Hello, everyone

Okay, Cheryl admits she's from the deep South so this is one of the more unusual wine descriptions she's ever heard: At last night's Languedoc-Roussillon dinner, someone described the aroma of the 1999 Clos des Truffiers as being "like a Ranger's hockey puck before it's frozen." This is apparently a good and sexy thing. Amazingly, a bunch of the people sharing the table with this innovator in wine prose nodded their heads vigorously in agreement.

We all have our olfactory triggers. Photos of these hockey loving red wine drinkers:

Paul adapted a really wonderful classic recipe for aigo boulido for the dinner. The name in Occitane, a Provençal dialect, means boiled garlic. He brought chicken stock and water to a boil, dropped in a lot of fresh garlic, added fresh sage, thyme and mint, brought it to a boil and let it steep for 10 minutes. Then he strained all the solids and served the broth over a toasted crouton. Very yummy and surprisingly complex.

By the way, someone left a little packet of notes and recipes in the dining room after the dinner. We have it if you want to reclaim it.

We are really looking forward to our first Easter Sunday brunch. We offering a prix fixe brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. For $30 a person, you get your choice of soup or salad, your choice of desserts, and your choice of any of the following entrees: ham smoked over Ceylonese cinnamon; spring braised lamb shanks; rabbit stew; salmon poached with a chervil beurre blanc; poussin (young chicken) roasted with a madeira and mushroom sauce; vegetable napoleon, Belgian waffles, pancakes, or omelettes.

Children under 12 eat for $15. We will begin serving an à la carte dinner menu with a number of special options starting at 5:30 p.m.
Breakfast will be served from 7 to 9:30.
Reservation are recommended and large family groups can be accommodated.

Here we go again with the peculiar love-hate relationship people have towards calves liver. Or calf's liver or calves' liver depending on how you view the singularity of the dish. It takes guts to sell liver. We once had a theory that there was a biological imperative that made it necessary for one person in every romantic couple to hate liver. Cheryl, in an unusual violation of her usual reserve about personal information, once advanced this theory to two women who had been coming to the restaurant together since Chef Paul could balance himself on their knees in his short pants. She discovered at that point that they weren't a romantic couple, but merely lifelong business partners. Ouch.

We only mention this because Paul is once again diving off the calves' liver cliff and offering it as this week's Pink Plate Special. This will either entice you into the restaurant in a way that nothing else could or repel you, depending on which half of the obligatory romantic couple you are. He sautées calves liver with onions and shallots, smoked bacon and serves it with a balsamic vinegar sauce.

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.

Chef Paul has been approached by numerous purveyors in the past week who are predicting that meat prices are about to skyrocket. In the span of just eight months, the price of the U.S.'s most important crop - corn - has doubled from $2, about where it had been stuck since the late 1990s, to $4 a bushel. That may not mean much to the average person who buys a dozen ears of sweet corn at the farmers'
market, but to farmers, it's huge. The cause is soaring demand from ethanol plants, which bought 2.2 billion bushels last year, 34% more than in 2005.
May 2008 corn futures recently traded at $4.20 a bushel, while December 2010 futures were at $3.74. Corn in the United States'
biggest agricultural export as well as the staple feed for livestock.
This is good news for corn farmers, and the companies that sell them tractors, seeds and fertilizer. But cattle and hog farmers are in a tighter spot. Even ethanol producers have seen their profits slashed.
Food companies are being squeezed and are starting to pass along higher costs to consumers.

In a way, we mention this by way of warning about menu prices. In another, we're really just curious if this is all smoke and panic.
Will people stop eating meat if it's more expensive? Are there economists out there who think that meat prices will stabilize when people find other means of feeding livestock? Paul is predisposed to believe that corn is not really the best substance to raise animals on, but that's neither here nor there. We'd love to hear more.
Established corn growers might benefit for the dot-corn bubble, but how many youngsters will be burned by dedicating acres to corn that they could have diversified with wheat, cotton, soybeans or other food crops? Corn costs more to grow because it is more input- intensive, which will push up the prices for equipment, seed, and fertilizer. It will be an exciting and dangerous time for our farmers, and we're very curious to hear what people think might happen.

We wish a fond adieu to Susan Arbetter this week, the National Public Radio diva who has bandied words with Paul for many years now, along with her on-air partner Joe Donohue. Susan is moving to WMHT Public Television in Albany, which wants to use Susan to retool its weekly statewide legislative program, New York Week In Review. She will be hosting and producing, and perhaps creating some other programs for the station in the future. We wish her the best.

Our Sunday Jazz brunch with pianist Cole Broderick will feature saffron risotto crab cakes with remoulade and a side salad ($14); grilled center cut pork chops with chipotle cream and sweet potato fries ($12); pan-seared scallops with cauliflower, capers and golden raisins ($14); and grilled tuna with soba noodle salad and pickled ginger ($14). Appetizer specials include steamed Rhode Island Littleneck clams ($12); crabcakes with lemon caper mayonnaise ($14); a salad of mixed baby greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7) and soup of the day ($8).

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, frittata 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.

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, April 2, Tuesday, April 3, Wednesday, April 4, and Thursday, April 5.

$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:
sautéed calves liver with onions and shallots, smoked bacon and balsamic vinegar sauce

Notes on Nico and Léo:
We continue with the problem of what to do with four-year-old Nico's excessive physical exuberance toward his little sister. Monday night he was sent to his room for a time-out because he shrieked, "I love you my sweet baby girl!" while tightly hugging his one-year-old sister around the throat and dropping her to the living room carpet.
Léo only seemed a little alarmed by this turn of events, but her parents would like this nonsense to stop immediately. When Nico finished his time-out, Mommy warned him the punishment would be severe, even corporal, if he hurt his sister again. We sat quietly on the couch to read books, and Nico fell asleep sitting bolt upright.
Léo, sensing a rare opportunity, began pounding his face with an open hand. Nico didn't open his eyes, but showed a trace of a smile as his Mommy pulled Léo off him. The baby kept going for the defenseless big brother, giggling hysterically as she was pulled off. Then the washer stopped and Cheryl went to put the load in the dryer. When she came back, Léo was on top of her brother, with a fistful of hair in one hand for balance and the other hand pounding the heck out of her sleeping brother's face. Without opening his eyes, Nico slapped back three times smartly. Cheryl couldn't bring herself to wake the boy to punish him. It didn't seem fair, somehow. Léo howled with outraged grief, eyes sprouting tears like a cartoon character, nose streaming and drool pouring out her mouth, and even her wailing and gnashing of teeth couldn't budge Nico.

Léo is learning a lot from her brother (in addition to martial arts.) This week, she walked into the dining room, saw an eight-month-old on her mother's lap and began babbling "Baby, baby, baby!" She walks straight up to the customers and declares "Hi! Eat." She has learned to demand "Hug" and "Kiss." Every time she exits a doorway she stands on the other side and croons "Bye, bye, bye," at it She always wants to walk rather than being carried, unless you put her on your shoulders, where she crows animatedly, bucks like she's on a hot plate and tears at your hair (which is okay for Paul's crew cut, but a little painful for Mom. The walking thing is very endearing, because she looks like a little duck in her diaper, but unfortunately she has learned to walk backwards, which makes forward progress a bit problematic. She also is enamored of dirty snow and mud, which is unfortunate, because she's still wearing little leather slippers because she trips when we put in more substantial shoes. Every bit of spring air requires a dip in the sink afterwards.

We've arrived at the point where everything Nico says has an ulterior motive.
"I love you, daddy." ('Can I have a lollipop?") "May I have a hug, my beautiful Mother?" ("I just did something bad, and you're about to find out.")
"I want to drive down that street." ("Can we stop for donuts on the way home?")

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538