Hello everyone!

Here's a little fact that might be useful if you like to forage in the woods for tasty delicacies If you come across a crop of fiddlehead ferns, you should never pick more than three fronds off each plant.

This is not one of those three-on-a-match superstitions that only make sense if you're hiding in a foxhole. Each fiddlehead plant has seven unrolled fronds, or circinate vernations. If you pick them all, it will kill the plant. Since fiddlehead ferns are wild plants, it's important to make sure they can continue to propagate.

Fiddleheads, which have a taste somewhere in the spectrum of sugar snap peas, artichokes, mushrooms and asparagus, have been a part of traditional diets for Native Americans, Asians, Australians and New Zealanders, and are particularly common in the Northeast for a short and glorious time in the early spring. In East Asia, Pteridium aquilinum (fernbrake or bracken) fiddleheads are eaten as a vegetable, called warabi (蕨 / わらび) in Japan, gosari (고사리) in Korea, and juécài (蕨菜) in China and Taiwan. Available in specialty markets, they are scarce and expensive, because no one has figured out how to commercialy produce them on a large scale.

Ostrich fern fiddleheads are eaten in New England, Québec and New Brunswick. The New Brunswick village of Tide Head bills itself as the Fiddlehead Capital of the World. In Vermont, fiddleheads are served with cider vinegar and butter in the spring, and pickled with dill seed for eating year round.

Normally, we spend a lot of time touting the extraordinary dietary and medicinal benefits attributed to vegetables and meats we serve, and we're serving a lot of fiddleheads right now. Apparently, however, fiddleheads are a bit controversial. Most gourmets like to very lightly cook fiddleheads so they maintain a little crunch and a lot of bright green color But the Centers for Disease Control recommends cooking the holy heck out of fiddleheads, because in 1994 there were several outbreaks of food poisoning associated with raw or lightly cooked fiddleheads in New York and Western Canada. No definitive source of the poisoning was ever identified, so authorities theorized that there may be unidentified toxins in the plants that have escaped notice through centuries of human consumption. The closest anyone has come to finding anything wrong with ferns is that some of them contain the thiaminase enzyme, which in excessive quantities can inhibit the absorption of vitamin B.

Conversely, they do contain a lot of vitamin A and niacin, some vitamin C, the minerals potassium, phosphorus, magnesium and iron and the trace minerals manganese, zinc and copper and fiber.

Nod to Nobu

Paul is taking inspiration from a really intriguing recipe he found in a Nobu cookbook for fish and chips. "We're going to attempt to duplicate it," Chef Paul said. "Or something close. It's basically fish and potatoes, but he makes it as tureen first and then fries it. He makes it with cod, but we're going to do it with black grouper. But it looks like an amazing technique" Expect to see this homage on the menu on Saturday.

Vegemo

St. Georges mushroom (Calocybe gambosa) is an edible mushroom that grows mainly in woodlands.  It appears in the United Kingdom on or about Saint Georges Day, hence its name, but earlier in warmer climes, such as Italy, where it pops up in March. Morels hide in the woods and appear for just a day or two before disappearing, making them an elusive target for big-game mushroom foragers. In the northern latitudes from April to June they can be found in abandoned apple orchards, at the base of dying and dead elms, around living cottonwoods, oaks and poplars, in sandy gravel soils along rivers and streams, in "beauty bark" used for landscaping, at the bases of young firs, in the tracks left by bulldozers punching new roads through forests, and in limed soils and in the wastelands left by fires. 

Pink Plate Special

Bouillabaisse is the French dish most likely to eliminate a contender from a spelling bee. (Even the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times have been known to leave out the penultimate "s," and you'll also frequently see it spelled with an extra "i" cuddling the "a" between the bouil and the baise.

This traditional Provençal fish stew dates back at least to 600 B.C. when the Phoenicians founded the city of Marseilles. They called their simple fish stew "kakavia" in Greek. The French name comes from bouiller (to boil), and abaisser (to reduce). It is the soup that Venus was said to have fed to Vulcan to lure him to sleep, so she could cavort with Mars.

Bouillabaisse is a luscious, soupy seafood stew with a rich fish broth flavored with onions, garlic, tomatoes, parsley, leeks, orange peel, basil, thyme, bay leaf, potatoes and wild fennel. It's unpretentious, rough and hearty, having come into the world as a simple dish assembled by hungry fisherman as a way to use the parts of the day's catch that were either two small or two scrapped up by the nets to be salable. They tossed hunks of stale bread in the broth to stretch the meal.

As Marseille expanded commercially in the 19th century, fancy hotel restaurants took up the dish and gilded it. Some tossed in saffron, a costly golden spice, and referred to their bouillabaise as "soupe d'or." Eminent travelers such as Alexandre Dumas, Gustave Flaubert and Émile Zola fell in love with the local specialty and carried word of it to Italy, North Africa, the Near East and Paris.

The soup is now such a matter of culinary pride that a group of restaurateurs in Marseilles have actually banded together to write a "bouillabaisse charter" to protect the reputation and integrity of the dish. Restaurants serving the "authentic" version of this soup must agree to standards of freshness and must use at least four varieties of fish and shellfish.

The very word has become synonymous with a wild mixture as in "literary bouillabaisse" or "bipolar bouillabaisse. Authentic bouillabaisse varies according to the catch of the day, or, as the fishmongers are fond of saying, ''whatever happened to wander into the net.''

Broken Arrow is in the Texas hill country near Kerrville. Broken Arrow harvests wild-grazed deer and antelope that are treated with neither antibiotics nor hormones. The meat has an herbal flavor without a trace of gaminess or liveriness After harvest, the meat is immediately placed in a refrigerated truck under the inspection of a Texas Department of Health official who insures the health of each animal and the quality of the meat. It is the cleanest, tastiest venison we've ever found.

Softshell Season Continues

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

Mother's Day Brunch

On Sunday May 11, we will offer a Mother's Day brunch buffet-style brunch with a made-to-order omelette station, as well as a raw bar with shrimp, raw clams and oysters on the halfshell, a waffle station, a salad and vegetable station, desserts, and a carving station. Paul has decided to offer fresh baked Virginia ham, veal breast stuffed with arugula, Serrano ham and Manchego cheese and deep fried Cornish hen with citrus glaze.

Admission is $35 for adults and $18 for children under 12, exclusive of beverage, tax and gratuity. A service charge of 20 percent will be applied to parties of 6 or more. 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.

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 3:00 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 graduation ceremonies at the Albany Law School Graduation and several other local schools.

Artist in residence Joseph C. Parker

The pieces are for sale, and range in price from $2,000 to $35,000.

Tasting menus

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.

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

BOUILLABAISSE

Notes on Nico and Léo:

The next day, the weather turned chilly, but the kids were still convinced it was warm. Nico ran outside to play completely naked, and only submitted to underpants and a t-shirt at the insistence of his mother. Léo agreed to a pair of pink striped capri pants, but insisted on pairing it with a bright blue and yellow striped turtleneck that used to belong to her brother. By the time we went to the supermarket, the children had augmented their clothing to cover the bits that were getting chilly. Nico was wearing shorts, gloves, a lightweight denim jacket and snow boots with no socks. Léo was wearing the short pink pants, the blue and yellow turtleneck, plastic sandals with no socks, mittens, a hat with earflaps and a bright raspberry down vest.

Mother decided to just get them in the carseats and ignore the puzzled stares of fellow shoppers who thought perhaps she was color blind, psychologically challenged or the leader of a troupe of miniature clowns.

Chez Sophie was founded in 1969 by sculptor Joseph Parker and his  French-born wife, the late Sophie. The business is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark. It  moved to The Saratoga at 534 Broadway in Saratoga Springs in June 2006.

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Each month, Nico draws a name at random from our database of  customers and we send them a $50 gift certificate to Chez Sophie. If you  would like to be added to this promotions database, which is owned  and used exclusively by Chez Sophie, please send us an email with  your name, address, telephone number, birthday and anniversary.  People on the list will also receive a gift certificate by email for a free glass of bubbles or dessert on their birthdays or  anniversaries. (You only need to enter once to be eligible every month.) If you think you are on the list but have not received gift certificates on your special holidays, please contact us with an updated email address. We find that many of the email addresses we have collected over the past few years are no longer valid.