Prix Fixe

FF: Smoke This!

I've sung the praises of this piece of machinery before, the PolyScience smoking gun. Feta, Radishes, Butter are just a few of the things we've used it for - not to mention it's daily use for our signature radish appetizer.

It really is a must.

Mmm...beefy.

This is one of my favorite pic's from the Women Of Vision dinner. Taking pictures lately has taken a bit of a back seat, and I'm trying to rectify that situation. 

I know I need to work on it more, as I see large room for improvement. I'll just add it to the giant overwhelmingly huge list of things Timmy needs to work on.

The Full Mountain Monty...

Inspiration comes in many forms, as we've discussed before. Snapped this on my way to work Friday afternoon, just up the road from the St. Josef's Winery. It's sights like this that remind me of why I love it here and would never want to move anywhere else.

...OK so that's a semi-lie, there are a couple other places I wouldn't mind . But right now, I'm happy as a clam living and working in Western Oregon.

And if you're wondering, it's Mt. Hood.

Sometimes you just need to step outside the kitchen doors and take a look around. 

Be well, do good work, and keep in touch

Tonight marks the final service for Carlyle, a restaurant nestled underneath the looming shadow of the I405 Bridge. Honestly, if you aren't actually headed there for dinner, there is no way you could stumble upon it. Six weeks during this last summer, I spent my externship there. 

A couple of weeks ago over at ThePortlander.com I wrote about the restaurants closing, and included the email that Bruce Goldberg who has owned and operated Carlyle for the last 7 years, wrote.

Dear Friends,

Next month is Carlyle’s seventh anniversary.  February also marks the end of our current  lease.  Both milestones are significant in that they factor into my decision to announce that Carlyle will serve it’s last meal on Sunday, February 14th.

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the many loyal customers, employees, and friends who have made Carlyle special. Though saddened by the closing, I ’m comforted by  wonderful memories, ,and the opportunity to have worked with some very talented people.

I hope that over  the next two weeks you’ll make a point of joining us for dinner or a drink. In addition to some recent menu changes,  Chef Martin will be presenting a special prix fixe dinner , offered on both  February 13th and 14th , to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and to serve as our farewell.

On a personal note, my heartfelt thanks to Carlyle’s  past and current staff, some of which have been with us from the beginning. Their talent, dedication, and humor has made for a rich and rewarding experience for which I will always be grateful. I would also like to acknowledge the many local vendors who’s fine products and excellent  service have become synonymous with a raised bar in Portland dining.

Lastly, I’d like to extend an invitation to all former Carlyle employees to join us for a drink (or two) at 10:00 pm on the 14th. I look forward to seeing you.

Thank you for seven years.

Sincerely,
Bruce Goldberg, Carlyle

Both Jake and Bryan (the sous chef) will be heading over to Fenouil in the Pearl. Daniel Mondock of Sel Gris and Foster Burger fame got his start at Carlyle, and there have been a few more chef's in-between. While a great space, the location isn't all that grand. Like I said if you weren't already going there, you'd never stumble upon it. 

In regards to elBulli

Yesterday at the Madrid Fusion conference Chef Ferran Adria made the announcement that elBulli would close it's doors to the public. No the restaurant isn't closing down for good, but Chef Adria has decided that he needs to take a step back as it were, look at where elBulli has been and where it's going moving forward. The restaurant itself is working on it's 50th year in operation -  Adria has been at the helm for 30 of those years.

According to the presser we could get a elBulli encyclopedia, which would be the first ever complete 'bible' of avant garde cuisine from Adria. He's released several books, but this would be even bigger (bigger than the Fat Duck Cookbook - that Heston Blumenthal put out) which is many levels of kick ass.

My first thought was "Good for him", time to take stock in where he's been and where he wants the restaurant to go. Not many chefs can close down their restaurant for two years and get away with it - Adria can. Guys like Heston Blumenthal and Grant Achatz both did stages under Adria. 

#100

Yes, it seems that we've reached a milestone around here. 

We have officially hit the century mark in posts. There are no plans of slowing down - there's a lot of ground to cover. One thing I have noticed working in my new chosen career, is that most chefs, cooks and servers all have another creative outlet. 

Musicians, artists, writers..etc. Mostly I've run across musicians and artists - my boss being both of those. My outlet if you haven't guessed already is writing. I've been doing it for years, and doing it on the internet before I knew what blogging was - it was mostly scifi writing and what not. But it too was a creative outlet and carried me through some tough times, it was an escape - as it's true to this day.

In the last couple of years I've been published twice for my baseball knowledge via Graphical Player a ink and paper publication that comes out every year for those interested in fantasy baseball. When I started blogging it was about baseball and had what I feel was a pretty good blog on the Atlanta Braves. Then I 'retired' from radio, and enrolled in culinary school - that's where things changed.

This is my life now - food, cooking, writing.

I look at this as just the beginning, the number 100 is really just 1 with two zeros tagged on at the end. I'm still trying to find the balance that I want to strike here - pare it down to it's essential ingredients as it were. We're still in shake down cruise mode, workin' out the kinks so to speak.

Hopefully the next 100 will fly right by, I'm sticking to my personal commitment to post at the least once a day, but I am one of those writers who - if I really don't have anything to say, I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to publish a post just to make sure I keep up with status quo - in other words I'm not going to force it. I rarely do in fact, but I did find I did fall into the later when I was blogging about baseball. 162 games is a lot to cover, and did so successfully for a couple of years and got burnt.

It wasn't fun anymore and seemed like work as anything else.

Not so with this, I can relate a lot of sports to food, the restaurant etc. etc. so if you see some sports analogy's don't be afraid - I promise it wont take over the blog.

So here's to the next 100....and more!

A Whole New Whirl'd

Wingin' it

Most of the time I go into the kitchen (at least at home) with only a rough outline of what I plan to do regarding dinner.  The only thing I really know, is the protein that I'll be using that night. This particular night, it was fried chicken of all things, but that's not what this post is about.  One of my favorite parts of when I was in school was Skills II, this is where you learn cooking methods and of course what the French call "Mother Sauces".

I personally believe that sauce making is a skill that will carry you, whether it be a quick pan sauce to a more refined sauce. The great thing is really you don't need any fancy equipment to make sauces. Sure, a Chinois is always nice to have on hand to strain sauces and the like, but it's not mandatory. Heck any fine mesh strainer will do in a pinch..

Here's the problem, I love mushrooms and I guess it isn't really a problem though I have a tendency to buy a lot when I attend the farmers market. My kryptonite are Morels and Chanterelles , just remember to forge a relationship with your provider. I usually make a bee line to the "Misty Mountain Mushrooms" tent.  It's there that I'm always greeted with a smile, and an abundance of mushrooms, and my other weakness truffles.

So I had these chanterelle's starting to head south, I was going to fix them for thanksgiving but we ended up 86ing them at the last minute. So I needed something to do with them, and really I didn't want to do my normal stand by which is just sauteing them in a bit of butter and olive oil. When sauted that way, it brings out a nutty flavor in the chanterelle's. I knew I was going to do a sauce to pair with some Orzo pasta I had on hand, but I didn't want that nutty flavor to be muted with a cream sauce, so not only did I saute them I did so in brown butter.

The rest of the sauce came pretty quickly to me, though I will give you fair warning - it's not for the heart healthy crowd. This is a french sauce in technique for sure, lots of butter and cream. I also used veal stock, but if you don't have that on hand, I think veggie stock would do good in a pinch. I wouldn't suggest chicken or beef stock - due to the fact you don't want it to taste like either. Oh I also added a pinch of Porcini powder I had on hand that I had picked up at Misty Mountain Mushroom to add a depth of flavor, and another element of Umami.

What resulted is a rich, umami packed sauce that paired swimmingly with the orzo. Though next time around I'm thinking gnocchi or paperdelle.

Recipe after the jump.

Shades of competition...

Chef's Statement

I found this on the The Fat Duck website, it's written by Chef/Proprietor Heston Blumenthal. I'd heard the name, know of the restaurant but really didn't know that much about him until I started researching him. It led me to watching "In Search of Perfection" which I'm still currently watching. 

Anyways, I agree with the following wholeheartedly, and it will also get a permanent link on the side bar as I think this should be mandatory reading.

The world of food has changed a great deal in modern times. Change has come especially fast over the last decade. Along with many other developments, a new approach to cooking has emerged in restaurants around the globe, including our own. We feel that this approach has been widely misunderstood, both outside and inside our profession. Certain aspects of it are overemphasized and sensationalized, while others are ignored. We believe that this is an important time in the history of cooking, and wish to clarify the principles and thoughts that actually guide us.

We hope that this statement will be useful to all people with an interest in food, but especially to our younger colleagues, the new generations of food professionals.

1.  Three basic principles guide our cooking: excellence, openness, and integrity.
   
   We are motivated above all by an aspiration to excellence. We wish to work with ingredients of the finest quality, and to realize the full potential of the food we choose to prepare, whether it is a single shot of espresso or a multicourse tasting menu.
   
   We believe that today and in the future, a commitment to excellence requires openness to all resources that can help us give pleasure and meaning to people through the medium of food. In the past, cooks and their dishes were constrained by many factors: the limited availability of ingredients and ways of transforming them, limited understanding of cooking processes, and the necessarily narrow definitions and expectations embodied in local tradition. Today there are many fewer constraints, and tremendous potential for the progress of our craft. We can choose from the entire planet’s ingredients, cooking methods, and traditions, and draw on all of human knowledge, to explore what it is possible to do with food and the experience of eating. This is not a new idea, but a new opportunity. Nearly two centuries ago, Brillat-Savarin wrote that ‘the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.”
   
   Paramount in everything we do is integrity. Our beliefs and commitments are sincere and do not follow the latest trend.
   
   
2. Our cooking values tradition, builds on it, and along with tradition is part of the ongoing evolution of our craft .
   
   The world’s culinary traditions are collective, cumulative inventions, a heritage created by hundreds of generations of cooks. Tradition is the base which all cooks who aspire to excellence must know and master. Our open approach builds on the best that tradition has to offer.
   
   As with everything in life, our craft evolves, and has done so from the moment when man first realized the powers of fire. We embrace this natural process of evolution and aspire to influence it. We respect our rich history and at the same time attempt to play a small part in the history of tomorrow.
   
   
3. We embrace innovation—new ingredients, techniques, appliances, information, and ideas—whenever it can make a real contribution to our cooking.
   
   We do not pursue novelty for its own sake. We may use modern thickeners, sugar substitutes, enzymes, liquid nitrogen, sous-vide, dehydration, and other nontraditional means, but these do not define our cooking. They are a few of the many tools that we are fortunate to have available as we strive to make delicious and stimulating dishes.
   
   Similarly, the disciplines of food chemistry and food technology are valuable sources of information and ideas for all cooks. Even the most straightforward traditional preparation can be strengthened by an understanding of its ingredients and methods, and chemists have been helping cooks for hundreds of years. The fashionable term “molecular gastronomy” was introduced relatively recently, in 1992, to name a particular academic workshop for scientists and chefs on the basic food chemistry of traditional dishes. That workshop did not influence our approach, and the term “molecular gastronomy” does not describe our cooking, or indeed any style of cooking.
   
   
4. We believe that cooking can affect people in profound ways, and that a spirit of collaboration and sharing is essential to true progress in developing this potential.
   
   The act of eating engages all the senses as well as the mind. Preparing and serving food could therefore be the most complex and comprehensive of the performing arts. To explore the full expressive potential of food and cooking, we collaborate with scientists, from food chemists to psychologists, with artisans and artists (from all walks of the performing arts), architects, designers, industrial engineers. We also believe in the importance of collaboration and generosity among cooks: a readiness to share ideas and information, together with full acknowledgment of those who invent new techniques and dishes.