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Hello, everyone.

It's always dicey trying to be spring-like in May in upstate New York. You never know if you're going to the beach or going to be shoveling snow. But like the waters of Saratoga, hope springs eternal, so we're going truly springy with next week's Pink Plate Special: navarin printanier or lamb stew with spring vegetables.

What follows is a funny exercise in the circularity of Internet research and a warning to all journalists who believe what they read on the net is authoritative. We searched for an etymology of the term navarin printanier and came across a San Francisco Bay area blog with a reference to the origin of the dish. Much to our surprise, Chez Sophie's newsletter was the source for their information. http://www.kqed.org/weblog/food/archive/2006_03_01_archive.jsp

"According to Chez Sophie," the blog reads, "the word navarin has nothing to do with sheep. It is widely believed that the name navarin is a reference to the Battle of Navarino on October 20, 1827, in which British, French and Russian ships sank the Turkish and Egyptian fleet during the Greek War of Independence.
There is, however, no detectable connection between that sea battle and French mutton stew, and the dish was invented long before 1827.
It's more likely that the name derives from navet - the French word for turnip, because early recipes prominently featured turnips."

That is apparently a direct quote from an April 2003 newsletter written by Cheryl. Cheryl can't remember where she got the information. Probably from a cookbook or website. The same Chez Sophie newsletter goes on to note: "As grand an authority as Larousse Gastonomique says that 'some chefs quite justifiably' therefore use the name navarin to describe all manner of ragouts containing shellfish, monkfish, chicken and even pork."

The Pink Plate is a weekly prix fixe special we offer on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For $28 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, plus coffee, tea or espresso.

Based on current reservations, we're not as busy as we'd like to be tonight, Friday, so we're trying to think of some things that will encourage you all to make the trip to Malta. We found out Thursday that the first of the softshell crabs are in, so Chef Paul ordered two dozen for Friday. Once the harvest starts, it moves up the coast each week as the weather turns warmer until the molting season is over. We will ask for at least two dozen each day, but we don't always get them. It seems no matter how slow it is, we sell out each day. If you're really jonesing for softshells, reserve them when you make your reservation.

He also ordered sturgeon, which is a supple, rich and beautiful fish, in this case from Florida. Sturgeon are the fish that produce the world's most expensive and prized caviars, a luxury we have sworn off of because of drastic overfishing in the Caspian Sea, wherefrom hail, Beluga, Osetra and Sevruga caviars.

Fossil remains of sturgeon varieties dating to prehistoric times have been found along the coast of the Baltic and elsewhere. As far back as 2400 BC, Egyptians and Phoenicians were salting and pickling fish eggs to last through wars, famines and long sea voyages. Bas-reliefs at the Necropolis near the Sakkara Pyramid show fishermen gutting sturgeon and removing the eggs. Sturgeon live about 150 years and start bearing eggs only after they are 6 to 20 years old. Because of the time needed to reach egg-bearing age and because the fish is killed to collect the caviar, caviar sturgeon are especially vulnerable to overfishing. The sturgeon we have ordered are farm raised in Atlantic waters.

Paul is apparently feeling rich and creamy this week. For our cheeseboard, he ordered Pierre Robert, a triple cream cheese from Seine et Marne. Conceived by cheesemaker Robert Rouzaine, this creamy, mild cheese is made with pasteurized cow's milk, to which heavy cream is added. He named it after his son Pierre.

He also ordered Coulommiers, ronounced "KOO-lom-yay," named after the town of the same name. It is said that Coulommiers is the ancestor of all Brie cheeses. It has an extra-rich and creamy body. Coulommiers has a nutty flavor with a thick crust.

Our overnight stay in Montreal Sunday and Monday was fruitful in several ways. We found the office and nursery furniture we needed for the new restaurant and had what Nico calls "an aventure" with the family. Paul and Cheryl tried out an inventive restaurant called L'Épicerie in Old Montreal.

Cheryl was suffering from the tail-end of a persistent cold and an unexpected bare-headed hike in the rain (the concierge accidently sent us ouest on St. Paul instead of est) so she was a little cold and picky. She was also in a panic because she left her babies with a wonderful babysitter provided by the hotel, and was suffering crippling doubt.

In her distraction, she ordered a little too much that was fried.
Both the frog legs and pieces of the rabbit dish had fried elements.
Some of the things on her plate had very subtle flavors that were lost on her sinus-clogged palate, but Paul thought it was quite good.

"I thought it was a blast," he said. "The waiter was wonderful. I liked the wine list. It looked very much like ours, but smaller. I thought the food was a lot of fun, while not perfectly successful in every instance, very entertaining."

Cheryl can highly recommend the hotel, especially for anyone traveling with children or having an extended stay in Montreal. It is Auberge du Vieux Port, and we stayed in one of their loft apartments, which frankly, was about the size of our home, but with room service and hotel amenities. http://www.oldmontrealapartments.com/eng_site.htm

We are now open 7 days a week, and we'd love the support of our regulars on Sunday and Monday as people get used to the idea. Please book early for Mother's Day dinner, because we're hoping to make that a really special evening. (One of our owners is, after all, a mother.)

We're seeing a lot of the "help-us-move-the-wine-cellar" coupons and have decided to spring for having it printed in the Saratogian on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. Until we move on June 1, we're offering a 10 percent discount on any bottle of wine $40 or less; a 20 percent discount on wines priced between $40 and $100 and a 30 percent discount on wines priced $101 or more. For those of you who don't get the Saratoga paper, you can download and print the coupon at http://www.chezsophie.com/winesaleAD1.pdf

On the day of Skidmore Graduation, May 20, we will be serving a special lunch with reservations available from noon to 2 p.m. (Dinner service will start at 5 p.m.) The menu will feature some of the lunch dishes that we will be offering when we move to Saratoga, such as veal scallopine sandwich; Vietnamese beef salad with raw onion, cilantro and peanuts; seared duck breast salad with wild rice, haricots verts and carrots in walnut oil vinaigrette; roasted chicken salad with fried Great Northern beans, fresh basil, pine nuts and shallots; steak frites; and melted raclette over boiled potatoes with pickled vegetables.

Paul is scheduled to appear on the Northeast Public Radio program The Roundtable on Wednesday at 11:07 a.m. He chats about food and wine for 20 minutes with hosts Susan Arbetter and Joe Donohue. Depending on where you live, you can hear the show on WAMC, 90.3 FM, Albany; 1400 AM, Albany; WAMK, 90.9 FM, Kingston; WOSR, 91.7 FM, Middletown; WCEL, 91.9 FM, Plattsburgh; WCAN, 93.3 FM, Canajoharie; WANC, 103.9 FM, Ticonderoga; WAMQ, 105.1 FM, Great Barrington; W205AJ, 88.9 FM, Oneonta; W226AC, 93.1 FM, Rensselaer-Troy; W299AG, 107.7 FM, Newburgh; W220CE 91.9 Southington CT; or on the web at http:// www.wamc.org

Jazz composer Cole Broderick will play in our back room Tuesday night starting at 6:30 p.m., with no cover charge.

Pink Plate Special

Notes on Nico and Léo:
Nico in the car to Montreal, a little tired of being ignored while Mommy navigates for Daddy: "I want juice. I want juice. I want juice!" he shouts.
Mommy turns her attention to the rude little screamer: "I don't respond to any request made in that tone of voice. I'm sorry if you felt you were being ignored, but Mommy and Daddy were doing something important and you were interrupting."
Nico ventures another try: "May I have juice?"
Mommy still hasn't heard 'please.' "What are you missing there, Nico?"
"A straw?" he guesses.

Walking in Montreal's old port district after a big rain storm, Nico sees the cars whizzing past the St. Lawrence River kicking up huge sprays of water. "Oh Daddy," he cries, clasping his hands with joy.
"I want to do that!"

Nico drops his juice a foot from his hands and whimpers: "Mommy, get my juice for me, please."
Exasperated Mommy replies: "You've got arms. Get it yourself."
"You don't have arms?" he deadpans.

We remember with joy the first time we heard our son's bubbly laugh, nearly three years ago. Mommy was singing a Rosemary Clooney song involving a lot of fruit and bouncing him on her knee. Things change with a second child. Léo laughed for the first time this week. Nico was belching at her.

There were some leftover French fries from our Pink Plate Special Thursday night. Nico grabbed the cardboard box they were draining in at the end of the night and ran away. Mommy began to look for her son and the box. She found the son first and interrogated him about the whereabouts of the box.
"I ate them all," he confessed. "They're all in my tummy. Because I'm a hungry little boy. And I need grow up."

We hope to see you soon,

The Parker family

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, and is open year-round for dinner. It is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark.

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