Flash in the Pan

I was on a business trip in St. John's and took part in a dinner at Chef To Go, where you literally work for your supper. The name makes it sound like some type of take-out establishment, and is the result of its first two years of operation in which chef/proprietor Robert Arniel offered catering for small groups in private homes. Today, he offers cooking classes and arranges dining evenings for groups, in which he gives a cooking lesson and then the participants get involved in the preparation of the evening's dinner. All go home with an apron and a collection of the evening's recipes.

You don't actually get to go through every step of the preparation, as, to be fair, that could take hours of work and offer too much room for mistakes. Instead, most of the prep work is done. For example, our menu consisted of the following:

Crab Claws with Cognac Sauce

Mussels on the Half Shell

Sun-Dried Tomato Tapenade Crostini

Choice of Blackened Salmon with Kiwi Salsa or Seared Beef Tenderloin with Stilton Crust and Cabernet Sauvignon Sauce

Oven Roasted Root Vegetables

Seasonal Berry Napoleon with Minted White Chocolate Pastry Cream

The group broke out into three teams, each working a different part of the menu, with enough work done ahead that there was only about half an hour at the most of actual labor. That kept anyone from feeling overwhelmed in the kitchen and also kept it a social affair. Basically you are involved in final preparations and cooking - no breaking a sweat.

There were two people serving all the food, including the first two appetizers, already prepared, while everyone was working. (There were also several choices of wine to lubricate the physical labor.) Everyone is done about the same time, sits at tables, and enjoys the dinner. Some of the ingredients came out of the chef's backyard garden.

The "restaurant" is acutally the first two floors of his house, and his wife and he live on the top two. Having an eating establishment in a home is actually an old tradition: you can find it in Havana today, and some decades ago there was a well-regarded and famous example in Manhattan, a woman who offered diners whatever she decided to cook that day.

Arniel had an accomplished career as a chef before opening this spot, and the results tell. Not only are the recipes good, but he has enough understanding of the dynamics of cooking to make the diners comfortable and successful in their efforts. As this is geared to groups, it might be difficult to do one of the dinners. But aside from classes that last a few weeks, he also offers intensive Saturday classes. Cooking and eating in a pleasant atmosphere - what else could you ask for? Chef Arniel said I could post a recipe or two from the ones I received, so here is one for the tenderloin dish:

Cabernet Sauvignon Sauce

Ingredients:

• 250 ml cabernet sauvignon


• 250 ml light cream


• 125 ml minced shallots


• 1 clove garlic, minced


• 2.5 ml fresh thyme


• 1 ml sea salt


• 0.5 ml fresh pepper

Instructions:

1. Place all ingredients in heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, or until reduced by half.


2. Pour sauce into blender and puree until smooth.


3. Strain through fine strainer and keep warm.

Blue Cheese Crusted Beef Tenderloin

Ingredients:

• 250 g Stilton (substitute other blue cheese)


• 100 g butter


• 350 ml coarse fresh bread crumbs


• 10 ml fresh thyme


• 8 beef tenderloin steaks


• clarified butter (substitute olive oil)


• salt and pepper

Instructions:

1. Process first cheese and butter in a food processor.


2. Add bread crumbs and thyme and process until combined.


3. Heat saute pan over high heat, add 1 TBS clarified butter or olive oil, and sear steaks on each side until just browned.


4. Let steaks cook and coat each one evenly with blue cheese mixture.


5. Finish steaks in 375ºF convection oven (400ºF in normal oven) until medium rare, about 10 minutes.


6. Serve with cabernet sauvignon suace.

Serves 8.

Labels: cabernet sauvignon, Canada, cooking, corned beef, lessons, Newfoundland, recipes, restaurant, review, St. John's, stilton, tenderloin

Posted by Erik Sherman @ 9:05 AM Permalink 0 comments links to this post

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Chili Smackdown A new pepper - nicknamed the bhut jolokia, or ghost chili - from India has just made the record books as the hottest chili in the world at 1,000,000 Scoville units, or ten times hotter than a habenero. (Independent Online)



• Green Bean Mean Scene A class at the William V. Wright Elementary School in Las Vegas rolled the dice by writing letters to complain about facing reheated frozen green beans on the cafeteria line. (AP)



• Moped Moping A Japanese figure skater just received a five month international competition ban after being arrested for driving a moped under the influence. Maybe he can start a new branch of the Hells Angels. (Reuters)



• Clean Your Plate, First A Beijing restaurant lets diners that rack up a check of at least a 50 yuan - that's about US$6.61 - throw dishes against a designated wall. (Ananova)



• So Much for Seconds A German court has sentenced someone who skipped out on 64 restaurant bills to 18 months in prison. A harsh sentence for someone who just had to eat and run. (Reuters)

Labels: An Obsession with Food, Beijing, plates, prison, restaurant, school, weird

A weekly round-up of food and drink oddities:

• Weight Loss of the Mysterious West We in the US have seen our share of secret Asian weight loss measures. Now a Chinese company is facing oversight heat from seling a weight loss patch, supposedly used by Chelsea Clinton and imported from America, that oozes oil. Ew. (Reuters)


• Milwaukee Mess Some Wisconsin brewers, protesting a proposed law that would restrict the ability of brew pubs broadly selling their beers from serving food, spilled beer suds into the Milwaukee river. Fermenting protest, perhaps? (AP


• More Dinner? Three hours after running out on a $410 bill at an expensive Minneapolis restaurant, the two stopped for drinks and more food at another - owned by the same restauranteur, an ex-Judo instructor, who chased one down an alley and held him on the ground until the police showed up. (Independent Online)


• Relax, Charlie Japanese researchers want to reduce the stress of tuna after their caught so they taste better when they hit the plate. Here's an idea - have a steak special. (Reuters)


• With Its Own Paper Wrapper In one part of Beijing, the "pork" buns are partly filled with chemically softened chopped cardboard. I'm waiting for some American fast food establishment to hop on the trend. (AP)


• Put Down That Charcoal A Pennsylvania mayor got into trouble for banning outdoor grilling at night. Wonder if anyone charred him in effigy? (AP)


• Larceny - and Love Guests at a dinner party foiled an attempted armed robbery by offering the criminal a glass of wine. He accepted their hospitality, apologized, asked for a group hug, and left. (AP)


• Good Thing It Wasn't the Butter Knife An 47-year-old woman faces charges after stabbing her 86-year-old busband with a fork as they were fighting in a restaurant. (Detroit News)


• Soba Soak A Japanese spa is offering an experience of bathing in a fake giant bowl of noodle soup. Faux Pho? (AFP)


• Swell Swill A sub-$3 bottle of chardonnay best hundreds of others from around California to be named the state's best. Thousands of wine snobs are looking for new terms to describe the sensation of having egg on your face. (WPVI-TV)

Labels: brewers, California, chardonnay, China, Japan, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, noodle soup, restaurant, tuna, weird, wine

When Menus Become Intellectual Property

The New York Times had an interesting article yesterday about chef Rebecca Charles suing her former sous-chef, Ed McFarland, claiming that his restaurant Ed's Lobster Bar copied "each and every element" of her establishment, Pearl Oyster Bar, from the decor to the Caesar salad recipe.The article goes on to say how a growing number of chefs are resorting to intellectual property protections - such as patents, trademarks, copyright, and trade secrets - to keep competitors from lifting their concepts. I found the following paragraph particularly intriguing:

She [Rebecca Charles] was, she asserts, the first chef in New York who took lobster rolls, fried clams and other sturdy utility players of New England seafood cookery and lifted them to all-star status on her menu. Since opening Pearl Oyster Bar in the West Village 10 years ago, she has ruefully watched the arrival of a string of restaurants she considers “knockoffs” of her own.

Ah, but where does inspiration leave off and copying start? The first chef in New York to treat New England seafood as haute cuisine? Maybe, but since when does originality stop at state borders?

A few years ago I interviewed Jasper White for Fortune Small Business because he had actually patented a way of cooking lobsters quickly in large batches. It was a veritable assembly line. "The reason I patented it is because this is a real copy cat business," he said, adding that other restaurateurs had lifted his ideas time and again. "Their idea of an influence is to copy it, put a new name on it, do it in another city, and call it a day."

White has been doing the upscale treatment of New England food - including seafood - since at least his time at the restaurant in the Bostonian Hotel back in the 1980s. So is Charles really innovative? And taking the ambiance of a seafood shack? They've been around for decades - as have other places

She acknowledged that Pearl was itself inspired by another narrow, unassuming place, Swan Oyster Depot in San Francisco. But she said she had spent many months making hundreds of small decisions about her restaurant’s look, feel and menu.

Those decisions made the place her own, she said, and were colored by her history. The paint scheme, for instance, was meant to evoke the seascape along the Maine coast where she spent summers as a girl.

Hundreds of small decisions? That's nice, but there was that original concept she saw - and adapted. The paint scheme evocative of summers in Maine? She may see that as a personal statement, but so could hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of others who have spent enough time in Maine. The Caesar salad? Got the recipe from her mother who got it from an LA restaurant years ago, except now she calls it a trade secret. But whose? Coddled eggs as a basis for the dressing? I remember hearing that concept probably a dozen years ago on a cooking show where the chefs said that it was a way to prevent problems with salmonella from raw eggs.

I understand the desire to protect intellectual property. I do that myself, as my living is based on IP. But you need to know when you've really done something different and when you owe too much to everyone who has gone before. When you want to keep a tight hold on what you've done and keep anyone else from using it as a springboard, you argue that you should not have the benefit of anyone else's experience, either.

The article mentions a Chicago chef who patented a way of printing images on edible paper. That's certainly different. An upscale clam shack? I think not - at least not by someone who didn't invent the idea in the first place.

Labels: Ed McFarland, food, IP, Jasper White, patent, Rebecca Charles, restaurant

According to the Associated Press, a Mexican restaurant owner in Utah is offering a 500 taco reward for help in apprehending the person who broke in and stole $3,000 from his establishment. Because his money is gone, the food is apparently all he can offer - valued, so he says, at $1,200. Let's see, dusting off my grade school arithmetic (and a calculator), that comes out to $2.40 for one taco. Sounds like the robbery at the restaurant is still going on.

Labels: crime, Mexican, restaurant, robbery, tacos, Utah

A recent study in the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology suggests that relatively few restaurants train their workers on food allergies, and some of the misconceptions could be deadly for someone with a high sensitivity:

For example, restaurant personnel reported that consuming a small amount of allergen is safe (24 percent); fryer heat destroys allergens (35 percent); and,
removal of an allergen from a finished meal was safe (25 percent).

Supposedly 15 to 32 percent of fatal food reactions start with restaurant food. Makes you want to take up recreational cooking.

Labels: food allergies, health, restaurant, study

Another stop we made in Manhattan was at a place called Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man. Great name, which was better I thought than the one test piece we picked up - an oversized truffle with filling dipped in a chocoalte shell and then in cocoa powder. My wife liked it but I didn't think that the chocolate was particularly noteworthy. There isn't a Max Brenner either. This is a high concept restaurant with chocolate as a theme. (Here's a New York Magazine review that is fuller than what I'll do.) If you want good chocolate and can be satisfied with a small amount (because it's so freakin' expensive), head to La Maison du Chocolat at 30 Rockefeller Place at 49th. Street. Founded by Robert Linxe, who founded the original location in Paris, the products are the result of a1 genius master. As good as the chocolate is, try the fruit jellies solidified with pectin and not gelatin. Or check here online.

Labels: chocolate, dessert, New York, restaurant, review

Since the early 80s I had been going to the Kiev, showing up at odd hours on arrival in Manhattan, grabbing some Ukrainian food, and then going about my business. When I met my wife, I learned that she, too, was a fan. So we were sad today to see that the Kiev is closed. Some construction is going on at the old site of 7th St. and 2nd Ave. The Second Avenue Deli is long gone, and it seems like the passing of an era. Luckily, Christine's, which also serves all-day breakfast, offers Polish food, so there is still one Eastern European connection that we knew downtown. I remember when the Kiev had moved from the old hole-in-the-wall decor to its more upscale look. We wondered if that was the beginning of the end. Apparently it was.

Labels: New York, restaurant, Ukrainian