Food Porn Part 2

Check out more great dinner photos taken by the fantastic photographer Jennifer Moran.  The photos in this link, which you can access by clicking on the caption of the photo below or Jennifer's name, are in the public gallery of my dinners on her website.  In this gallery you will see a progression of pictures from my spring menu into a vegan dinner I held followed by the most recent pictures of my summer menu which begins about page 7, enjoy!

8 spiced duck breast, granola, bok choy, cherry spheres, pickled cherries, duck reduction,  spicy Thai peanut marshmallow

The Beauty!

I love harvesting.  From my Indiana garden today I pulled kale, lettuce, mustard greens, snap peas, and strawberries.  I have dinner sides for the next week and lots of preserves to make.  So excited.

Water and Weed!

...That's how my garden grows!  With luck this year I should have three turns out of my square foot gardens.  I've already had half of it turn with all my wonderful baby greens only to plant some more in hopes that I'll get them to shoot up and get some pretty flowers from the arugula.  My radishes were lovely.  In just a small space I have and/or will have nasturtium, raspberries, radish, kale, snap peas, honey dew, zucchini, dill, leaf lettuce, mesculin lettuces, okra, cucumber, shiso, basil, parsley, borage, beets, turnips, strawberries and brussel sprouts.  And that's not to mention all my tiny greens like pea shoots, corn sprouts, sunflower greens, radish, mung, and peanut sprouts.  So don't forget to visit me at the Andersonville market and pick up pierogi because what I don't get to use at my dinners I sometimes have little presents for my regulars.
Some of the weeds I like to leave in my garden are sorrel-pretty heart shaped leaves that have a lovely burst of lemon flavor, these bloom with pods and yellow flowers that are also edible and purslane which has a rubbery greenish-redish quality, again a beautiful bright lemony element to them...

Couple Things About Local

I try as much as possible to source locally...sustainably...organically...consciously.  I don't always get the chance to get everything within those parameters but I try.  The Midwest is such a rich place for nourishment.  However I don't always use local ingredients and when I don't my next step is to shop independent/locally.  For example I love farina 00 flour for making my hand cut pasta and the farina I get is from Italy.  I buy it at a local independent grocer Piatto Pronto in my Andersonville neighborhood (they make killer foot long subs for less than seven dollars).  It's one of those stores that reminds me of the stores my mother tells me about from when she was a kid, a place where they remember you when you walk in and will bend over backwards to serve you.  Every Chicago neighborhood is filled with local independent grocers that don't always have organic, sustainable or local products however they themselves are local, our neighbors, friends, relatives...

Quick Short Ribs

I've been craving San Soo Gap San since this past Saturday when my guests were talking about how delicious it is...I can't stop thinking of short ribs so I didn't pass up the cross cut shortribs at whole foods today.  I marinated them for about two hours and grilled them on my wood grill for about 3 minutes on each side and that was it.  Ok, and the recipe I'm going to tell you is so easy you probably have all the ingredients on hand.  

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 t salt

2 T apple cider vinegar

2 cloves of chopped garlic

...and drum roll....2 T grape jelly!

Mix well and cover short ribs with marinade, allow to sit for two hours.  When you put the ribs on the grill, strain the marinade into a pan and reduce it until it becomes a glaze.   Remove the ribs from the grill, add your glaze...Sooooo good.  Not quite Korean but it did the job.  I think I will make more tomorrow.

Summer Menu!

Gazpacho

cucumber, hibiscus

Salad Sponge

goat milk, sunflower, homegrown

Tomatoes

herbs, manchego, edamame, black pepper

Hanging

smoked watermelon, roe, custard

Pierogi

Potato, white truflle, marscarpone

Scallop Tartare

avocado, almonds, mussels, peaches

Carrots In Honey

trotters, chanterelles, black garlic-coconut soup

1 Pill Makes You Larger 1 Pill Makes You Small

Shrimp Noodle

scampi

Hand-cut Pasta

black truffle, soft boiled egg

Oatmeal Dashi

chia seeds

Bacon Ice Cream

black pepper, Koval Whisky

Lamb Bite

corned, preserved lemon, date

Duck Breast

sour cherry, peanuts, nasturtium

Mirepoix

celery, carrot, onion, white chocolate

Mexican Hot Chocolate and Strawberries

balsamic, basil

Ravenous

Tonight, after a weekend of dinners, the table full of gracious patrons dining over sixteen courses-one, I'm tired, and two, I'm so hungy.  I want to go to dinner too...  My partner is at Aviary and I thought, geez, maybe I could snatch the walk-in table at Next and then head over to Aviary for a non-alcoholic cocktail-if they have those.  Then I thought it's not likely that I'd be able to snag it and taking the bus all the way down there to walk back to the bus coated in chilly rain just didn't do it for me.  Then I thought maybe I could go to ING.  Looked up a table for one on Open Table and no luck.  I suppose it all works out the way it is supposed to because I really need to save my money but I also love to calibrate my palate and dinning at such places certainly sets it straight.  Being a young chef (not that I'm young), but young chef in the sense that I have just been back in the kitchen now full-time for a little more than a year, it's important.  It's as to being an English major and having a reading list.  As a chef or cook there a just certain places that one should absolutely dine and then file in their memory bank the olfactory and taste.  Instead I've asked my niece to make a burger for me.  Four nights ago she made the best burger I have ever tasted.  But I forgot to get ground beef at the store today!