Brookhaven Market

Kicked off the new season of local farmer’s market with a visit to the Brookhaven Market on Dresden Ave. Originally we were going to visit the Atlanta Food Truck Park, which hosts a farmer’s market on Saturdays. But when we arrived, there were only four vendors set up, and not a single one had fresh produce. It was more like a mini flea market, with someone selling jewelery, someone selling crafts, someone selling pound cake, and someone selling iced coffee drinks. It is a young market, so maybe it will develop, but on this day is was very disappointing and we did not stay more than a few minutes.

We next opted for the Peachtree Road Farmer’s Market, held every Saturday on the grounds of the Catherdral of St. Philip. It claims to be the largest produce only open air market in town, and hosts numerous chef demos every Saturday. For some reason, they were no open this Saturday; they ran their market in the evening the previous Friday.

Getting desperate and annoyed, we finally found directions to the Brookhaven Market which was happily A)open, and B)small, but bustling and featured a number of diverse vendors. It is set up in the parking lot behind two restaurants (who are both customers as well of many of the produce vendors). I think there were about 12 vendors, so it didn’t take long to go through, but we did amble and talk with the people at the tables. There was a Jamacian couple who made fresh Mojito and Ginger Tonic juices, bottled and ready to mix with your favorite alcohol, or just drink straight. A Middle Eastern woman selling hummus, nan, and chutney. Produce vendors with assortments of fresh vegetables, still dirty and smelling of the gardens. This included a guy selling scarlet turnips, which I had never heard of but were quite mild and slightly sweet, even raw. A woman selling beer soap, the peach guy with crates of SC peaches, a woman selling assorted bread loaves made from freshly milled grains, a guy selling pasta and Italian breakfast cookies.

I spoke for a while with a woman who was selling assorted jarred soups, dips, and raw vegan chips she made in her dehydrator. She made them from flax meal, ground almonds, pureed yellow squash, and some other stuff. I tried a sample and thought it was quite good. I have a friend who is raw vegan who I expect to see in a week or so. If I haven’t gotten into them myself I will probably give them to her to enjoy.

I also spent a little time talking to a man who was selling farm-raised chickens and eggs. His eggs were about the same as the organic eggs I buy in Kroger, but his his chicken was around $4.60/pound. I still can’t get past this, and I think a lot of other people can’t either. I get why they cost what they do, but it is still to hard to swallow, buying a whole chicken for $20-$25. For the market to become sustainable someone is going to have to bite the bullet and pay up, but on this day it wasn’t going to be me. We also sampled some local goat cheeses which were pretty good, if not outstanding.

As a bonus, behind the market in the greenspace of an apartment complex I found a small vegetable garden set up for the residents. It was neat and well tended, with a garden bench at one end for people to sit and just be at peace in the garden. More and more, in tiny spaces and available niches, people are generating an excited energy about gardens, local produce, fresh ingredients, handmade products, and sustainable foods.

It is a nice little market that, while it didn’t hold anything outstanding or especially unique, was a pleasant and cozy addition to the character of that neighborhood.

Dinner and The Movies

My friend Calvin invited me to participate in an “Iron Chef” style themed-menu cook-off with him over the weekend. He was a little sparse on the details except to say that there would be about 20 guests at a dinner party for one of his clients. The theme was “food and the movies” and the idea was for each of us to present a menu where each dish reflected the theme of a certain movie. I whipped up a menu and sent it over to him, certain he would send it back with budgetary restrictions, but he didn’t. He said it looked good, and that cost wasn’t really a concern with this party. The host would pay whatever was necessary to get a top-notch dinner.

I’d put in a lot of hours at work for the week and asked Calvin to pick up most of the menu food for the evening. He’d said we’d have a couple of guys to help us prep things, and I assumed we’d be working out of the clubhouse kitchen since the host lived in a country club community. Some stuff I had to pick up myself on Friday because I wanted to cook and roast it overnight. I got all the ingredients, but then life and wife intervened and I didn’t get anything done on Friday night.

I got up around 4 am Saturday and began cooking my meats and smoking sugar plums for a sauce. That and a few other things kept me busy until it was time to go to the Spartan Race in Conyers. I pulled all the meats and let them chill while I went and ran the race. The race took longer than I planned and I had to rush back home, hop in the shower, scub off the mud and blood, get dressed and pack all the food. I high-tailed it over to the address Calvin gave me and found out we were not cooking at a clubhouse, but at someone’s home. I arrived a half hour late, but got right to work. The help Calvin suggested was coming never came and I had to do everything by myself. I worked on a tiny space on the counter top and Calvin and I had to share stovetop space. I finished up the components of my four dishes just as the guests were sitting down.

Calvin and I took turns taking out our dishes and explaining the plates and their connections to the movies. Calvin did a clam linguini inspired by “The Little Mermaid”, a grits and short-rib dish via “My Cousin Vinny”, a shrimp trio on cedar plank hommage to “Forrest Gump”, and a Royale with Cheese burger with vanilla shake ala “Pulp Fiction”.

My dishes were: “From Russia With Love” which had a potato hash tower wrapped with smoked salmon and topped with salmon roe, frisee salad, vodka cream sauce and borscht vinaigrette; “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” with a saffron-poached tiger shrimp crouching over a tamarind-glazed slice of bbq’d eel on a bed of green tea tapioca pearls, honey braised carrots, smoked plum sauce and lime chili pickle; “One Upon A Time In Mexico” with chipolte roasted pork tamale, adobo salsa, “riced” jicama and stewed tomatillo; and “Spaghetti Western” with BBQ chuck roast, BBQ marinara, calico baked beans, fresh fettuccini noodles and piavi cheese.

The guests scored us on presentation, taste, and tie-in to the movie. Calvin ended up winning but I didn’t care, it was his party and his guests and it was all in fun anyway. I got reimbursed for my expenses and a nice little wad of cash for helping him out. We cooked and plated and ran food and cleaned and packed up and it was 1am before I left their house and headed home. I had to unpack and unload it was after 2am by the time I was able to go to bed.

Everyone had a great time and we got lots of compliments and handshakes and back-pats on the food and the originality of our concepts. It certainly was fun to do and I always learn something while doing these kinds of gigs(ie, you can never be too organized!). Hopefully we will get to do something fun like this in the future.

Protein Power

In keeping with my goal to go higher in protein during at least one meal, I prepared one of my personal favorites: Steak Tartare. I’ve been off red meat almost completely for several months, but I decided this was a good way to kick off a powerful protein diet. I made a small salad of tomatoes and cucumbers with a lemon vinaigrette to start with. Then I finely chopped some garlic, parsley and red onions, mashed a little bit of anchovy I found in the very back of the fridge, bowled up some roasted tomatoes and Worchestershire sauce, sauteed some mushrooms, and daubed a little whole grain dijon mustard on a plate. From the store I bought some top round sirloin, very lean. I seasoned around 6 ounces with a little sea salt and stuck it in the freezer for about 10 minutes. I diced the very cold and firm meat into cubes and ran it through my meat grinder on a medium grind setting (I know the purists want to finely chop the meat by hand, but I went the grinding route, sue me). I formed the ground meat into a thick patty and pressed a well in the center. Into the well I laid an organic egg yolk. It made for a very pretty plate, I thought. After the salad I sprinkled the various condiments onto the patty and the yolk and used my fork to fold over the raw ground meat until everything was well combined. It tasted awesome, and pretty gourmet for workout fuel.

Not something I’d do very often. I still want to make red meat a rarity in my diet. But nothing wrong in being a little decadent in the pursuit of health and fitness.

Valentine's Day Dinner

Even though we were both pretty busy last week with work and school, S. and I carved out some hours on Tuesday to celebrate Valentine’s Day together. I did what I do best: cook; and she did what she does best: set the mood for romance.

While she set the stage upstairs I worked in the kitchen and in less than an hour made up a tasty ahi tuna and strawberry salad with heart of palm and zesty orange vinaigrette, her favorite honey-glazed smoked salmon with white lentils and asparagus sauteed in more orange vinaigrette with a kumquat relish on top, and chocolate-dipped strawberries paired with Rose Regale sparkling wine. Originally I was going to make creme brulees, but time escaped me.

The only thing I’d change would be using brown sugar to make the relish. It caused the bright orange kumquats to darken too much. They still tasted great, but I really wanted that splash of color to offset the green asparagus.

Holiday Party

For the seated dinner party I did recently, I composed a menu I thought would appeal to the host and be suitable for the occasion of his holiday party. I did a couple of back up menu options and he ended up blending two menu choices. He stressed how important the timing was going to be. Last year he did a very nice, very expensive dinner, but the dishes were so slow in coming out of the kitchen it was after 11:30pm before they got their entrees. There was an average wait of around 50 minutes between courses! He was very clear that he wanted to start around 7:30pm and for dessert to hit the table at 9:30pm. I told him that would be no problem, that the only thing we would be waiting on would be the diners, we would be doing things on their schedule, set and ready.

When guests arrived they noshed on some appetizers and sparkling prosecco to begin with. The apps were chef’s choice, and I created a trio of tasty amuse bouches:


• Roasted Apple with Caramel Sauce and Bleu Cheese Crumbles in a Phyllo Tart Shell
• Pulled Pork with Manchego Cheese and Spicy BBQ Sauce on Roasted Tortilla Chip Crisp
• Duck Confit with Fresh Thyme, Roasted Garlic and Quince Jelly
The Apple was the favorite with the ladies, and the guys liked the BBQ the best. Everyone ate the duck and all said it was good, but no one ate the quince jelly. I don’t know why.

When the apps had been devoured, the official welcome had been offered by the host, and everyone was seated (around 7:45pm), we got right to the first course:




Roasted Butternut Squash with Root Vegetable Timbale, Topped with Seared Scallops

I did such a good job on this dish at Thanksgiving I decided to add it to this menu. I smartened up and used only one scallop per bowl, since two sea scallops was really too much. Almost all butternut squash and only a splash of cream, with a mix of sweet potato, celery root, turnip and red onion in the timbale. Tasting it in the kitchen as we reheated it for service, even I had to stop and say: “Wow”. Lots of compliments on the flavor and what we did not serve I packed up for the hostess to have the next day. My only reservation was that the soup was too thick, almost like a pudding. But it went over well.







Mixed Greens with Dried Cranberries, Golden Raisins, Burgundy-Poached Seckle Pears, Candied Pecans and Pomegranate Vinaigrette


Trying to get a nice blend of sweet and sharp, and to cleanse the palate of the soup, the salad went very well with the chardonnay the host had chosen for this course.














Grilled Salmon Filet with Blood Orange Beurre Blanc, Pink Peppercorn-Crusted Beef Filet with Bourbon-Vanilla Sauce, Kabocha Squash and Porcini Mushroom Ravioli Tossed with Browned Butter and Sage, and Roasted Baby Vegetables

A complicated dish to assemble because of the number of people who wanted different temps on their meats. We pulled it off by laying out the plates on every available surface and running around with pots and spoons. I cooked all the salmon the same degree of doneness, and it remained very moist. I chose a sashimi grade of salmon, which has more fat and flavor. The beef was teres major, which was convienient because it enabled me to cook whole pieces to the desired degree of doneness. The homemade ravioli came out the best I had ever made it, and I only lost one piece to breakage while reheating, and that was the extra piece. All my portions were exactly on the money, with no extras. Once the dishes hit the table the guests switched to a pinot noir which I had recommended for the meal. Plates came back to the kitchen clean, except for a few who didn’t eat their vegetables. Because of the meat temps, we should have made a seating chart so we would know who got what temp. That would have made our plate-out faster and more efficient.

We cleaned up and got reorganized and laid out the dessert plates.

Cayenne-Spiked Chocolate Truffles with Cinnamon-Ginger Dust, Almond Toffee Crunch, French Chocolate Mousse and Raspberry-Port Drizzle

So quick and easy to make that I rushed and piped the mousse too soon and it deflated a little. The dessert plates went down at exactly 9:30pm, just as the host had requested. We hit all our times perfectly and I was very pleased. They enjoyed a Graham’s 20 year old tawny port with the dessert and those plates came back scraped clean, too. We made coffee for those who requested it and proceeded to clean up and load the van. The guests stayed at the dining table, and several people came into the kitchen to compliment me and the staff. The host said everything was terrific. We were gone and out their hair around 10:30pm. In my later analysis I discovered that my actual costs were only 2% higher than I had estimated they would be, and the discrepancy came from some paper products I forgot to account for and needed, adding coffee, and overbuying on ice. My food costs fell in exactly where I wanted them to. From both a learning experience and a practical exercise, I was very pleased with how everything went and how all the food turned out.

I had to reshoot all the pictures of the food after the event. We took a camera but got so busy that we forgot to snap any photos.

Non Traditional Thanksgiving

Without a big family to feed this year, or very many guests to entertain, I decided it would be a good opportunity to make a Thanksgiving Day dinner that wouldn't be found just anywhere. It could contain a few traditional holiday elements, but also be a little unorthodox. I don't know of too many fish-based Thanksgiving dinners, so that's what I set out to do. I went to my friendly neighborhood Buford Farmer's Market and bought everything for just under $50 on Wednesday afternoon. I was expecting the store to be packed with last minute shoppers, but it was actually very easy to get around.

Thursday morning I made a little quesadilla of crumbled queso and Honey-Baked Ham (the one must have on my wife's dinner list) and we enjoyed that with some picante sauce and back-to-back "Fringe" episodes on Netflix. I made my way into the kitchen in the afternoon and put together our meal, just the two of us.

First up I made an escolar ceviche salad with wakami seaweed, pineapple and samsutra oranges. That was really awesome and cleansed out palates for the next course.

I whipped up a very simple but very delicious butternut squash soup with two spice-crusted seared scallops. I used turmeric in the spice and I don't think I will do that again because it gave the scallops a yellow coloring I didn't care for. But they tasted great.

Next course was coriander and ginger seared tuna, sliced and served with an heirloom tomato and heart of palm salad with a little crumble of Bulgarian feta. Really nice but I overcooked the tuna a little bit.

For the entree, I kept it simple and made it a crowd-pleaser (that is, what S. likes best). Smoked salmon filet, green bean casserole and mashed potatoes. The potatoes were some fingerlings I was just trying to use up, and they were good, but not fluffy. I played around with the idea of a sauce, but opted to just go with the salmon as is.

We finished up with pumpkin pie (store-bought) and some fresh whipped cream (homemade). And later, more ham. Not your everyday Thanksgiving, but we were thankful, anyway.

BCSE

^{Photo lifted from the web, since I am too busy to stop and snap a shot of my own…}
A wise man once said: “If at first you don’t suceed – Oh, just give it to me, for crying out loud!”

Among the daily battles I’ve been fighting in order to get the food quality up from where it was has been the Battle of the Chicken Salad and the Battle of the Tuna Salad.

These are two pretty straightforward products but I was appalled at how awful they were. My first day I had every one of the prep staff take a spoon and taste the concoction one of them had just made. They all dipped their spoons in and tasted and all nodded in ageement that it was good. I looked around with unabashed amazement and told them that I simply did not believe them. There was no way they were telling the truth if they said that mess was actually edible. More lessons on seasoning, flavor, balance, yada-yada-yada.

The prep person assigned to make all the cold salads, including chicken and tuna salads, asked me to taste two big bowls she’d made and was preparing to send out. I tasted, but reserved my comment. I asked her what she thought. She said she thought it was good. I looked at her steadily without saying anything and she added that she didn’t actually taste any of the salads because she didn’t like the flavor of chicken salad or tuna salad. I raised my eyebrows and asked (because I wanted to be sure I understood): “Are you telling me you don’t taste your food before you send it out?”

“No, I make it the same way all the time so I really don’t need to, and I just can’t stand the taste of this stuff anyway.”

“Well,” I said. “That stops today. Right now. From this moment on you have to taste every dish you make and you have to get at least two other people to taste it also.” This isn’t punitive, it’s sensible. I pointed out to her that was the reason Chef and BD and I were always calling on each other to taste one another’s soups, sauces, marinades, salads, dressings… It wasn’t ego or “taste this, dude, it’s awesome’. It was because we needed to know if it tasted the best it could. Handing her a spoon, I made her taste each salad in turn. She put the smallest samples on her spoons and slipped them over her lips. She made a couple of little gagging motions that made me want to clock her right in her jaw (metaphoricallly… metaphorically). She shrugged and said it was okay. I asked her how much would she pay for sandwich made with these salads and she said she wouldn’t order chicken or tuna, she’d have a hamburger. I gave her a scalding look, trying to decide if she was being a smart-ass or an ignoramous.

Slowly, deliberately, I took the bowls of sloppy, amatuerishly chopped and mayonnaise smothered salads and scraped them into the trash. Extreme, I know, but sometimes the best way to get across the point that people are producing garbage is to actually shovel it into the garbage right in front of them. I trashed 2 1/2 hour’s worth of labor on her part (which, btw, should only have taken her about 30 minutes – but one crisis at a time, please) while she and the rest of the staff watched in silent shock. Across the tables BD grinned and said: “Niiiiiiice!”

I turned back to T and said: “Let’s begin again. I’m going to teach you step by step how to make these dishes and how to do it more quickly. I’m going to treat you as if it is your first day and as if you don’t know anything about cooking or food whatsoever. Based on the dishes of your’s I’ve seen, that is the only conclusion I can come to. If that’s wrong, then I apologize, but I can only go on what I have seen.” I made her follow me with a notepad as we went into the cooler and collected all the ingredients. I demonstrated how to clean and cut the chicken, mark it on the grill and bake it in the oven. How to drain the canned tuna and prepare all the mis en place. I showed her how to lightly sautee the finely diced onions to take the sting out of the flavor and allow more sweetness to come through. I taught her how to balance sweetness from the onions and some smoked chili powder with sour from lemon juice and sharpness from mustard, melding it with the right amount of mayonnaise and seasonings. I demonstrated how to shred the chicken instead of hacking it into huge chunks, how to fold in the tuna and not reduce it to a cat food paste. Most importantly, how to taste and season, taste and season. In 30 minutes we had two new bowls of salads and the vote from all the tasters was “Wow, very good”. “Now this,” I told T, “is a salad I would pay for.” We sent it over to the bistro and rolled out more prep for the day.

The next day J makes chicken salad. He pretty much follows the recipe I showed T, but makes a few changes, showing some initiative and thoughtfulness. He calls me over to taste. Okay, it’s not fabulous, but it is miles away from the crap they were making. I make a couple of very small adjustments and tell him it is a go, it is a salad I’d pay for. A little later I get a call from the manager of the bistro. He tells me the chicken and tuna salad we sent over the day before got rave reviews, and they saw a 25% increase in the sale of chicken salads and a 15% increase in tuna. The one he got earlier this day was pretty good, but could we just make more like the kind they had the day before? Could that just become the house salad recipe? One customer had bought 4 chicken salad sandwiches to take home for the family for dinner. Chicken salad… for dinner! She proclaimed it the Best Chicken Salad Ever. I wouldn’t go that far, but it was pretty good. I hung up the phone and told T when I saw her the next day what the response had been, and explained that right there was an example of why we always do the best we can, always prepare our food like we are feeding our own families, and how making food that people will buy is the difference between having a job and looking for a job.

She said she understood, but I’m not convinced she does. Not really, down in her gut. There’s a place for everyone but if you are not going to engage your brain or your heart then maybe you should find a job where those things aren’t required. I promise you will be unhappy trying to skate by in this kitchen.

Chef told me I have to create some kind of recipe for my Best Chicken Salad Ever. I hate recipes, by the way.