Trying to make a difference

there seems to be many times in ones career that as culinarians we get frustrated, annoyed and sometimes can be offended by the outcome or the course of a evening.

just recently we have had some very slow days and at the same time they have been very frustrating. With only doing so many covers and so many roomservice style orders, you would think it would be easy money. well it is not, it seems that any mishap or mistake gets multiplied by 10 and then if the guest is not happy they are really not happy.

staying focused is the key to our success, it is easy to wonder when times are slow. but we have to keep in mind of what is he true goal here. Guest satisfaction, great food, and growth as a team.

I had one of our long time Chefs (Chef Rory Reno) turned back th clock a bit and told me about a time when he himslef was so frustrated with a particular situation and went to talk to our front of the house to put things back into perspective. Standing in front of a slew of servers and bussers that seemed to be falling behind or lacking that caring ability that is vital to our industry. He asked the group if they were happy with there work etc. Then he asked for a show of hands as to who actually attended hospitality college or speific training to hone their serving skills. None raised their hands. Then he proceeded to explain that 95% percent of our kitchen staff are students or long time employees that have been studying and trianing in culinary arts for several years. The difference was huge. Now  I understand that this may vary from one area to the next. Some areas are non union, some areas are close to a college that specifies in hospitality. Some areas are close to a foodie type of area. I have had the privilidge to work in several of these different spectrums.

For our current situation there has been a call for defining what we want to do in the Circular Dining Room. This type of thinking can only bring less headaches and more structure. Lets hope for a great Christmas and New Year.

Thanks!!!

Here are some pictures from this years Thanksgiving.  The holiday season has arrived and business has picked up.  We have some busy weekends and special menus going on for the holidays.  I just want to say thanks to my staff for a good Thanksgiving Day.

If any one gets a chance there are some really great new cookbooks to buy this year.  Keller has done a book on Sous Vide and its done any his typical fashion of great books.  Also this year The Fat Duck cookbook which is from the restaurant with the same name in London England.  These are 

two cookbooks worth their weight in gold.

Time OFF

I will be having a few extra days off this week and will be taking the family up to New York for the day. I cant wait to bring the camera and get some great snapshots. Hopefully we get to go by a few of the great restaurant stops to see what is going on. But since I will have my abundance of children we will probably not be dining this time around.

We recently as a hotel went up to new york to the food show (always nice) and stopped by a great place called Perilla. It was a great experience, clean, simple, good flavors, great service. Thanks to there team and to Steve for the suggestion. Great experience.

See everyone soon

Holiday time is here

Well our tasting menus have begun the transfer from 75th year anniversary to a holiday themed tasting menu. This time of year reminds me of so many times growing up with my childhood and the foods that we ate and loved which may or may not be very different from others. We grew up with tamales, wedding cake cookies, arroz con leche, pan dulces, etc. There was a influx in my household of these mexican goodies flowing into a creole cajun food of braised pork and cabbage, fried turkey, potatoes gratin, boudin (different than european boudin, this is made with rice, gizzards and plenty of seasoning). I loved this time of year for all these bold and memorable flavors.

For our tasting menu I find it important to try and keep as traditional american (???) as possible. With some of my own familiar influences brougt into play.

Menu                                              Amuse

 Cumin Scented Pork Rilette,

Sweet Potato Mousse, Dulce De Leche Marshmallow

 

Roasted Chestnut Soup,

Foie Gras and Chocolate Beignet

 

Whipped Apple Cider,

Jumbo Scallop, Upland Cress, Cinnamon and Allspice

 

Intermezzo

Green Apple Midori Sorbet

 

Roasted Capon,

Stuffing Dumpling, Roasted Root Vegetables,

Giblet and Cranberry Jus

 

Dessert

Gingerbread Spiced Doughnuts,

Molasses Syrup and Praline Ice Cream

 

Blue Point Oyster?

This last Monday I was able to have one of those great Culinary experiences. Kind of like one of those religious experiences you here people talk about.  James from River and Glen (who we get our sustainable seafood from)  organized a trip to see where blue point oysters are from.  We left at about 4am from Hershey to meet in Philly with about 10 other Chefs. Once in Philly we took a “party van” to Long Island Great South Bay.  Once on the bus we enjoyed mimosas and caviar and salmon bagels for breakfast (not too bad if you ask me).  At the Great South Bay we hopped on a fishing boat where it took us to a small dock.  On this small dock was a small wooden blue looking house.  This was the area where the Blue point oyster Company was located.  Chris Quartuccio greeted us and gave us a great demo on how he grew and harvested the blue points.  We learned that Chris  the only person harvesting the blue points.  You could tell from how he spoke about the oyster that this was not something he did as a job but as a passion or a love for the oyster.  It makes it even that more enjoyable to be able to have this kind of experience.  I would love to be able to buy everything that we use in our restaurants from these type of people and not from a big company.  He told us he delivers about 30,000 oysters a week to the New York City area.  After the demo we able to enjoy a lite lunch of oysters and beer.  After about a hour of beer and oysters we took a boat out and spent the rest of the day fishing for Striped Bass. I must say it is one of those experiences that you will never forget and makes you really love what we do as Chefs.

Read This!!!

I have just received the new Alinea cookbook and so far from reading is one of the best cookbooks that I have bought this year.  Alinea is a restaurant located in Lincoln Park, Chicago IL and run by Chef Grant Alchatz.  The restaurant has been called one of the best in the country.  He and his team have been pushing the envelope in what is considered a normal dinning experience.

Shared Information

I recently read again about the tempura fried egg yolk, I remember seeing this somewhere about 2 years ao and thought it was a amazing and simple idea, that has so many homes.

Recently for our chef table I wanted to do yet another version of a nicoise salad. Why not the egg yolk method. Egg yolks and eggs in general have a amazing mouthfeel and have the capability of adding so much life and depth to a dish. There is so many other flavor compontents that we can do but it is always nice to have a starting point.

We took a beautiful loin of ahi tuna, cut and lightly pounded until the desired width was achieved. Taking the tuna and cuttting it into strips and layed it down on the plate. I made a salad using velvet oracle, potato threads, olives, haricot verts, pickled beech mushrooms. Finally the moment of truth: the egg yolk.

Perfect finish with a extremely enjoyable texture.

Utilization

Utilizing products that are available to us or just trying to give them a home.

Thinking about what we can do with a product is a important step of our job in order to keep waste and cost down, while maintaining the products integrity as something amazing.

I recently hand several guinea fowl on hand to implement somewhere, some how, but how??? Guinea fowls are in the same family of the pheasant and are a wonderful ingredient if used properly.

We currently are running a Chefs Table dinner that is tied into our 75th anniversary of the Hotel, the dinners are based on classic preparation aswell as past menu items over the Hotel history.

I wanted to do something somewhat classic and include these guinea fowls.

Coq Au Vin, this classic preparationof a chicken slow cooked in a stew of red wine, bacon, mushrooms, and pearl onions. This combination of flavors and the depth that in portrays is just the right fit for what I was looking for on this menu aswell as it goes great with the season.

How should I start?

The initial idea of just chopping up this bird and stewing it really turned me off, as I knew there is a much more refined way that I can do this, while still maintaining the heart of this classic dish.

I began with removing the skin (in whole), flesh and bones from the bird as shown. Next I marinated the separated white meat and dark meat parts in a blend of red wine etc. for 4 hours in cryovac to ensure the incorporation of flavors. Next I took the skin of the fowl trimmed it down and rolled the dark meat inside using activa. I remarinated this in the red wine mixture and recyovaced. Next I used the idea of the bacon (coq au vin) and rolled the breast is this again cryovacing to incorporate flavors. I cooked the dark meat at 66C for 6 hours in thermobath and the White meat at 70C for 1.5 hours.

The result was an amazing combination of flavors between the dark meat and white met there were 2 very distinct flavors but still blended well together. To keep with the tradition if the dish I used bacon lardons, beech mushrooms, and cipollini onions to finish the dish. There is always improvements to be made but it was definitely a success.

Slow Food?

I can easily look back at my childhood and say thank you to both my grandmother and mom.  They taught from a early age how to appreciate food.  When I was a kid growing up my family always had fresh vegetables during the summer months from the backyard garden.  My mom was very into organic and making everything from scratch.  We rarely if ever where allowed to eat fast food or food that was deemed unhealthy by my mom.  This does not seem to be the case today.  I can’t believe that in the past 20 years parents have forgotten how to feed their children.  It seems that they  have no concept or care what they are doing to their children when they eat fast-food.  Which brings me to the topic of slow food.  The slow food movement was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in the mid 80′s.  The idea was to prevent fast-food from pushing out local restaurants and taking over the local cuisine of the area.  The slow food movement is against anything fast food and more so into keeping the integrity of organic foods.  They are in favor of ethical buying, against pesticides, genetic engineering of food.  They are for preserving heritage seeds and the breeds of animals.  I understand it as the way food once was.  Restaurants that practice or are part of the slow food movement will have a little symbol of a snail on their menu.  In more recent years the term “green” has become very popular and the practice of farm to table.  Where in which a restaurant gets its product strait form the smaller farms’ or growers’ or grows it’s self.  All we can do is hope that people will wake up and try to understand what we are putting in our and our children’s bodies will effect them later on in life and have a impact on the planet.

Making it Happen

Antique Auto Week is upon us for this are it is one of our busiest week for the CDR we have a lot of preplanning and preperation to do. Also following along with new menus daily and adjustment that may need to be made for special guests. These last couple days of this auto week are crucial it seems it is so easy to get behind bnut for now we are rolling ahead with our menu for this evening and hoping all goes well. This year we are actually meeting our forecasted numbers even so we are going over what it was supposed to be.

We’ll see what comes with a new day