Chef's Blog

Maybe the best “fragment” song I know . . . I wish they had made it to the winter months but it’s the more unique for being incomplete.  October is half done, the restaurant is still steaming ahead, Michelin announcements come out in two weeks.

Coupla things–we have an intriguing wine dinner coming up with Brian Fleury on November 2d.  He’ll be pouring some rare stuff, should be a big night.  Call us at 707 226 0850 if interested.  Deal of the century at $130 inclusive of food, wine, tax, and service.

The dinner menu continues to evolve . . . the latest addition (as of 1:50pm PST) is red curry poached shrimp with hearts of palm, tapioca, and fresh water chestnuts.  This one has been percolating in Ryder’s brain for about 5 months, so it’s kind of the end of an era to actually see it on the menu.

Something big going down in our bar in January of 2013 . . . don’t touch that dial.

griddled adriatic figs from Rutherford Gardens with pine bud syrup, crispy pine nut meringue, fennel soubise, toasted farro, and pickled Oregon chanterelles

Coriander and dark rum-cured smoked salmon with a rye crouton, horseradish spuma, pink pearl apples and mustard-dill vinaigrette

Gone but not forgotten . . . chilled confit of foie gras with pickled cherries, spiecd almond shortbread, mustard sauce, and bitter greens circa June, 2009 . . looking back, I think we probably didn't charge enough for this dish. I think there's a good four ounces of foie gras on the plate, and that's AFTER about 18% of the fat rendered out in the confit process.

I don’t know why the pictures won’t line up.

When we opened the resort in July of 2007, one of the patriarchs of the Auberge Resorts group told me that we should be doing a thousand covers a day.  According to our point-of-sale system, we did 1,024 yesterday.

Not sure if that was the biggest day in our history or not, but after participating in a screaming busy brunch, a relentless late afternoon push in the grill/pool kitchen, and a full-tilt first turn for dinner service, all I can say for sure that the cold Modelo in my fridge at home went down easy.

From L Fignon:  ”Sometimes . . . we simply have to go out to meet the Man with the Hammer.”  I don’t know if that’s translated from the French.  Anyhow, no need to do that many covers again.

Here are a couple of new salads.  We are getting Adriatic figs from the big tree at Rutherford Gardens.  The smoked salmon features some of the first apples of the season (pink pearls); we’re also using Gravensteins.

< . . . waving phone around to try and get a signal . . . >

The iPhone is tired from yesterday and won’t send the pix to my laptop.  I’ll post them soon.

That’s how much this–

aforkandaknife fries

–will cost when white truffle season rolls around in six to eight weeks.  Right now it’s a big plate of crispy fries showered with 24-month-old Parmigiano-Reggiano, seasoned with Yakima applewood smoked seat salt, and topped with a soft egg.  Which is nothing to sneeze at.

And which paralyzes me with confusion over whether to pair vintage Champagne or Barolo with this dish.  White truffles won’t make that choice easier, they’ll just up the risk/reward quotient by about TEN MILLION.

But we always have cold beer with

KONA PIZZA!

our Big Island Pizza–grilled pineapple, bacon, no spam, chili flakes.  Implicilty approved by everyone from Duke to Dave Scott to, well, probably not this guy.

There is plenty of granola to go around.  Bluefin tuna is almost gone.  How much longer can beef last?  The way we’re raising cattle these days can’t last, though it won’t be the first thing to go.  All this sunny info brought on by cooking a REALLY BIG COWBOY STEAK or three the other day.    I stared with the last three ribs of a whole 109 export, which is a bone-in ribeye with sawed-down bones.

The iphone can’t do time lapse, but if you scroll down real fast, maybe you’ll get the effect.

The loin end of the rib has the steaks with the largest eye, hence the best for serving rare to medium rare. Ribeye steaks from the shoulder need to be cooked to medium to break down the knot of fat in the middle.

WILMA!!!!!

Primped, puffed, and ready for the prom.

Still life with purple drank. Actually agua fresca de sandia.

A common mistake in searing protein is to not add enough fat to the pan. When you grill a steak, the grill rods are the cooking medium, but when you pan-sear a steak, the FAT needs to be the cooking medium. If you don't have enough fat in the pan, your PAN will be the cooking medium, and youwill have a spotty, burned piece of meat. I heated a quarter-inch of vegetable oil to a pretty good white smoke before I added the steaks. Also, a larger amount of hot oil is able to recover its heat faster than a small amount, which helps prevent sticking.

Seared Cowboy Steak With Pickled Chanterelles and Roasted Thyme. I served giant yukon gold duck fat fries on the side for this event in a pool of chimichurri. The pairing was a 2009 Fantesca Cabernet Sauvignon. It SCREAMED for this piece of meat. Great bottle of wine.

I just figured out why I’m so tired.  It’s not the high-season business levels, it’s the d*&n prime-time coverage of the Olympics by Costas & Co.–yes I am apparently on the NBC bashwagon.  Don’t they know that one of the benefits of west-coast life is that SPORTS ARE EARLY?  10AM kickoff for NFC East football coverage?  I didn’t even make it to the prelims of the men’s 200m last night before I crashed.  Where is the Sports Czar on this one?

A few stages left, and the most boring TdF I can remember watching is winding down, fitting that the Brits have got it salted away in first and second place.  I miss the days of the Postal Express freight train, and the Wild West years that followed . . . .  Maybe next year Tejay will take on Froome and we’ll have an American on the podium again.

As for food . . . we’re ripping through the summer cornucopia, stonefruit in every direction, grouper, wild shrimp, coon stripe shrimp, sand dabs, cranberry bean agnolotti, bumblebee bean ragout, melon with nam pla and coconut clouds, on and on.  I’m not saying it’s Steve Jobs’ parents’ garage circa 1975 but there are some very cool ideas and flavors bouncing around in our kitchen.  And I bet you ten large ones it smells better than Jobs and Woz did in that garage.

Chef D_____ was in for dinner last night on a big table.  Ryder worked up a mozzarella panna cotta to line the bottom of this big wild glass bowls that look like Snoddys and garnished it with four types of basil flower (opal, lime, fino verde, genovese) and some charred and peeled sun sugar tomatoes that grow next to the basils in our garden.  The server drizzled gaspatxo de catalunya over it all tableside.

Bartender says, “Where’d you get that?”

Parrot says, “France.  They got millions of ‘em.”

That’s called in media res.  I think.  Vergil used it.  Better than I did.  Less name-droppy, too.

Such is the state of things during a busy summer, though.  We put on a great wine dinner with Charnu Winery and Dancing Hares Winery; the theme was surf and turf because I was cooking for six different Napa Cabs, all fairly young, and I couldn’t think of what other concept could match that weight course after course and still proceed in a manner that made sense on the palate.

Long sentences are a fact of life when I just cooked for 166 lunch guests in a 94 degree kitchen.  I don’t know if it’s the oxygen supply that’s missing necessarily but something has me dizzy.  And adverbs are firing repeatedly, unwantedly, and uncontrollably.  Anyway here goes

Zach tying beef tenderloins with El Gigante coffee

Pan-roasting veal tenderloins with thyme and butter

Yellowfin tuna BLT with tomato compote

A messy classic--Veal Oskar with dungeness crab, pommes puree, bearnaise mousseline, and toasted brioche

Beef tenderloin with Maine lobster and lobster risotto. This one knocked people out but it was perfect with the wine . . . lookit the size of those lobster paws!

My working prep list

The full (backstage version of the) menu with wine pairings. I forgot to take a photo of the scallops--the most photogenic dish, natch.

In the time since I last posted, melting icebergs have caused eastern Canadian sea levels to rise 4.875 feet; my good old state of NC, former home of southern Democrats, has voted to invest its remaining budget surplus in paper drachmas (turns out I might not be as ironic as I thought . . . ) and Manny Pacquiao’s next fight; better just post the pictures, actually.

When I was 17, I worked at Chi-Chi's as a busboy. When the kitchen was too busy, the manager, Wally, made me fry the chips. Upon opening the grill kitchen at the Solage pool this week, there I was frying chips. I didn't feel 17 again.

The West Texas pizza with barbecue sauce, smoked brisket, grilled onions, and jack.

The buffalo-basted grilled chicken sandwich. Crispy buttermilk-fried onions in there somewhere . . . the roll we are using for this is actually the English muffin from Costeaux Bakery and it's perfect here. Closest thing I've seen to a roll called PIEGA or some such from an old Portuguese baker on Nantucket.

The cellar at Aruajo Estates, set for dinner. Zach and I cooked there the other night, absolutely gorgeous setting and wine.

The Dungeness crab salad for that dinner with chiogga beets, pickled orange, puffed rice and avocado was paired with the 2008 Altagracia Sauvignon Blanc.

For the CIA Flavor Summit, we prepared breakfast canapes that were served out at the pool, including these crab and avocado on toast.

shrimp and grits comin up, pawpaw

sausage, egg, and cheese torta ready to slice

On the left, buckwheat blini that we topped with rum-cured smoked salmon and creme fraiche. On the right, silver dollar lemon-ricotta pancakes with huckleberry syrup.

Maple and bacon custards baked in the eggshell. Nice one, Ryder.

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS--Pineapple, grapefruit, strawberry, and smoothies.

Steaming pork buns on my stove. Yeah yeah, electric coils. The oven doesn't work either. And I still use my brother-in-law's college microwave (class of '73). So, we use the bamboo, the iron skillet, the slow-cooker, and the Weber. But my days of testing bread at home are over till GE sends the guy over to replace the thermocouple in the oven.

We have a new first course on the menu–wild texas shrimp wrapped in our house recipe pancetta, seared on the plancha and served with a deconstructed romesco sauce, baby leeks, and potato-roasted garlic mousseline out of the thermal isi gun.

Needless to say–flying off the line.  Wash it down with cava or a cold beer, better yet some Basquaise hard cider.

And then there are the sardines . . . I swear it’s such a good feeling to have every dish we put on the menu be my new favorite.  When that goes away, time to hang up the apron.  Better be a while yet.

Those are involtini of Monterey Bay sardines with an olive farce, sitting on a swipe of saffron rouille and garnished with baby fennel, dried olive, and a calasparra rice fritter.  Get on the fast boat around the Med . . .