Foie Gras & French Onion -A Wonderful Late Night Dinner

My buddy Josh Bieker and his wife Jade came over tonight for a little sumpin’ sumpin.
See that sumpin’ HERE!

Another Fabulous Finals at the Napa Valley Cooking School

We enjoyed the hard work of a fabulous finals which consisted of a coursed out meal prepared by students who were bound to externships at establishments like Gary Danko, L’Atelier Crenn, BENU, and La Toque to name a few. See Pics HERE!

Interviews With The Chefs!

I write a regular Chef Interview blog for the company I work for. Here’s who we’ve interviewed recently:
http://preferredmeatsblog.com/featured-chef-2/

Food Trucks Converge on the Capital

Just a short note to say that those that don’t think Sacramento would support the food truck invasion take note: Last Saturday- two hour waits and trucks running out of food. Flashin’ back circa 1977- ‘Breaker one-9, peddles to the metal good buddy- looks like we got ourselves a convoy. Open the gates and let’em in. ‘Nuf’ said.

Lounge ON20 -Perhaps the most modern cuisine SacTown has ever seen

With Lounge ON20 doing a major makeover of their dining room and concept there could have been no finer choice in their leap to a hep, sophisticated, progressive image than their choice of Chef Pajo Bruich who brings with him an ingredient driven cuisine that that is both modern and intelligent yet accessible utilizing familiar ingredients in innovative ways. Lounge ON20 opens this week and hopes to be the talk of the town for some time to come!

Big Sacramento Food Forum Panel at The Bee

Will you BEE there?

Tweeting from tomorrow’s ‘Table Talk’

 

 

 

My Style

My Style? I love dark roasted coffee and woodfired pizzas. I love aioli, cast iron, and French onion soup. Bottles of La Chasse du Pape, charred peppers and anchoide. Crusty bread, pistou, and eggs fried in olive oil, with sumac and crushed red peppers. Pate’ campagne, pigs trotters and sweetbreads grenobloise. Pasta arabiatta, bouillabasse with rouille, and carbonara. I can totally appreciate The French Laundry but home is smoke, fire, Dutch ovens and a table you can put your elbows on.

Do You YELP?

Well, I have to admit that I just started yelping. I mean not like a wounded dog, that would be highly irregular especially for an adult human. I mean writing reviews on yelp.com. Now I must say I have not been a fan of yelp up to this point in as much as anyone can shoot off a review whether they ‘get it’ or not. But I’ve come to see at least there is a opinion and a pulse on what people perceive as being their cup of tea. It is good to look at the credentials of who is writing the review also- what I mean is this, is the person writing the restaurant review a chef, a foodie, a restaurateur? Or are they a gym teacher or a computer analyst that would yelp: ‘The French Laundry was was too expensive and I couldn’t even get a steak and baked potato’?

That aside, you can get some really good insights and worst case scenario perhaps a chuckle. So why not try yelping? But do so responsibly because the pen can turn into a sword so careful what battles you pick and make sure criticism is well founded!  Hopefully my yelping is always in good taste seasoned with a smattering of humor and insightful,…and I’ll try and not come off like a wounded dog.

Aged Gouda & Chocolate?

Well, our friend Jeremy in the cheese department at the local Nugget sampled us a very interesting combination that just transformed in the mouth. He said, ‘here, try this piece of aged Gouda’,  and then right after that he gave me a piece of good Scharffen Berger chocolate. All of a sudden the cheese transformed into deep intense caramel and it was like eating a really good caramel filled chocolate bon bon. WOW!~ He explained it was the chocolate reacting with the aged lactose in the cheese giving it that caramel flavor. AMAZING! Try it.

Chef Eddie Roehr- An Interview With a Sacramentan

In the mid 1980’s Eddie Roehr got a job washing pots and prepping in an upscale seafood restaurant in his hometown of Sacramento, CA. That began his love of cooking and the restaurant business that has spanned some 25 years and taken him to Italy, California’s Central Coast, and Hawaii. Now back in his hometown, Eddie, with his wife Janel, has opened a restaurant that defines what Sacramento cuisine represents to him and named it after a local bird, the magpie.
READ ON