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Hello, everyone!

Nothing chills the blood of a restaurateur more than hearing the word "blizzard" 36 hours before Valentine's Day. Under normal circumstances, February 14 is one of the better restaurant nights of the year. If you're us, the putative "Most Romantic Restaurant in the Capital Region" (CitySearch) in a location less than a year old, it's a rare winter opportunity to pay off some construction bills.

If you've been following our saga over the past year, you know we're not easily frightened, and we have a Judy Garland-like tendency to keep the show "going on" in the face of high water and other unexpected adventures. So when the weather reports started coming in Monday, we didn't slow down. The early reports said the snow would start Tuesday afternoon and end by 6 a.m. on Valentine's Day. That was great, because it meant the roads would be cleared by Wednesday night and the courtyard would be beautiful. That's exactly what we told the newspaper reporters when they called and asked if we were scared. We even mentioned that half the time, weather forecasters tend to overstate the severity of impending storms in a way that unfairly hurts restaurants by frightening away customers unnecessarily.

We continued to book reservations until we reached 140 diners (we were hoping for an all-time, so far, high of 150). We ordered oysters and lobsters and beef tenderloin for Chateaubriand, extra Champagne and some extremely special vintage Bordeaux. We put extra staff on, bought armloads of gorgeous flowers and table decorations and made special prix fixe menus on delicate red vellum paper. Cheryl and her server Erica stayed up late to replace all the wine lists with ones that included the newly arrived extra special wines.

Even though it wasn't snowing yet, we decided at the last minute on Tuesday to take a room at the hotel so we wouldn't have to risk driving with the children in case it snowed the next morning. Poor Paul had already stayed at the hotel on Monday night prepping for Wednesday. We also got a room for the children's babysitter, Hope.
Quite unexpectedly Tuesday, the restaurant was jammed with customers.
We ran out of a lot of standard menu items, because our focus had been on Valentine's night, not a Tuesday night for which there were about 20 reservations. (We served more than 70, not counting a substantial bar crowd.)

Wednesday morning, we woke up in the hotel room and saw a foot and a half of snow piled up against the sliding glass doors of the balcony and realized the weather forecasters were, for once, not exaggerating. With trepidation, Cheryl left the children with Paul and ran down to check on cancellations. We were down to 103 reservations left by 11 a.m. The waiters started calling, because at the diner, if this had happened, we would have simply given up and called it a dead loss. We told them all to come in, if they could do it without risking their safety. We told them we'd get them all hotel rooms if they were worried about getting home.

Cheryl took Paul up some coffee and sat down near the still groggy babies and tried to come up with a new seating chart. She went back down to the restaurant 45 minutes later and found that cancellations had dropped the number of reservations to 75, and the phone was still ringing off the hook. About the fifth time she heard her husband moan, "The only snow storm of the winter and it has to happen on Valentine's Day," she threatened to eviscerate him with a boning knife. Paul discovered that our newest dishwashing gentleman was stuck at his apartment because no taxicabs were running, so he dropped everything and dug the Land Rover out of the snow to pick the guy up. (He was no where to be found and we haven't heard from him since.) Our day manager, Ray, dug his car out to rescue a shipment of raw oysters that had been inexplicably delivered to the diner in Malta, even though we've been four miles to the north in Saratoga for seven months. (Bad computer? New delivery guy? Old delivery guy with a senior moment? )

Twenty minutes later, bookings were down to 60 and Cheryl was riding the reservation rollercoaster and trying not to cry, because it was only going to make her eyes puffy and it wasn't going to change anything. With the phone still ringing, she and Paul sat down to try to figure out an alternative menu to the $70 per person prix fixe, because our only chance of salvaging the situation would be to take what ever refugees from the storm we could grab, and they probably would not be anticipating the romantic six-course meal of their lives. Unfortunately, the delivery trucks weren't running because of the snow, and we were out of most things that weren't on the Valentine's menu. Once we figured out a menu, we tried to find the leaders of every group in the hotel and deliver the news that we would be doing everything we could to accommodate travelers stranded in the snowstorm.

The newspapers continued to call, and Cheryl tried to be as gracious and optimistic as humanly possible. After all, we still had power and heat, we had lots of food and the hotel was rapidly filling. By 3:30,
8 of the 10 floor staff had managed to make it in, but reservations had dropped to 40. We didn't want to send anyone who had struggled to show up back into the storm, so swallowing our disappointment, we set up as if we were to have the most perfect, festive party ever.

Then the sound of the ringing phone changed slightly in pitch.
Suddenly the calls were from people who had dug themselves out and realized that although they couldn't get a table at Chez Sophie a week ago, there were probably a few cancellations (ha ha) for the night. Reservations climbed back to 80. Then the night began, and we realized that some of the 80 were people who hadn't bothered to call to cancel, in spite of leaving a credit number for confirmation.
Cheryl decided not to be bitter and waived all late cancellation an no-show penalties. We tried to stop calculating what could have been.
We put on smiles, took a deep breath and started to put on a really great party.

People started to walk in, some of them in evening gowns and suits, some of them in the clothes they had been wearing to shovel driveways all day. The fireplace blazed and the snow stacked up waist high against the courtyard glass. Aside from the expected lover's duos, there were 7 denim-clad girls with no dates, three tables of five to six gentlemen in the telecommunications industry, a group of stranded female executives and a tremendous amount of bar traffic.

In the end, we did 69 dinners plus a rocking bar, which is far fewer than we had planned for, but a darned good Wednesday night in February if you ignore the fact that it was Valentine's Day and consider the fact that there was a ridiculous blizzard outside that had shut down most of the other businesses in Saratoga. We heard that the television news stations had shown sad deserted dining rooms across the Capital Region on Valentine's Day. We wish they had come to ours. It was packed with a conspicuous display of hope and victory and making the best of a wicked bad storm.

If you come this weekend, you might still see the two-feet-deep snow angels in the courtyard that Cheryl and Erica slipped out to make some time after midnight. (Thank god they went together, because if either had tried it solo in snow that deep, they would have had to dial emergency services for an extraction.) The high winds blew the dry snow across them all day Thursday and gave them a sort of Saharan surrealism.

This weekend we will be offering Chateaubriand on Saturday and lobster molé and Dover sole on Friday, and maybe Saturday.

In honor of Mardi Gras on Tuesday, we will be serving grillades à la Créole as our Pink Plate Special. These are thick veal scallops sautéed and served with a classic roux, onions, tomatoes, celery, green peppers, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, served with rice.

Chef Paul is half thinking we should do fried oysters as an à la carte appetizer all week to complete the theme.

The Pink Plate is 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.

Continuing with the Mardi Gras theme, one of the specials for our Sunday Jazz brunch with pianist Cole Broderick will be shrimp, chicken & chorizo gumbo over basmati rice ($16). Other specials include pork sausage & cranberry strata ($13); and a Sunday brunch napoleon (a toasted English muffin topped with pancetta, broiled tomato, fried egg & parmesan cheese) served with home fries ($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 hope that many of our Sunday brunch customers will visit some of the events in the first annual Saratoga Mardi Gras, sponsored by the Giving Circle to benefit the Saratoga Economic Opportunity Council and home-building efforts in Saratoga Springs' sister city of Waveland, Mississippi, which was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The events include a Children's "Arti Gras" Parade on Beekman St., a Cajun Cooking Competition, a film presentation and a weather- appropriate micro marathon.
For a full schedule of events, visit http://www.saratogamardigras.org
(Our day manager, Ray Simboli, and our website designers, Bruce Thompson and Sharon Maenza of Kilakwa Associates, have been among the many local people who have donated their time and talents to make this event a success.)

This weekend is also Dance Flurry, an annual event in Saratoga Springs that brings thousands of visitors to town to dance at venues throughout the city. If you're part of one of the large groups dining with us on Friday or Saturday, please consider carpooling or even calling a taxi, if that's feasible for you. Because of the extreme cold and hard packed snow on parking lots and sidewalks throughout the city, it might also be a good idea to drop off passengers at the Broadway entrance of The Saratoga, where they can enter under a protected canopy straight into the upstairs lobby and take a few steps down to our restaurant.

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

The Pink Plate Special
offered Monday, February 19, through Thursday, February 22.

$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:
grillades à la Créole
(thick veal scallops sautéed and served with a classic roux, onions, tomatoes, celery, green peppers, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, served with rice)

Notes on Nico and Léo:
We worked a little too hard this week, harder than we'd intended to, and it wasn't lost upon nearly four-year-old Nico. We thought he didn't know the days of the week. On Monday, which is normally the two children's day off with their mother, Cheryl had a series of errands to run to prepare for the expected rush on Valentine's Day.
As Cheryl bustled the children into their clothes and their carseats, Nico said, "Wait a second. When is our day off?" Cheryl, snagged in the act, said, "This IS our day off, sweetie. We're going to run a couple of errands. You're going to help me choose beautiful flowers and we'll go to the restaurant supply store to choose some extra glassware for Valentine's Day." Then she added guiltily: "Then we'll go get ice cream cones and we can go shopping together for goody bags for your friends who are coming to your birthday party on Monday."
Nico thought that through. "So we're going to do working stuff on our day off? Is it our day off with Daddy tomorrow?"
Cheryl knew better than to lie. "Probably both Daddy and I are going to have to work for at least part of the day tomorrow because Valentine's Day is on Wednesday and we have a lot of preparations to make sure everything is perfect for the customers. Hope is going to come for a few hours and take you and Léo to the library so you have a good time."
"So is my next day off is my birthday?" Nico asked. Cheryl thought that through and realized that was essentially true. She confessed as much. Then he smashed her like a little bug, with all the innocence of a babe. "Why do we have to work so hard, Mommy?"

At the restaurant supply store, Léo woke up from her nap in the portable carseat and proved once again that early walking is not a blessing for either child or parent. Cheryl unstrapped the squirmy, giggling girl and was holding her at the checkout counter. Léo was wiggling so much that Cheryl sat her on her sturdy, fat, Fred Flintstone feet and told her brother to come sit by Mommy and watch his sister. He happily complied, watching her quietly and intently as she turned to the right of Mom's ankles to a display of oil burning candles, folded her hands behind her back and leaned gently over to try to suckle the white plastic caps on the candle fuels. Cheryl looked down when Nico began to snicker and found her baby girl delicately attaching her teeth to the display, which was less than two feet off the ground.
"That's not a good thing to put in your mouth, Léo," Mom said matter- of factly, while the sales representative stared with a mixture of amusement, surprise and horror.

Quite often it starts so simply and ends with a parent totally in the weeds.
"Daddy told me last night that elephants carry baby elephants in their tummies," Nico told his mother.
"That's right, Nico," Mom said as she checked her side mirror and turned into traffic. "All mammals carry their babies in their bellies until they are old enough to be born into the world."
"But how can a whole elephant fit in a belly?" Nico asked.
"They're smaller before they come out of their mother's belly. Just like you were smaller before you came out of my belly. I could never fit you inside my body now."
"But I'm still small," Nico protested.
"Of course," Mommy said. "But you're bigger than you used to be and some day, believe it or not, you might be taller than your daddy."
"Why?"
"I don't know for sure, but it seems like even in a single generation, nature selects certain traits from each parent's genes that seem desirable and amplifies them in the offspring," Cheryl said as she rounded a corner. Then realizing that she might be speaking gibberish to her child, she added: "Your daddy is taller than Grandpa Joseph, who is his Daddy, and I'm taller than my mother."
"Is your mother dead?" Nico asked.
"No sweetie," Cheryl said, following his train of thought. "My mother is Grandma Betty, who comes to visit you from Arkansas. Daddy's mother, Grandma Sophie, whom you never met, she's the one who died."
"Is she extinct?" Nico asked. "Where did she go when she died?"
"Mom?" he repeated after several moments of silence while Mom tried to figure out how she got from baby elephants to this particular bag of worms.

"I heard you sweetie," Mom said carefully. "Some people believe that when people die, they go to a very pleasant place in the sky where they are very happy, and they can look down on all the people they ever loved."

"Do other people think something else happens?" Nico said. "Can we go there and ask Grandma Sophie?"

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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