Doing Laundry is Fun

This week Chris, our chef, did his version of dishes from one of the world's most famous kitchens, The French Laundry. We used recipes from Thomas Keller's French Laundry cook book and relied on Chris' own trip to the culinary mecca for others. Each dish was a universe worth of flavor and balanced like a dumb-truck on a pin needle. Here are a few pictures and comments that do not do each dish the credit it deserves.

Oh and the wines were pretty good as well. The wine played a supporting role in this dinner. The wines job was to let the flavors of the dishes shine through and accentuate each delicious layer of taste. To that extent, the wines were perfect.

Below is a salmon croquet. The supple flavors of the fresh salmon and the creme fraiche were perfectly accented by the toasted sweetness of the cone.

Below is Angilote, rich with it's brown butter, sweet with it's sweet potato filling and a fresh savory note from the sage cream sauce.

Then it was on to the the delightfully tangy delicate nature of an olive crusted rock fish

The final savory course was a double lamb from Fields of Athenry served over a casoulet of fresh spring beans and a red wine sauce so rich with marrow butter it could make you give up donuts for a year.

Dessert does not always have to be heavy and chocolate, although it is encouraged to be. This desert could have floated away on a flower petal, but with enough flavor to occupy your taste buds for hours.

Tender vs. Delicious

If someone said you could eat something that was either delicious or tender, which would you choose? For me it is easy – I always take delicious. One is a adjective to describe how something tastes and one is an adjective that describe how something feels. Granted feeling and texture play a role in how much we enjoy something we eat, but I think how something tastes plays the greatest role.

Steak is a great example of the delicious vs tender debate. The prized filet mignon is one of the most tender cuts of beef, but in almost all cases lacks that distinct deliciousness that makes a steak a steak. This is why you often see a filet wrapped in bacon (delicious) or a porcini crust (also delicious). Ask any butcher what cut they would always keep for themselves, nine out of 10 would not pick a filet. Maybe a flat iron, skirt steak, or NY Strip which have a tremendous amount of flavor at the expnse of overt tenderness. Or maybe the sainted ribeye which has 10X more flavor than a filet and may be just as tender.

Don't fight against delicious for the false flavor of tender. Yes delicious can be tender and tender can be delicious, but if you are serious about your delicious – put tender on the back burner.

This is just a warm up for the smooth wine vs delicious wine debate.