Hello, everyone.

One of the hardest things about constantly creating new dishes is figuring out what to call them. For the Pink Plate Special this week, Paul is getting in some fresh rabbits from a new local producer, Wanabea Farm. He wants to debone the rabbits and simmer the meat slowly in white wine with raisins, mushrooms, tomatoes, herbs and maybe add a little pasta.

Soup is too thin a term to describe what he has in mind, unless we're talking primordial soup. Sometimes, he makes a dish called rabbit fricasée, which is different because the whole bone-in pieces of rabbit are dredged in flour and sautéed before being braised in white wine, usually with little onions and olives.

We could call this new dish a stew, which is a pretty generic term that doesn't tell people all that much about it, but is technically accurate. Stew simply means to cook slowly by boiling or simmering.

The first known stew recipes are found in the oldest cookbook known, De Re Coquinaria (On the Subject of Cooking), a fourth or fifth century AD collection attributed to a Roman gastronome named Apicius, although it's likely that one person is not responsible for the texts. One of the two surviving manuscripts is headed with the words API CAE, so someone at some point put the author down as "Caelius Apicius." The name Apicius literally means beekeeper, but there were several old Romans bearing the name who became notorious for adventures in food, so the word became associated with wealth and Epicureanism.

The most famous of the three was M. Gavius Apicius, who taught haute cuisine under Tiberius and who reportedly exhausted his fortune on lavish dinners, committing suicide when he no longer had the funds to eat as he pleased. He came up with such culinary innovations as making a meal of tiny nightingale's tongues and fattening pigs on figs, then killing them by feeding them too much honeyed wine.

Of course, stew predates this passionate Roman. There is archaeological evidence that Amazonian tribes used turtle shells 7,000 or 8,000 years ago to boil stew ingredients (largely the rest of the turtle.) Herodotus writes of Scythians (8th to 4th centuries BC), who "put the flesh into an animal's paunch, mix water with it, and boil it like that over the bone fire." (Some sources feel this was how some of the first 'boiling' was done by primitive man, perhaps as long ago as 1/2 to 1 million years ago.) Pottery was invented about 10,000 years ago, and that probably made it a lot easier to stew things.

Because Paul's Pink Plate features some of the classic ingredients of an Italian dish called cacciatore, we thought about stealing that word. Cacciatore is Italian for "hunter," and is used by Italian- Americans to describe a "hunter stew" made with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, various herbs and sometimes wine. But the pasta and raisins make it quite different from the traditional hunter's stew, so we settled on the rather obscure "daube du lapin sur ces pâtes" which is a fancy French way of saying rabbit simmered tin white wine with raisins, mushrooms, tomatoes and herbs, served over pasta.

Wanabea Farm is a relatively new operation operated by Bruce Marchegiani in the former livestock auction barn at D&D Farm in Shushan. He started a year ago as a hobby and six months ago turned it into a business.
"It's not quite self-sustaining yet, but I hope it will be by next spring," Bruce said. He uses all-natural feeds and techniques and cross-breeds giant chinchilla bucks with California and white and red New Zealand does.

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.

Paul read an article in Wednesday's New York Times Dining In section that set his closely cropped hair ablaze. Apparently, several of our customers anticipated the reaction, because they brought us copies of the section for Paul to read. The Florence Fabricant article talks about the rising cost of beef because of the increase in the costs of grains and the shortage of high-quality meats. It notes that Peter Luger Steak House has had to cut back on reservations for lack of meat, and notes that a $42 prime boneless strip is starting to sound like a bargain.

The article remarks that: "The price of steers ready for slaughter jumped to 98 cents a pound last month from 83 cents a pound in April 2006, according to Barry Urner, a publisher of marketing reports.
After slaughtering, transporting and butchering, a restaurant's cost for a well-trimmed steak may be 30 percent higher, said Bob Mark, director of sales for Buckhead Beef Northeast, in South Plainfield, N.J., a division of Buckhead Beef, a wholesaler based in Atlanta."

What it doesn't say is that the actual costs of the best cuts of prime beef - the kind you expect to be served at Chez Sophie - is as much as $14 a pound. Add to that the equally high cost of the highly- skilled labor involved in preparing the dish and the sauce and the vegetables, and other overhead costs of the restaurant, and suddenly a simple, high-quality steak is a major luxury item.

"The way the article puts it is irritating, because people will assume that we're charging $36 for a steak that costs a buck 30,"
Chef Paul said grumpily. "The hooves costs a buck 30. The lips and the ears cost a buck 30, but the steaks cost a good deal more than that. I don't know about you, but I find that just a trifle annoying.
The more educated consumers won't make that assumption, but it will still irritate them."

The demand for ethanol and a harsh winter have caused the price of corn to rise about 60 percent over the last few months, according to The Times. Farmers are bringing their cattle to market younger and lighter to get a faster return on their investment. A steer that has been on grain for only 60 to 90 days doesn't end up as marbled as a steer that has been fed on grain for 120 to 140 days, and marbling is what makes meat more flavorful and higher quality. The experts are predicting the price of good meat won't be coming down any time soon.

Our Sunday Jazz brunch this week with pianist Cole Broderick will feature grilled duck breast with red chili glaze and citrus orzo ($15); apple pancake with cinnamon butter and your choice of bacon or sausage ($11); spicy sausage and shrimp with Tasso ham gravy over white grits ($13); and sautéed scallops and potato gallette with sweet pea purée ($15). Appetizer specials include steamed Rhode Island Littleneck clams ($12); a salad of Sunset Hill Farm 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, May 28, Tuesday, May 29, Wednesday, May 30 and Thursday, May 31.

$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:
daube du lapin sur ces pâtes with rabbit from Wannabea Farm

Notes on Nico and Léo:
Nico and Léo were at a playground the other day with Cheryl and their nanny, Hope. As always, Cheryl was worrying too much about whether four-year-old Nico knows how to play well with other kids. Nico was climbing around a jungle gym shouting and roaring, and a slightly older boy walked up to Cheryl and asked: "Why does he keep saying 'T- Rex' ?" Cheryl shrugged and resisted the impulse to tell her son not to be a goober. Much to Mom's surprise, however, the older boy didn't decide that Nico was too weird to play with. He ran in front of Nico, waved his arms, and said, "Please don't eat me! I'm not meat!"
Suddenly, all the kids on the playground were playing Nico's game, with him as the center of attention. He focussed on one girl in particular, a five-year-old named Ruby, whom he kept bear-hugging. At some point, Hope yelled across something to Cheryl, which Cheryl interpreted through the din as "Nico just put his hands on that little girl's throat and choked her."

Mom reached a hand inside the jungle gym, snatched Nico out and carried him over to a picnic table for a "time out." He sobbed in protest and his mother told him he needed to calm down for two minutes and meditate on why it is wrong to choke a little girl.
"That's wasn't a little girl," Nico cried indignantly. "That was my sister!"

With Nico, we thought we'd seen every strange form of baby behavior, but Léo has certainly added some new tricks to our book. The latest is a compulsion to reorganize all the throw pillows and blankets in the living room - for hours - while screaming at the top of her lungs. This happens every night and we can't figure out what the crying is about. It could be that she's teething her back molars.
We've tried assuaging her hunger, but sometimes she lobs the bottle of milk directly in our faces. We've thought maybe it was a lack of attention, so we've tried reading and carrying her around and playing. She thrusts off each activity and goes back to the pillows and blankets, most of which are too large for her to move by herself.
Sometimes she wants to build herself a little pillow nest on the couch, arranging and rearranging the cushions until she is buried, but never seeming satisfied with the results.
Sometimes she wants to bury a parent under the pillows, crying in frustration throughout the entire construction process. The only way to stop the crying is to put her in the bath, which means by the time she outgrows this phase, she will have grown gills.

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538