Jamison Lamb

It's funny that I first heard about Jamison Farm when I was in South Carolina and read that Thomas Keller was using their lamb.

Now that it's 30 miles away, well it's still taken me awhile to get around to it.

I tried before, but was afraid to spend the money and It seemed like a hassle to get the product to us, but that was just me being a penny pincher. I opted for one of the cheaper cuts of the animal, but by far one of the favorites. Everybody loves slow cooked food that's really been given personal time and love to make it wonderful.

I rubbed these guys down with Garam Masala and braised for four hours in a stock filled with Eucalyptus leaves and a sachet of Ras El Hanout , served with Feta Orzo, Carrots and Parsnips and a dried Niciose Olive Gremolata.

Wine Distributors Tasting

The Piggy came out pretty damn good and well received to my surprise. I wasn't sure how our guest would feel about a whole pig.
But, the day marinade took, the meat was full of flavor moist and juicy, and the skin was super crispy.

Some baked salmon and some really great cheeses from NY where some other items available.

We don't do to many buffets of this type, I wish we would. We really have a beautiful lawn to spread out on, although we do need more appropriate tools to provide a more sophisticated experience. But, we're working on that. Sourcing is still a major issue.

The road to Montevina

I have to point out one thing first, It's seems too weird sometimes when I find something, wether a website or an ingredient or a product that I've never seen before and then I read aobut it two days later on someone elses blog or in the news or somewhere. I don't think (in any way) that I'm beating someone to the punch of marking new ground, I just think it's extremely coincidental sometimes. I would put a link to http://www.ideasinfood.com/ and thier rescent post about Dublin Dr. Pepper but my link code won't work on this page anymore. But, I to ran into Dublin Dr. Pepper apon entering the Montevina wine tasting room. I was so sick of tasting wine at this point, I walked up to the little reach-in cooler they had to see what esle was there to drink and there it was....A "new" Dr. Pepper, to me at least. Go here, http://www.dublindrpepper.com/history.aspx?odrd=true&setuser= to get the history of this Dr. Pepper offspring. Anyone that knows me, knows I love Dr.Pepper. I often kid (seriously-like) that I will someday make a meal based on "my favorite ingredients" Dr. Pepper, Cool Ranch Doritos and a Kit-Kat bar.

Back to the trip. On this day we arrived at Montevina winery in Amador County. We had the privelage of taking the tour, which ended up being almost 4 hours...well spent. We were given the tour by the VP and former Wine maker, Jeff is his name and he pulled no punches with us. We spent 30 minutes looking in great detail the finer points of the 1/2 a million dollar machine that bottles the Montevina juice. And it was awesome. Any question, he was all over it, anything you wanted to see or taste, he was cool with it. No holds barred. We felt like we were boring him at some points.

But then it was on to the tasting room. 17 Different wines. We took our time.


On top of all of this was the house itself, Villa D'toro. Huge. Only four bedrooms, but the last thing you did there was sleep. It was for pure entertainment puposes only. Game room, pool (too cold for), garage with ping pong and darts, living room, dining room, brunch room, sun room, TV rooms, basically if you needed a room for anything it was there.

Dinner was prepared for us the fisrt night by the onstaff chef and server. The second night?.....I really liked the kitchen. Two reach-ins says a lot.

Napa Valley day 2

We started today with a tour of the Trinchero Winery Bottling warehouse. We walked through the barrel room and saw the massive level of production they are working in. Our guide Rosie was quite a character, which always makes a tour more interesting and memorable. That or all the animals (mascots) that go along with most tasting rooms.


If you click on the video, you get a small idea of how loud it was. And they crank out some bottles.

After that came Peju, a new one to me, but one I will keep an I out for. Even if just for the fact that Alan, our taste pourer, was awesome. He is an older gentleman that comes off very professional and knowledgable, but as soon as he starts pouring it's a whole new person.

We were actually told about him by someone at the first winery we stopped at, I just didn't realize this was the guy. He told jokes and lymrics and actually rapped, complete with a little "scratch" pad.


He caught me off gaurd, I only caught the very end of one of his songs. The wines were really good to.

A slightly last minute stop at Frog's Leap.

Then to Ana's Cantina (probably one of the only bars in town) for a little local brew. I love Red Seal, and it was on tap.
Then we headed out to our reservation at Go Fish, another Cindy Pawlcyn restaurant in Napa, for sushi, oysters and sake.

Wine Country

We're leaving tonight (this morning) for Sonoma Valley
View Larger Map
and Napa Valley
View Larger Map
We"re going to fly into San Francisco and just drive around for a week. Extremely excited.
The possibility to eat at the French Laundry came about too late I'm afraid, but I'm sure we'll find some great food anyway. Maybe Bouchon
These are the winery's we're visiting.
Trinchero
Folie a deux
Clos Du Val
and Monte Vina winery's

So, I'll be back in about a week with lots of pictures of winery's and hopefully food.
Thank you very much to Patrick with Capital wine and spirits for taking us along.

Vias Wine/ The Spotted Pig

New York got a little smaller this trip, more on that later.
The whole point of the trip was the wine tasting, www.viaswine.com and it was insane. On the ninth floor of the Marriot Marquis were at least 30 tables, each with 4-9 wines at them along with maybe 800 people all trying to spit into white (possibly scallop) buckets. I was so hungover from the night before, I almost didn't make it. I'm know it was worth going to for our sommelier, but it was way too much for me. Too many (stereotypical) snobby wine connoisseurs, although I am very grateful to the owner for taking me along and to Mary for suggesting that we attend.
I have to say, I feel slightly influenced right now, ...I read Kitchen Confidential years ago when it first came out. And, recently, I acquired the book on CD version with Anthony Bourdain reading in his own tones and personalized expressions and emphasis on words. I've been listening to it for the past couple days, and I can hear his voice in my head as I type....kinda weird. More on that later.
Back track, the first night in NY on Sunday, we went out to get sushi, It was stuck in my head do to all the Sake conversations as of late. We hit a place called Sushi Samba, the food was good but very very small. We did try some sakes though. It was late and we asked our server for a bar nearby that would still be open.
Off to Barfly, about three blocks away on 3rd ave, Five minutes into getting comfortable at the bar I notice someone walking towards me out of the corner of my eye.
"hey man? aren't you....???"
"Heyyy?..? , oh yeah! You're Foster's old roommate."
"Yeah, so are you, right?"
Long story short, New York gets smaller when you run into someone you met twice in your life at 1am in a random bar around Gramercy Park.
Hours of conversations ensued, along with 2 other bars, and hence the hangover for the wine tasting the next day.
BUT!, I got up fairly early the next day (all things considered, 5am bedtime) and decided to walk around town (everyone I was with were still asleep). It was nice, cool air, refreshing, and I wanted to really figure out how the streets were lined up. And I was starving.
I started off to my right, figured I'd loop the block and get my bearings, 3/4 around and what do I see....Les Halles! the restaurant made famous in my mind by the the aforementioned book Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdains kitchen of the time. Although, as far as I know, aside from his books up on a shelf in the dining room, he has little to do with it now.
Everything's coming together. The guy I ran into the previous night (and his current roommate) strongly suggested a well know gastropub, The Spotted Pig.
Stating that I would be able to divulge in every part of the pig, a tour de pork, inside and out, "the ear confit are amazing", head cheese, intestines, trotters, everything....
Yeah. Look at the menu, no pig on it.
After an hour and a half hour wait, well spent really watching the bartender "pull" beer from an old school pressure system....she was hot that's all I need to say, we sat down to a cramped table setup, a server who'd been asking me to "move!" out of his way for the past hour and a half that all the sudden was willing to treat my like a human (or patron of his) and several plates of really good food....although this plate of Skirt Steak was like $28 or something ridiculous like that.


The Mop Rolls and the Chicken Livers where amazing though.

Turns out, the Pig From Head to Toe menu only happens on certain occasions.
It was a good time though. New York Usually is though.

Antelope Enchiladas

Perrin from Broken Arrow Ranch persuaded me into a whole antelope leg from thier Texas ranch.
Here it is served with Cranberry Tapenade puree, Braised leg meat mixed with fig mole, and a couple slices of sous vide loin.

German/Alsace Wine Dinner

Pumpkin Pie Salad.



Finally, after a little asking and nagging towards TerraSpice they got some Gellan.



Combined with pumpkin paper and cinnamon watercress salad and soy molasses.



And I'm going this direction with wine tastings...up....
The progress will proceed upwards.
Usually 5 to 9 courses.

Lambert Farms mostly supply my salad greens, tomatoes and award winning Blueberries.

Trip to the farm

I've mention Lambert Farms a couple times in my postings.


Today I drove out to Gary Lambert's farm in Cairnbrook PA. The first amazing thing was that there were TWO "Main Streets", I think, somehow the "Main" street split out of a town called "Central City". Central of what? I have no idea.
Ending up on the right Main Street by instinct was pure luck.....the second time.
It's very late in the growing season, obviously, but seeing how and where everything grows was very enlightening to me.
Knowing how bad the deer kill the crops and how hard it is to keep the bees pollinating opens up a whole new respect for what one man is doing here.

On top of that, he's (Gary Lambert) going to try and grow some micro ingredients for me.

By the way, Dad, this man has without knowing it supplied your Christmas present.


I can only post so many pictures in one posting, I may have to switch blogs soon.
Eating a fall strawberry right off the plant was enough to make my line cook realize why we made the trip out to the farm.
Then, seeing the same strawberries inside the greenhouse, wow, what a huge difference in color and smells.

I will post supplemental pictures above this posting to example how fresh and wonderful this produce is. It's certified organic, and when Gary walks into the kitchen and says "It doesn't get any fresher than this:" I know he means it.
From field to plate.
I can't wait to see what we can grow together.

Cool Ranch Doritos

Some may say "Blasphemy!"

And some would say "You're Fired!"

But, there is flavor and knowledge through sacrifice.

Some day I will bring together the ultimate combination of mine: Kit Kats, Dr. Pepper and Cool Ranch Doritos. This is not that time.

With some left over Lobster tails (side note, these tails where amazing considering their harvesting, Craig from Curtze told me about these guys, they are released (completely raw) from their shell with a high pressure stream of water as to not damage the meat or tear it's attachment to the shell.)

Ben, asks me if we can eat the leftover lobster tails for lunch,..."sure, they"ll just go bad if we don"t", As we both reach in, chip after chip, into the Family Sized bag of Cool Ranch Doritos he has opened and placed on the other side of a nearby prep table.

A conversation about the Cereal Crusted Chicken Fingers at Tulune's, South side Saloon just made everything click. That and the fact that my Dishwasher, Zach, told me the day before that he gets a Restaurant size container of Old Bay Seasoning every year for Christmas and finishes it every year right before Christmas every year.

But, hence came, one of the better staff meals: Cool Ranch Doritos crusted Lobster with Old Bay Ranch dipping sauce.

Chocolate Mustard

I have discovered that I have a serious "thing" for mustard.
I LOVE MUSTARD!
That simple.
When I have the time and the thought, I will apply mustard or cheese to anything.


So...here is Chocolate Mustard.
Coco Nibs fromTerraSpice mixed with Creme de Coco and Black mustard seed. (also from TerraSpice)
I plan on pairing this with (in the very near future) with a "coffee and licorice" based tuna dish. With Raisin broth and........not sure what else yet. Working on it.
Then with smoked roe, blinis and Van Gogh Espresso Vodka.

Lambert Farms

Some of the beautiful local produce we've been using.

Little Hollow Produce

A couple from Ligonier brought these beauties in for me today. They grow 15 different varieties of lettuce and I happened to catch them with their squash in blossom.
Beautiful.