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Hello, everyone!

Paul and Cheryl are not vodka drinkers, and get a little exhausted by all the silly vodka-like products that people expect us to carry so they can have pink, blue, green and orange martinis. (A martini is, after all, gin and vermouth. Anything else is a novelty drink in an "up" glass.) However, every now and then a truly interesting vodka comes along and we expand our selection. We think that Cîroc could be one of those products.

It is the first vodka made entirely from grapes, rather than wheat, rye or potatoes. The grapes are snap-frost mauzac blanc from the Gaillac region, and hand-tended ugni blanc from Cognac. Grown in the high elevations and cold temperatures of the Gaillac in southwest France, the mauzac grapes impart a fresh flavor. Mauzac is Gaillac¹s oldest grape variety, dating back to the Roman times, and is used in a wide variety of wines depending on when it is picked. For winemaking, Mauzac is blended with Loin de l¹Oeil (Len de l¹El in the local dialect) to add finesse and style.

Ugni blanc is a primary grape in Cognac and Armagnac and is used to make neutral wines with high acid, medium alcohol and little or no aroma. Like its Italian twin, Trebbiano, it is blended with other grapes to add delicacy and suppleness. The grapes are cold fermented to preserve their fresh flavor and distilled five times for purity, then blended with artesian spring water.

Not that we care what other people think, but Wine Enthusiast recommended this vodka in April as superb (rated 90 to 95).

We have another new French vodka of a completely different style, made from buckwheat and flavored with apples, called Citadelle from Dominique Rechou. Cheryl thinks this smells like heavenly apple perfume, but still has no interest in drinking vodka. We¹ve tried to make ³apple martinis² with this vodka, but find that most people who ask for "appletinis" are expecting vodka flavored with a sickly sweet green schnapps-like liqueur which looks like antifreeze and tastes like cough syrup. Against our better judgment, we carry this stuff (called Sour Apple Pucker) because some of our customers seem to like it.

Nevertheless, we¹d really love it if real vodka connaisseurs came in tasted these two French vodkas to let us know if they are as good as they smell.

We¹re a little behind getting new wines on the wine list (the cases are stacked up in the basement waiting for Cheryl's hand to heal from surgery) but we have a new Pouilly Fumé that is worth mentioning. We got a discount on this exceptional wine and can offer it at $42 a bottle. The producer, Fournier Père et Fils, makes the lovely Vieille Vignes Sancerre we¹ve poured by the glass this summer. Our distributor had a shortage of Sancerre and shipped us the Pouilly Fumé instead. We find it to be truly full-bodied, round, with a grassiness from the sauvignon blanc. It¹s melony and soft and smoky, without the bright acidity of the Sancerre from the same producer. The word fumé is French for smoke and comes from the smoky, flinty quality of these wines.

By the way, we have been enjoying the heck out of a new triple cream goat's milk cheese made by Coach Farm in Pine Plains, New York. Coach Farm has faithfully provided us with the farmstead fresh goat cheese we have used in our baked and marinated goat cheese appetizers for years. This new triple cream is to die for and is a handsome addition to our cheese course this week.

Paul is scheduled to appear on the Noon News today with Tracy Egan on Channel 10 WTEn the local ABC affiliate, to demonstrate a recipe. He has decided to prepare something simple and classic that nearly anyone can do at home. Because the television station is going to give away the recipe on its website later today, we thought we¹d give our customers an advance copy:

Roasted chicken with Madeira-tarragon sauce

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Salt and pepper the inside of a young, tender bird generously and stuff it with two or three springs of fresh tarragon and a little unsalted, sweet cream butter. Also stuff a little butter under the skin of the breast and tie the legs of the bird together with a piece of cotton cooking twine.

Set the bird in a pan with a little more butter underneath to keep it from sticking. Roast until you can stick a skewer between the breast and the thigh and the juice runs clear, about 20 minutes per pound. Baste with pan juices every 15 minutes and just before removing from pan.

Remove from the oven and take the meat off the carcass. Pour off the excess butter from the roasting pan and quickly sauté some mushrooms in the roasting pan. Add a sprig of tarragon and some salt and pepper. When the pan is very hot, pour in several ounces of Madeira. It will deglaze the pan (that is, it will lift the bits of browned food off the bottom of the pan to create the base for a sauce.) Reduce the Madeira to about half, and add heavy cream to taste (a dash to a lot depending on how thick you¹d like the sauce.

Serve with mashed potatoes and carrots.

While we're on the subject of Paul and fowl, he started doing the quail a new way Thursday, calling it "pastiche de cailles en chinois". He's poaching the little birds in soy sauce and honey and chicken stock, ginger, sesame seeds and Chinese five spice powder and serving them with a little of the poaching stock with wild rice and fresh tomatoes. As wonderful as we thought his previous grilled quail invention with the fresh herbed beurre composées were, the customers were raving about this new dish Thursday. As Paul notes, "This is actually from a very old, very vague recipe of Sophie's. I've re-created something i remember from Chez Sophie's distant past. The best thing is, the quail plump when you cook them. In the kitchen, we refer to them as Ballpark Quail"

We are pleased to announce that we have paired with the importer Melissa Seré Selections for the Saratoga Wine & Food Festival on September 4, 5, and 6th.

Seré, a brilliant finder of clever and appealing wines in the Loire Valley, Provence and other regions, was planning to be with us during the dinner on September 4th. She passed away recently after a long illness, but will be represented at the dinner by Gary Cheong, who has lectured and taught classes around the world on her behalf for several years.

The meal will start with an amuse-bouche (taste tickler) of cured wild Alaskan salmon marinated in wine and coriander with Grande Cuvée Vieilles Vignes Rosé from Domaine Saint André de Figuière, 2001. The next course will be roasted wild striped bass with winter savory, paired
With Grande Cuvée Vieilles Vignes Blanc from Domaine Saint André de Figuière, 2001. We¹ll follow that with exotic mushrooms and barley in broth with truffle butter, paired with Bourgeuil Chateau de Minière from Couly-Dutheil, 2000.

Sunrise Mountain Buffalo Ranch in Cambridge will provide us with buffalo ribeye for the next course, for which Paul will make a sauce of black raspberries and bison stock. That dish will be paired with Chinon Clos de l¹Olive from Couly-Dutheil, 1995. A cheese course will be accompanied by Chinon Clos de l'Echo from Couly-Dutheil, 1999. A dessert of fresh pears poached with vanilla will finish the meal.

Information about tickets can be found at http://www.spac.org/calender/wine.html or by calling 518.584.9330 x 3021

We¹re are participating in the 7th Annual Tomato Fête sponsored by the Eastern Native Seed Conservancy on Sunday, Sept. 7. This is a very special event at the Eastover Resort in Lenox, Mass. Tickets, which are $45, benefit the Conservancy and the Heirloom Tomato Field Project. Besides our own world-famous Chef Paul Parker, the event will feature tomato dishes prepared by Chef David Britton of the Springwater Bistro in Saratoga, the event will feature tomato-based specialties from Melissa Kelly of Primo in Maine; Shawn Boyle of Bistro Zinc, Peter Platt of the Old Inn on the Green, David Lawson of Aubergine and William Webber of Verdura, all of the Berkshires; Chris Douglas of Icarus, Thomas John of Mantra and Raymond Ost of Sandrine¹s Bistro in Boston; and Floyd Cardoz, Tabla and Robert Gurvich of Alison by the Beach in New York City. The event starts with a lecture at 1 p.m. by Dr. Andrew Smith, author of The Tomato in America and Pure Ketchup, a national ketchup competition and tastings of unusual tomatoes from around the world.

For more information or tickets contact 413-229-8316 or visit www.ensceeds.org.

We will be open Monday through Saturday Labor Day week and will not be shutting down for a week's vacation this fall. After Labor Day week, we will go back to our normal year-round schedule of Tuesday through Saturday from 5:30 p.m.

The Pink Plate Special will come back the second week of September, when we go back to our five-day-a-week, Tuesday through Saturday schedule. Paul said he needs that second day off, Mondays, to think about the Pink Plate, so he¹s skipping Labor Day week, when we¹re still open Monday through Saturday. The first Pink Plate of the season will be announced in next week¹s newsletter.

Jazz pianist Cole Broderick will be playing our first Pink Plate Tuesday September 9th, starting at 6:30 p.m. depending on reservations. He will miss the two middle Tuesdays in September, the 16th and 23rd, once because of a private party we've booked in the back room and once because of a previous television engagement he has. After that, we expect to have every Tuesday night of the year.

Seating within sight of the keyboard is limited, so please specify which room you would like when you make your reservations for Tuesdays. (You can hear the music in the front dining room, but you can't see him unless you're in the back room.) To hear samples of his work, visit http://www.colebroderick.com

Notes on Nicholas: Six month-old Nicholas has not yet mastered the art of the crawl, but he has discovered locomotion. Mom had put a queensize feather bed on the living room floor Tuesday morning to give the boy a padded place to practice pushups. She sat down with him, but fell asleep sitting up (he's teething, you know.) When she woke up 10 minutes later, Nico was gone. At first she thought Paul had collected him so she could nap, then remembered that Paul was already next door at Chez Sophie with a plumber. Before she could panic, she heard these curious little owl hoots. Tracing the "ooo.....ooo" noises, she found that Nico had inched backwards off the mattress and lodged his backside under the bassinet, which was parked on the hardwood floor about three feet away. All that was showing was his little bald head and a grin.

P.S. Nico's first tooth broke through Thursday morning. The second tooth broke through Thursday afternoon.

Hope To See You Soon!
Paul, Cheryl & Joseph
at chez sophie bistro
518-583-3538

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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