Cooking with Wes, #1

I had the distinct pleasure of cooking with my 13 year old friend Wes yesterday. Wes was here working with Greg, learning the basics of how to use a cutting tool on shearling while I was getting ready to have a going away dinner for a friend last night. He got bored with cutting fabric out and so came down right when I discovered that I didn't have enough flour to make chocolate chip cookies. I sat him down and told him that when he wanted to make something, but didn't have the right ingredients, there is always something hidden in the cupboards that will be a fine replacement. So today, we made oatmeal milk chocolate chip cookies! My other word of advice to Wes was to always use milk chocolate chips, Ghirardelli if possible. The chips are bigger and richer and one doesn't need to eat too many to feel satisfied. I put Wes in charge of the chips (bad idea) and also the placement of the cookie dough on the cookie sheets (he got better as time went on) My cookie recipe is below:

2 sticks butter (melted)

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg yolk

2/3rds cup flour

1 1/2 cup-2 cups quick cooking oats

2 teaspoons baking powder

pinch salt

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 pkg Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips

Combine the butter and sugar and then add the egg yolk. Sift together dry ingredients and add to butter mix, combine and then add vanilla and chips.

spoon onto cookie trays and place in 350 degree oven. Bake for 15-20 minutes until done. Cool and eat....mmmmmmm

What I did was make chipwiches with vanilla ice cream and two cookies. Its very elegant and rustic thing to serve on a cold night.

I saw Wes's mom today and she told me that Wes refuses to buy anything but Shirardelli milk chocolate chips for their cookies anymore.....another successful convert...my work is done on this project!

Enjoy,

Seth

I can't seem to go anywhere without someone saying that its time to update my blog! I guess thats good, but the pressure...oh the pressure!

We went to a birthday party on Saturday night that was billed as a potluck appetizer party. I was all set to go and had made 60 risotto cakes that needed to be cooked before the party...then we had a brown out because of that nasty storm. Our lights worked, but on about 1/2 power. The furnace didn't work, nor did the stove or the washing machine. I was SOL for the party and now stuck with all these risotto cakes!

Anyway, we picked up a fruit party tray at Hannaford and arrived at the party amid probably 20 trays of sushi! Everyone had the same idea.

I invited some people over on Sunday night for a dinner of risotto cakes and something else...1/2 of the invitees forgot (It was quite a party) and some others were tired and sick....a terrible thing to be at the beginning of the work week. So I fried up the cakes and found that they were really oily...the oil was super hot, but the cakes were still sopping it up. I tried to bake them, and they came out nice and golden brown, but now they weren't as moist as they should be. It was a dilemma. We decided that the cakes were way too much work and that I'm going to stick with plain ole risotto...which is awesome made with champagne, chicken stock, and sauteed leeks.

At least the shepard's pie with the whole wheat biscuit crust was a hit....even Wes, the vegetable hating 13 year old, thought it was delicious...though he was really bummed that there was no dessert.

Enjoy,
Seth

Back from my trip down the coast from Maine to Florida. Last weekend as I said, I attended a private function at Per Se, Thomas Keller's restaurant at the Time Warner building in New York. According to their website, reservations are accepted two months in advance! They have three prix fixe menus all costing $210.00.
We had dinner in West, one of their private function rooms. We must have had six tables of 12 people and there were at least two servers per table. The room was filled with fresh flower arrangements and all the tables were white...white tablecloths, white plates, white napkins, etc.
We had a four course meal planned which seemed to be a mixture of seafood, vegetables, and meat. Our server discretly asked each diner whether any of us had dietary restrictions. I was given courses of vegetables and pasta instead of the salmon and scallops that the other diners had.
Portions were more European than American. I left feeling that I'd eaten, but not feeling totally full or over indulged as one does in some restaurants. My first course was a small rectangle of celery root with candied cranberries, julienned greens, and a light vinegrette. It was a lovely two bites of food that gave me just a taste of what was to come. Everyone else at the table had a sauteed scallop.
Next came a small dish of porcini raviolli with a beurre blanc and truffle foam. It was a beautiful dish. The others at the table had salmon. The main course was a medallion of lamb that was tender and perfectly cooked. Our dessert was a rectangular sliver of chocolate decadence with a decoration of 24carat gold leaf (the only gold leaf that is edible) with a dolop of fresh lemon sorbet and dark chocolate smear on the plate.
After coffee and tea, the cookies came out....and one of the wealthiest women I have ever met took four chocolate cookies, wrapped them up in her napkin and shoved them in her purse..."for bedtime" she whispered to me. When we left, we were handed two chocolate brownies in a Per Se bag.
I have to say that I was so impressed with the service. Glasses were always filled, 6 different kinds of bread and two types of butter were offered by the bread server, and the food was so delicious and fresh. An amazing place.

Enjoy,
Seth

I'm on the road this week, working my way down to Florida. Stopped in New York to attend a dinner at Per Se, one of the restaurants mentioned in the following article from the NYTimes. Wasn't going to attend the dinner until I read some more about the restaurant, the newest creation (its about a year old) from the chef/owner of "French Laundry". Per Se is supposed to be incredible....I'll let you know what Maine Foodie thinks! In the meantime, read the following article by Jodi Cantor for the NYTimes

A new dish is appearing on menus across the nation. Restaurateurs say they have little choice other than offer it, though it horrifies many customers. That item is the $40 entree. Until recently, such prices were the stuff of four-star, white-tablecloth meals, the kind that ended with a diamond ring on the petit four tray. But now entrees over $40 can be found in restaurants that are merely upscale, where diners wear jeans and tote children. In geographic terms, New York and Las Vegas have led the charge, and in culinary ones, luxury items like steak and lobster were first and are still most prevalent.
But the $40 entree is migrating: to restaurants in Philadelphia, Fort Lauderdale and Denver, and to ingredients like fish and even pasta. Several national chains serve entrees priced above $40.
“Forty is the new 30,” said Richard Coraine, the chief operating officer of Union Square Hospitality Group, which recently began charging $42 for a 1¾-ounce appetizer portion of lobster at lunchtime at the Modern in New York. Ten percent of its lunch patrons order the dish, it says.
Hovering just below the $40 mark is an even vaster group of $38 and $39 entrees, waiting to cross the line like thirtysomethings approaching a zero-ended birthday. The arctic char at the Indianapolis branch of the Oceanaire Seafood Room chain is $38.50. Metropolitan Grill in Seattle serves shrimp scampi for $39.95. At Mike’s, a new steakhouse in Brooklyn Heights, $9.95 chicken nuggets share the menu with $38.95 veal chops.
Like the $100 Broadway ticket, $200 jeans and the $20 museum admission, the $40 entree is provoking a righteous burst of populist outrage, especially among those who pay their own way. When Angela Dansby, a Chicago diner, sees a 4 in front of a price, she thinks: “Either this must be out of this world, or it’s totally overpriced and I’m not going to order it. It’s usually the latter.” When she does pay, she compensates by skimping on appetizers and wine.
Restaurateurs say rising rents, ever more elaborate interior-decoration schemes and the increasing cost of premium ingredients — especially beef and fish — leave them little choice. Chefs, so fond of listing purveyors on menus, do not want those names to be Tyson and Del Monte. They “take pride in getting carrots or beets that no one has,” Mr. Coraine said.
Bobby Flay acknowledges that “the needle has moved very fast.” Mr. Flay recently crossed the $40 mark in his Las Vegas and Atlantic City outposts, though he says he intentionally loses money on many other entrees in order to keep prices reasonable. His entrees at Mesa Grill in New York top out at $34. (When it opened in 1991, the steepest entree was $19, or $28.30 when adjusted for inflation.)
But what makes the rise of the $40 entree so significant is not just the price creep, it’s the sophisticated calculation behind it. A new breed of menu “engineers” have proved that highly priced entrees increase revenue even if no one orders them. A $43 entree makes a $36 one look like a deal.
“Just putting one high price on the menu will take your average check up,” said Gregg Rapp, one such consultant. “My mom taught me to never order the most expensive thing on the menu, but you’ll order the second.”
With just a few keystrokes, restaurateurs can now digitally view the entire history of a dish: how the lamb sold around this time last year, whether it did better when paired with squash or risotto, and how orders rose or fell when the price went from $39 to $41.
With a few more clicks and a new stack of paper in the office printer, the menu can be revised to test new prices.
“In the old days, restaurateurs printed up menus and they were stuck with them for six months or a year; now they can do it daily, experimenting with price or placement,” said Tim Ryan, president of the Culinary Institute of America, which teaches menu engineering to all its chefs in training.
The towering prices at wildly luxurious restaurants like Per Se and Masa in New York and Alinea in Chicago have set a new price in the collective dining consciousness for a truly top meal, nudging up what diners will pay for far more modest dinners. In Las Vegas, the current talk is about Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace, where desserts alone are $22 each and a meal for two can easily run $500.
“I love when I hear about that stuff, because then Craft becomes inexpensive,” said Tom Colicchio, chef of the quickly multiplying restaurants, including a steakhouse in Las Vegas.
Oddly, as entrees rise in price, they seem to be shedding their traditional accompaniments. Today a $40 main dish is often now just that. Order a side dish, and the entree price climbs dizzyingly close to the 50’s. At the highly influential Craft, Mr. Colicchio serves pricey, naked hunks of protein and charges extra for vegetables. (He says the portions are enough for two.) Porter House, a new steakhouse at the Time Warner Center in New York, even charges diners separately for sauce.
“I blame Tom Colicchio for this,” said Barry Okun, a New York lawyer who has established a personal price limit of “between $50 and $60” per entree. “It’s not that I’m happy about it,” he added.
Mr. Colicchio acknowledged the influence of his pricing, adding that restaurants like those of the Bistro Laurent Tourondel group in New York “completely ripped off the concept” of focusing on individual elements.
To which Mr. Tourondel replied, “He should look back at the old-time steakhouse menus that were around way before Craft ever existed.”
Liz Johannesen, senior manager of restaurant marketing at OpenTable, which takes online reservations for 6,000 restaurants nationwide, said that in the last year diners had started occupying tables for longer periods, mimicking the leisurely pace at the very top establishments and forcing restaurants to raise entree prices because they were turning fewer tables.
“Just like in other cultural pursuits, trends filter downwards,” Ms. Johannesen said.
That applies to a taste for splurging as well. Kobe and Wagyu beef, from pampered Japanese cattle renowned for their tender meat, is cropping up at restaurants around the nation, according to Technomic, an industry research concern. Steakhouses and sushi restaurants, now so ubiquitous, have trained diners to pay large sums for specific ingredients, leading some to fall for the old “if it’s expensive it must be great” trick.
Indeed, no chef needs a menu engineer to explain a time-honored truth of the restaurant industry: many business diners look to spend money, not save it.
“If I’m entertaining clients, it’s all about making sure my clients are having the best time,” said Andrew Passeri, a private banker in New York who last week dined at davidburke & donatella, where he chose the $44 lobster over the $46 Dover sole and the $44 ostrich scramble.
At those prices, dinner is garnished with a large dusting of skepticism. Underattentive service or an overcooked piece of fish is not merely a minor annoyance but an unjustifiable offense.
“I’m happy to pay good money for something I can’t replicate at home,” said Ms. Dansby, of Chicago, “but when you get charged these prices for bad service, or quality, or visual presentation that isn’t so great, it’s really irritating.”
Two years ago, when Gray Kunz opened Cafe Gray in the Time Warner Center, he said he hoped it would become a destination for secretaries who work in the surrounding office buildings. The priciest entree then was the short ribs at $34. Now they are $38, the chicken is $37, and Mr. Kunz just introduced a lobster ravioli at $41.
“The biggest gasp I ever had at menu prices was the first time I went to Cafe Gray,” Mr. Okun said. “It looks like it should be a casual ‘stop in here for a bite’ place. For the amount of money you’re spending, you really want a special experience.”
Mr. Kunz now calls his restaurant “right in between the high end and low end” and said he provided “good product for very good value.”
According to Zagat, which measures what diners estimate paying, not actual prices, the average check at the most expensive 200 restaurants in San Francisco has risen 14 percent in the last two years, after remaining fairly stable earlier in the decade. At the 200 priciest restaurants in New York, Zagat users say, checks have followed the same pattern.
For his part, Tim Zagat, publisher of the guides that bear his name, said he was almost over the shock of entree prices. But now, he said, he finds himself startled by another development.
“Your $40 plate?” Mr. Zagat said. “It comes with a $20 first course.”

I've been off lately. This weekend we had lots of company and my dinners just didn't fly....I'm going back to cookbooks for recipes I guess. This making dishes with a little of this, a pinch of that, a lot of this...sometimes just doesn't work. I'm also off on planning. We had some new friends over for dinner with their 13 year old son who, hopefully, will be the focus of a whole series of posts here called "cooking with Wes" Wes is homeschooled and I offered to teach him how to cook...his mom is super excited! Anyway, knowing Wes doesn't like vegetables too much made dinner a challenge. How could I get Wes to surrepticiously eat vegetables? Soup was my first thought, so I made a good batch of curried potato leek soup. I decided to wing the recipe rather than go look up my favorite, and it was good, but I forgot to put in that bit of garlic that brings everything together. I followed up soup with pizza...soup and pizza you ask? It didn't occur to me how wierd that was until the guests showed up. Anyway, I was able to hide some orange peppers in with the sausage pizza, so Wes probably got at least a 1/2 serving of vegetables (whatever he didn't hide in a pile on his plate) My crust was off though and it didn't rise as much as I wanted it to, so the crust was super thin. Add to that the fact that I didn't keep and eye on the crust and you have very crispy pizzas!
My apple crisp had too much ginger in it, though it did have a nice subtle taste without a bunch of sugar...a bit o ice cream would have been good on top, but I wasn't thinking again!
Sunday night I wanted to make Shepard's pie with a puff pastry crust. I didn't have any butter to make the rou with, so I made it with olive oil. We didn't have any cream, nor much milk, so I used chicken broth and lots of cheese. Well, the mixture separated when it was cooking in the oven, so I drained off most of the liquid and served the mixture: ground beef, potatoes, carrots, purple broccoli, leeks, and peas with the crust and it was actually pretty tasty since the cheese had soaked into the mixture and made it nice and tender and flavorful...just no creamy sauce....oh well...time to start eating out again.

Enjoy,
Seth

Greg and I drove to Portland last night to see David Sedaris with my sister and a friend of hers. We met at Portland Flatbread Co. for dinner and I have to say, I really like this quirky place. Its easy to meet people there, centrally located, and the pizza is ok too. All I wanted was cheese, so I ordered a half asiago and mozzerella with herbs. Excellent. Greg had the carmelized onion and sun dried tomato and as he said, "I burped up onions all night after that" We got up after the meal and went to sit in front of the pizza oven (they have a big piece of granite to sit on) and watched. Of course I wondered if it was hot enough to fire ceramics in!
One whole pizza (organic sausage) and two half pizza, two salads and four glasses of wine came to $75.00. A bit on the hefty side for pizza, but what do you expect, its the big city!!!

Enjoy,
Seth

One of my deep friends gave me her deep fat fryer today. This opens a whole new field of home cooking!!!!

We were in Bermuda last week and had the great fortune to have dinner at a five star restaurant called the Newport Room. The Newport room is an homage to all the sailors who sailed in the Bermuda Race from Newport to Bermuda (my father did this race three times), however, my mother was agast that the place looked more like the interior of an ocean liner. I loved the warm rosewood and brass interior and felt as if I was on the Queen Mary or something, the effect was pretty cool. We arrived to be one of the only table of diners in the place, but by the time we left three hours later, the place was packed. Coat and tie was the norm, however there were some black tie clad tables.
There were six of us (my whole family) and we were presented with choices of: 1. a seven course meal with wine parings that would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 hours to eat ( my dad would never have the patience for that...though I know of a local couple of friends here in Belfast with whom I would love to share the experience); 2: a three course meal for $75 a person ; 4. a four course meal for $100.00 a person. People chose what they wanted, I ended up having the four course meal. The whole experience was very theatrical and the staff really relished the drama surrounding the food to the point that when our main course was served, everyone's arrived at the table covered with silver domes. When all were in place, the server said "ladies and gentlemen, dinner is served" and all the domes were wisked away to a golf clap round of applause on our part. I chose to order the butternut squash tortolini with parmesan foam that was good but nothing to write home about, the truffle and porcini powder mushroom soup which was just amazing, the seared lamb shoulder and the chocolate souflee...why not? My dad, who doesn't believe that food should cost so much and is really happy when the server is attentive to his drink needs and his steak is cooked properly had his usual salad with rocqufort, steak, and chocolate soufle. Greg had his lobster bisque flambeed at the table, and a monkfish napoleon that he said was out of this world. My sister Jennifer asked for wine parings with each course, speaking in Arabic to the Egyptian sommolier, who thought my blond haired sister a goddess because she spoke his language. Talk about drama, she made a big production of being a vegetarian that night.."I don't eat fish" she sniffed at one point and then pleaded with all of us not to order meat. (I'd be a bit more sympathetic if she hadn't ordered the beef tenderloin our last night out at dinner) My mother had the lobster hot and cold which consisted of a lobster salad and tempura lobster with olive oil and rosemary sorbet to start and then the Dover Sole which she said was quite excellent.
What was perfect about the place was the European portions. My tortolini dish had three pieces of pasta, not two dozen as in America. My lamb was also very small proportion wise. It was really nice to be taken care of by seven servers who made sure that the bread plates were full and the water flowed.
The bill was about $1000 by the time we had coffee and tea and dessert. Our chocoate souflees were decadent! Warm cream was poured into the top and a plate of white and dark chocolate shavings with candied orange peel went around the table as sprinklings.
The courses were spread apart by an amuse bouche of basil custard with an anchovie breadstick and a palate clearer of mango juice with a lemon foam. Just and incredible experience I wish everyone could have at least once in their lives. This is the way to eat!

Enjoy,
Seth

I was asked by a friend to make her wedding cake, which sounded great until her fiancee asked me if I could make a representation of a Sudanese Pyramid (with or without the temple door?) because he is an archeologist working in the Sudan. So though I am happy to do what I can, how does one make a pyramid and make it look good...where does the plastic bride and groom go, and do I tint the frosting to look like dirt, what can I make look like sand...raw sugar? and can anyone help me with the hierogriphics?....how high does the pyramid have to be to feed 100?

Answers to these question and more will be answered next season.

Enjoy,
Seth

There is a sign in the window of Murphy Coffee House in Belfast that says "who cares?" Apparently the owners and the staff inside! We tried to go down to Dudley's for breakfast on Sunday and there was a line out the door. While circling, we saw the breakfast sign at Murphy Coffee House (There was no " 'S " on the end of Murphy) and so decided to try. They have a wonderfully intricate front porch with lots of nooks for two over 6'3" guys and their 2 Giant Schnauzers. It was a gorgeous day to sit outside. Too bad the tables weren't set up, umbrellas weren't open, and the day's dew hadn't been dried off the seating area.

Inside, there was a long line in front of us and one server behind the counter. We waited about 10 minutes and then I went and got the dogs out of the car and we cleaned off an area outside ourselves. Greg waited to order and got us a rag for the wet table and chairs. When we finally got our breakfast, my scrambled eggs were overcooked, flat, and skimpy and my home fries were just plain grill fried potatoes, no garlic, or onions or other spices. Dry is about the way my mouth felt after two bites of breakfast. When our inquiry about jam was rebuffed, with "we don't have that right now" said with attitude, I had had enough of the place. Greg paid ($17.00 for self serve ordering of two plates of scrambled eggs and bacon (fatty) with homefries and toast, a cup of juice and a cup of coffee) and decided against a tip. Heres my tip: One more server at least during sunday morning hours, a server who gives a F*** about her customers, better food, and an exterior seating area where 5 tables of diners don't have to set up their own tables!

Enjoy,
Seth

We're off on vacation today, back next week with tales of decadent island eating adventures.
Think Dark and Stormys with conch salad (or burgers for me) mmmmm....Margaritaville, here we come

Enjoy,
Seth

We were invited to attend a 60th birthday dinner party last night for a good friend. The party was at Natalie's at the Mill in Camden, a restaurant that both Greg and I have been wanting to try for a while. The birthday party was a suprise, organized by our friend's brother and sister-in-law, so we had to get there early. We had a big, festive party of 12. The restaurant is very warm and inviting inside, perfect medium soft lighting, a feat when the ceilings are so high. The art was extremely tasteful and blended into the decor rather than overwhelmed it. We got there and had drinks seated in the leather furnitured lounge area.
We had a table in the back for all of us. The restaurant accomodated us by adding two more place settings at the last minute. The service, which I've heard was great, was not so attentive at the beginning. Our host got annoyed and went out to speak with the hostess at the front of the restaurant. He wanted champagne for the table and three different wines. After that, service was better, but we had to wait quite a while for our entrees. We were served an amuse bouche to start of one thinly sliced sauteed shrimp with a caviar beurre blanc which I guess was tasty though I gave mine across the table to Greg.
I ordered the butternut squash and carmelized apple soup with a confit of phesant which was delightful, quite excellent in fact. For dinner I had the crispy Duck with a sweet potato confection of some sort and a huckleberry quince sauce that was really fantastic.. I tend to like my duck cooked, and ordered it medium, though the chef recommends it medium rare.
One of the great details they have at Natalies is small baskets of hot bread with individual ramekins of soft butter....Score one for the restaurant there in my book.
Everyone seemed to order oysters which looked fabulous, though there were only five to a plate (cost cutting measures? low on the count this evening? I dunno) Greg said the oysters were the best part of the meal, lightly cooked and with a small salad on top. They were better than his fish entree which he said was a bit skimpy.
Dessert was a chocolate layer cake with mocha frosting and curried truffles on the side. Very nice.

My only beef was the price, which seemed excessive, especially when we all split the bill. It came to about $130.00 a person, which I really think is too much for the food and service that we got.

Enjoy,
Seth

Ode to Dave's at Willy World

Oh Dave, your food was so good

It was excellent to have a such a cozy place in our hood.

Because you've closed down

I write this with a frown

we are sad to see you go

cause we so wanted you to grow

What a dream

Paying one price for salad bar, entree and ice cream

But that kind of quirk

just didn't work

If it were our place

we would've kept pace

putting the cars in front and the deck out back

It can be ours if the price is right

try as we might

Does the big screen TV come with the deal?

Come on, Open for one last meal!

We never got our chance to say "so long"

Goodbye to Dave's at Willy World

Sniff :-(

MMM, The other night we had some friends over and I made this spiced chicken and lentil dish that turned out to be so tasty. It was a takeoff on a recipe I found for Moroccan chicken, but since I didn't have some of the ingredients and I had others I thought might work, I changed it round.
The recipe relies on the tang of vinegar to really make the lentils flavorful.

I washed and trimmed four large boneless, skinless, breasts and then cut them into strips that I marinated in oil, garlic, 2 tablespoons chili powder, corriander, and salt and pepper. Refrigerate for several hours.

I cooked a pound of organic green lentils in turkey broth (found them in the new bulk section at Hannaford's) until tender and then transferred them to a bowl and dressed them with 1/2 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1 tablespoon chili powder, and a sprinkling of corriander, salt and pepper to taste all wisked together (you can add some cumin too, but I didn't have any) Set bowl aside.

Saute about 1/2 an onion over medium heat until translucent and soft and add the chicken, letting it get good and colorful. Cover and cook for 2 minutes and then if you want add more spices and some chopped dried apricots and turn to coat and cook another few minutes until chicken is just cooked through and tender. Take off heat and let sit for a few minutes while you get the lentils ready to assemble the dish.

Mound lentils in the center of a large platter and then add chicken around the outside of the platter. Set in the center of the table with serving spoons and let everyone help themselves. Serve with sauteed vegetables (I did squash, zucchini, colored peppers, and fresh tomatos sprinkled with garlic and oregano).

Enjoy,
Seth

The YMCA pig roast was on Saturday, and though I couldn't go, I told them I would make some pies...five pies to be exact.....What could be easier than making a few pies for a dinner? Well, the darn task took me all day. As Greg said, "if you charge your hourly rate, you just gave $1000 to the Y!" .....grumble grumble...I guess that I should have cheated and bought the pie crusts. What you see in the photos is three of the five, I made two apple with oatmeal brown sugar crusts, two peach caramel lattice pies and one open-faced wild blueberry. I want to make the peach caramel again so that I can try it and may do it for tomorrow night's dinner. After tossing the peeled and sliced peaches with sugar, cinnamon and cardamom, you let the mixture sit and sweat juices for 30 minutes while you make caramel sauce. To the caramel, you add cornstarch dissolved in water, whipping cream, and then the juices from the peaches. Pour back over the peaches and then put into the partially baked shell. Lattice the top and bake for 45 minutes or so, tenting the top with foil so that it doesn't burn.

Hope the folks at the Y liked em!

Enjoy,
Seth

I made a disasterous dessert for a friend's birthday party. Another friend called and said that she was making a Mexican fiesta night dinner and I said "Let me make a Mexican cheesecake" It was my first time cooking with gelatin, and it will be the last too. The cake tasted fine, it was just the texture that got me. The gelatin didn't distribute evenly and so there were what felt like big balls of gelatin in every bite. I thought, well it could just be me, but when someone said "this is delicious! Whats in it besides gelatin?," I knew I was in trouble.

Oh well, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

Enjoy,
Seth

I scored a beautiful piece of meat yesterday. While shopping through Hannaford in Belfast, a huge steak, something that I don't normally purchase, stared me down in the meat aisle. I don't buy steak because I'm not really sure about cuts, etc. plus the expense is too much for me to think about. However, a gorgeous angus sirloin that musta weighed 3 lbs had a $4.00 off coupon on it, bringing the price down to $10.00. I couldn't pass it up after figuring that it would last us at least 2 meals for the both of us and maybe more. I ground fresh pepper over the whole thing and broiled it for about 12 minutes and it was perfect: a beautiful cut of meat. While coming home from the gym, Greg expressed dismay over steak sandwiches for lunch because we had to work to make the sammies and couldn't just have them made and ready immediately upon getting home.
I told him that I would make a suprise lunch for him if he would just disappear upstairs to his studio for a while.

So, here is what I did. I had the bright idea to make the Maine cheese steak sandwich which entailed slicing the sirloin, grinding it up in my tiny cuisinart that I got from my credit card company for trading in points (yes, sometimes those point things actually work!). I took the ground steak and sauteed it with garlic, olive oil, and oregano, added a bit of chicken stock to keep it moist and then added about a cup of shredded, white, cabot, curiously sharp, cheddar cheese. Placed a lump on mayoed toast and added slices of our organic tomatos grown with love and llama poop. Delicious, and there is still a hunk of steak left over.

Enjoy,
Seth

I just signed up to make five pies for the YMCA auction on the 16th of Sept. Any suggestions for pie types? I've already got requests for apple and blueberry....other thoughts and recipes?

Thanks.

Enjoy,
Seth

Greg and I were speeding along to the Union Fair the other day with thoughts of hot, fresh, fried dough in our minds when we happened by two adorable tykes at the end of their driveway with a sign I couldn't read held up above their heads. Greg looked at me and exclaimed that they were selling peaches and we should stop. Unlike my dad who usually says, "We'll stop on the way back" while trying to figure a new route back, I turned around and dropped him off to pick some peaches.
He returned to the car $2.00 bucks poorer with a huge plastic bag holding, count 'em, five anemic-looking, bruised peaches. I shook my head at Greg and asked why he didn't deal the tykes down to $1.50 or something. "But they were so cute" (the kids, not the fruit) said Greg.
We got home and I shoved em in the fridge with hopes that they wouldn't rot too fast.

I had a work-related meeting here the other day and my colleague brought a pint of fresh picked blackberries with her (can you see where this post is going?) and I shoved those in the fridge 'cause the fruit flies were salivating.

So yesterday, we were invited to dinner and I said I would bring dessert. I decided to make a crumble with all the fresh fruit that I stashed in the fridge in the past week. One recipe I found was a fruit tart in a oatmeal cookie crust, and I thought it would make a must better topping than a crust.

Ok, so into a large bowl I sliced the peaches and pitted them and tossed them with a pink of blackberries and two sliced plums. Throw into this 1 tablespoon of cornstarch, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and 1/3-1/2 a cup of granulated sugar to taste.
In another bowl I put 2/3rds cup flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1 cup quick cooking oats, a dash of cinnamon, a dash of allspice, some ginger, and some nutmeg. Add to this a stick of melted butter and then mix until the topping resembles coarse meal.

Place the fruit in a baking dish and spread the topping evenly on top. Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 1 hour or until golden.


Serve with vanilla ice cream

Enjoy,
Seth

OK, I have to toot my own horn here. (so, what else is new?) I chefed for a private function tonight and was asked to sit at the dinner table. The minute I sat down, the woman next to me, who owns a restaurant in Belfast, said that she and her husband had ordered my clam chowder several years ago when I was cooking in Belfast. She said it was truly the best chowder she had ever tasted, "simply the best" were the words she used. She said they came down to the restaurant several times just for the chowder. To have a foodie restaurant owner to tell me that was really cool!

For dinner, I grilled two pork tenderloins that I had marinated in a confit of apples, garlic, rosemary and sage. I cooked the confit in a pot on the stove by boiling four chopped apples (skins on) in about a cup of water with a bit of sugar, about 1/4 cup chopped garlic, 4 tablespoons rosemary, some chopped sage left over from the aioli I made for the crab cakes, and salt and pepper to taste. After trimming the tenderloins, I poured the "applesauce" over top, covered and chilled for several hours. When I put the tenderloins onto grill, I placed the baking dish with the apple confit in the oven to bake.

I found that the secret to keeping the crab cakes from falling apart is to make them several hours ahead of time and then chilling them in the fridge. They work great this way.

Enjoy,
Seth