Pear Strips

New Scallop App.

Curry Pears and Raisins with Cipollinis, Pine nut Relish, Spice Cake and Orange Julius Foam

Last Course, Levendi Wine Dinner

Pear and Peanut Butter Tart with Marshmallow Ice Cream.

served with a Late Harvest Chardonnay.

When your produce company sends you way to many Asian Pears, some courses just decide themselves.

Lamb Parfait

5th Course: Lamb Parfait (Bottom to Top: Brie Mashed potatoes, Braised Leg of Lamb, Brie Mash, Chocolate-Cabernet Sauce, Toasted Macadamia

Not the prettiest dish of the evening, but full of flavors.

the leg of lamb was pressure cooked with cherry juice, Pepsi, oranges, herbs and espresso beans. Finished with stock and peanut butter. Very rich.

Wilson's Duck Rosti

4th Course: Crispy Duck Breast, Potato Rosti, Arugula, Pomegranate-Truffle
The arugula was quickly sauteed with shallots and carrots. POM pomegranate juice was reduced down and mounted with Truffle butter.
This was served with Symphonia Cabernet. Great flavor combinations.

Braised Pumpkin

3rd Course: BBQ Beef stuffed Baby Pumpkin with Cinnamon Green Beans and Pomme Frites. Served with Sweet water Cabernet
I first started braising pumpkins about 5 years ago, they make a great vehicle to deliver a starter, soup, or dessert. The guest get a big kick out of it to, especially in October.
I confited beef tenderloin chains like you would duck confit. Cured and slow cooked in rendered beef fat. The BBQ sauce is based off of the pumpkin braising liquid with a molasses background to it. This course went over very well.
The entire dinner is on my top five list easily.





Matt Baer made a Jack-o-latern to show how tiny these guys are.

Smoked Salmon and Mussel Terrine

2nd Course

Smoked Salmon and Mussel Terrine, Bacon Powder, Soy-Yuzu Gel, and Blue Cheese

When tasting the Red Hen Chardonnay that would be served at this course, there was an amazing smoky quality to it that just pulled to this plate. With lack of a proper terrine mold, that's when it's good to be creative and look at thing s differently.

Mr. Wilson / Levendi Wine Dinner

Jon Wilson.

In 2000, I believe, My brother was the Chef at The Bistro on Kiawah Island, The Bistro was to be closed and turned into offices. There was a brand new restaurant being built down the island a few miles. Turtle Point Grille. The staff from The Bistro would now be living here with my brother in command of the kitchen. With him was his Sous Chef Ed, newly hired Exec. Sous Chef (Me), a collection of familiar servers and a kitchen crew that would impact my life probably forever. Coco, whom you've read about in http://thechefsoffice.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html A Charleston Wedding , John W. Grube whom is a book waiting to happen and of course, Mr. Wilson.

After Randy left Turtle Point Grille, I took over for a time and made Wilson my Sous Chef. The year and a half that we cooked together was very easy. Kiawah was a hard company to work for but Wilson is one of those cooks that you just click with creatively and work ethic wise. And a lot of those people from that kitchen are still big parts of my life.

Wilson flew in from NY, where he lives with his wife Shelly (Turtle alumni) and their dog Stella, to pitch in on our Levendi Estates wine dinner.

After trying the wines and making notes and emailing back and forth. About and hour before the dinner started the menu was finished. I tend to hesitate. I like to get all kinks worked out before committing to anything.

The next postings will include doubles of the featured items do to my flash not working and Wilson emailing me his copies.

Here is Jon's: Seared Scallop, Banana-Apple Bread, Butternut-Maple Jus, Chestnut Foam

The Butternut-Maple jus was amazing.

Halibut

With Truffled Sweet Potato, Beets, Brussels, Turnips, SnowPeas and Bacon Foam.

Ghost of The Gables

So, since I've been at Green Gables I've definitely heard the ghost stories. (I made up a couple of my own actually)

There are "The Faces" in the wood out back, the stories from the night cleaner, the tales from the owner, and what myself and the dishwasher have seen moving up and down a certain set of stairs. And, I've also felt like an 8yr old in the middle of the "Tuscany Room" with no one else in the building and my only light source being my cell phone.

I've heard about two grown men running out of Tuscany as if someone was chasing them.

All matters of the brain and superstition.

This picture though....not a double exposure being from a digital camera. Possibly slow shutter speed. But very sci-fi non the less.

Thanks to Alicia, Michelle and Churro girl for the picture.

Pop Rock Shrimp

Another video from the Blind Dinner we did a couple weeks ago.

It is fun to walk into the dinning room and really get to feel what everyone else is feeling. If you listen carefully, you can hear the pastry rocks crackling in the background. Being in the room, it was all around you.

When the first dish went out, and I was still in the back plating, there was a loud yelp from the dining room. Normally this would be a bad thing, in this case it really got everyone buzzed with anticipation about was going to placed in front of them to dare try with their blindfolds on.

Short Rib Crepinette

Have you seen me?

The "Super Spat"

Dubbed circa 2000 Via Turtle Point Kiawah

Well, the thing is, I've bought at least 5 of these "Super Spats" since then and I've gained a HUGE liking for them. OXO doesn't produce them any more. As far as I know, at least. I've emailed them to no fruit. Nothing. No reply at all.

They created the Perfect spatula and decided to throw it out the window for a "high temp" covered version.

Why would anyone want a metal spatula covered with plastic? I can get under a piece of Salmon with that. I can't flip a U-5 scallop with a thick ass plastic cover on my Super Spatula!!!

Any help on this will reward, me being happy with my spatula for years to come. I will purchase at least 7 to 8 of them if available. Should last a couple years.

My staff meal

This is truly not meant to be disgusting.
Years ago I ate at Ocean Garden in Mount Pleasant SC and one of two options under the "Jaw" section was either Salmon or Grouper.
I got the Grouper that night. 5Bucks for a Grouper Jaw. Braised a lot like this, I think. = Soy Sauce and Brown sugar.
That's it.
I thought about that meal, a lot, in the years since. I wondered What skill it must take, what time and patience, what time is spent baisting?, how much liquid must be needed?, How much time?
The Grouper jaw I had that night was amazing. So many hidden pieces of soft, delicately sweet flavored pieces of meat, intertwined with teeth, cartilage, bone and fat. So......not ...eye appealing. But so wonderful in flavor and texture.
While breaking down some salmon this week, I threw all the scraps into a 6in' half pan topped of with (more or less) a Soy caramel. Wrapped with plastic wrap and foil into the oven for about thirty minutes.
There it was again. The wonderful flavors of freshness, saltiness and sweet. The amazing textures of fattiness melted into the unthinkable crevices in the face of a protein.
I have to admit, there was a slight selfish point when it came to the cheeks. I shared what I could and enticed those that hadn't seen the morbid images of "left overs" with butter soft and sweet morsels of parts unknown to them. But they tried it!


It's so important to me to...just try everything, but it's amazing when a paying customer won't eat certain vegetables that are key to a plate but yet, my dishwasher will enjoy braised Salmon head with me and really pick out the finer points in what he is enjoying. And get a little pissed when the cheeks are gone.

Heaven forbid that the man at table nine appreciate the wild, domestic and (locally) picked mushrooms that should be smothering his dried out piece of well done filet mignon.
Although....If A-1 had one real purpose, it was to help filet mignon.

Ads

I recently opted for "Google ads" to add a spot on the top of my page. I really don't know how well this will work out.....
so far there seems to be some "unique" links. Not so much "in tune" with what I'm posting.
I'm going to let it go for a little bit.
If you see anything that's really wrong, please let me know.

I do really like Vitamin Water

XXX

The Blind Dinner part II 2007

The first Blind dinner happened shortly after I arrived in PA, about two months I guess. It was a daunting task, all consuming, took my fears of a new job and sent them through the roof. Not to mention it was the first time done at the restaurant. No one knew what to do or what to expect, how customers would react, how the blind center would be involved.
Looking back on it, the first time worked. I had a different staff that didn't know me and two of whom where culinary trained. The main concern was on the person guiding our blindfolded clientele. To which this person did very little. I was so worried about how the food would be perceived coinciding with the wines, yet there was no way to present food for "newly" blind customers that could truly match the over all challenge of the night. I did what I could and put out "easy" to eat food and interesting flavor combinations that I'm sure some may still look back on.
The matching of the food to the wine and the perception of the quality concerning the food was quickly overcome with the sheer joy and laughter of, what seemed to be children, people playing in the dark. Everyone was having a great time.

This year was different in some ways. One, the speaker was a wine salesman, and he walked everyone through the wines they were tasting. This is a good thing. He talked to everyone and kept them focused and kept them searching for the flavors and feelings traveling through their bodies into their brains.

At the same time, everyone was more focused. The food was acting in their mouths.

I've been making two to three menus a week for the past month. Whether it be for weekly wine flights, the regular three menus (that needed to be changed to two), or last weeks wine dinner. I didn't have much life in me to focus on the Blind Dinner nor to finish the menu three days prior.

When it came down to pulling everything together....well, there went a possible five day work week in the past four months.

(I deleted a large paragraph)
Doesn't matter. "If you want something done right, do it yourself". I have little patience to teach. I do as much as i can with my own mind and hands mainly because if i mess it up I know what I did and have an idea of how to try to fix it.
The Blind Dinner didn't work out that way. (deleted again)
I do as much as I can. When push comes to shove and I need the help...guess what? I didn't teach them everything in the world of cooking in the past 11.5 months I've been there. Some things work out, some don't. I've given too much time to accept the ones that don't work.

The guest don't know what goes on behind the scenes, they don't want to and shouldn't have to. They all enjoyed themselves, from what I heard. I took some pictures and videos, but when I couldn't take the personal disappointment i felt, I left.

The feeling of heartbreak was the only way to describe it. I should have slept less, I should have tested items more, I should have been more specific in my instructions, I should have paid less attention to everything else going on that month, I should have had so and so help me, I should have......everything. But I couldn't.

Everyone was happy except me. and that is a selfish point. I always want the customers to be happy. Weather they know the quality and effort or not, they only need to be happy at the end of a meal.

Bits and Pieces

"The blind dinner" A wine dinner to benefit the Somerset Blind center. All participants are blindfolded in the spirit of the evening.
The obstacle for me is to create items that are interesting, intriguing, thought provoking, flavorful, smell good, feel good, taste good, easy to eat, and don't have to look good.
It's hard to cut off that sense and create a menu that way.
But fun and challenging at the same time.
With items like the Sushi Lollipops (below post), Grilled Kielbasa and Sauerkraut cubes, mini tacos, and Foie Butter and Jelly sandwiches.

Sushi Lollipops

Filled with spicy tuna.