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!