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Hello, everyone!

People often ask how on earth we get a newsletter out every week when we serve three meals a day, seven days a week while caring for two small children. Sometimes we write a little in advance. Most weeks, we wait until Thursday and every slow minute we type a few words, and it's usually finished before it gets too late. Sometimes we procrastinate, because when we should have been writing the newsletter on Thursday afternoon, we were for example, taking Nico and Léo to a new indoor amusement park for an hour to see if it might be a good place for Nico's 4th birthday party. When something like that happens, usually Daddy bails Mommy out and watches the kids for an hour or so after the customers leave so she can whip something together.

But sometimes, Daddy announces at the last minute that he has to stay late at work to bake something, so Mommy has to go home with two wide- awake, needy children and try to write while holding, feeding and entertaining aforementioned needy children. So forgive us if this letter is either disjointed or too obviously typed with one finger.

When Paul and Cheryl met, they lived in Memphis, Tenn. As a musician/ waiter and college student/musician/cub reporter respectively, they were particularly fond of a cheap fast food joint called Jack Pirtle's Chicken. Perhaps they were just young and poor, but they remember this greasy little joint as being really good. The crispy, spicy fried chicken was so far above a bucket of the Colonel's that there was no comparison. They sold chicken livers and gizzards in paper cups. For a long time, they had a sign with a line of neon chickens springing off a diving board into a vat of steaming grease, filled to overflowing with drumsticks. And they made a chicken gravy that was so good you could have it on biscuits and consider it a full meal. People, Southerners, mind you, would forgo the beloved ketchup on their crinkle cut fries and dip them in this elixir instead. Some people vowed to be baptized (full-immersion) in it.

Paul thinks he knows what made the gravy so good. If you ask the people who work at Pirtle's what's in the gravy, they'll say "You know, gravy stuff," but Paul said he once got one of the employees to tell him. The secret was coffee grounds.

While we often pine for the unreachable simple pleasure of that spicy chicken, it is the gravy that has inspired Paul for this week's Pink Plate Special. It started with a bag of cocoa nibs that Paul was trying to think of something cool to do with. Cocoa nibs are the purest, most elemental form of chocolate available. Nibs are tiny nuggets of roasted cocoa beans without the shell, not yet crushed or ground to homogeneity, not yet transformed into unsweetened chocolate or processed into smoother or more refined forms of sweetened chocolate. They are cocoa beans on the brink of becoming chocolate.
Cheryl thought to use them as a sprinkle for cappuccinos, but upon experimentation discovered the crunchy little nibs were too bitter for direct consumption by the average person.

Paul realized they'd be great in a thickened chicken sauce, and the bitter component made him think of Pirtle's legendary gravy. He'll have to experiment a little bit before Monday, but he and Cheryl know exactly the effect he's shooting for. "It will have the cocoa nibs, but it won't be anything like a molé," Paul said. "It will be a little like sauce velouté, a rich French full-bore sauce made with chicken stock and egg yolks. With the cocoa, we should probably call it "sauce volupté."

According to the French surrealists' dictionary, (if you find a copy of this, lemme know) volupté represents the highest degree of sensual pleasure.

Cheryl just Googled Jack Pirtle's and found "You love Jack Pirtle's gravy" on a list of things entitled "You Know You're from Memphis When..."

This gravy will be served with chicken breasts, potatoes and vegetables for our Pink Plate, a weekly prix fixe special we offer on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For $30 per person, you get your choice of soup or salad, the featured entree, two selections from our cheese board or one of a couple of featured desserts and coffee, tea or espresso.

Speaking of fried chicken... Bobby Flay, the Food Network chef, has always been absolutely charming when he has dined with us, and he did Chez Sophie a very nice turn this week. A wire service report that will be published by many newspapers around the country today tells when the Food Network episode of "Throwdown with Bobby Flay"
featuring Saratoga's own Jasper Alexander will run.

Jasper, the chef and owner of Hattie's Chicken Shack, was lured under false pretenses to a public cooking event this summer and in the middle of it, Flay walked out and challenged him to a fried chicken- cooking contest. (Jasper was judged the winner.) The episode will air at 8 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 24 and 10 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 25. Chez Sophie had nothing to do with any of this (although the Food Network people did use the kitchen in The Saratoga to prepare for the event and allowed Chez Sophie to feed them while they worked). The wire service report notes that Hattie's is getting ready for an onslaught of business after the episode airs. It adds that Flay, who is a thoroughbred horse owner and a regular at Hattie's for 25 years, is not planning to do a "throwdown" with any other Saratoga chefs.
"However," the wire report adds, "he did say he also enjoys meals at Chez Sophie."

Thanks, Bobby.

We supposed we shouldn't mention this next piece of press until we've seen it ourselves, but we're expecting to see a review of Chez Sophie in The Times-Union of Albany on Sunday. The reviewer, Ruth Fantasia, visited us under an assumed name on the Saturday night before New Year's Eve and sent a photographer on New Year's Eve while we were setting up for the big party. We get the impression she really enjoyed her meal.

Diane Lachtrupp and Johnny Martinez offered free tango lessons to Chez Sophie customers Wednesday night and even Cheryl and Paul tapped into their expertise to try to work their way around the dance floor without Cheryl damaging her far more graceful husband's feet. After the lesson, we turned the music up a little and let the newbies and more experienced dancers enjoy the wood floor in front of the fireplace. The next tango night will be Wednesday, February 7. Diane and Johnny will offer a free lesson at 8:30, with dancing following.
For those who would like to dine first before dancing, our regular menu is offered until 9 p.m. The bar menu is available until 10 p.m.
and the bar will be open for at least a couple of hours after that.
For more information about local classes by Diane and Johnny, see the Saratoga Savoy website at http://www.saratogasavoy.com/files/
instructors.html
Cost: No cover charge

Our Sunday Jazz Brunch this week will feature spicy cocoa braised beef over fettucine ($14); coconut waffle with poached apricot ($12); crabmeat, bay scallop and crawfish crèpes with Mornay sauce ($16); smoked duck and sausage gumbo over white rice ($12).

The brunch specials run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The complete menu, offered from 7 to 2 p.m., includes a Continental assortment of muffins, pastries, fruit, yogurt, quiche etcetera for $9; omelettes
($9 to $11); pancakes du jour ($9); the All in One, which includes 2 eggs any style, homefries, toast and sausage or bacon ($10); waffles with sweet cream butter and local maple syrup ($10); and Irish steel- cut oatmeal ($8).
Jazz pianist Cole Broderick plays from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

We've set a date for or Warm Lake Wine Dinner, which was postponed in November because of a confluence of scheduling conflicts. The dinner will now be held on January 31 and will feature the wines of Warm Lake, a New York State winery on the Niagara Escarpment near Lake Ontario. The winemaking, done on a small scale, employs Old World techniques; the pinot noir fruit is triaged, punched down manually and vinified in French oak barrels. The grapes from four different sections of the vineyard are vinified separately, than blended by vintner Michael Von Heckler to make two dinner wines, Warm Lake Estate and Mountain Road.

Our wine dinner will feature a tasting of each of the four component wines and the Estate wine. Then we'll sit down to a warming soup as a palate cleanser and enjoy the Mountain Road with coq au vin. We'll finish with Warm Lake's dessert pinot noir with cheeses and desserts.
http://www.warmlakeestate.com
The dinner is limited to 20 people around a single table in our private dining room.
Cost: $80 per person, plus tax and gratuity

Live Piano Jazz
Jazz pianist Cole Broderick plays the baby grand Tuesday through Friday night, and during Sunday brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
(barring special events that preclude live music.)
Cost: No cover charge

Tasting menus
Chef's Choice seven-course tasting menu available each night. The menus are designed based on the best and most creative dishes Chef Paul K. Parker is serving each evening. We will pair wines for you or you can order from our extensive wine list.
Cost: $75 per person, plus tax and tip. Everyone at the table must partake in the tasting menu

If you're feeling less impromptu, you can call ahead to arrange a special tasting menu with the number of courses and wine pairings designed to suit your capacity, dietary restrictions and budget.
Tasting menus arranged in advance will be printed on commemorative vellum scrolls personalized with the name of the host or the reason for the event.
Cost: $50 to $200, depending on the number of courses and the wines selected; available for two to 75 guests. Call Cheryl to make arrangements 518.583.3538

We forgot to mention last week that we'd posted photos from the New Year's Eve Party on the website. You can find them at http://www.chezsophie.com/newyears07.html

The Pink Plate Special
offered Monday, January 15 through Thursday, January 18

$30 per person
includes your choice of soup or salad, a special entree, selected desserts or a cheese course and coffee, tea or espresso.

This week's special entree:

chicken breast with "sauce volupté"
(rich chicken gravy flavored with unsweetened cocoa nibs)

Notes on Nico and Léo:
"May I use this last ice cube as a weapon?" Nico asks.
"Uh, no," Mom answers succinctly. A moment of silence passes, and Mom dives in, knowing full well this is going to be one of those you- really-can't communicate-on-a-deep-psychological-level-with-a-four-
year-old moments. "Why do you want to use the ice cube as a weapon?"
she asks.
"Because I like it," he answers.
"Like what?" Mom asks.
"It, of course," Nico says. "Don't be silly."

Léo can now cover impressive distances on her feet, considering she learned to take steps upright about a week ago. She was amazingly coordinated and intrepid at the indoor playground the kids explored Thursday afternoon. She went into an inflatable "bouncy house"
designed for toddlers and beat her brother up a ladder-like slope that led to the top of a slide. While her mother watched opened- mouthed, she sailed down the slide head-first without a moment's hesitation and giggled all the way to the bottom. Nico, by comparison, seems almost timid at trying new feats that might put him at physical risk. Paul thinks it's because Léo hasn't fallen down enough times yet to learn to be frightened. Paul thinks Nico was equally fearless at Léo's age, citing his tendency to mount the basement stairs at the diner before he was a year old. Mom remembers more times where he was hesitant to try something like a playground swing or a swimming pool. In his defense, the first time he was in a bouncy house, at the Mechanicville Family Day two years ago, the power failed and the darn thing collapsed around him and a couple of other startled children. No one was hurt, and it wasn't all that scary, and we don't even know if Nico remembers it.
Cheryl knows, that as a mother, she should thank her lucky stars for a boy child that looks before he leaps. Physical caution is not a gift she ever had, and as a consequence she has several pins where once there were bones and a finger that was reattached rather admirably. Cheryl's mother has several extra gray hairs as trophies of surviving her middle girl's childhood.
Insanely, Cheryl remains not-so-secretly impressed with her little Léo the lion's fearlessness. Maybe it's a girl thing (in the feminist, not-good-enough-to-be-"just as good"-as-the-boys kind of
way.) The little flower will need all the boldness she can muster to survive a big brother who likes to think of ice cubes as weapons.

The Parker family
at chez sophie
518-583-3538

Chez Sophie was founded in 1969 by sculptor Joseph Parker and his French-born wife, the late Sophie. The business moved to a vintage stainless steel diner in Malta Ridge, New York, in 1995. It is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark. In June of 2006, they moved the restaurant into their current location in The Saratoga Hotel on Broadway..

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P.S. Each month we draw a name at random from our database of customers and send them a $50 gift certificate to Chez Sophie. If you would like to be added to this promotions database, which is owned by Chez Sophie, please send us an email with your name, address, telephone number, birthday and anniversary. People on the list will also receive a gift certificate by mail or email for a free glass of champagne or dessert on their birthdays or anniversaries. (You only need to enter once to be eligible every month.)

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