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Hello, everyone.

In honor of the first local apples from Saratoga Apple, Chef Paul has decided to make next week's Pink Plate Special Cornish hen Normande with Calvados and cream.

"We got Honey Crisps and Belle de Boskops, about which I'm thrilled,"
Paul said.

Belle de Boskops (also spelled Boskoop) were discovered in the Netherlands in the 1850s. They are one of the great pie apples, with a sharp taste and a crisp texture. Most of the apple guides say these apples, and their large, lumpy shape and dull color, are inappropriate as a snack apple, but we disagree. (Who wants soft, sweet apples? Maybe people without teeth, but since we were aged one and grew our front teeth, we've preferred crisp, tart apples.) The Honeycrisp apple was produced from a 1960 cross of Macoun and Honeygold apples as part of the University of Minnesota's breeding program. The goal in creating this apple was to develop a variety that could withstand difficult winters without losing fruit quality.
The skin is mostly red with a yellow background, while the surface has shallow dimples and dots; flavour ranges from mild to strongly aromatic, depending on the degree of maturity; flesh is cream- coloured and coarse. This apple is great for fresh eating and baking.

The Pink Plate is a weekly prix fixe special we offer on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. For $32 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.

We did our first night-time wedding Saturday night, and we have to say the months of preparation were well worth it. All night long and the next day, the entire staff kept saying "We love these two families." In the diner, we could only do receptions for very small weddings because of the size of the space. We've done a lot of rehearsal dinners and morning-after brunches and late-night after parties, and we did one daytime wedding reception last year, but this was the first time we've done a full-fledged evening reception with dancing and a wedding cake and Champagne toasts. It was delightful to see how happy and appreciative the guests were. The bride and groom were engaged last year at the table in front of the fireplace, and from that evening on, they've been talking to us about the party they wanted to throw.

There are several unusual things about the way we do wedding receptions. When you go to a catering hall, you generally have a few standard menu choices and frequently the guests have to choose in advance what they will be having if it's a plated dinner. We started with a cocktail party for several hours with Peg Delaney playing piano and Bill Delaney on stand up bass. At the couple's request, we greeted the guests at the door with trays of "soapy nipples," a concoction of homemade ice cream, rum and orange juice served in a martini glass.

The hors d'oeuvres included Blue Point oysters (some of the family is from Blue Point); cured salmon and pâté crostinis; mini crabcakes, smoked Bay scallops with raspberry fennel purée; vodkas infused with herbs from our courtyard garden; and in honor of a family joke, deviled eggs.

Cheryl has been arranging flowers for Chez Sophie for more than a decade, since Sophie first taught her how to get the stems to stand up in a glass, and the bride and groom asked her to do the flowers, rather than have an outside florist handle it. It was the biggest floral job she had ever tackled and she actually got nervous as she ordered $1,000 worth of orchids, hydrangeas, lisianthus, freesia, dahlias, and other flowers from a wholesaler. What if they spent all this money and didn't like what she did? Cheryl's style is very natural, not heavily constructed. She lets the flowers do the talking rather than forcing them into intricate constructions of floral foam and glue. In philosophy, her arrangements are a lot like her husband's food - start with good ingredients and don't screw them up.
After all, they both learned from Sophie, whose rule was to let nature shine through, to keep things simple and elegant. Cheryl spent all day Friday making three huge arrangements and 18 smaller vases for the tables, and probably wouldn't have slept at all that night if the bride and groom hadn't stopped in Friday to ooh and ahh over the results.

We dressed the tables in simple white linens, with the flower arrangements and candles, and little silver, gem-encrusted frames to mark the table assignments. The menus were printed on vellum and tied with yellow organdy ribbons. When the guests were seated after three hours of snacking and socializing, we started them with a truffled cauliflower bisque with lardons and our servers helped them choose between rack of lamb aigre-doux with warm bean salad and sun-dried tomatoes; NY strip steak with morels, port and foie gras butter, seared tilapia on a tomato-fennel-saffron braise; veal scallopine cooked in cream and lemon; Long Island duck with a savory pear tartlett in puff pastry with a truffled Madeira sauce; and roasted Cornish hen aux herbes, with roasted root vegetables.

The guests were effusive. Several of them came up to Cheryl to tell her that they couldn't believe they were having the best meal of their lives at a wedding. That was extremely gratifying, because we knew how important it was to the bride and groom that they present something very special to their family and friends. The guests could have missed the point, but they didn't. They ate like gourmands and appreciated every bite.
After dinner, the couple came upstairs to enjoy their first dance as a married couple, share in a Champagne toast and cut the wedding cake. (We made a lemon "ounce" cake with raspberry mousse topped with fresh raspberries and candied angelica root; chocolate "kilo" cake with mocha buttercream and lemon cheese pie.) The next morning, they came back for breakfast, and were still charming and happy. We loved this wedding.

We are doing another wedding reception on Saturday, September 29. We will still be serving dinner and drinks, but not in the main dining room, which is fully booked by the bride and groom. We are taking over the conference room that is adjacent to the restaurant and setting up Chez Sophie South.

We;ve had such succes with our Sunday brunch that we've decided to do it on Saturday, too. On Sunday, our artist-in-residence, jazz pianist Cole Broderick, plays the baby grand piano from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The brunch menu this Saturday and Sunday will feature bouillabaise ($16); rboeuf Bourguignon ($15); poached eggs crostini with spinach, smoked bacon and gouda
($14); and linguini with spicy crawfish butter ($14). Appetizer specials include moules marinière ($13); a salad of Sunset Hill Farm greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7); crabcake with lemon caper mayonnaise ($16) 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 ($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).

We are looking for a day time bartender to work Monday, Thursday, Friday and every other Saturday and Sunday. Please apply in person and ask for our head bartender, Mitch Rowen.

Live Piano Jazz
Jazz pianist Cole Broderick plays the baby grand Tuesday and 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: $80 to $200 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: 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
offered Monday, September 24, Tuesday, September 25, Wednesday, September 26, and Thursday, September 27.

$32 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:
Cornish hen Normande with Calvados and cream

Notes on Nico and Léo:
Twenty-month-old Léo has been rather vehemently saying '"Day-Ba" and shaking her head up and down for weeks, and we've been at a loss to figure out what it is she's actually trying to tell us. Sometimes this pronouncement is proceeded by the word Geeko as in "Geeko Day- Ba!" with a lot of wild gesticulating. We have no idea what she means. Cheryl developed a theory that it might mean diaper, because a couple of times Léo grabbed her crotch while saying it, but she also says "Di-Po" to indicate diaper. Also, the two times Cheryl made this connection, there was nothing in the diaper. That could still be the right answer, because occasionally Léo will tell us about her diaper before she's done anything in it, which if we were quicker on the uptake, could result in early potty training. And we can't figure out what Geeko, which is how she says her brother's name Nico, has to do with her Day-Ba. We had the same kind of puzzle with Nico when he was about 22 months old. Every time we took him into a store, he would excitedly start chanting "Ginko-buh." We thought it referred to a food or a toy he wanted until a restaurant customer, upon hearing the story, pointed out that it was December and the child was simply singing along to "Jingle Bells," which was playing on the Muzak in every store we entered.

Because we had a wedding and a charity event this week, the Parker family was not able to take a post-season camping trip. So Paul and Cheryl built a firepit in the middle of the backyard, pitched a tent and invited the neighbors and the grandparents over to roast weiners and marshmallows. We told each other stories all night about dinosaurs and wild pigs that scrabbled at people's doors until we all fell asleep.

At daybreak Tuesday, we awoke in the tent to a strange scrabbling noise outside. Nico sat bolt upright and said: "Mommy! What is that?"
Perplexed, Cheryl unzipped the tent flap and peered into the chilly morning mist. Two squirrels were chasing each other frantically around a giant Chinese elm in the backyard and their paws were making all the racket. Nico was reassured that it wasn't one of the wild pigs his Daddy had put into a bedtime story. But he announced: "I'm done. I don't need to go back to sleep."
His Mom grunted and pulled the blanket over her head. Nico persisted:
"What did you dream about, Mommy?"
"I dreamed I got to go back to sleep until the sun was up," she grumbled. Nico responded: "That's not a dream, Mommy. "That's a wish."

He did go back to sleep, and eventually Cheryl had to roust both children with sippy cups of steaming cocoa. "I had a dream, Mommy,"
the groggy boy said. "I dreamed that Daddy let me eat all the candy I wanted."

"That's not a dream, Nico," Mommy said. "That's a wish."

The Parker family
at Chez Sophie
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. It is owned today by Sophie and Joseph's son, Paul Parker, and his wife, Cheryl Clark. In June of 2006, they moved the restaurant into their current location in The Saratoga Hotel on Broadway..

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P.S. Each month we draw a name at random from our database of customers and send them a $50 gift certificate to Chez Sophie. If you would like to be added to this promotions database, which is owned 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 mail or email for a free glass of champagne or dessert on their birthdays or anniversaries. (You only need to enter once to be eligible every month.)

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