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Hi, everyone.

We can't thank the people who attended our two Rhône dinners on Wednesday and Thursday enough for their spirits of adventure, comradeship and fun. We had such a great time hosting the events that we are planning to do it again in January (more details later.)

We like the format we used for the wine dinners -- 10 to 20 people around a single table, with Paul dining at the table to introduce each new wine and answer questions. There were seven courses and eight wines.

Our guests seemed to love it as well. On both nights, people stayed quite late after the last course, chatting with each other, in spite of the winter weather.

Chef Tonya Mahar, souschef Mark Lawrence and cold station artiste Heidi Hoyt did beautiful work with the food, and our servers, Micki Lee, Jay Christensen, Jason LaViolette and Lisa Schenkelberg also were quite accomplished. And they polished a murderous amount of crystal glassware each night.

(Heidi, who has worked with us at Chez Sophie on and off for years, now shares a Saratoga-based catering business, Black Diamond Caterers, with her husband Michael. She puts in guest appearances with us when we need her talents for special events.)

After the last guest said goodbye Thursday, we decided to hold the next wine dinner on Thursday, January 30. Because it will be so cold, we'll focus on warming wines from the south of France, possibly the Languedoc-Roussillon and Sud-Ouest. That should allow us to offer an interesting selection at a ticket price that will be suitable to the post-holiday season. (Firmer details next week.)

Seating will be limited to 20 people. If there is sufficient demand, we will do the dinner twice as we did this time (once on the Thursday and once on the Wednesday of the same week.)

We think tickets to this dinner would make a great Christmas present. (Remember, demand only Chez Sophie brand gift certificates.)

Photos of this week's dinner:

The soup created for the Rhône menu, the apple cider onion soup, was so successful that Tonya plans to make it again for this weekend and next week. Although topped with toasted Gruyère cheese, this soup is sweeter than most classic French onion soups. Unlike most of our soups, it is not vegetarian; chicken stock and a touch of veal stock give it a richness that balances the fresh cider reduction.

This weekend, we will be featuring John Dory, a sweet, delicate, firm white fish found in continental shelf waters from southeast Queensland, Western Australia, the Western Indian Ocean, the eastern Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea and the waters of New Zealand and Japan.

These bizarre-looking rounded fish (zeus faber) have fine olive-green scales with a white or yellow margin on either side. They also have about 10 spines with long filamentous membranes between them on their dorsal fin. Perhaps the weirdest things about them is their mouths, which shoot out in an extending tube to suck in their prey. (They are lousy swimmers, so they stalk their victims head-on and vacuum them in before they can backtrack.)

The fish is seldom imported to the United States, and it seems that we can only get it about once a year, usually in December. Because it is delicate and mild, Tonya prepares it simply, sauteéd with a meunière sauce.

For those who find our selection of hearty Belgian beers daunting, we've added another populist choice of the Stella Artois variety. We got two cases of Kronenbourg 1664 Thursday. Cheryl had this beer the first time on an airplane from France and found it to be a mild and pleasing companion for a transatlantic flight. For Paul, the beer always conjures up nostalgic images of his misspent youth, leaning against zinc counters in Paris.

Kronenbourg is darkish with golden highlights and has a white, dense and creamy froth with tiny bubbles. It smells of flowery hops, citrus fruit and malt. Its flavor is slightly bitter and lightly tannic. It is called 1664 because that is the year the Hatt family, the founders of Brasseries Kronenbourg, first started commercial brewing.

In keeping with the populist vein, Tonya has reintroduced mussels bilibi to the appetizer menu. Her version is a bit different from Sophie's, with a strong flavor of roasted garlic. She poaches the mussels with a bottle of white wine, shallots, celery and thyme and finished them in a broiler dish with coriander, fennel and cream.

There are several acceptable ways to spell bilibi, including billi-bi and billy bi. The most common story on the origin of the classic dish is that it was created by Maxim's famous chef Louis Barthe, who named it after American tin tycoon William "Billy B." Leeds.

Speaking of the origins of those pesky French words, here's one for the Rhône dinner guest who was trying to parse the meaning of Chateauneuf (six wines into the evening.) Chateauneuf means "new castle" and Chateauneuf-du-Pape means "new castle of the Pope."

We know that everyone gets a little inundated with holiday music in December, but we'd like everyone to have a chance to hear the truly clever versions of ancient tunes arranged by our jazz pianist, Cole Broderick. He debuted a few of these new arrangements for us Tuesday, interspersed with his other jazz compositions, and even grinchy old Cheryl was grinning. He'll be playing again this Tuesday in our back dining room starting at 7 p.m. or a little earlier, depending on reservations.

Seating within sight of the keyboard is limited, so please specify which room you would like when you make your reservation. (You can hear the music in the front dining room, but you can't see him unless you're in the back room.) To hear samples of his work, visit http://www.colebroderick.com/

When planning your dinners and parties at Chez Sophie during the next month, please keep in mind the following holiday and vacation-related changes to our regular Tuesday through Saturday dinner schedule:

We will be closed Tuesday, December 24th, Wednesday, December 25th, and Thursday, December 26th to celebrate the Christmas holiday. We will be open Friday, December 27th and Saturday, December 28th, as per usual. We will be open Tuesday, December 31, for an extravagant reservation-only New Year's Eve party and open Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, January 1-4, for dinner as usual. We wll be closed for a one-week winter holiday Tuesday through Saturday, January 7-11.

click here for Pink Plate Special

Paul, Cheryl & Joseph
at chez sophie bistro
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, and is open year-round for dinner. It is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark.

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