Hello everyone!
Every year in March for the past decade or so, we have done a Friday night dinner party for a locally based mutual fund company. Because of the directors' long association with Chez Sophie, they've developed a taste for some of our classic dishes, so this weekend, we will be offering a panoply of old favorites.
Paul will be doing the duck breasts we get from Jurgielewicz Farm on Long Island his mother's way, seared to be crispy on the outside, and served with a tangy sauce of apricot and green peppercorns with wild rice spiked with golden raisins.
The melt-in-your mouth veal scallopine cooked in cream and lemon will be on the menu, as well as Sophie's roasted poussin (young chicken) with tarragon and Madeira. We'll be running a couple of different fish - red snapper with a Nobu-inspired grapefruit-sesame-shoyu-shallot broth and striped bass with basil shallot vinaigrette.
The mutual fund group runs an amusing little contest for a door prize each year. Guests are asked to guess how many of each item on the menu will be ordered by the group. Because they are money people, they actually have a method of calculating the winner. As an added element of difficulty, this year we translated the menu into French, which was easy for Arkansas-born, public-school-attending Cheryl -- poisson, poussin, canard etc... until we got to the prime New York strip steak Bordelaise. Finally, free-association and cellphone in hand, she realized the problem. Steak, in French, is steak. Rather than entrecôte, (which refers to a piece of meat that includes the best parts of the strip loin and the ribeye, so is technically close, but not entirely accurate) we decided to keep it simple and call it boeuf.
Speaking of boeuf, in the very near future Paul will be switching from the New York strips he's been serving for several months to a ribeye.
"I miss 'em, and we haven't had 'em in ages," Paul said. "When we switched over, the best steak I was able to get from the ribeye was a certified Black Angus and the size of those were like this," he said, holding his hands about the width of a dinner plate.
"They were no fun to play with."
Paul tries to always work with natural beef. He has had, for a great while, a supplier of natural beef strips that are well-marbled, very tasty and a good size to work with. (The steers are killed young, so you can get a reasonable thickness with a compact steak). Most restaurants would call Paul's steak a 12-ounce steak. Properly trimmed, Paul calls it an eight-ounce steak.
"For a while, I was having trouble getting an eye of a steak with an appropriate thickness. Those ribeyes, once they were properly trimmed, it was impossible to judge the cooking temperature. But this week, all of a sudden, I was able to get some of the natural ribeyes, which I like because it's a small eye so I can cut it thicker to get the right size.
Pink Plate Special
Speaking of old fashioned food, the Pink Plate Special this week will be Paul's special meatloaf, otherwise known as pâté Americain. Part of the reason is that Paul is making a fresh batch of pâté this week. so he has all the proper ingredients on hand...pork, veal, beef, etc. Asked for specific details, the chef protested. "I haven't made it yet." His newsletter-writing wife's lips purse and brows knit. "O.K.," he sighs. "It will have mashed potatoes, and tomato in the sauce, and haricots verts with fried shallots and creamed mushrooms on top. Happy now?"
The Pink Plate Special is a weekly prix fixe special we offer on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 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.
More Creativity
Souschef Dan Felder, when prodded for newsletter fodder, volunteered: "I'm playing with a miso marinade for foie gras..... Don't look at me like that."
"I'm Paul's wife, so I'm not judging," Cheryl said. "I'm just waiting for the reason why."
Dan, who is young and has not had the benefit of 20-something years of weathering the blank, challenging and/or skeptical stares of the chef's wife, began to pour forth justifications: "Miso has a delicate sweetness. Foie gras has an incredible richness that is often paired with sweet wines and sweet accents. The miso can take those natural pairings and give them an Eastern interpretation."
Cheryl continued to stare expressionlessly at poor Dan, who was forced to admit: "My father is coming Saturday for a tasting menu and he loves Asian food and is looking for dishes that aren't old standbys."
Cheryl swiveled the evil stare to her husband, the chef.
"Me? I'm very curious to see how it comes out."
Speaking of the inmates running the asylum, the youngsters are making terrines left and right, and Chef couldn't be more proud. Garde Manger Nicole Hamilton is working on a Provençale vegetable terrine incorporating spinach, roasted red peppers, local golden beets, wrapped with white asparagus. She's also forming a blood orange and navel orange terrine with panna cotta as a binder. Dan is developing a poached leek and confited tomato terrine as a component of the ever-changing nightly vegetarian special.
Fage Yogurt
After our newsletter last week, we got dozens of letters this week from people who are also fans of Fage Greek yogurt. Our readers say they have found it locally at Roma, Putnam Market, Four Seasons, Hannaford, and the Price Choppers in Malta and Route 50 (in the organic section).
Easter Brunch
We've decided to try something different for Easter Brunch than we did last year. We did a sit-down prix fixe menu that went quite well, but we noticed that a disproportionate number of people stood in line at our designer omelette station, probably because they enjoyed the show. So this year, we're doing all of the food service in stations, like a buffet, but a little more like performance art.
So this year, we'll keep that omelette station, because it was extremely popular, and will also be offering a waffle station, a carving station with leg of lamb, some sort of poultry, and baked fresh ham, a raw bar, a salad and vegetable station, and desserts.
Because the food stations will replace some of our upstairs dining area, seating will be limited. Please book ahead, especially for large family parties, and we will be requiring a credit card to confirm the reservations, with a 24-hour no-penalty cancellation grace period. (After that, it's a $10 per head penalty.)
Admission is $35 for adults and $18 for children under 12. We will begin seating at 10:30 a.m. and accept reservations each half hour until 3 p.m. Breakfast will be served from 7 to 9:30 a.m. and dinner seatings will begin at 5:30 p.m. with our normal à la carte dinner menu.
Artist in residence Joseph C. Parker
Joseph, who has been artist-in-residence at Chez Sophie since 1969, is taking orders for castings of the pieces in his exhibit, "Expressions of Love," which features tiny sculptures that he created to be gifts for Sophie over the 52 years of their marriage.
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. Castings for one of the pieces have been completed, and a series of another piece will be finished in the next week. The other pieces will take six to 12 weeks for delivery depending on the complexity of the sculpture.
The brunch menu this Saturday and Sunday will feature mixed grill with warm potato salad ($16); grilled hangar steak and eggs ($15); chicken and dumplings ($16) and veal piccata ($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 en cassolette ($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
Cole plays the baby grand piano from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday during brunch and on Tuesday and Friday night (barring special events that preclude live music.) He also comes in on nights he is not normally scheduled, such as Thursdays and Saturday nights, if he feels like it. 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/.
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
The Chef's Choice seven-course tasting menu is 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, March 10, Tuesday, March 11, Wednesday, March 12, and Thursday, March 13
$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:
meatloaf with tomato sauce, mashed potatoes and green beans topped with fried shallots and creamed mushrooms
Notes on Nico and Léo:
Through a weird confluence of events, (a broken down car, a sick babysitter, etc) Cheryl found herself at home with the children for about 110 hours straight this week. She has always had a lot of respect for full time caregivers, but this small unabated stretch has amplified that sentiment.
Paul's 13-year-old Land Rover has finally gotten to the point where the repairs to make it roadworthy will cost more than the value of the car, and March is not a good time for Saratoga restaurateurs to make large purchases. We have a safe car to drive the kids around in, but Paul and Cheryl usually tag team to make sure both the restaurant and the children have a Parker around for a good portion of the time. Until we find a used, cheap knockabout car for the parent who is not with the children to buzz back and forth from the restaurant in, it's either being at home carless with the kids or taking taxis.
The second day got off to a rocky start when Cheryl made breakfast for the children and 5-year-old Nico went to set the table. He pulled out a chair without realizing that his mother had been writing at her laptop at the end of the table while he slept, and the chair caught the power cord, tossing the laptop to the oak floor and smashing the screen. "It was an accident!" he gasped in anguish. Of course, the laptop is no longer under warranty, and the cost of replacing the screen is about as much as a new iBook. Buying a new computer in the depths of winter is as unlikely as buying a new car.
Now clearly, it wasn't really Nico's fault. Cheryl shouldn't have left her computer on the table with the power cord draped behind a chair leg. But given Nico's rather colorful history of destroying his mother's electronics (three laptops and one camera since he was one-year-old) it was hard not to be resentful. As a work tool, Cheryl is about as attached to her laptop as the chef is to his favorite knives. It took great effort not to make the kid feel more horrible than he already did about it.
The good thing about it was there was no possibility of dealing with being confined indoors in bad weather for four days by letting Nico -the more "hyper" and demanding of the two children - veg out with computer games. There was also no possibility of taking the kids to the Childrens' Museum or library, so we had to be fairly creative about keeping ourselves entertained. We cooked three meals a day together, made up stories, rearranged all the toyboxes to access toys that had not been enjoyed in a while, built wooden castles, walked through the sleet to visit neighbors, cleaned house together, took unconscionably long bubble baths, and read about a hundred books. By the fourth day, desperate measures were called for. We decided to repaint the living room. After Cheryl cut in the edges, she handed Nico a small container of paint and sponge brush and let him paint the center of the walls, which she would roll with and even coat of paint later. She gave 2-year-old Léo a small, clean roller brush and set her to "painting" a dry wall adjacent to where Mom was working. Nico soon decided Léo's imaginary paint was more interesting than his real paint, because with Léo's brush he could paint dinosaurs and airplanes and caves and doors and crafts stories about his drawings.
Léo's calm game suddenly became a roaring adventure, and before long Nico smashed the paint roller into a framed lithograph, knocking it from the wall onto a dimmer switch for the living room lights, snapping it off so that the lights cannot be turned on until one of us get a chance to go to the hardware store. "It was an accident!" Nico whispered. We're happy to report that four days with the children actually increased Mommy's tolerance for such "accidents" rather than wearing it permanently thin.
The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538
