Christmas 2024

Once again this year, with all the kids on the East Coast, two in North Carolina and one in Philly, it was a very quiet holiday season. We spent our holiday money on going to Santa Fe with Rob and Dyce and on one little splurge for the two of us here in town. And truth be told, with Rob and Dyce gone to Boulder, albeit temporarily, we were feeling a bit down.

Still, we put up a tree and decorated it with our small collection of food-related and other meaningful ornaments; the strip of bacon ornament that Ann gave me many years ago is a favorite. We brought back a few ornaments from our trip to Santa Fe. And we lost another favorite, an exquisitely detailed garlic, in putting up the tree.

One of Our Food-Themed Ornaments

Our splurge for ourselves was attending a Brovia Barolo tasting accompanied by a risotto topped with white truffles at our local wine shop, Viaggio. We brought home a couple of bottles for special occasions at the house. Nebbiolo has become our go-to grape in the last five years. We love light-bodied reds, but our palates being saturated with Pinot Noir is likely causing us to branch out to Nebbiolo (and Sangiovese, Tempranillo, and a couple other grapes). Ann is finding out that she prefers the relatively softer Barbaresco to the more structured Barolo.

Brovia Barolo Tasting

Risotto with White Truffles

We eat a diet low in simple carbs, so pasta is a big splurge for us. In celebration of the holiday season, we decided to splurge on pasta for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Ann had a particular hankering for pasta fagioli and requested that I make it for Christmas Eve.

Borlotti Stregoni Ready to Cook for Pasta Fagioli

I had ordered some Italian Borlotti from Rancho Gordo for just such an occasion. I typically make pasta fagioli with cannellini, large white kidney-shaped beans. As these borlotti cooked, they got darker, heavier looking, and super meaty, not at all the style of bean that I want for my pasta fagioli. I only used half of them in the pasta fagioli so as not to weigh it down; the remaining half became a substantial bowl of American chili when combined with a lot of Chimayo chile powder.

This year, supposedly a La Niña year that should be colder and wetter, has proved to be warmer and wetter. So, we have had more rain than snow here along the river, although they have had many, many feet of snow up at Mt. Bachelor. The rain has kept me inside far more than I have wanted, but I finally got a chance to get out for a walk along the river on Christmas Eve. This year, there seem to be many more trees along the trail decorated with Christmas ornaments. I don't know why, but these temporary decorations always warm my heart.

A Rare Day to Get Out on the Trail

For Christmas Day, at Ann's urging, I planned to make cavatelli with pancetta and sage using the cavatelli maker that I bought at the end of the summer. I was worried about its low price and it really failed to work, the crank handle stripping out after making two or three cavatelli. I think I can rig it to work, especially with a wetter dough, but I gave up on Christmas Day and converted the semolina and water dough to tagliatelle. Hopefully, the good folks of Emilia-Romagna will forgive me for making one of their classic dishes with decidedly southern-style eggless noodles.

Making Semolina Dough for Pasta

Tagliatelle with Pancetta and Sage

Brovia Barolo Villero for Christmas Dinner

And that is the tale of our muted holiday celebration for 2024. We hope for more friends and family next year though we are grateful for what we did have this year.

Three Sheets, Portland

Ann's birthday arrived just days after we landed in Oregon and just days after our anniversary. I wanted to take her out for a nice meal and I wanted her to meet one of my former sous chefs, Danny Robayo, before he decamped for a new restaurant venture in Hawaii. I had some great talent in my kitchen back in Virginia and Danny is an all star. His exec gig at Three Sheets in Portland is about his fourth or fifth restaurant since becoming an executive chef in his own right and I couldn't be prouder of what he has become.

When we planned to move, I was excited to be able to hook back up with him. Over the course of the summer though, it became apparent that we might miss him: I did an extensive interview with his new employers in Hawaii and knew that he had been offered that gig back in September. We just did make it to his restaurant with only days to spare. In fact, I met his replacement who was in the restaurant training to take over the reins. That's how close we were to missing each other.

Three Sheets is a brand new restaurant on Hayden Island along the south shore of the Columbia River and is situated in what looks to be a condo building right at the Columbia River Yacht Club. We chose to come for Saturday brunch because that would be one of the slower shifts and hopefully would leave us more time to visit with Danny. As it turns out, we did get to spend several minutes with him at various points in the morning and we got to meet his wife and family as they came in for breakfast.

The Birthday Girl

And Her Date

We got ourselves situated and when our server asked if we'd like a Bloody Mary from their bar, who could resist? She offered to let us garnish our own, but we left her to do it, not expecting these crazily decorated concoctions! I love pickles of all sorts, so it was no hardship to feast on these meal-worthy cocktails. Garnish aside, the texture and flavor of the bloodies was fantastic!

Excellent Bloody Marys

I wasn't sure what to expect. Danny told me that he'd cook us something when I called him earlier in the week. He dropped by the table and told us to order entrees and he'd take care of the rest. So, at this point, we were pretty much starving and ordered two of their vast entrees from the menu, not knowing that we would soon have more food than an army could eat.

Steelhead Caviar with Blinis and Squid Ink Mascarpone

Ann and I are not huge eaters. We like to eat, but this plate of blini with squid ink mascarpone and a tin of steelhead trout caviar was a good start towards satiating our appetites. What a beautiful appetizer!

Matsutake Mushrooms on Pea Purée

Next came this plate of matsutake mushrooms on a pea purée. I'm surprised at green peas in October, but the seasons are very different out here. This was a beautiful dish.

Pork Belly and Quail Egg on a Biscuit with Syrup

Next up was an entire breakfast, a split biscuit stuffed with pork belly, topped with a quail egg and drizzled in maple syrup. At this point, we were already plenty full and our entrees had yet to make an appearance at the table.

Hangtown Fry

For my main course, I ordered a Hangtown fry with soft scrambled eggs, fried oyster, and pork belly all sitting on a grilled slice of sour dough bread, garnished with harissa. Really delicious.

Grilled Cheese with Duck Egg

Ann went for an adult grilled cheese, topped with an over easy duck egg. The plates are huge and so the mammoth slices of bread appear to be normally sized, but don't let appearances fool you: the portions here are enormous.

King Salmon on Fresh Chickpeas

Now a good 2-1/2 hours into our feast, out comes Danny with this plate of king salmon, "just because you have to try this." The salmon was cooked perfectly, but I expect no less from Danny and his kitchen, and it was a really spectacular piece of fish. Not all salmon is created equal, and this stood head and shoulders above most.

What made the dish so outstanding was not the salmon, but the fresh chickpeas, just slightly cooked and mixed with a mild harissa and feta cheese. I love fresh chickpeas and was fortunate to have Yael to grow them for me at the restaurant. They're a pain to shell out, but they taste so wonderful. This is probably the single best dish I had in a restaurant in 2017.

Lobster and Matsutake Mushroom Risotto with Black Truffles

On the way out the door, Danny handed me a cardboard to-go container and whispered conspiratorially, "I know you'll know what to do with these." Not that I couldn't already smell the truffle from several feet away, but I resisted opening it until we got home to find a couple matsutakes, a couple lobster mushrooms, and a black truffle. I did indeed know just what to do with them and made this risotto a couple days later when we had finally gotten sufficiently hungry to eat again.

My great thanks to Chef Danny Robayo for taking great care of us, affording Ann and me the much-needed time to sit and talk for a morning, and of course, for the goodie box. Danny, I wish you all the luck with your move to Hawaii and in opening your new restaurant.

Christmas Dinner

Our plan for Christmas Dinner did not go nearly as planned. I closed the restaurant for lack of business on Christmas Eve and Ann and I were going to get in the kitchen together and make osso buco while relaxing with a bottle of wine. And then we were going to take a hike on Christmas Day and finish off the day with a nice pasta, as a reward for good behavior this past year. We haven't eaten any pasta in months and our waistlines show it.

Osso Buco, Risotto Milanese, Oregon Black Truffles

That was the plan, but the reality was much different. Ann spent a few days at her mother's and ended up following the ambulance to the ER on Christmas Eve because her mom was having more heart problems. Late afternoon on Christmas Eve after they admitted her mom for observation, Ann was able to get away and come home about dark. So much for getting in the kitchen and cooking. And as frazzled as she was, I just opened a bottle of wine and after some by-the-glass therapy, we cooked some pasta, and watched Love Actually for the umpteenth time. This was definitely not how we scripted Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day, we hung around the house without taking a hike, waiting for the call to come get Ann's mother and take her home. About 11:30 in the morning, it was clear that the hospital was taking its time in cutting her loose, so we decided to hurry up the osso buco into the crockpot so that it would be waiting for us when we got home.

Osso Buco Bubbling Away

We got the call about 2pm to come into Fairfax and as luck would have it, Mary had just got to the front door as we pulled up, so we didn't have to wait on her. After visiting with her mom and me making a quick pot of stracciatella for her to eat, we headed west on the drive across the mountains to Winchester. Once again, it was about dark when we got home, but this time we arrived to the awesome smells of osso buco.

We collected our wits for a few minutes and then Ann went on an explore in the cellar for wine (because we drank our osso buco Barolo the night before) while I pulled together the mise for risotto milanese. I also happened to grab a few truffles from work for our risotto, an indulgence that we partake of only once a year.

Risotto Mise: Leeks, Shallots, Oregon Black Truffles

Just Starting the Risotto: Adding the Saffron

Risotto Milanese Ready for Service

Ann surprised me with two bottles from the cellar that I was supposed to guess blind. Unknown to me, she pulled a couple of 2011s from our friend Maggie Malick. I couldn't place the first wine, the Cabernet Franc. It was bricking from age, the color was fading, but the fruit was bright sappy raspberry with a darker cherry undertone and some bottle funk. I couldn't place the wine at all and was shocked when she showed me the bottle: Virginia Cabernet Franc.

Outstanding Aged Virginia Cab Franc

The second bottle, I could place. It was a dead ringer for 2009 vintage Pinot Noir from Ribbon Ridge AVA in Oregon. Only one problem: we don't have any in our cellar. I was dumbfounded to find that it was Virginia Merlot. Merlot makes sense in that it has this juicy blueberry streak that you also find in Ribbon Ridge Pinot. Damned delicious and better than the Cabernet Franc. Age has a way of making certain wines really graceful. Time was excellent to these two and I know they taste far better now than when they were bottled.

Even More Outstanding Virginia Merlot

Roulade of Pork Tenderloin

Ann's mother Mary moved in with us this past week and she spent the majority of Sunday afternoon at hospice with Bob while Ann took the afternoon off and we sat around and didn't do much. We're all exhausted. Late afternoon, we went to see Bob, pick up Mary to bring her home, and stopped by the restaurant to forage for dinner.



Prosciutto-Wrapped Pork Tenderloin; Roasted Potatoes and Celery Root

I knew I had a couple of unloved pork tenderloins left from a big party and during the day on Sunday while trying to figure out what to do for dinner, Ann asked me if I would stuff them with spinach and ricotta cheese. So we rummaged the restaurant kitchen for some spinach, ricotta, truffled bread crumbs, and pecorino romano for the stuffing.

Stuffing pork tenderloins isn't a problem or even difficult, but I'm a restaurant chef and presentation is key. Just stuffing a pork tenderloin does not lead to a great looking plate. So I endeavored to wrap the two triangular loins into a single prosciutto-wrapped log from which I could cut beautiful slices, a technique that we use all the time at the restaurant, albeit more frequently for rabbit loin than pork tenderloin.

Butterflied Pork Tenderloins

The technique I use is the same for any loin or tenderloin. First, I split the meat down the middle, open it up, and use a heavy pan to flatten the meat into a single uniformly thick roughly triangular steak. I season both sides of the meat.

Ready to Roll

Next, I lay film out on my work surface and then on top of that lay prosciutto out in a rectangle that is slightly wider than the tenderloins are long and half again as deep as the two pieces of meat are wide when laid side-by-side with the pointed ends of the triangles facing in opposite directions, such that the meat forms a rectangle. Hard to describe in words, but easy to see in the photo, and uncomplicated to do.

Once the prosciutto and the meat are laid out, I put the filling on top of the meat and spread it not quite to the edges of the meat. To make this filling, I mixed sautéed spinach with the ricotta, pecorino romano cheese, and truffled panko in no particular quantities, but let's say roughly equal parts of spinach and ricotta and about half the quantity of pecorino and panko. And then I seasoned it.



Rolled and Ready for the Oven

Using the film, I roll the loin making sure that it stay tight and using the extra length of prosciutto to ensure that the roll stays well sealed. And then it goes into a moderate oven on an oiled sheet tray until it reaches 135F in the center. Pull it out and let it rest and the temperature will climb another 10 degrees at least to 145F, exactly where you want it. I like to cook pork roasts lower and slower (say 350F): there's less shrink and less chance of overcooking, yielding a moister product.

Roasted and Cooled

Once the roast has stood for twenty minutes or so, you should be able to slice it easily with a sharp knife. While mine was standing, I popped a roasting pan of potato and celery root cubes into the oven to accompany the pork. I kicked the heat up to 400F and turned the convection fan on to really crisp up the veg.

Potatoes and Celery Root

Mary and I were talking earlier in the day about celery root and how much we like it (too bad daughter Ann didn't get the vegetable gene!) so I made sure to bring one home to roast for dinner. It's quite a versatile vegetable and can be prepared in any way you can prepare a potato and as a bonus, it is wonderful raw. Use a sharp knife to trim off all the roots and skin and then use the cleaned root to do what you will with it. Celery root makes awesome mash, fries, and chips, is amazing raw in celery rémoulade, as well as diced as a replacement for celery in mirepoix. It is unquestionably one of our most underappreciated vegetables.

Honeymoon: The Painted Lady, Newberg OR

Thursday May 2, Newberg OR

After a morning tasting wine and a killer lunch at Nick's Italian Café in McMinnville, we spent the afternoon at the B&B where I got in a nice long and much needed nap before we headed down the hill once again into downtown Newberg where we ate at the restaurant that is by most accounts the top-rated one in the Willamette Valley, The Painted Lady. Chef Paul Bachand from Recipe had booked our table for us the night before and The Painted Lady texted me to confirm early in the day on Thursday and I let them know that I was a visiting fine dining chef and I just wanted them to cook for us.


Clean, Spare Dining Room

So when we arrived at the lovingly restored but very tiny Victorian wood-frame house situated on a corner lot behind a white picket fence and were seated in the very nicely appointed, but not over the top, dining room, it was no surprise that food just started coming out of the kitchen. Other tables seated near us were just getting going as well and they were getting the menus and the spiel from the service staff and I could see some of them wondering why we were getting different treatment. All it takes is a phone call.

Before we get into the food, a few comments about the restaurant and the staff. Once the sun set, the dining room was too dark for me to see most of what I was eating and the older I get the more light I seem to need. I don't mind dim lights, but when I have to use my cellphone to illuminate a plate to see the fantastic artwork on it, I call that too dark. I'm not faulting the restaurant on this choice, because that's how they have chosen to do things. I choose differently in my own restaurant. And you will see from the limited number and poor quality of photos how dark it was. I didn't bother to take any photos knowing they wouldn't be any good anyway.

The service was impeccable. I can remember exactly once in the whole 3-1/2 hours we dined at The Painted Lady that an empty wine glass stayed on the table for a minute longer than it should have (according to their service model; me, I could not care less if that glass stays there all night as long as it doesn't get in my way) and that's when every server on the floor was putting plates down at an 8-top nearby. Impeccable. New glassware and a totally new set of silverware with each course and everything about the service was silky smooth and polished.

The service was impersonal. We tried to crack through the starched reserve of some of the servers and we did elicit a smile or two from time to time, but they work from the model that they are servers, they do what you need, and they don't interact any more than necessary with the guests. This is a very old school European model that many of the very high end restaurants in the US aspire to and at The Painted Lady, they succeed very well.

But that's not what I want! I want personality and character from the staff and something that tells me that they are having fun at what they do. I want a server that comes to the table and exclaims, "This dish is freaking awesome; you are so going to love it!" I want to see pride without arrogance on the faces of the service staff, pride that comes from knowing that they are serving an amazing product and providing a unique experience. The service at The Painted Lady was not robotic, but it wasn't charismatic either.

The wines selected for our food were impeccable as well. I really appreciated the selection and variety of local wines that were paired with our dinner. As a chef who pairs wines with each dish on his menu, I can say to The Painted Lady, "Job very well done!" Thank you for introducing me to Walter Scott wines from Eola-Amity Hills, a tiny producer of exceptional wines.

And finally about the food. I sit here at the keyboard and I can tick off several dishes that got my chef juices flowing during the course of our stay in Oregon: the nettle gnocchi and the radishes at Thistle, the potato-nettle pizza at Nick's, and the laap at Pok Pok (to be discussed later in this series). But there was no one memorable dish for me at The Painted Lady. To be sure, I remember the scallop in the scallop crudo for being so sweet and fresh and I remember Ann's chocolate dessert for being so over the top, but the food didn't leave any lasting impression other than it was very high quality and very well presented.

This probably says more about me than it says about the restaurant and Chef Allen Routt, who spent a few minutes with us after dinner, when I learned that he is no stranger to this part of the world, having cooked a stint on the line at the Inn at Little Washington and also having worked for the late Jean-Louis Palladin. This says that I like more direct dishes that are mainly ingredient-driven and perhaps more rustic as a result than I like impeccably executed dishes that are more chef- and technique-driven.

Amuses: Fava Hummus on Papadum, Gougères, and ???

Chef's Trio: Salmon Tartare, Breaded Quail Egg; Goat Mousse on Cheese Straw

Oysters and Lardons

Crabmeat, Caviar, Delicious Curried Soup

Nettle Ravioli, Parsnip Puree, Summer Truffles

I'm a chef and I use truffles all the time. They rarely excite me.

Scallop Crudo, Avocado, Crispy Salmon Skin, Dashi Sphere

This dish got Ann to asking about the dashi sphere but spherification and reverse spherification techniques are not dinnertime conversation for anyone save super nerdy chefs. I played with all this some years ago, but it's just not me or my thing; however, this was probably the dish that I liked best.

Mini Margarita Slushie Intermezzo

You can see from the light of the votive in the intermezzo photo that it is just too dark in the dining room to take pictures. This votive was all the light we had! It's a pity because there are a lot more beautifully presented dishes that you can't see.

Missing are a ling cod dish, a salmon dish (that salmon was super well cooked), a foie gras course (foie doesn't impress me unless you bring out a terrine of it, a loaf of crusty bread, some great wine, and we all sit around getting fat, dumb, and happy!), a beef tenderloin (excellent flavor) dish, a venison dish, a small cheese course, and Ann's chocolate fantasy that was too big for four people. I wish you could have seen the amount of labor that went into that one dish. Chocolate is not my thing, but my hat is off to the person that conceived of and plated that dish.

Snow Day

The snowstorm of Wednesday March 6, 2013 will go down as pretty much of a dud, but I didn't know that when I walked the dogs at 7am with fresh snow well above my boot tops, howling wind, and swirling snow that had visibility at a couple hundred yards. From everything that I could see and feel and the forecast predicting hard snow through midafternoon with more snow lingering into the dinner hours, it was obvious that none of our vendors would be sending out their trucks and it seemed a no-brainer to close the restaurant for the day. Who knew? Who knew that by 2pm the roads would all be clear and the sun would be out and everyone would be asking derisively of the weather gods, "Is that all you got?"

So what do two foodies do on the rarest of rare days, a snow day? We eat and drink! Duh!

The Star of our Day

It just so happened that Tom Leonard of Leonard's Truffière in Tennessee was in town meeting with friends of mine and had stopped by the restaurant with a present worth a small fortune, this beautiful black truffle. And it just so happened that it was sitting on my counter at home on this wonderful day off from work.

My Mandoline is Perfect for Shaving Truffles

For maximum effect, truffles are generally best when thinly shaved over warm food so that the warmth of the food liberates the haunting smell. Though they make a specialized truffle shaver, which is essentially a razor blade in a handle, I prefer my more general purpose mandoline that I can use for many other things (pommes Anna!) besides truffles.

Eggs, Perhaps the Perfect Vehicle for Truffles

The French really do know a thing or two about cooking and not only did my mandoline come from France, but so did my black steel pans. These are the pans that we use at the restaurant not only to get that awesome crust on fish and scallops, but also for cooking eggs. Does this look like a non-stick pan? It most definitely is not. But once a black steel pan is broken in, almost nothing sticks to it, if you care for it properly. The cooks at the restaurant and I love these pans. They're cheap, nearly indestructible workhorses but they do require a bit of loving care and regular oiling to keep them from rusting. After wiping it clean, I always rub mine all over with oil before putting it away.



Can You Smell This?

Our breakfast was a big pile of what I call scrambled eggs but what the French would likely call an omelette. No matter the name, it is decorated with ultrathin truffle shavings that perfumed the kitchen gloriously. There is no substitute for fresh eggs and these came from a local farmer from her Rhode Island Reds. Once every couple of years when the egg production goes way down at the depths of winter, I will have to buy some commercial eggs to augment the supply at the restaurant. You should hear the cursing and muttering from the cooks when they have to use those thin-shelled, watery, tasteless things that they sell at the grocery store.

Ann Makes Spicy Dragon Noodles

Speaking of eggs, Ann scrambled a couple more of them for lunch along with a copious amount of crushed red peppers flakes, the beginnings of the dish that she calls Spicy Dragon Noodles. To these eggs, she added large wheat noodles, soy sauce, sriracha, and brown sugar. She finished the dish with some Thai basil, though in the past she has used green onions or cilantro, neither one of which we had on hand.



Spicy Dragon Noodles

Orecchiette with Garlic and Black Truffles

Dinner was quite the simple affair. We wanted pasta (yes, our second pasta dish of the day, thank you!) and simple pasta at that. I wanted to use the remainder of the truffle and with the addition of some slivered garlic and butter, that's about all you need for awesome pasta. Truffles shine best when they don't have to compete with other flavors. This is why you so often find them paired with very mild ingredients such as eggs and potatoes, or in this case, pasta.

Third Annual Valentine's Dinner

It Doesn't Really, Does it?

For the third year running, we've had our Valentine's Dinner for friends on the Sunday before Valentine's Day so that we can celebrate. In the restaurant business, Valentine's Day and the days of intense preparation leading up to it constitute one of the busiest times of our year. And because I am always working, celebrating on Valentine's Day itself is never possible.

Last year, we did a more elaborate dinner with cocktails and appetizers and it was just too much for me on top of my insanely busy workload at the restaurant. I really like the simplicity of this year's menu and the fact that with some advanced planning, Ann and I putzed around in the kitchen for only about 90 minutes pulling everything together. And that wasn't 90 minutes of solid work either; we might have opened the Prosecco before the other guests arrived and had a little whistle-wetter while putzing about the kitchen.

Ann Always Sets a Beautiful Table

We Started with Virginia Sewansecott Oysters

Ann had wanted Wellfleet oysters to start off the dinner, but with the blizzard in New England, that wasn't happening. We "settled" for Sewansecotts from H. M. Terry over on the Eastern Shore opposite the mouth of the Rappahannock River. I love the briny flavor of Eastern Shore oysters, but the shells are so soft that they are a pain to shuck cleanly.

The First of Many Bottles

We opened a lot of bottles of wine with our dinner, our friends not lacking in thirst! For sparkling wines with our oysters, we had Prosecco, a Loire rosé, Roederer Champagne, and a couple of other bottles that I didn't really get a look at because I was busy shucking oysters. With dinner, we had a delicious Rioja that Dimitri brought along, a California Syrah and a Washington State Bordeaux blend from our cellar, and Mike and Dennis brought along two local wines: Jim Dolphin's Cab Franc and this Otium Dornfelder from nearby Loudoun County. I don't know Otium Cellars and Dornfelder is not a grape that I have tasted before and as much as I like to support our own Virginia wine industry, this was not a good wine. To quote Ann, "This tastes like ass!" Indeed. I'd be lying if I said anything flattering about this wine.

Mike Forgot his Camera; I Gave him Mine!

Dennis and Dimitri. Where is Mark? He Seems to be Camera Shy.

Dennis and the Girls

After the oysters, we had dinner proper: braised duck, truffled mac and cheese, braised turnips, and sautéed brussels sprouts. It worked out well (and created a lot fewer dishes) to have everyone serve himself from the cooking vessels arrayed on the counter in the kitchen, rather than to platter everything up and take it to the dining room. Thanks to Ann for coming up with the menu so that all I had to do was execute it. And it was fun working with her in the kitchen finishing it up. We make a good team in the kitchen!

Moulard Duck Legs Starting Their Three-Hour Braise

The Finished Product

The day before the party, I braised the duck legs with white wine, veal stock, parsley stems, and thyme. And twenty minutes before taking the duck off the heat, I added peeled and quartered turnips. I let everything chill out together in the rondeau overnight in the cooler. On Sunday, I reheated the congealed mass to the point where I could separate the liquids from the solid duck and turnips. The duck went onto a sheet tray to reheat in the oven at the same time as the mac and cheese was baking and the liquids went into the big blender, first to be defatted and then to be whirred into a smooth sauce that was further reduced on a tiny flame on the stove.

Orecchiette with Four Cheeses and Black Truffles

Next up was the truffled mac and cheese. Ann and I apparently have different ideas of what mac and cheese is. I make classic American (see Fannie Farmer) mac and cheese, slightly overcooked pasta bathed in Sauce Mornay and baked. What Ann describes is more like pasta mixed with straight cheese, something I've never seen before. Good no doubt, but I know it not. My Mornay contains a mixture of young Manchego, Goot Essa Alpenkäse, Carr Valley Marisa, and commercial mozzarella in roughly equal parts. And a good healthy dose of black truffles. I generally would use a hollow pasta such as cavatappi (corkscrews) but Ann seemed to want a more substantial pasta, so I used that Pugliese specialty, orecchiette (little ears). Needless to say, there were no leftovers.

Speaking of cheese, Goot Essa has no web site but if you chance upon some of John Esh's cheese, by all means, give it a try. John is a plain dairy farmer, some would say Amish, from Pennsylvania and he makes great cheese. He popped into the restaurant some years ago with samples and I have been hooked on his Alpenkäse every since.

Artful Shot of Shallots for the Brussels Sprouts

Sprouts, One of the Few Late Winter Green Vegetables

Turnips, Braised along with the Duck

Ann's Red Wine Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ann made this delicious not-too-sweet red wine chocolate cake for dessert. We passed a decanter of Warre's 1977 Port along with dessert.

Who Needs Plates?