony started on Eric, trying to find his weaknesses…trying to embarrass him. Eric seems to blush quite easily but he’s prepared, it’s all in good fun. Then Eric went at Tony but was still the good cop of the two.
The interesting point in the conversation was when they ended their performance and took questions from the audience. There was a lot of talk about the Food Network chefs. About how Paula Deen is the evilest of them all, I’m sure you’ve heard in the press, because she promotes ridiculously unhealthy food, was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes three years ago but kept showcasing crap food and is going to be endorsing diabetes pharmeceuticals now. Evil and wrong. This got Tony going more than anything. Until someone brought up Gordon Ramsey. I’ve never seen Eric get upset. He’s usually completely diplomatic about everything. He hates the way Gordon abuses his chefs and not only that, how the show is preloaded with people set up to fail. It is wrong, immoral and damaging to the cooking world.
They also were asked how to get Americans to change their view on food. I completely agree with what Tony said. We have to take the low road. We have to brainwash the kids. Eric’s son thinks that Ronald McDonald kidnaps kids and sometimes they end up in the burgers. That is brilliant. Our son thinks McDonalds is just a bathroom on road trips. You need to make the kids think they’ll be weird or shunned if they eat fast food. If the majority of kids thinks that, it will spread like wildfire. I’ve seen it myself with my kid and his friends. I’ve heard him lecture a friend for going to Burger King. About how awful it is and how it’s not really food. I just hung back and listened, I had nothing to add. To change the world, we have to change the next generation’s thought process.
I briefly gushed at Eric afterward…I cannot talk to that man without praising him endlessly. It’s embarrassing. I have to stop! This time it was about McDonald’s. I love that idea.
  
We made our way to the other side of the resort to Periwinkle for lunch by Laurent Gras. I was really looking forward to this one. After the ceviche on Friday, I knew I’d like what he was doing. I have to admit, I had no idea who he was before he was booked for the Cookout. For being such an avid foodie, I don’t follow the restaurant scene and news all that much unless I’m going somewhere and need somewhere to eat. I missed all the Laurent drama. I was kind of glad for that actually, I came in with a clean slate. He is a genius with freshness and lightness. I left his lunch full but not exhausted and weighed down. We had Conch ceviche with caviar, parsley and lime; Caribbean Lobster with dark rum and lettuce; Wahoo with tomato, ginger and cilantro; and Melon consomme with lemon ginger sorbet.
Our tablemates were marvelous. A woman named Rosemary who makes it a point of getting cookbooks signed everywhere she goes. She has over 500 signed books now in just a few years. A couple from Calgary who are food critics for that area, they were lovely. And Richard Morais, a writer for Barrons and a published author. I just bought his book, The Hundred-Foot Journey and will start reading it soon. It looks fantastic.
For the whole weekend, my husband and I were in the same demos and events except for one. He wanted to drink wine with Aldo Sohm (Le Bernardin’s AMAZING sommelier), I wanted to go see Richard Blais. We both made the right choice and both wished we could be in two places at once. He had wines that were rare and to die for. He snuck me a white burgundy that I savored for as long as I could. Blais was hilarious! He was entertaining, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and so much fun. He made “Oysters and Pearls,” his homage to Thomas Keller but a completely different dish. He took oysters, topped them with a mignonette that had minced cilantro stem in it along with dill, shallots and, of course, vinegar. Then he  topped them with the pearls which were horseradish-creme fraiche frozen in liquid nitgrogen. This session made me want to head to the welding shop and buy myself a container of liquid nitrogen. He also made frozen margaritas by putting the tequila and lime in the mixer and whisking in liquid nitrogen until it became like a sorbet. Genius.
The last demo before dinner was from Eric Ripert himself. Cocktails and Ceviche on the beach. He demonstrated a ceviche and a tartare. Both delicious of course. All the while the sun is turning golden behind him. Our son was playing in the waves with Eric’s son (they had a blast together and Sandra is an utterly sweet and wonderful woman). And we were sipping Moet Chandon and eating Eric’s fish. Life was perfect right then.
Dinner was off-site at Michaels Genuine Food and Drink. We were bussed to the event, given champagne and hors d’euvres and then led to our tables. We had Wahoo crudo, slow roasted pork shoulder, rabbit crepes and lamb scottacdito. None of which I got pictures of because it was too dark but from what we heard the next day, Michael’s was the best dinner of the evening. It was really fantastic.
 After the meal we quickly rushed through the dessert tables, grabbed some absolutely wonderful treats and then had to rush back to get our son from camp again. The disadvantage of having our son with us was having to dart out of things early, the advantage was…well, everything else. He had such an amazing time and when we picked him up that just meant we weren’t hanging around events too late, getting too tired and too drunk. I think it worked out well for all of us.
Only one more day to go. Everything flew by so fast.
Read about Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 4!
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Friday, January 6th, 2012
This dish was so easy and so rich and warming. I do think I was photo’d out from Christmas though because I didn’t take a single picture of this meal.
1/2 lb italian sausage
1 chicken cut into 8 pieces
1/2 a yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 fennel bulb, thinly sliced
2 celery stalks, chopped
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
2 1/2 cups white wine
8 oz orzo
I used my oval dutch oven for this…you need something big enough to nestle the chicken down in in one layer and it’s all done on the stovetop.
First, brown your sausage. Let it leave the fatty, cruchy bits in the pan. Remove the sausage w/ a slotted spoon. Then brown your chicken in the sausage fat. See, it’s good already! Once the chicken is browned, remove that too.
Add your onions, celery and fennel and leave it the heck alone for as long as you can stand it on medium heat. Don’t let them burn, per se, but get all that flavor toasting in the pan. Once the bottom of the pan is so browned you can’t stand it, add just enough wine to deglaze (abot 1/2 a cup). Let that simmer just a few minutes.
Nestle your chicken pieces down into the fennel-onion-celery goodness, add your sausage back in, add your garlic then pour the rest of the white wine into the pan. Depending on the size of the chicken and the pot, you may need more than 2 cups. You want it to come about 1/2 way up the chicken pieces. Cover and let it simmer on low or medium-low for about 30-40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.
Serve over orzo tossed with some butter and olive oil.
It’s warming, filling, delicious and perfect for a cold night.
Tags: fennel, sausage
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