Knife's Edge - Restaurant Rants & Raves

Crabby Bastard

The storms that have been pelting our coast mean no fishing boats are going out. Thus, no ling cod, black cod or crab, at least locally. And no seafood at a coastal restaurant means unhappy customers. We'll still have a wide selection, although with various road closures that's getting iffy. When you live remotely you practice what I like to call "defensive ordering" which essentially means you carry more inventory than you need and hope for the best. It also means you try to have at least two suppliers for an item in case one craps out on you.

In general the rain is good for us, business-wise. When the weather's crappy people want to be indoors. When the weather's crappy for days locals get cabin-fever and have to go out for dinner. Also, it's raining in the mountains, rather than snowing, so no one's going skiing. If we can just keep one road open going in and out so we can get goods, we should be in good shape. Years ago when the GM and I were leaving for points east, thinking never (or at least rarely) to return, we had a whopper storm. Roads closed, power out, banks out of commission, all our stuff packed tightly into the GM's Yugo and us crazy ready to shake the dust of this town from our heels unable to get our money and unable to leave.

Hopefully nature is getting this out of her system now, rather than the end of January when we have our crab and wine festival. I'm getting smarter and I think this year haven't over committed. We're doing a brewer's dinner and a 7th anniversary circus dinner along with a fixed price 2 or 3 course meal every night during the festival. We'll do lunch for the judges of the wine competition (who are also the judges of the crabcake competition).

I won't be involved in the crabcake competition this year. The last 2 years I judged, the 2 years before that I won. The woman who organized the event last year called yesterday to ask if I'd be entering. I told her I was still in the same position as the last two years. The same judges, the same playing field and having them have lunch with me the day before the competition (and this year they requested crabcakes) added up to an unfair advantage. She said "Well, they probably won't be able to tell the difference the next day." I assured her by saying, "Believe me, they will." Because in my two years of judging my bubble was burst. You see I thought I had won because our crabcakes were so good. It turned out that all the others were so bad, some to the point of actually inedibility that when we announced a winner, it was because we had to pick one, not because one of the entries was actually good.

Anyway, the woman seemed a little non-plussed by my response. What the hell was she thinking? Food writers not being able to recognize a dish they had the day before, that they've declared a winner twice before? I'm harboring a hope they'll announce us as the winner even though we haven't entered since they'll be having them the day before. Based on what I've sampled the past two years, it's not an impossibility.

I'm not sure why this woman didn't ask for my involvement in some other capacity since we had talked about all these issues last year, and earlier this year. I've been used as poster boy for the crab festival in years past and the crab has been very, very good to us. I feel a little bad about not being there, but doing a food event with someone who doesn't understand food, restaurants and chefs is difficult at best. Besides, I have to leave later that evening since I have a flight to Seattle the following morning to go to the Seafood Choices conference.

So, now to see if all our stuff for New Year's Eve will be arriving. We've got our menu changes in place, venison with coffee-cocoa rub balsamic-dried cranberry sauce and sunchokes; pork confit with sage pesto and celery root puree; mussels with kaffir lime, garlic, ginger and chile flakes; changing the albacore preparation to a Moroccan crust, warm hummus and Meyer lemon sauce. For New Year's Eve we'll also have short ribs, squab stuffed with black chanterelles and truffles, crispy fried quail with black-eyed peas, and maybe a braised pork belly.

I hope your holiday season concludes well. Stay safe, warm and dry.

The Value of a Good Book

This Christmas the GM and I opted to have a quiet night alone. The restaurant was closed, we don't make much of exchanging gifts on Christmas although we do hang the stockings my mom made us, put up a few decorations and give each other a token or two.

I went into work for an hour or so to do the ordering, call my brother who is deaf (since we have no land line at home I have to use my tty at the restaurant) and shop for our dinner. We keep little food at home although the GM has a predilection for canned vegetables and a peanut butter sandwich will usually satisfy me if I don't have access to my restaurant larder.

We visited family in the late afternoon and by 7:30 were home and hunkered down, listening to the storm and Hamza al Din. I put together a chicken tagine, some rice and an orange and olive salad. This was the first use of the tagine, a gift from the GM 2 birthdays ago. I had never used it since we have an electric stove and I didn't want to put the tagine directly on the element, and besides, like I mentioned, we rarely have food in the house.

After dinner the GM needed to lay down for a little while and I picked up in the middle of one of Kudzu's loaned books, "Home on the Range: A Culinary History of the American West". In reading about the privations of the collection of Easterners, Europeans and South Americans wending their way to the golden promised land I came on a passage about miners protecting their sourdough starter by bringing it to bed with them. I had certainly heard of this before but this time on reading it I realized I had left the sponge for our bread sitting out at work. I had made starter for 12 loaves and had meant to increase it to 24 before I left in the early afternoon but instead left it sitting on the mixer. So a quick dash to work, a little more flour, water and yeast and I was able to sleep easy.

I hope you are all having a good holiday season and you are spreading peace and joy wherever you might be.

Yo Shorty, It's Your Birthday

I had this post done yesterday, when it really was my birthday but after mistakenly pressing the back key while in my browser I lost it all. Does this mean I'm now cautious, writing in a word processing program and cutting and pasting? Of course not.

Not only was it my birthday but the blog's birthday also. This year has flown by and although I have drifted somewhat from my original intentions this blog has helped me in a number of ways and connected me with a lot of wonderful people.

Winter is officially here and it's time to tweak the menu a bit. Fall fruit crisp is a little dated now as is a frozen pumpkin souffle. Duck with apple-onion fritters and star anise gastrique will probably give way to venison in some form. I think I'm going to have venison carpaccio for breakfast. I seared some leg last night with a coffee/chocolate spice rub and I think I'll make the dogs jealous. The braised lamb shoulder will probably be supplanted by short ribs, or perhaps a pork confit shoulder and reserve the short ribs for specials.

On our last city trip the culinary highlights were lunch with kudzu at Poggio (thanks again), the polpettone was great but no match for the company. We had dinner at Scott Howard, in the old Cypress Club space. He's stated he's trying to develop a national reputation, which he says is impossible in Marin. He should try it up here. So, everything about the place says "big-city, serious food". I personally preferred the whacky Bugs Bunny goes to the supper club decor of Cypress Club but the change looks fine also.

Service-wise they're new. Not bad, just groping around a little. We almost never go somewhere in the first 6 months but for some reason made an exception this time. Some of the service stuff seems to flow from the top though. Plates are too big for the tables. Things like that. The principals of any place should sit down and experience this stuff. It doesn't matter if it looks great if it can't be delivered gracefully. Also, note to any ambitious chef. Put salt and pepper on the table. Not having it there is just obnoxious. We know you can cook, you found the backers didn't you. Now, acknowledge that palates are different and that you cannot intuitively know each and every diners preference.

We had the charcuterie sampler (oxtail terrine, pintade gallantine, duck rillettes,
country style pate) of which the rillettes were the GM's favorite, a pork belly dish with an almost candied top, scallops with veal cheeks and cauliflower puree, lentils with shredded duck confit, gnocchi with sage and Parmesan (the only dish without much flavor), roasted beets with a shaved
porcini/purslane salad, and a coconut cream pie.

Chef Howard recognized us from a previous visit (again thank you kudzu) to Fork and said he'd be "embellishing" our menu, which he never did. He needs to watch that because while I certainly don't expect to be comped anything if I'm told I am and I'm not....

We also saw a "John Waters XXXmas" with my mom and the Filllmore was serving food. Who knew? It had been a long time since any of us had been at the venue. The last time for my mom she was cleaning the chandeliers. I can't remember the last show I saw there. At any rate the GM thinks I should do my own John Waters XXXmas menu since the Fillmore missed the opportunity. So I may post something using the lobster from Multiple Maniacs. I might skip the rat dinner from the credits of Desperate Living though.

We're getting ready for our crew party this Thursday. I've got a 109 rib roast ready, I'll have to roast a tofu for the vegans though. We'll be closed Christmas Day but I'm sure busy as hell the days leading up to it.

Ok, I'm off to ponder what to do with Meyer lemons.

Reflections

Since I started this blog close to a year ago a few things have changed. For one my writing has become increasingly sloppy, posts dashed off in the short time between waking and working. For another, I find myself writing much more about the business of the restaurant, rather than cooking. And as I have mentioned before am a lot mellower than I thought I would be. This is in part due to the knowledge that people are reading this who are close to me both personally and professionally (though it's a topic we rarely, if ever speak about) but also because I'm not as big a jerk as I'd like to think I am.

Also, there are so many wonderful and prolific food writers out there, I'm embarrassed to try to compete. I've been thinking about this not only because of the upcoming blog anniversary but also because of the very nice things silverbrow had to say as well as the Food Blog Awards-Chef category for which I received a few nominations (many thanks to those who mentioned this blog). The latter also had me thinking about the abuse of the word chef. David Lebovitz seems to be getting the most nominations in this category and while I love the site, he's not a chef in the strict sense of the word, which really means anyone in charge of a certain department, as in chef de cuisine. At least he isn't now, having transcended to author and teacher. Perhaps Food Blog Awards-Professional, might be a better category title next year. I hear people proclaiming to be the "salad chef" at certain places, or the dreaded "amateur chef". This is a little nitpicky, like being uppity about the use of the word pesto to describe a melange of cilantro, pepitas, pumpkin seed oil and queso fresco ground together, so I'm content to let it slide most of the time. I'm typically more inclined to reply, a la Bocuse, when asked what I do for a living, that I am a cook. Bocuse's reply was reputedly "cuisinier Francais", which seems to have a perfect mixture of humility and arrogance.

To celebrate the blog birthday I'm having a contest. I thought a lot about the prize, thinking first I'd cook dinner for the winner at their home, but that presents a set of problems, then I thought I'd send the entire collection of recipes from our restaurant, but that didn't seem right either. So the prize is a bag of Candy Cap mushrooms, along with recipes for their use. What do you have to do to get this? Many of the titles of my posts are musically oriented, song titles or plays on song titles and in one case a reference to a musician. There are 24 in total. The person who gets them all gets the prize. In the very unlikely event of a tie (not because the references are obscure but because it's unlikely anyone will be poring over the past year's worth of posts) then the person who is able to provide the best information about the artist(s) who performed the songs will be the winner. I'll announce results after the New Year, and any posts written after this one won't be included in the tally. Happy hunting.

Oh, to keep the playing field level send your entries directly to ngaudi@yahoo.com

It's Big, It's Heavy, It's Wood

A bit over 2 years ago I made a commitment to improve our desserts. After reading yet another review of a restaurant which said the desserts seemed like an after thought I vowed that wouldn't be the case for us. I, like most savory oriented chefs, gave dessert short shrift. It's not that I don't like to eat dessert, I do. But they are a much more demanding mistress than the rest of the kitchen, i.e. they're harder to fix when you screw them up. And I hate for anyone to know I screw up.

Having 2 uncalibrated ovens and a collection of warped sheet pans didn't help much. Cookies would burn, tuiles would break, custards would refuse to set. All of which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So I slowly started amassing new equipment and tools. Demi-sphere molds, tomato paste cans for mousse rings, circular molds, flat sheet pans reserved for pastry use only and a new, calibrated oven. And I read. And listened. And ate.

Fortunately for me savory and pastry kitchens all over the place are crossing each others paths in ways they never have before. Herb accents are finding their way into creams, custards and sorbets, sugar is being reduced, letting fruit flavors shine and American interest in cheese appears to be higher than it's been since the 19th century.

Two years later I'm feeling much more confident in the pastry kitchen.  More importantly I've built trust with our customers. This is crucial because it's well accepted that dessert, being the last thing (other than coffee) a customer has is what leaves the impression. A so-so meal followed by a killer dessert will be more fondly remembered than a great meal ending with a lackluster tart. It's not that they didn't trust me before, but getting them enrolled in trying new things takes time. After conversations with one of the managers at Citizen Cake where she described dealing with scared customers who only wanted what they saw on Rachael Ray I felt better.

Participating in our mushroom festival helped build that trust. Candy Cap Creme Brulee with Spicy Chocolate Bark is a good talking point for the waiters. They can ask the customer "when have you had a dessert with mushrooms and cayenne pepper which you've enjoyed." Creme Brulee is ubiquitous enough that people will order it, no matter what you put in it.

Another idea born during festival time is Candy Cap Meringues (oh, for those of you who aren't mycologists, Candy Caps are mushrooms with a strong maple aroma). The dried Candy Caps are ground and mixed into the meringue before baking.

What I'm really leading up to is telling everyone that after 2 years of sweet concentration I finally had a good idea. One that drew on classical technique, a classical dessert even, with some modern touches that I'm proud of, that I haven't seen elsewhere (in other words, I didn't steal the idea), and most importantly that people buy. Are you ready? It's an individual Buche de Noel with Candy Cap Meringue mushrooms and Doug Fir gelato. We call it the Yule Log though because most of our clientele wouldn't know a buche de Noel if it fell on them. I was considering calling it "It's Log" but knew most wouldn't get the Ren & Stimpy reference.

On the bottom of the plate I've got a layer of our hot fudge sauce with some cocoa nibs and dried cranberries, the buche itself is pretty standard, a cocoa genoise with a bittersweet ganache and Valhrona buttercream, the meringues I've told you about and the gelato has essence of Douglas Fir. One of the waiters said it was the most Christmasy gelato possible. I don't think I'd want to eat an entire cone of it but it works with all the other elements.

And like I said, people are buying it. In fact last night one of our favorite families came in again, after hearing about it but being too full the night before. I'll post a picture when I take one.

We'll be headed to SF this Sunday and if there's anyone who wants to get together for a bite, email us. Our trip two weeks ago was low-profile, mostly shopping for supplies we can't get up here and visiting with family, relying on old favorites. But now with Sam asking to help select the best new SF restaurants we've got to try some of these new places. Plus we've got a few things to celebrate, a personal milestone for the GM and my birthday approaching. Which leads me to the Knife's Edge contest. I'll make that my next post. I've been trying to think of a suitable prize. When I do I'll announce the rules.

Tis the Season

Boy, what is going on up here? Here's a copy of a letter I'm sending to the pastor of one of our local chruches after their musical performance cost us a bunch of customers.

Reverend X:

 I would appreciate your sharing this letter with your congregation.

In the 7 years we have served this community we have found that performances at dinner hour have consistently upset our patrons. That is why we have adopted a policy of no performances during the hours of 5-9. When XXXX told us there was a group interested in performing some Christmas carols on the evening of December 2, we hesitated but in the spirit of the season agreed that a few carols would be fine.

 When Mr. XXXX brought us a flyer describing the performance we realized it was beyond what we had agreed to and we told that to him. Again, in the spirit of the season, we tried to come up with some options which would work for everyone. These included changing the performance time so it wouldn't impact our guests or hosting you in the rear of the building where the building's music could be turned off in order to not disturb your performance. The only other option was to say no to the entire performance. We called Mr. XXXX and left a detailed message outlining these options. He never called back.When we didn't hear from him, we assumed the performance had been cancelled.

When the performance started though it sounded lovely downstairs, upstairs was a cacophony. Between your performance, our music and the sound of our kitchen, our customers were having difficulty hearing our waiters and each other. After several complaints by customers I reluctantly went downstairs to tell Mr. XXXX it was time to move the performance to the rear of the building. He declined to do so saying they only had 15 minutes or about 5 more songs. Again, in the spirit of the season, I relented.

In the course of the performance we had not only numerous complaints but also had people who declined to stay because of the noise. After yet more complaints I returned downstairs and whether that was the intended end of the performance the group decided it was time to end.

Minutes later, customers coming up the stairs told us that people downstairs were yelling, "Don't eat at  XXXX".

This could have all been avoided by Mr. XXXX returning my call. We wanted to be able to provide a venue which worked for your congregation, as well as our restaurant. Our lease specifies we have the right to choose the music during our hours of operation for precisely this reason. Rather than tell you no, we provided options, which were ignored. Not only is this not in the spirit of the season, it is rude in any season to disregard the wishes of your host and I am certain it isn't in keeping with your beliefs. Unfortunately we feel cast as the villains of your piece simply because our requests were not honored.

 To the members of your congregation who claimed they would never again dine with us, we are sorry to lose you as customers, as we are sorry to lose the other customers who didn't return Friday evening. We invite you, in the spirit of the season, to continue to enjoy our food and atmosphere and allow others to do the same. This is a small community with a long history of cooperation. We are proud to be part of this community as we hope you are.

May the best of the season be with us all,

What I really wanted to say was, "I hope when Jesus calls, you bother to return His call." But I didn't.

I certainly hope this isn't an indicator of the entire holiday season.