Fall Menu Beginning This October!

Bubble Tea

Apple Pie, Bourbon

Salad Sponge

Homegrown, goat milk, sunflower, honeys

Hanging

Charred corn, burnt lime, salmon roe

Pierogi

Yukon gold potato, white truffle, homemade cheese

Shrimp Carpaccio

Pears, tapioca, almonds, herbs

Pumpkin Patch

Pumpernickel, lobster, fennel, cashew

Grilled Cheese Soup

Encapsulated, tomato marmalade, garden items

Shrimp Noodle

Scampi

Your Hand

Oatmeal Dashi

Chia Seeds

1 Pill Makes You Larger And1 Pill Makes You Small

Dirty Pasta

Chicken livers, sausage, truffle, red-eye

Lamb Prosciutto

Root beer, cherry, smoke

Ice Cream Cone

Bacon, Koval Whisky

Bone Marrow Oxtail Bao

Lobster lemongrass consommé, caramel, Thai ingredients 

Worcestershire Ribeye

Tamarind, anchovy, maitakes, celery root

Buttermilk Panna Cotta

Pomegranate, candied sweet breads, pistachios, oak and sticks

Sorbet

Chocolate Orbs

Egg yolk, berry, gruyere, quinoa

*some items subject to change depending on availability, time, date, any number of reasons but this is roughly what you will see and eat. hope to see you.

Winter into Spring

Clear gazpacho with cucumber balls aka "pearls"  aka bubble tea... kind of... With hibicus and avocado smeared up the side.  A fun way to begin.  Loud, slurpy, yummy.

This one is all about Spring and sustainability.  I grew the majority of it from the sprouts which make up the sponge salad to the garnishes over the top.  The entire dish is sunflower sprout and arugula sponge, lemon gel, goat milk sorbet, sunflower seed sorbet, marigolds, sunflower sprouts, pea sprouts, sunflower seeds and honey. 

I know most of you who read my blog or see my posts on facebook or twitter have seen some pics that are reminiscent of this one but again this is just another variation of avocado, raw fish, and sushi elements, it's lots of fun and a more "familiar" dish.

This one was created by first making an oatmeal consomme then I worked backwards, I added apples in batons and in salad form-shaved with almonds and white chocolate.  There is also an almond pudding and puree along with dried cherry and a cherry foam, savory glass and veal sweetbreads that are encrusted in pumpernickel.

I liked some of the elements I had on the dish that this one replaced like the white truffle marshmallow and the red wine and beef reduction but instead of short rib I wanted to move into a meat that felt lighter and I thought grilled bison would do the trick.  In this pic it's with blood farro and blackberry beads.

Snail Roe, Clear Oatmeal And Gazpacho, And Morels!

Snail eggs tastes like dirt.  So cool.  I had them about a year ago when I was staging in the kitchen at Schwa. Michael laughed and bellied over to me with his wild eyes and said, "you wanna taste a dirt alginate ball?"  Of course I did.  And that was it, snail roe.  

Anyways.  I love clarification.  I don't have a centrifuge and it seems like the cool kids do: Alinea (I think), Moto-for sure, L20-probably, Ideas in Food-yeah, Wd-50, Modern Cuisine-absolutely.  So I have to make a consomme or "dashi," a Japanese term for a certain broth, the old fashioned way-gelatin clarification.  Today I made two-a gazpacho that is fucking delicious and an oatmeal.  Whoa!

Hi sweet babies, mama loves you!

Ok so in other news.  I can't wait for morels.  I really can't.  Headed down south soon.  Just you wait.  You will love the dishes I make with these.  

Salmon Belly.

Wind blown Oak trees with salmon ;) by the beach.

Last night I had friends over for a sushi party.  It was so fun.  We had an array of ingredients to use.  I think we made at least ten different rolls.  The one I was most excited about was pulled short rib that I braised in beef stock infused with soy.  Yum Yum Yum.  And I rolled it with aparagus, pretty typical but added fresh radish and my own radish sprouts.  Today I was prepping the mushroom tea for my underground dinners and had some nice maitake mushrooms that I sliced in cross sections which gives this beautiful shape just like the Oak tree where you can usually find it nestled.  I seared the cross sections with grapeseed oil and a touch of tamari.  I draped cucumber dressed in sesame oil and rice wine vinegar over them.  I also cut the tiny kernels from baby corn an dressed them a touch with sesame oil, fish sauce, salt, and pepper.  I added a mini quenelle of miso to the salmon, crisped up some skin in the pan that I had cooked the mushrooms in and added a touch of fermented beans to the plate.  The beans were a gift from one of my friends who got them at the Korean Mart.  She was very excited for us to try them.  It wasn't bad. I really like them with this dish.

Love It. Change It. Keep It. Rearrange It.

The same soy, brown sugar and lemongrass cured pork belly which just looks different than perhaps another picture you might have seen in an earlier post.  I didn't like the smallish cube cut so I decided to roll it nice and tight.  I also rolled the kombu-the true umami of the dish, rather than the spaghetti like strands I had cut in the beginning.  Whoa and with the skin cracklin really added great texture.  I also added a watermelon and miso emulsion to the dish which is dotted there in the background.  But I will be changing this dish for this upcoming weekend because I have a guest who has just had it coming again.  I change my menus so often and quite completely because so many of my guests are return diners and I like to keep them surprised.  I also have so many ideas I like to try and bring them to fruition and push myself to see what I can and can't accomplish cooking modern from home .  This dish will be replaced by brown spice cured veal sweetbreads with a pumpernickel breading, apple batons, oatmeal consomme, whipped cherries surrounding almond milk, pureed almonds, shaved white chocolate, cherry reduction and savory glass.  Now if I can get just the right plates I'll be all set.

Carrot cake gobstopper soon to be changed into a rhubarb, strawberry and pie crust gobstopper.  Holy moly this one is a tasty treat.  I always make extra so that after my guests have theirs, my staff and I can have ours.  Hello belly!  People don't believe I eat as much as I do.  Luckily I'm active and have a good metabolism.  But it's catching up.  Mental note-yoga.

                                      

And this dish again, which I'm just loving.  It shall be a menu staple for awhile.    It's really a great dish and a real show stopper, an excellent end for the evening.  One of my dishes that I've been able to get as close to it's original aesthetic conception, very proud to get there when I do considering my itsy bitsy tini wini kitchen.

Damn, this is a crappy shot of a cool dish.  I will eventually tackle food photography but until then this dish was a gem however I will change it a touch for the next round of dinners I have this upcoming weekend.  The prefix to this course is a king crab wrapped in mango which is hanging in a globe.  I've heard from the dining room, "why is that hanging," "that's strange," "that's so cool," "wow, pretty."  I think those are all great responses.

Shrimp Noodles.

I spoiled myself with lunch today!

Wd-50 and the man behind it, Wylie Dufresne, was the creator of shrimp noodles (as far as I know) but it is certainly one of his claims to fame.  Using about 95 percent shrimp, activa and a couple other ingredients... When I was staging one day at Schwa they were making scallop noodles: blending the seared scallop with 10% activa, white wine reduced with shallots and garlic, then piping it out onto silpats in long noodle shapes and then allowing it to set.  Last summer I decided I wanted to put a shrimp noodle on my menu with a primavera style, right, but I don't have the kitchen space to put those large sheet trays of noodles so that they can refrigerate and set however I did attempt the noodles and with my Kitchen Aid blender-did not succeed.  You really need a vita prep for this it seems.  Now I have a borrowed vita prep courtesy of my Aunt Barb but after some research as well as thought I've figured out another way to go about making the noodles.  I'm not sure that I get the most refined look-a challenge to work on for this week, but I did get a great tasting shrimp noodle expressing the "point."  I blended about 20 raw shrimp with a pinch of kosher salt and enough reduced white wine and 1/2 a small shallot and about 10% activa to get a nice blended, smooth mixture.  Then I put all of the mixture into a food saver baggie, vacuum sealed it and then pushed out the shrimp mixture flat as could be to all corners (I think next time to get a thinner noodle I will use a bigger baggy or less mixture).  I allowed it to sit for 36 hours then I cooked it sous vide for about 6 minutes or so in 130 degree water.  A good indication that it's done will be a nice pink color.  I allowed it to cool, opened the baggie and then sliced the noodles thin and even.  I reheated them gently in an emulsified butter and water mixture, buerre monte, and then added sauteed garlic, shallot, white bread crumbs, toasted quinoa and finely chopped spinach.  This was a fun way to have that old Country Lounge Shrimp Scampi.

Earth Is The Title

Beets, Chocolate, Dandelion

Whenever I first conceptualize a dish I don't often get to bring it to completion the first couple times I make it due to putting together such extensive menus alone and serving each dish only 4-6 times a month.  Lately I've been pushing, even with my limited space to bring my dishes closer to the originals.  However I do get to make them delicious even if they are not always as originally intended and it seems that the first night I put out this dish my customers gobbled it up.  It was a traditional egg custard infused with dandelion, a chocolate sauce, beets cooked sous vide, a chocolate molasses cake crumble, and a beet and red wine vinegar gastrique.  The original concept looks more like this dish pictured here but is still missing elements. It was originally to be served to each guest on a large, somewhat flat stone, there was to be the addition of tufts of cotton candy adorned with flowers and baby beet leaves and the beet itself was to be a collection of multi-colored baby beets.  Since I buy from local farms or whole foods I don't always get the product I originally intend for so I have to go with the flow.  And I honestly couldn't afford stones at this time but I do what I can.  This dish is a beet-sous vide, cylinders of chocolate cream topped with vanilla salt, a beet and red wine vinegar gastrique, a cocoa, cashew, butter, and sugar crumble "soil," a dandelion sorbet and candied beet slices.  I had some excellent guest over this weekend.  I actually always have wonderful guests and the compliments just flowed in.  It felt really really nice.

Lucy In The Sky With Leopard Tights and One Shoe.

The cutest little red head who's mother said something like, "We were going to go to whole foods then I told Lucy One Sister is going to have her pierogi at Green Grocer, so she wanted to come here."  Freaking awesome.  It's things like that, people like that, which make all the pierogi pinching and arduous hours make sense.  Not sure if they know, or if they ever read this, but that made my day!