Tuna Pastrami on Rye

Here I made some tuna pastrami, which I cured in pastrami spice overnight then seared and very thinly sliced. Under that I placed a rye cracker I made by rolling out fresh rye bread cutting and baking, along with it I put a housemade pickle, pommery mustard and fingerling potato chips!

Pork Belly

BLT Bouche

Steak Frites for Fall

This is an eye of rib-eye with sweet potato frites, brussels and malt vinegar hollandaise finished with fresh grated cinnamon.

Mini Crab Salad

Jumbo lump crab meat with heirloom tomato, fennel stem & fronds, marscapone, EVOO, aged balsamic, sea salt and black pepper

Scallop Dish

Candy Corn

Corn bread panna cotta with roasted jalapeno and candied corn. Happy Halloween!

Lobster & Grits

Here is just a dish we do at the restaurant, I needed to take a photo of this one, I thought it looked great.

Duck & Cookie

This is a bouche of spiced apricot jam with a marcona almond cookie and five spice seared muscovy duck breast, garnished with a little marcona dust. I loved this one. I really need to get a good camera, the camera on my phone can really suck sometimes, I promise that duck was juicy and perfectly cooked.

Pull the Triggerfish

Bacon and Eggs with Toast

Waterbugs

Great Flavor, Ugly Photo, Bad Presentation

Local Smoked Trout with Goat Cheese Mousse and Honey Walnut Brittle.

Duck Breast with Grilled Fig, Local Honey, and Lavender Custard

Raw Oyster with Pickled Watermelon Rind

Muscadine Grapes Are Here!

Certain things I just love. Muscadine grapes are one, the season just started and I'm pumped. Granted you can't do too much with them but I love just bursting them in my mouth. Their thick skin and seeds make them not alot of fun to work with but I had to use them last night. So I juiced them added some gelatin and whipped it into a sponge to set.

The texture was fantastic and the flavor was perfect. I use it for a bouche I was calling 'wine and cheese'. I used a local raw cows milk farmers cheese to accompany.

Like little tasty soldiers, all lined up!

The final product had the cheese, sponge, marcona almonds, and a little aged balsamic.

Whipped Chorizo Cream

Well it never pays off to be lazy in the kitchen, or online. I made this bouche about 2 weeks ago and not long after I saw Alex and Aki from Ideas in Food had posted a very similar thing. WOW! Granted it feels good to be in the same mind set as those two, but I just wish I posted that night so I don't feel like a copycat. I desire original thought. Ideas in Food is a great site and I have been following it almost from the beginning. Much respect to Alex and Aki.

Anyways here is my whipped chorizo cream interpretation. It is a chilled sweet corn broth poured tableside with roasted corn and tarragon and the chorizo.

A few days later I made more of the whipped chorizo and used it for a course in a tasting. It was butter poached squid, with creamed corn, Marcona almond dust, fingerling potato chips and tarragon garnish. I wish I got a picture of that one. I'm talking sexy!

Crab with Textures of Watermelon and Cilantro

The watermelon granita hadn't made it to the plate by the time I took these pictures....it was sexy!

Fennel + Lobster = Yumm! Thats a given anytime.

This bouche is a peice of Maine lobster tail poached in vanilla butter and served with some sweet citrus fennel marmalade and toasted macadamia dust finished with lime zest.

Smoked Salmon

House smoked wild salmon with avacado puree, bruleed grapefruit and lavender scented creme fraiche.

Blog

Why blog? I really don't know. Memories? Thought? Vanity? I think I started this as a personal sounding board and log of past successes and failures. Not to mention future experiments.

Best Sandwich in the World! The Reuben!

This sandwich is so special to me in so many ways. It has everything for me, plus it has a personal emotional recall in each bite for me. Here I have made two kinds, Nothing special just the basic reuben how I like it. One is regular the other is a double decker for when I really wanna recall some personal memories!

Ready to Eat Donuts!!!

Cinnamon and Sugar Donuts!!!

Donuts!!

Local Foods From Farmers Market This Morning

NC Trout with a ratatouille tart, caramelized red onion coulis, sauteed purple and wax peppers and aged balsamic. Everything on this plate, aside from the balsamic, was purchased this morning from the Farmers Market! It don't get any better than that.

"Land and Sea"

I call this "Land and Sea" simply because it looks like a fish washed ashore, also because it is salmon paired with some very earthy flavors. It has some salt roasted candy stripped beets, asparagus in two forms, simply cooked in some burre monte and fried strips, also I have some maple "sea" foam and maple granola "beach sand". I then garnished it with a perfect salmon skin crisp! I really love this dish, it might could use some tweeking but the texture and presentation I enjoy.

My inner girl scout

S'mores!

This has house made marshmellows, graham crackers, graham cracker flan, soft chocolate ganache and graham dust. The marshmellow is bruleed and the flan is smoked under glass for that campfire appeal!

S'mores!

Sea Bass w/ Fennel