Hello, everyone.

"Oh, man," breathed Mark Graham, our souschef, as he tasted the new tomato sorbet. He turned to Cheryl and said, "I asked them to make tomato sorbet to go with the vegetarian sampler while I had my days off, and they did good."
"It's one of the best sorbets we've ever done as far as texture goes, and the flavor is pure tomato," Chef Paul said.
"It's the salt," pronounced Mark. "Paul put sea salt in it at the end and it rocks."

This sorbet is a vast change from the one made a few years ago by our - then ice cream maven, Ethan Tierney. He had gotten into the habit of experimenting (with our food) and sometimes the results were quite wonderful. He'd had enough wonderful results that the 20-year-old thought it was safe to decide to try something without asking Paul first: Tomato sorbet. Unfortunately, he chose to do this not with everyday beefsteak tomatoes that had begun to go overripe, but with an entire $80 fat flat of just-picked heirloom tomatoes from New Minglewood Farm. Both Paul and Cheryl were furious, and showed even more consternation when the experimental sorbet tasted nothing like the gorgeous tomatoes that had disappeared into it. It was granular and had a very strange pinkish grey color.

In our kitchen, we tried to figure out a way to use the sorbet. We paired it with mint, poured vodka and simple syrup on it, put scoops of it on top of cured salmon, then as a last-ditch measure, melted it down, added sugar and fruit juice to brighten the color and refroze it. We decided to send a little of it out for free in martini glasses that night to several tables, with the understanding that the "tomato granità" was an experiment by one of our young culinary students.
Even for free, people wouldn't eat it.

Cheryl asked the author of this week's rather perfect tomato sorbet, our garde manger, Brian Netzel, how he calculated the pectin in the tomatoes so he'd know how much sugar to put in to bring out the flavor of the tomato and still produce a creamy texture.
"I used an egg to test the sugar density," Brian explained.
"You drop an egg into your sorbet mix and you want it to come to the top and float above the mix with a clean spot the size of a dime,"
Brian said, explaining a technique he learned at Scottsdale Culinary Institute. "If the dry spot on the eggshell is smaller than dime, then you don't have enough sugar, and if it's greater than the size of a dime you have too much sugar."
"Brian's getting quoted..." chanted someone as Cheryl typed notes.
"Please mention the blue doo-rag," Mark inserted. "We'll get the Crips up here."
"It's really aqua," Cheryl muttered.

If that was not enough insight into the creative, collaborative process, consider the following:

"I'm thinking about taking raclette off the menu," said Chef Paul.
"I dunno," Cheryl said. "People really like it."
"But it's really a fall and winter kind of dish," Paul said. "The problem is, people really like a lot of things that are on the menu, but if we're ever going to do anything different, we have to make some room."

Mark helped. "How about a rillette?"
Brian: "I was thinking something with rabbit."
Mark: "Rabbit rillette."
"With Buffalo rabbit wings," cheered Paul.
Brian: "I was just thinking about stuffing a saddle or something."
"Cheesy!" sang Mark.
"Too easy," said Paul.
Then Cheryl had to leave the room for a couple of seconds and came back to find them talking about free beer at freshman mixers.
"Uh, I never got the end of that one. What are you going to do?,"
Cheryl asked.
"We don't have any rabbit in the house, so we kind of tabled that one until later," Paul said.

We'll be offering our first-ever Mother's Day brunch on Sunday, May 13. We've learned from our Easter brunch experience, which generally was quite wonderful right up until 2:30 p.m., when we began to run out of desserts. The garde manger and Paul have that small but significant accounting issue covered, so the planning sheet in the kitchen now says "Lots and lots of desserts. More than you think you could ever possibly need."

Because things went so well with the Easter brunch until we hit the confection shortages, we're sticking with the same format: We will be offering a prix fixe brunch from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. For $30 a person, you get your choice of soup, fruit cup or salad, your choice of desserts, and your choice of any of the following entrees: veal roulade filled with pancetta, spinach and mozzarella; boeuf Bouguignonne; trout meunière; Cornish hen à la Sophie with tarragon, mushroom and Madeira; sole Cardinale; macadamia nut pancakes with passion fruit syrup, wild berry waffles and a build your own omelette station just for kicks.

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.
Reservations are recommended and large family groups can be accommodated.

The Pink Plate Special this coming week, Monday, April 30, Tuesday, May 1, Wednesday, May 2nd and Thursday May 3rd will be grilled trout with a chive beurre blanc.

Since we've moved into the new location on Broadway, trout has been a staple on our lunch menu and has occasionally appeared as a second fish offering on our dinner menu. Cheryl asked Paul why we use so much trout. "It is farm-raised, it is always available, and it's usually a very high-quality product," Paul said. "It's sustainable, it doesn't come from an ecology destroying producer and it's rationally priced. Also, I really like trout. I know a thousand trout recipes and it's fun to work with and it's best simply prepared. It would be cooler if there were somebody out catching trout for me everyday, but that's not the case."

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.

We have been having a lot of fun with two brand-new potato hybrids being grown by Sheldon Farms, a sixth-generation potato farm in Salem in Washington County, New York. Adirondack Red and Adirondack Blue potatoes not only have brightly colored skins, but have bright color all the way through, which increase their antioxidant value. The boys in the kitchen made a psychedelic vegetarian parfait (or pousse-café) for a cocktail party the other night in tiny stemless Riedel glasses with layers of purées of blue potatoes, turnips, celery, carrots and tomatilloes.

The potatoes not only mash like a dream, they have a smooth, creamy texture and an intense flavor. New York restaurants such as Mary Cleaver’s The Green Table, the Gramercy Tavern, and Mas have been buying them from Pat Sheldon and they debuted nationally at Sen.
Hillary Clinton’s annual dinner of New York-produced wines and food.
Members of Congress and other Washington notables were served a very politicaly-correct “Red, White and Blue Potato Salad,” developed by the Culinary Institute of America and prepared by one of its chefs.
The potatoes were hybridized by Walter deJong of Cornell University, which originally grew them at Cornell’s Lake Placid trial farm.

This weekend we will get three legs of lamb from Mary and Bob Pratt's Elihu Farm and will serve them Friday and Saturday as long as they last. Paul plans to do them with a reduction of stock, sherry wine vinegar, honey, fresh mint, shallots and some other things.

Our Sunday Jazz brunch with pianist Cole Broderick will feature tamarind-orange glazed roast duck breast served with wild rice ($14); venison stew with wild mushrooms and herbed biscuit topping ($15); banana and raisin oatmeal pancakes with grilled ham steaks ($14):
rotini pasta with broccoli raab, chick peas, sausage and garlic ($16). Appetizer specials include crabcake with caper mayonnaise ($14); steamed Rhode Island Littleneck clams ($12); mussels marinière ($10), 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 30, Tuesday, May 1, Wednesday, May 2 and Thursday, May 3.

$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:
grilled trout with a chive beurre blanc

Notes on Nico and Léo:
Paul was listening to African tribal music (Thomas Mapfumo and Blacks
Unlimited) and said: "I tell you what, this is happy kitchen music.
It may drive everyone else crazy, but I love it."
"Your daughter's pretty into to, but what really get's her booty moving is Beyoncé," Cheryl said, then rather unfortunately tried to demonstrate Beyoncé dance moves as interpreted by her 15-month-old baby.
"So she's got some rhythm," someone observed casually.
"Unlike my wife," Paul said.
"It's just the diaper that makes Léo look good," Cheryl retorted.

This past week, the day captain, Billy Thompson, was on vacation, so Cheryl picked up his morning shifts and tried to do as much of her regular schedule as she could before passing out in a puddle. We survived the week because the children's Nanny, Hope, moved into the house so we wouldn't have to wake the children up at some awful pre- dawn hour. Cheryl missed the babies terribly, but they seemed delighted by the change of pace. The weather was good, and they got to play in the yard and hang out with the neighbor kids. Their old babysitter, Valeen, showed up at some point with her daughter, Arianna, and Arianna's father Randy, and they cranked up the barbecue pit and singed hot dogs and ground beef.

Cheryl was suffering because she couldn't go back to the nursery at regular intervals and see the children or grab them for quick walks and hugs, but they seemed so happy when she got home she figured it was in their best interests not to drag them to work. Then Thursday morning, she and Paul were getting ready to leave the house and Nico began to shriek that he wanted to come to work. It wasn't feasible, because neither the children nor the Nanny were dressed and Cheryl and Paul had to leave within the next few minutes. Cheryl finally compromised by sending Paul ahead to hold down the fort, and sitting with Nico in the rocking chair and reading him a couple of books. She told Hope that Friday she should be ready to "come to work" with the kids at the restaurant. Cheryl grinned all the way to work. He missed her too.

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538