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Hello everyone!

Our illustrious co-founder, Sophie Parker, died in February seven years ago. Had cancer not claimed her when she was still vigorous and youthful, she would be 80 years old this year. That may be why her son, Chef Paul Parker, seems to be inspired lately to present some of her favorite dishes.

The Pink Plate Special this week will be roasted Cornish hen à la Sophie, with tarragon and Madeira, finished with a dash of cream.

"It's a classic recipe that's just exactly what it should be," Paul said. "It's kind of like Dover sole meunière. You don't have to update it, because it's already perfect. It's one of the hallmarks of Sophie's cooking, because it's the reduction of all the ingredients to the relevant necessities. Every element stands up and is balanced by the other elements in the best possible way. There's nothing extraneous. You taste every ingredient in absolute balance. I honestly can't think of a better way to make chicken."

The Pink Plate Special is a weekly prix fixe special we offer on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week. (It's usually offered on Thursday as well, but that day is Valentine's Day next week and we will be replacing our regular menu options with a romantic five-course prix fixe feast.) The Pink Plate Special is a $32 per person three-course special, including 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.

The Rock Cornish hen or Rock Cornish game hen is a cross between the Cornish and Plymouth Rock breeds of chicken. Plymouth Rock chickens are one of the older breeds of poultry and were a favorite farm bird because they were a good egg producer. Their ubiquity faded as white eggs became more popular, but it is still raised to crossbreed with Cornish game hens. Cornish hens originated in Cornwall, England, but only gained prominence after they were introduced to the United States. The resulting bird is big-breasted and short-legged and has a tender, flavorful flesh.

At the suggestion of two of waiters and several of our customers, we have decided to offer the five-course prix fixe menu we will be serving on Valentine's Day as an additional option to our regular à la carte menu on Friday, February 15th.

The elegant five-course Valentine's menu features the most romantic foods our passionate semi-Gallic chef can invent this year. The first course will include your choice of beef carpaccio with braised celery hearts, tempura quail eggs and aged balsamic; or oysters with ginger-cucumber gélée; or Thai-marinated shrimp with avocado, cilantro and melon; or mushroom and polenta fritters with garlic aioli.
The second course will be a chilled ruby soup with chicken broth, cream and pomegranate seeds.
The third course will be your choice of salmon with ginger, thyme, blood orange and quinoa; or osso bucco with fingerling potatoes and bittersweet chocolate gremolata; or quail braised with bacon and a potato/celery root gratin; or red wine risotto mille feuille with truffled parmesan crisps.
The fourth course will be a salad of shiso and pickled plums and the fifth course will be your choice of a strawberry soup and ice cream sandwich; or Aztec chocolate torte or mixed berry lady finger parfait.

The prix fixe menu will be the only menu offered on Thursday, February 14. The price is $75 per person, exclusive of tax, tip or alcohol.

Valentine's Day Art Exhibit
Sculptor and Chez Sophie founder Joseph C. Parker and his wife Nancy Griffis will be on hand on Valentine's Day night for the official opening of "Expressions of Love" an exhibition of small sculptures that Joseph made for Sophie as Valentine's Day gifts over the 52-years of their marriage. The sculptures range from small drop-metal figures embracing each other or clutching hearts to a large plasma-cut steel silhouette of two entwined lovers that was used as a ridiculously sexy headboard to a bed.

Joseph has agreed to have most of the pieces cast in bronze to sell to patrons who want to express their love and affection. The castings will cost between $300 and $3,000 depending on the piece. The castings will be done to order, so if you want to give one as a gift to your romantic love in the near future, we can create a pretty promise package for you with a photograph of the original to present as a gift for a birthday, anniversary, engagement or Valentine's Day. Molds for two of the pieces are being made at a foundry near New York City this week. The other pieces will take six to 12 weeks for delivery depending on the complexity of the sculpture.
To preview some of the pieces in "Expressions of Love" visit http://www.chezsophie.com/sculpt_val.html

Jazz Brunch
The brunch menu this Saturday and Sunday will feature sauteéd chicken breast with artichokes and mushrooms ($15); pork and chorizo gumbo over basmati rice ($15); grilled flatbread pizza with Coach Farm goat cheese, pesto and Serano ham ($15) and okra stew with pan-seared tilapia and fresh green plaintains ($16). Appetizer specials include a crabcake with lemon caper mayonnaise ($16); a salad of mixed baby greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7); escargots de Bourgogne ($11) and soup of the day ($8).

The brunch specials run from 10:30 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, frittata etcetera for $9; omelettes ($10 to $12); pancakes du jour ($10); 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).

Cole in the House
Our artist-in-residence, jazz pianist Cole Broderick, plays the baby grand piano from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday Cole also plays the baby grand Tuesday and Friday night (barring special events that preclude live music.) Cole, who won a Billboard Critic's Choice Award for his 4-CD set of jazz compositions: "Seasons in Saratoga," recently released his seventh CD "Chez Sophie Jazz." This is the first time he's recorded with a vocalist. (The singer is Cheryl Clark, co-owner of Chez Sophie, wife of Chef Paul, mother of the adorable Nico and Léo.) Some of the cuts of the CD can be heard at http://www.chezsophie.com/.
Copies are for sale for $16 at Chez Sophie and through Cole's secure PayPal-friendly website at http://www.colebroderick.com/sound-7.htm
We can also mail-order the CD's for an additional $4 shipping and handling.

Skidmore Graduation
Skidmore graduation weekend has also started to book heavily. We'll be offering an elegant, four-course, $70 per person prix fixe menu, and will be serving the Friday of Skidmore Graduation weekend from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. by reservation. On the Saturday, we will extend brunch to 3:30 pm. and start serving the prix fixe dinner at 5:30.

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 at an additional charge or you can order from our extensive wine list.
Cost: $80 to $200 per person for seven or more courses, 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: Depends on the number of courses and the wines selected; available for two to 75 guests. Call Cheryl to make arrangements at 518.583.3538

The Pink Plate Special
offered Monday, February 11, Tuesday, February 12, Wednesday, February 13
(The Pink Plate Special will not be offered on Valentine's Day)

$32 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:
Cornish hen à la Sophie, roasted with tarragon and Madeira and lightly finished with cream

Notes on Nico and Léo:
If you are ever bored, please feed a bunch of bananas into a five-gallon blue plastic water jug. Putting them in is a breeze, but getting them back out intact can kill hours.
Paul and Cheryl learned this fact the same night we learned that Nico, and possibly Léo, are capable of looking you right in the eye with totally guileless expressions and telling a lie. Because somebody put those bananas into that jug, and we know it wasn't Mom, Dad or the two dogs.

Léo was the first suspect, because she was spotted immediately prior to the discovery of the jug of bananas carrying three green bananas she swiped from the fruit bowl on the dining room table. She was informed that they weren't ripe yet and ordered to put them back in the fruit bowl, and Nico was admonished to help his little sister. When Mom discovered the enshrined bananas, she asked her two-year-old, without a hint of threat or reproach, if she had put them in the jug. Léo looked at her Mommy with big, clear, blue eyes, and said: "No, Mommy. I did not."

So Cheryl approached nearly five-year-old Nico, who has never dared lie to his Mommy, and asked the same question. "It wasn't me, Mommy," he said without a trace of evasion. But he was giggling. Which could have been because Paul was looking a bit like a mentally deficient orangutan at that moment, trying to get the bananas out through the narrow neck of the jug, and Cheryl, too, was having a hard time keeping a straight face.
"Okay, one of the two of you put the bananas in the jug. You both know that lying about doing something wrong is worse than doing the bad thing in the first place. So tell the truth. Who put the bananas in the jug?"

"Nico did it," Léo said, simultaneous with her brother's: "Léo did it."

Cheryl's suspicion was that Léo did it, because her brother never lies. In fact, he sometimes jovially volunteers information about naughty things he has done, hoping to head off the repercussions that inevitably follow his apprehension. But Nico demonstrated the following day that he can tell a bald-faced lie, and now Mom is awash in the morass of childhood dissembling. Both children and Mom were home with a bad cold Tuesday night. Léo finally stopped whimpering long enough to take a nap, and Mom told Nico she would allow him two rare treats - to watch cartoons and have the bottom quarter of a pint of raspberry ice cream - as long as he didn't bother his sleeping sister and allowed his mother a few minutes to take a quiet shower. Nico agreed heartily, but in less than 10 minutes was sitting on the bathroom floor watching his Mom and chattering away.
"Nico," Mom asked through the steam. "Did you put your spoon in sink?"
"Yes, Mommy," Nico said.
"Did you put the empty ice cream carton in the garbage?"
"Yes, Mommy," Nico said.
"It's important, because I gave you the last of the ice cream, and I don't want Léo to wake up and see the carton and be sad," Mommy said.
"It's all taken care of," Nico assured her.
Of course, 10 minutes later, Léo woke up, saw the empty ice cream container on the table with a spoon sticking out of it, and started to cry because Nico ate the last of the ice cream.
"Nico," Mommy said. "You told me you put that away. You were lying."
"I didn't lie," Nico said. "I just forgot."

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.) If you think you are on the list but have not received gift certificates on your special holidays, please contact us with an updated email address. We find that many of the email addresses we have collected over the past few years are no longer valid.

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