Hello, everyone.

The stone fruits aren't yet local, but they are delicious this year.
Paul did a supermarket shop Sunday night and came back with a huge bag of peaches and nectarines, which we placed in a big pottery bowl made by Jim Sankowski. Léo, enticed by the smell, clambered up on a dining room chair, mounted the dining room table, stripped off her dress and diaper and proceeded to plunge her teeth - really more like her whole face - into ripe, luscious fruit after fruit. Cheryl, who was washing dishes, didn't cotton on to this orgiastic exercise until Nico began to complain that his sister was dripping juice all over the screen of the laptop he had borrowed from his Papa.

Chef Paul's experiments with the fruit are perhaps less full-bodied than his daughter's. He caused to be made a nectarine melba, with nectarines poached in lime zest, lime juice and simple syrup on top of our own vanilla ice cream with raspberry sauce and vanilla whipped cream. It was executed beautifully by Paul's garde manger, Brian Netzel. As one longtime customer described it Thursday night, "it's so delicate, so summery and unexpectedly light. Just the perfect combination of sweet and tart."

The heat and rains have pushed the herbs in our courtyard into overdrive, which is lovely, because we were a little late getting them into the ground. The yard at our house is dripping with black raspberries, which we hope to have a chance to harvest before the birds and deer get them all. Paul wants to use a bucket of them to make a sauce for fresh elk.
The heat is also pushing along the produce from the local farms admirably. We've gotten some gorgeous radicchio and baby rainbow carrots, zucchini and fava beans from Kilpatrick Farm and sweet corn from Sheldon Farms.

The weather also made Tuesday night a rather fascinating exercise in obstacles. The power went off intermittently at the restaurant, the result of rolling brownouts and blackouts caused by the heat. Each time it happened, poor night captain Erica Miller had to run around and shut down all seven point-of-sale computers (which are spread out over what seems like a city block when you have customers waiting for
food) and reset them. From time to time, expediter Thomas Gray held a flashlight so Paul and his staff could finish cooking the food. The power went out solidly for about an hour, but in other hotels it stayed out all night, so The Saratoga and Chez Sophie filled up with refugees.

Paul came home smelling rather like he'd been in a sauna with a wheel of Limburger cheese, but fairly assured we'd done the best we could do under the circumstances.

He's planning a special seafood dish for tonight, with seared scallops, shrimp and monkfish. He pops the monkish and scallops into the oven after the searing, makes a sauce in the same pan with saffron, mushrooms and tomato and finishes it with a little tomato water and truffled potatoes.

He and the customers have been very happy with a new pheasant dish, in which the birds are wrapped with bacon and and cooked with exotic mushrooms and pinot noir.
"The sauce is absolutely amazing," said John Adams, a young sergeant in Paul's kitchen. "It's nice, complex, rich, without being overwhelming. It's classic comfort food."
Last night, he was using morels, mousserons and maitake mushrooms.

Morels are among the most highly prized of all the wild harvest mushrooms. Their great value can be explained both by their splendid flavor and their elusiveness. While hikers routinely stumble across 10 pounds of brightly colored chanterelles, morels are easier for the inexperienced to trample right past.
Morels grow in temperate latitudes around the world, in both conifer and hardwood forests. In North America, they usually emerge first along the West coast in early spring and later in much of the forested East, from the Appalachians up through the Great Lakes region, with scattered harvests into the summer and fall months.

Maitakes, also known as Hen of the Woods mushrooms, have a firm supple base and a cluster of dark fronds that are crumbly at the edges. They have a distinct, woodsy aroma and are used in Japanese traditional medicine to lower high blood pressure and blood lipids.

Mousserrons, also called fairy ring champignons, are tiny grey/brown mushrooms the size of a fingernail. It is one of the all-time, great spring mushrooms. To see pictures of the uncooked version, visit.
http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/Mushrooms.Folder/Fairy%20Ring%
20Mushroom.html
By the way, a sense of accuracy and self preservation leads us to refer to farmed mushrooms as "exotic" rather than "wild." The governmental powers frown upon the use of true wild mushrooms by restaurants because they tend not to trust the chefs of most establishments to be able to tell a chanterelle from a shoe.

We have been serving the patrons and performers of the New York City Ballet both before and after performances. If we get requests, we will hold the kitchen open past our regular hours, (10 p.m. for the full menu, 11 p.m. for the bar menu) and if we are doing that, then walkins are welcome as well. Just call to see if we are still serving.

SWEETBREAD ALERT: Sweetbreads were on the menu Wednesday and Thursday, and Paul has nine portions for Friday. If you are one of the sweetbread fanatics, call ahead to reserve your gland.

You can order a Chez Sophie picnic box lunch to pick up in the morning and take with you wherever you plan to spend the day. There are three options: chilled filet mignon with a variety of condiments; roasted Cornish hen and a vegetarian 'grand plateau des sans visages'
which will be an array of salads with a balance of proteins, vegetables and starches. Each of the dishes will be served with two sides, something with fresh, seasonal vegetables and something like fingerling potatoes dressed in olive oil and sea salt. You can order the boxes by telephone the night before by calling 518.583.3538 and pick them up any time after 8 a.m. The prices will range from $17 to
$21 per entree.

Our Sunday Jazz brunch this week with pianist Cole Broderick will feature pan-seared tuna with stir-fried vegetables ($15); plum- and pear-stuffed pancake with glazed ham steak ($13); quiche Lorraine with a side salad ($13); and Parmesan-crusted chicken with mashed potatoes and country-style cream gravy ($14). Appetizer specials include Rhode Island Littleneck clams steamed with white wine and herbs ($12); a salad of Sunset Hill Farm greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7); crabcake with caper mayonnaise ($14) 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 at an additional charge or you can order from our extensive wine list.
Cost: $75 per person for seven 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.
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 is on summer vacation.

Notes on Nico and Léo:
We stopped at a farmstand the other day and a couple of domesticated turkeys decided to get very familiar with the car. One sauntered up to Nico's open window to look for snacks, then sat down in front of the car. Another settles at the rear. Cheryl, who could no longer see the birds, got out of the car to shoo them away, but by the time she got back into her seat they had renested into their blocking postures. She didn't want to blow the horn and bother the neighbors, so she got back out and shooed again. As the bird settled down in front of the car for a third time, four-year-old Nico advised: "Just run over it, Mommy, and we can eat it."

After Nico and Léo patiently endured an extended run of boring errands with their mother Tuesday, they went to run in the sprinklers in the wading park at Lake Avenue and then smeared chocolate ice cream all over themselves. It was still early, and Nico began lobbying for a new toy. Cheryl realized the child had just outgrown all his shorts and pants, so she made a deal with him: if he patiently tried on clothes with no whining or misbehavior, then he could look at toys for as long as he wanted, and choose ONE item. The clothes shopping went very well and the toy shopping threatened to last for hours. Mom vetoed many of his toy choices, trying to impart a little consumer education about value and values to her babes.
Then, while we were in the back of the store, far from the windows, the power went off. After a second, both children started shrieking "Mommy" and running pell mell in the darkness, and Cheryl finally corraled them by following the sound of their screams. The emergency lights flipped on, and Cheryl allowed the children to continue to look at toys for another half hour, warning Nico not to be too disappointed if we weren't allowed to buy anything because the computers would probably not be working on emergency power.

Sure enough, when we got to the checkout stand, the only option the clerk could give us was to save the basket of goodies and allow us to come back for it the next day. Nico was a trooper, and didn't cry, impressing the store clerks to no end. Later, on the ride home, he
said: "I don't think we couldn't bring everything home because there was no power. I think it was because the stuff in our basket cost too much."

We were driving to work along the farm roads looking for horses and cows, but the day was very hot and all the livestock had taken cover.
So Cheryl began pointing out the wildflowers in the ditches and explaining to Nico the names of each flower. "The purple ones are loosestrife," Cheryl intoned. "They aren't a native species, but were introduced from Eurasia accidentally, probably from the ballast water dumped by ships into rivers. They look like liatris, which is a florist flower but it belongs to a different family. Loosestrife is very pretty, but unfortunately, it has crowded out a lot of the indigenous flowers, such as cattails and wild lupine, which is important for the survival of the Karner Blue Butterfly, which is an endangered species."

To which Nico replied succinctly: "Mommy. Stop talking about flowers."

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
518.583.3538