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Hi, everyone:

Not every experiment works perfectly the first time, but that doesn't mean it's not worth trying again. On Wednesday night we had a visit from a Tango dance club that decided to use the hardwood floor in front of our fireplace for an impromptu, and extremely rhythmic social gathering. We thought it was a lovely idea. Wednesdays tend to be slow, and we were looking forward to the business. The group, called Tango Fusion, wasn't planning on arriving until after 8:30, when most of of our reserved diners would be finished.

This Wednesday, however, when 8:30 rolled around, every seat in the restaurant was filled, as well as all the bar stools, and even the big comfy chairs in front of the fireplace which we would have to remove in order to create a dance floor. Cheryl decided to proceed with the tango plan, figuring that the diners might be delighted as we were to watch the dancers. What we hadn't figured on was that out of the pile of CDs the tango dancers brought, the first one we would try would be a "classic" recording that was a little scratchy- Victrola-like in its quality. Cheryl spent a couple of minutes running from the sound board to the various zones of the restaurant, but she wasn't fast enough. By the time she'd caught her wind, we had a breathtaking display of dancing and two tables preparing to walk out because they couldn't stand the way the recorded music sounded through our speakers.

Cheryl shut down the music and asked the Tango Fusion members to sit out a few songs until the diners were finished. Cole Broderick resumed his seat at the piano and soothed the customers, and within a few minutes everyone was happy again. Well, nearly. One table in the bar area that had been rather enjoying the tango music and the dancers found themselves distinctly put out by a small group of boisterous bus drivers who wandered into the restaurant. The problem was solved when a waiter cleared a table on the lower level and promptly moved the diners in the bar area to another table. Another couple had gotten all the way out to the parking lot, and decided to come back in to tell Cheryl goodbye, and that they'd had a lovely meal. While a waiter was tracking Cheryl down, a clogged rain gutter gave way, releasing a bucket of cold water onto the heads of the friendly diners. Meanwhile, the tango dancers ordered some wine and food, and within a few songs they were tangoing to Cole's dulcet live music.

In the end, the whole thing was so much fun, we've decided to do it again this coming Wednesday night. The owners of Tango Fusion, Diane Lachtrupp and Johnny Martinez, will gather their members at 9 p.m. in our bar after their Wednesday night class for a little informal dancing, cocktails and snacks. The public is welcome to come hang out at the bar, join in and pick up a few dance pointers. For more information about local classes by Diane and Johnny, see the Saratoga Savoy website at http://www.saratogasavoy.com/files/instructors.html

WAMC Roundtable host Susan Arbetter and Joe Donohue had Paul on their radio show Wednesday morning and asked him to talk about treats you could make for kids that defy the accepted wrapped commercial candy ethos. It was a particularly well-timed request, because we've been planning our first kids' Halloween party, set for Tuesday, October 31, and have been trying to come up fun foods to serve to youngsters.
Paul has been on a tear with sweet treats lately, wrapping lamb chops in cotton candy made with foie gras fat and maple sugar and loading chocolates with cayenne pepper, but we're figuring the average youngster won't be as open minded about these kinds of treats as our intrepid three-year-old son. Paul's designing dessert raviolis, apple pielets, sweet potato fries, mini pizzas and is even considering letting the kids dress their own pizzas before carrying them back in the kitchen to bake.

The cost of the party is only $5 a kid, but we're hoping that the adults accompanying the kids will want to take the opportunity of the party to have dinner at Chez Sophie or bar snacks in front of the fireplace while their young ones frolic. If you'd like a table in the dining room, it would be good to reserve ahead, as we're hoping this will be a popular event. The kids party will start at 5 p.m. and go until at least 8, (later if the kids want to stay.) There will be prizes for the best costumes, games, crafts, magic tricks and party favors.

On Thursday, November 23, we will be serving our first ever Thanksgiving dinner, and we wanted to make it special both for families that would like to dine out together and for people who love to dine but won't be with their families on our national day of gratitude. For regular diners, we will be offering our full menu plus a special turkey dinner with the trimmings, featuring free-range, organic turkeys from one of our local farms. For those of you who will have fewer companions on Thanksgiving but will still like to participate in a joyous, family style meal, we will be doing a special turkey tasting menu. This five-course feast will feature the most creative ways Chef Paul can think of to serve up heritage breed turkey, paired with four spectacular wine selections. The guests will be limited to 20, seated around a single table in our private dining room. This single table format is one we've used for our wine dinners, and is especially congenial to people who are dining alone or in small groups, who like to be part of a bigger party.
The tasting menu dinner for up to 20 people will start at 6:30 p.m.
and will be priced at $100 per person, plus tax and tip. Seating is obviously limited, so book ahead.

The Thanksgiving special served in our main dining room from 5 p.m.
to 10 p.m. will include roast turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and pie for dessert and other classic sides and will be priced at $35 per person.

Speaking of special wine dinners, we will be doing our first this season on November 7 and 8 featuring Warm Lake Estate, an upstate New York winery with which Paul is quite taken. So much so, in fact, that after the dinner we will begin to offer three wines from this producer on our heretofore all French winelist, along with a small selection of other carefully chosen New York State wines.

Warm Lake plants 45 acres of pinot noir grapes on the Niagara Escarpment near Lake Ontario, a unique environment combining maritime climate and clay over limestone soils. This terroir allows winemaker Michael J. VonHeckler to make pinot noirs that are more Burgundian than some Burgundies. The climate is so similar to Burgundy that two French firms, Boisset and Michel Picard, have joined two Canadian firms to plant 100 acres of pinot grapes in the bench area along the escarpment. When the vines mature, the partners plan to make Burgundy- style reds.

Like all of the New York State farmers we patronize, Warm Lake is friendly to the environment. It doesn't use herbicides, weeds manually, and uses organic fertilizers. The winemaking, done on a small scale, employs Old World techniques; the 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 Von Heckler to make two dinner wines, Warm Lake Estate and Mountain Road. Our wine dinners in November 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 a dessert pinot noir with cheeses and desserts. http://www.warmlakeestate.com

Seating is limited to 20 people around a single table each of the two nights of the dinner. The meal starts at 6:30 p.m. each night and is priced at $80 per person, plus tax and gratuity.

This wine event has been about three years in the making. In 2004, a representative of the winery brought Paul cask samples of these wines, and he was so impressed that he bought futures. We've been cellaring the 2004 vintage since its release. It was nice to have it on hand, because it allowed us last week to offer the Estate wine with a tasting menu we prepared for board members of the American Farmland Trust. They were delighted by the pale ruby color, strawberry and cherry fruits, and nuances of smoke, cinnamon, dark chocolate, coffee, hazelnut, coconut, game and anise.

We put together a very special menu for the Trust, with each course featuring produce from our local farms. They started with braised leeks and tomatoes from New Minglewood Farm, followed by roasted chicken from The Garden of Spices with beets and carrots from Kilpatrick Family Farm. Next came truffle soup with baby lettuces from Little Field Farm and braised lamb from Elihu Farm served with corn and potatoes and celery root from Sheldon Farm and Denison Farm.
Then they sampled a sheep's milk cheese from Three-Corner Field Farm and finished with an apple tart made with Boskop apples grown by Saratoga Apple.

That was also the day that Paul decided he would begin offering a "Chef's Choice" seven-course tasting menu every night for $75 per person. After finding out if the guests have any special allergies or aversions, he designs an extemporaneous feast for foodies based on his best inspirations from the day's creations. 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 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. Call Cheryl to make arrangements.

Cheryl is a fan of Broadway musicals and an even bigger fan of the phenomenon known as mondegreen (misheard song lyrics). In spite of a broad knowledge of just about every musical ever written, she has never been a particular fan of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's work, so she was rather forcing herself to listen to Evita (performed incongruously by Madonna) for the first time the other night, just to see if she was wrong. "Just a little touch of Stockwater Tea" kept coming up in the libretto, and she was confused, because Stockwater didn't sound like the name of a backwoods Argentinian town that Eva Peron might have hailed from. She looked it up. It's "just a little touch of star quality."

Mondegreen, for those who like this sort of wordplay, was coined by writer Sylvia Wright after she realized that the lyrics of the Scottish ballad "The Bonny Earl of Murray," which she had learned as a child, did not actually go "Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands/ Oh Where hae you been?/ They hae slay the Earl of Murray/ And Lady Mondegreen." The last phrase is actually "and laid him on the green.")

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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