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Hello, everyone.

Sweetbread alert: Our veal purveyor is bringing us 5 pounds of sweetbreads, which will be purged and ready to serve by Monday. We use veal thymus gland, which has the mildest flavor and most velvety texture of all the sweetbreads. We soak it for at least 24 hours to make it even whiter and sweeter. It is truly prized offal.

We have a "sweetbreads call list" of people who are so desperately dedicated to Paul's glorious glands that they've asked us to call them whenever there might be a chance of scoring a plate of them. We will call those people this weekend, but it's first call, first served. Five pounds translates into 10 to 12 portions, so if you know now that you want some on Monday or Tuesday, call and reserve a portion.

Our Pink Plate Special this week will be "joues de porc" or pork cheeks. Every time we serve the cheeks of an animal, be it fish, veal or pork, we get the inevitable jokes about which cheeks are they. This is a cut of meat that spreads like butter, but don't take that the wrong way. Cheeks have become very popular with chefs, and not just because you never want to throw any part of the pig away.
This is a very fatty, and hence, incredibly tender and flavorful kind of pork. We shy away from it in the summer, because it is so rich, but at the first hint of crisp, fall weather, Chef Paul's fancy returns to braising cuts.

He'll braise the cheeks in a rich red wine demi served over a creamy, corn polenta. (Souschef Mark D. Graham has an impressive way with polenta, so it has come to feature in several of our menu items of
late.)

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.

The kitchen staff talked about how rich and fabulous this dish will be, and then tried to figure out what to serve for dessert.

"The pork cheeks are going to be so rich that we wanted to offer something not so rich that it feels like richness on top of rich,"
Chef Paul said. "We're trying to let them down easy."

The idea they came up with for one of the dessert options for the Pink Plate is an apple strudel made with kataifi, served with vanilla ice cream. Kataifi, pronounced kah-tah-EE-fee, is a phyllo-like pastry that has been passed through a shredder to make it look like vermicelli or shredded wheat. Baklava is thought to have originated in Assyria around the 8th century B.C. The dessert spread to other Middle Eastern and Mediterranean civilizations over time. The Greeks made an art of thinning the pastry put as much as humanly possible and the Turkish are credited with the innovations of shredding it beyond recognition. (The Turks call it kadayif, and the Greeks spell it ?ata?f?.)

Paul is bringing back one of his mother Sophie's classic country French recipes Sunday, poulet à la Sophie, or roasted poussin with Madeira, tarragon, mushrooms and cream. We serve this type of bird all the time, and it never fails to confuse our guests. The chief source of confusion is that the word looks like poisson, and frequently people think they are ordering fish, but are too shy to ask the server what kind. The second source of confusion is that poussin (pronounced POO-san) are used so interchangeably with Cornish game hens that they are frequently confused. Both are small, tender birds, but the poussin is small because it is young, and the Cornish hen is small because it is bred to be so. That expression- "spring chicken?" They are talking about poussin.

We are doing a 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 until 1 a.m., when the bar reopens to the public. We are taking over the conference room that is adjacent to the restaurant and setting up what we like to think of as Chez Sophie South. We are taking reservations, but not online, because we want to make sure that everyone who comes fully understands that we will be serving in an alternate dining room Saturday night.

We've had such success 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 roasted chicken breast with exotic mushrooms and tasso bread pudding with sweet Dijon ($16); crawfish andouille gumbo over basmati rice ($16); whole wheat gingerbread pancakes with choice of bacon or sausage ($14); and grilled hangar steak with black pepper and dried cherry sauce with oven-roasted fingerling potatoes ($16). Appetizer specials include Rhode Island Littleneck clams steamed in white wine ($13); a salad of Sunset Hill Farm greens tossed in a red wine vinaigrette ($7); crabcake with lemon caper mayonnaise ($16) escargots de Bourgogne
($11) 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).

Now that the weather is getting cool enough to fire up the fireplace, we'll be resuming our monthly Tango night tradition. We do this the first Wednesday of each month, barring conflicts from late-night dinner parties. World-class tango instructors Diane Lachtrupp and Johnny Martinez bring their Wednesday night tango class to our bar October 3 at 9 p.m. for cocktails and snacks, and offer free starter lessons to Chez Sophie customers. Neophytes are welcome to join the dancers for a little informal tango-ing, or they can just have a cocktail and watch the fun if they are feeling shy. For more information about Johnny and Diane, visit http://www.tangofusiondance.com/Dancerspix.html

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

Even though Paul and Mark haven't developed the menu for New Year's Eve 2007 yet, people are already booking reservations, so we thought we'd give you advance warning. We're sticking with the same format we used last year, because it worked very well, so why mess with a good thing?

Early diners (seated at 5, 5:30, 6 and 6:30 p.m.) will get a 5-course meal and glass of Champagne in one of the most elegant venues in town for $80 per person, plus tax and gratuity. The late-night New Year's Eve party features a nine-course menu, with seatings at 8, 8:30, 9 and 9:30 p.m. for $130 per person. Jazz Pianist Cole Broderick will start playing at 8 p.m., and we suspect there will be a bit of dancing in front of the fireplace, and a late night crowd that will expand dramatically after midnight.

The hotel sells out fairly early for New Year's Eve, so if you want to stay the night, think about booking a room now. (We know this from experience, because last year, Cheryl and Paul waited until late November and couldn't get a room for themselves on New Year's Eve.)

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, October 1, Tuesday, October 2, Wednesday, October 3, and Thursday, October 4.

$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:
pork cheeks braised in a rich red wine demi served over creamy polenta

Notes on Nico and Léo:

Paul and Cheryl took a rare two days off - together - and in a row - to take the children to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, better known as The Dinosaur Museum. It was glorious weather, and a great day and the children loved everything.

The hotel we stayed at is on Times Square, and after we watched "Night at the Museum" on pay-per-view, Cheryl slipped down to the street to get a couple of warm pretzels. By the time she came back up she was bearing two matching t-shirts with the "I (heart) NY" slogan.
The kids quickly put them on and Cheryl noted: "Now you two look like twins."
Nico rolled his eyes and said: "Mommy we are NOT twins!. We can't be twins."
"You're right," Cheryl conceded. "You can't be twins, because you're three years apart."
"Sometimes twins CAN be apart," Nico informed her knowledgeably. "But sometimes they are stuck together."

Paul finished reading a story to Nico and announced that it was bedtime. The four-year-old immediately began to wail like a fire engine.
"Nico, what is this? You know that every night you have to go to bed.
Why are you whining?"
Nico stopped immediately, and said very matter-of-factly: "But I always whine at bedtime."

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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