Hello everyone!
We plan to be the late-night home Friday and Saturday night for the Northeast Horn Workshop, a series of events scheduled at Skidmore College featuring guest artists Julie Landsman, Peter Kurau, Eli Epstein, Ginger Culpepper and David Amram. Starting at 10 p.m. each night, we are to be the official after-party jazz and classical jam spot for the musicians giving and taking classes and seminars during the event. We'll be keeping our kitchen open until midnight each night and hope to hear some amazing extemporaneous music in our lounge.
Like the Olympics, the Northeast Horn Workshop travels to a different venue each year. It has previously been hosted at Mansfield University; the University of Vermont; The Boston Conservatory; the Hartt School of Music and SUNY Purchase. The Workshop being hosted in Saratoga this weekend will give local students a chance to compete and give local musicians a chance to participate in workshops and peruse the wares of a large number of vendors of musical instruments and accessories. http://www.hornnewengland.org/Workshop/2008/index.stm
Easter Brunch
We've nearly run out of space for very large parties for Easter Brunch (March 23) unless we have cancellations, but we have several spaces for smaller groups of 6 or fewer. We could also do a large party at 3 p.m., toward the end of the brunch. This year, we're doing all of the food service in stations, like a buffet, but a little more like performance art.
We'll have a made-to-order omelette station, because that was extremely popular last year, as well as a raw bar, a waffle station, a carving station with leg of lamb, and baked cured ham, a salad and vegetable station, and desserts.
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.
We're already getting calls about Mother's Day brunch (May 11). We'll announce our format for that day's brunch after Easter, when we can evaluate how well the guests liked the "food station" format.
Pink Plate Special
The Pink Plate Special this week will be another classic recipe as interpreted by Chef Paul, rabbit fricassée.
"I've been doing so many of our standby dishes by request lately, the veal scalloppine in cream and lemon, the duck with apricot and green peppercorn, the poussin with tarragon and Madeira. These are very raffiné dishes, and I just need something a little rustic. I'm not in the mood to do a rabbit roulade with a confited whatever and yadda yadda yadda. I need a good bowl of rabbit stew."
Fricassée is a recipe straight from the farmhouse kitchens of Paul's mother and grandmother. He dismembers the rabbits and dredges the bone-in pieces in egg and flour before sautéeing them. Then he braises them slowly in white wine with aromatic vegetables, pearl onions, herbs and olives. The preparation is simple, but unctuous.
"People will have to come expecting to use a knife and a fork," Chef Paul said with a distinctly un-raffiné giggle. "It will be one of the talents required."
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 Rustica
Paul and souschef Dan Felder are making a classic old school addition to the duck with apricot and green peppercorn sauce. They will be featuring a duck confit crèpe with roasted tomatoes on the plate.
In a diverse direction, they will also be featuring claypot red snapper. "It's equally rustic, but not terribly French," Paul said. "But it's fun."
"Basically, we're going to slice the raw fish fairly thinly, and set it on top of pre-cooked carrots, parsnips and celery, and then pour over that a boiling blood-orange and ginger dashi, which is a Japanese stock with bonito flakes," Felder said. (Bonito flakes are shaved dehydrated tuna). "The raw fish will be cooked by pouring the stock on top and enclosing it in the hot clay pot so the juices steam the food in the pot. Then we'll open it right at the end to add a raw salad of diced cucumber, daikon, cilatro and a little lime juice and Thai basil oil. When we put the top back on, the steam in the pot will wilt the salad on the way to the table."
Paul added: "Essentially, we're doing snapper en papillote, but we're able to open and close the papillote at various times to add cooking ingredients."
Help Wanted
We are going to be looking for some qualified kitchen help very soon, so if you are or know of likely candidates who take food seriously as both a business and an art form, please contact us. One of the positions will open up as we head into the summer season and need to increase our staffing. The other need came upon us quite suddenly and unexpectedly Thursday when one of our garde mangers came in with two broken arms in casts after a nasty snowboarding spill. Please come in to fill out a job application and schedule an interview.
News Flash
Another worrisome sign about food costs caught Chef Paul's attention while he was reading The New York Times Thursday morning. Apparently, federal officials are thinking seriously about shutting down salmon fishing on the Pacific coast from northern Oregon to the Mexican border because of the collapse of crucial salmon stocks. Washington and Alaska fisheries are not affected, but the counts of young California salmon for 2007 were less than 6 percent of the long-term average. The prime suspect is the Sacramento River, where three years ago, conservation groups challenged an advisory opinion by federal fishery managers that allowed federal and state officials to draw more water out of the Sacramento River Delta for farmers in the San Joaquin Valley and cities in Southern California.
Federal scientists also theorize that abnormal ocean conditions might be affecting the food chain of young salmon.
"It just scares me," said Chef Paul. "Already there are so many food shortages, and the costs of so many foods are skyrocketing, that it's really getting frightening."
Artist in residence Joseph C. Parker
For those of you who heard that our father/father-in-law/grandpa/artist-in-residence/founder Joseph C. Parker took a header down a staircase this week, rest assured the tough old bird is recovering from his bruises nicely. Because he split his head, he looks like hell, however, causing his lovely wife Nancy to be at great pains to explain that she did not inflict these wounds upon her hard-headed hubby. Undeterred by his temporarily marred visage, Joseph continues to take orders for castings of the pieces in his exhibit, "Expressions of Love," which features tiny sculptures that he created to be gifts for his late first wife, Sophie, over the 52 years of their marriage.
The castings 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 soon. 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 pork roulade with herbed rice pilaf and roasted red pepper cream ($15); porcini-dusted tilapia filet with oven-roasted mushrooms and asparagus ($15); linguini with arugula pesto, broccoli, potato and sautéed scallops ($16) and grilled chicken breast with Fregola Sarda, tomato and Coach Farm goat cheese ($15). Appetizer specials include a crabcake with lemon caper mayonnaise ($16); a salad of mixed baby greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7); Rhode Island Littleneck clams steamed in white wine ($13) 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/Albany Law Graduation
Skidmore graduation weekend is booking heavily. We'll be offering an elegant, four-course, $70 per person prix fixe menu, and will be serving dinner the Friday (May 16) of Skidmore Graduation weekend from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. by reservation. On Saturday, May 17, we will extend brunch to 3:30 pm. and start serving the prix fixe dinner at 5:30. We've also taken lunch reservations until 2:15 p.m. on Friday, May 16, to accommodate people driving up from the Albany Law School Graduation ceremony.
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 17, Tuesday, March 18, Wednesday, March 19, and Thursday, March 20
$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:
rabbit fricassée
Notes on Nico and Léo:
Both Nico and Léo seem very erudite for their respective ages - 5 and 2 - but are certainly capable of grabbing the wrong verb tense out of the air. We were having dinner together when Nico suddenly became quite concerned about a piece of meat that had lodged between two of his milk teeth in an uncomfortable way.
"Somefing is stucked in my teef," Nico said with urgency.
"SomeTHing is STUCK in my teeTH," Cheryl said.
Paul hopped up and returned from the bathroom with a piece of dental floss and began to show Nico how to take care of the problem, while his wife watched with an expression that wavered between distaste over practicing dental hygiene at the table and amusement at Paul's enthusiasm for instructing his son.
"I feeled it in my teef," Nico explained.
"I FELT it in my teeth," Mom absently amended.
"No wait," Nico said. "I fought it was still sticked, but I fink I loosed it out."
Cheryl's mouth popped open for another reflexive grammatical course correction, and stayed that way as she realized she had no idea where to start correcting that mangled thought.
Paul cracked up as he watched his wife's face: "I dare you to parse and edit that one," he snickered.
Léo has a new mantra, and we can't imagine what it means or where it came from. "I'm a kid!" she crows with delight over and over, and with some degree of urgency. It's never in the context of "I can't because I'm just a kid." There's such unbridled happiness in the pronouncement that we're guessing she's announcing: "I'm not a baby, I'm a kid," but that's just a guess. The other day, Cheryl interfered in a game of freeze tag because the younger kids were having trouble figuring out that once they were "it" they needed to start chasing. Mom hopped into the game and started demonstrating chasing. Léo shrieked in mock protest: "You're not a kid!"
Nico woke up Wednesday morning, sat bolt upright and inexplicably announced: "Mommy, when I grow up, I don't want to have a big paintbrush because I don't want to have to paint big eyes. Because it's hard to paint eyes with a big paintbrush, right?"
The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538
