Hello, everyone.

We've always had a love hate relationship with alcohol.
For the last 15 years we have vehemently avoided the whole "martini menu" vogue. If it's not made of gin and vermouth, it's not a martini. We don't buy a lot of novelty liquors, and we don't try to be trendy. Cheryl and Paul, who liberally sample beer and wine, seldom venture into hard alcohol, save for the occasional sip of single malt Scotch or tequila.

But at the same time, there is a long Chez Sophie history of specialty cocktails. The "Continental," a mixture of sweet and dry vermouth on ice with an orange peel, has been our house aperitif for decades. Cheryl recently popularized a Champagne cocktail like a kir royale made with Santa Teresa Rhum Orange liqueur rather than cassis.
There was Joseph's Pear and Sophie's Apple, which were after dinner drinks. And people still come in asking for a Pomme Rouge, even if the last one they had was made by Joseph 30 years ago.

"The Pomme Rouge is an aperitif, if you like being hit in the head by a hammer swung by an elephant right before dinner," Paul said. "It's made with Calvados, applejack and Williams Pear Brandy. We used to have customers who would have four of those. How can you even feel your hands afterwards?"
In honor of the past and in praise of the future, our illustrious bartender, Mitch Rowan, has been working on a short but fantastical (we'd say fantastic but the word has lost some of its fantasy connotations without the excessive suffix) cocktail menu, which will debut June 11. "It's not a martini menu," Paul clarified. It's a list of fun cocktails, including a peach julep, "The Blackout," made with rye, blackberry brandy, lime and simple syrup; a basil lemondrop; a Key lime cocktail; a pomegranate martini; a pear martini and Planter's punch.
"We have to get little umbrellas," Paul said.
"You're kidding me right?" Cheryl asked.
"Just for this one drink, the Planter's Punch," Paul said. "We're having a goof."

"We've decided the drinks, and my next step is I'm going to write a menu," Mitch said. "Then we've got to taste them all and adjust them, figure out what the ingredients cost, and then name them."
We started Thursday with tasting and analyzing a yet to be named drink (suggestions appreciated) made with premium tequila, Cointreau and yuzu juice (a Japanese citrus fruit which leaves a kind of pine resin and grapefruit flavor on the palate). Yuzu is believed to be a hybrid of sour mandarin and Ichang papeda, whatever that is. Paul has been experimenting with Yuzu in the kitchen, and it was inevitable that a bottle worked its way out to the bar.

"Man is that different," Mitch said. "Let me put just a hair of simple syrup in it."
"You want it sweeter?" Paul said. "I think it's sweet enough, but maybe a little less Yuzu and more tequila. The Yuzu is so strong, that it overwhelms the tequila."
"That's actually really good," Mitch said after making the adjustment. "Maybe a little orange juice? Some people do that with margaritas." Then he tasted it again, and realized that it was perfect.
"You know, I really like that," Mitch judged. "If you can make something that good with three simple ingredients, then you've really got a cocktail."

Chez Sophie's history is speckled with signature dishes that date back to the time when Paul was in short pants. One of those dishes is duck breast with apricot and green peppercorn sauce. This preparation appears faithfully on our menu to this day, even though Paul is a chef who hates to repeat himself. (Unless he's had a few Pomme
Rouges.) Thursday Paul discovered that the breakfast staff had served his most of his backup supply of apricot confiture with toast and muffins, making it impossible to make Sophie's special sauce in a batch big enough to last through the weekend. Cheryl suggested just pulling the duck from the menu for the night and dealing with it the next day, but Paul whispered: "Are you kidding? This is probably my only chance to try something different with the duck." Given the time frame, the preparation is not insanely different. He substituted tamarind for the apricot and lined the bottom of the plate with coconut milk.
'I think it's really amazing," Paul said. "The tamarind sauce is spicy, but the spiciness all comes from the green peppercorns. The coconut calms it down a little bit. It's not surprising, because it's a classic combination, but what I'm doing is not at all classic. It's kind of the old joke; it's exactly the same recipe. It's just all the ingredients are different."
He probably will only be doing this Friday night, and maybe Saturday if there's any left, in case anyone is planning to come and beat us up for playing with one of the sacred Sophie recipes.

We're expecting sablefish for the weekend, which Paul will poach gently in butter with lemongrass. Black Sable Cod (anoplopoma
fimbria) resembles cod, but is not actually a member of the codfish family. Sablefish are found in the Eastern Pacific Ocean from Mexico to Alaska's Aleutian Island chain. They eat pollock, flounders, rockfish, herring and even sea anemones. There's evidence that these gourmands occasionally eat seal and birds. They can grow to 40 inches and 40 pounds, but most commercially caught sable are two feet long and less than ten pounds.
Sable is prized in Japan for its mild, rich buttery flavor and used in both cooked dishes and sushi.

The Pink Plate Special this week will be Coquilles St. Jacques with bay scallops. The classic recipe calls for scallops to be lightly poached in white wine and herbs, then removed from the poaching liquid. The liquid is then turned into a velouté sauce with cream and a little flour and then served with the scallops and a mushroom and shallot duxelle. The dish was named for Saint James, the brother of John, one of the 12 apostles. James is famous for purportedly saving a drowning knight, who emerged from the sea covered in scallop shells.

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.

Our Sunday Jazz brunch this week with pianist Cole Broderick will feature Asian chicken and shrimp salad over rice vermicelli ($14); grilled loin lamb chops with garlic jus and oven-roasted confetti potatoes ($18); grilled pork loin chop with pineapple cider sauce and sautéed choy ($14); and poached egg with tomato, fontina and portabello mushroom ($12). 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 10:30 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 ($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, June 4, Tuesday, June 5, Wednesday, June 6 and Thursday, June 7.

$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:
Coquilles St. Jacques with bay scallops

Notes on Nico and Léo:
Cheryl had a really tough decision to make this week. She needed to make a quick, two-night run home to the South to surprise her mother and younger sister on their birthdays. Logistically, this was not such an easy thing to do, because she has two small children and a restaurant to worry about, but Paul and the staff encouraged her to do what she needed to do because her family in Arkansas and Tennessee almost never see her, her mother's been sick, a new baby was born to her older sister's daughter a few weeks ago and there was a surprise party planned. Last-minute tickets on Memorial Day weekend were criminally expensive, but she used up 47,000 frequent flyer miles and got a series of flights that would get her there.

The only problem was that Nico, who is four, no longer flies for free. And without Paul, who had to stay in Saratoga to mind the business, Cheryl was fairly certain she could not handle both Nico and Léo in a series of airports. So she had to figure out how to explain to Nico that she and Léo were flying in airplanes to visit Grandma Betty and he wasn't. She agonized over it for two days, working herself into such a frenzy of guilt that her sister-in-law Ellen finally advised her to have Paul tell Nico in a matter-of-fact way so he didn't pick up the idea there was something wrong with the picture from his mother.

In the end, Nico was pretty cool about the whole thing. Léo on the other hand, suffered terribly, from cutting her final molars, from a persistent earache brought on by takeoffs and departures, from disorientation at being surrounded for two days by new people, many of whom talked funny and wanted to hug her a lot, and from missing her brother (she called all the small boys she met "Baby! and followed them around pathetically.)

It took Mom more than 24 hours to figure out that a small dose of infant ibuprofen would make her far more adaptable and stop the incessant crying.

Meanwhile, Nico was at home with Paul, who took him to visit Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma's children and grandchildren at their family camp in Riparius on the Hudson River Sunday. Paul discovered that Grandma Nancy's children are far more cautious about the safety of their children than he and Cheryl are. The adults were lingering on the screen porch over their meal and the children had wandered into the patch of woods between the house and the river. Having already ascertained Paul's laissez faire attitude, the other parents asked calmly: "Do you mind that your son is down by the river?"
"Bear in mind, this is the first time I've sat down to eat for months," Paul said, exaggerating slightly, but only slightly. "So I said, No, I dont mind, so long as everyone understands if he actually falls in, I'm going right through the screen door."

A few minutes later, a concerned parent asked: "Do you mind if he's playing on the rocks?" Paul said, Nah, let him play.
Then one of the parents mildly asked: "Do you mind that he just kicked his shoe into the river?"
"I was watching it when it happened, and he was standing by the edge of the water about 20 feet away from the porch, and he literally just kicked his shoe into the river," Paul said. By chance, he actually kicked his shoe into an eddy created by a rock, so it was still stuck there by the time that Paul sprinted the 20 feet to the shore.
"I just wonder what was going through his head when he did it."

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538