Multi-course wine dinner

Tonight was a pretty cool night. We did a 6 course wine dinner for a few of the members. A lot of fun, eating and drinking was had by all! We tried to stick with the local food as much as possible and, with the exception of a few things, we did pretty well. Supporting local farmers makes the food taste better, if you ask me!

Check out the menu and wines used below (Thanks Tim for the question!):

Amuse Bouche

Goat Cheese and pistachio covered grape with blackberry gastrique

Paired with: Childress Vineyards Trio

Starter

Pan-seared fois gras torchon with butter poached red currents and micro green salad

Paired with: Childress Vineyards Late Harvest Viognier

Soup

Celeriac bisque with roasted root vegetables and parsley

Paired with: Childress Vineyards Chardonnay

Salad

Local bitter greens and fresh herbs with Yuzu vinaigrette

Paired with: Childress Vineyards Pinnacle

Main Course

Bone-in Pork loin chop with Nise’s local apple jam and thyme Jus

Paired with: Childress Vineyards Cabernet Francrt

Dessert

Mocha gelato chocolate chip tuile and espresso foam

Paired with: Childress Vineyards Starbound

Fatty Mcfatster (and his lovely wife) at the cholesterol festival

I feel dirty. Yeah, it's true. I feel dirtier than Mike Roe dipped in rabid dog ball pimple puss (too graphic? sorry, lol)

So, every year in our town, the Cabarrus County Fair comes around. In our opinion, its the best in the area and we look forward to going. Of course, being the foodie that I am, I use [any] fair as an excuse to scope out the typical and a-typical snacks that are offered, followed, usually, by the anti-gravity slams of some of the rides.(ever ride the "Tilt-a-wirl" after eating fried dough? Priceless!)

After watching a few in-bred redneck "women" with halter tops eat cotton candy (you should see some of their kids! Reminds me of that monster on "The Goonies" who liked the Baby Ruth candy bar, remember him?), we scoped out the standard food favorites like the infamous Kielbasa Sub with onions and peppers (makes me fart just typing those words). And, the spawn of Satan Foot-Long Corn Dog. After eating those gut-bombs, we hunted for our dessert. Last year, we had our first fried Oreo cookies dusted with powdered sugar. No, I can't tell you how good they were with words, you'll just have to figure it out.

This year, we revisited the site of said fried treats to find that they were now offering every major candy bar on the market dipped in funnel cake batter and deep fried to artery clogging goodness. Yes folks, it's true. You can now get Snickers, 3-Musketeers, Milky Way and a few others battered and deep fried! I've heard about this blasphomy on TV but never could imagine I would be in the presence of such greatness! (Hope my doctor, mom or health insurance agent are not reading this, lol).

Well, we got the Oreos again and I had to try the Snickers Bar. Wow. Simply stated. I mean, Snickers Bars have always caused me great guilty pleasure in the past, but eating it this way was just retarded. It was crispy and light on the outside and warm, gooey and crunchy on the inside. Just insane! The Oreos, yeah, they pretty much rocked too. Its hard to mess up an Oreo no matter how you treat it.

Problem with that meal was just this, I'm getting to old to carry that sort of calerie collection around in my body. I felt like total shit the rest of the night and into the next morning up until I took my morning pooh. (Dont ask, it wasnt pretty). I've learned my lesson and will never eat that stuff again! (chuckle, until next time).

 

Atitude of gratitude and my inner a**hole

A good and long time friend of mine wrote an interesting post on his blog recently and asked himself an interesting question into the Google search engine, "How do I stop being an asshole?"  and the result was an interesting quote from a dude that slept with his friends wife and was beating himself up about it and other things he has, apparently, done. A part of the quote read like this, "...I can blame it on depression, or a shitty childhood, but really, I have to blame it on myself. I have had so many incredible opportunities, squandered most of them, bitterly, and been a shitty person dressed up as a funny man." Hmm, interesting question with a deep meaning. It got me thinking, as I type this at 3 am, my wife snoring her ass off in the other room, if I, myself, am an asshole?

Well, my very first thought was, "Yeah, I can be some times", and can't we all? How many times have you watched or listened to someone and thought, "This dude is an ASSHOLE!" lol.

I spent the majority of my life surrounded by a man who, for the most part, was a complete and utter asshole, drunk all the time, cheated on his wife, smoked too much, talked down to his entire family and beat his kids whenever possible. This sort of person was full of fear, I'm convinced, and made others around him feel less-than and not-as-good-as because he, himself, felt that way.

When I started coming of age, I was, for the most part, an angry person. I felt no one liked me, I felt I didn't fit in, I felt fearful and insecure beyond belief! Being this skinny long haired freak with my two front teeth chipped, my self esteem was a little low.

Thankfully, on hind-site, no one tried to fix this for me. I was forced, in my own way, to deal with those feelings of self worthlessness and self loathing. I tried fixing it with booze and drugs and it only acted as an amplifier of my true inner feelings and pushed friends and family away from me, which started the vicious circle. I'm not loved, I should drink, people hate me, so I should try to fit in by getting high with them, and the more I do this, the more my inner feelings come out and the more people couldn't stand to be around me (or so I thought), so on and so on. Eventually, I ended up completely alone, on that ugly blue shag carpet in a two room apartment with no furniture with nothing and everything I thought I needed to make me feel whole, was gone. I have never felt so empty and sole-less in my entire life.

That same day I began a journey to get better. It took me a long time to feel worthy by loving myself and not concerning myself with what others thought of me. By not comparing my insides by peoples outsides. By mending these fences in my life that have shut me off from love and personal growth. Today, I am far from perfect and will most likely never posess personal peace within 100%, but I have the greatest thing anyone could ask for in life, a reason. A reason to get out of bed in the morning, a reason to want to do well in life, a reason to want to be nice to others (most of the time, lol). That reason, bottom line, is gratitude.

For me, I must be grateful for what God has given me. I must remember where I came from as I could go back there in a second! I must be thankful for the lessons learned in my life, especially how NOT to treat others. If I'm treating people like shit, I must have something going on in my head that needs to be looked at. Some conflict of sorts that needs to be addressed. Most of my inner conflicts revolve around perceptions. and, its amazing how my perceptions can change based on many factors. If I hadn't gotten enough sleep, for instance, or hadn't prayed or sought spiritual growth in some way, or if I hadn't eaten in a while of whatever, my perception changes and my inner asshole comes out 10 fold. But, even if Ive gotten 12 hours sleep the night before, had a healthy breakfast of tree bark and love, even if I just came floating out of church, well, my perception still has a way, sometimes, to be a little skewed.

Who knows why, really, people are assholes to each other some times and why others are so nice you want to puke. Its hard to figure out why some people only need to lose everything once and learn their lesson or that some people need to lose everything like once every 6 months and still blame others for their mis-givings, laying out the "poor-me's". Who knows, really.

Well, one thing I have learned in these past 37 years, that we are all human with feelings and expectations and, when you are as complicated as most of us are, you tend to want to punch one of them in the face sometimes, no matter what the bible says, right? For me, my only goal is to, perhaps selfishly, feel fulfilled. I want to make sure I gave those around me the love and respect they are owed. Not only in a self centered way, but feel like Ive accomplished a good life and when the day comes when I will meet my maker, can only hope that I wasn't too much of an asshole that at least a few of you will come to my funeral, lol.

Eh, life is crazy, fun and exciting as long as I keep my mind out of it, lol.

*Edit - Oh, and since we're on the topic of being an asshole, Rob H., if you're still following my blog, you should grow up and learn a few things about burning bridges with your employer(s) and keeping your dick out of places they don't belong. God bless you dude, you deserve whatever heart-felt-pain you receive. Douche Bag.

OMG, this might be the best sandwich I've ever eaten!

Wow man, I think we found the place that makes the best sandwich I ever ate and it's right in my back yard!

We drove by "Havana Carolina" a few days ago and I mentioned to my better half that I'd like to check them out one day. As a matter of fact, they sell one of my favorite sandwiches on the planet which inspired me to put one on my menu at work (which sells very well I might add).

It's this little Cuban sandwich store that came to town about a year ago, I think, and has gotten pretty great reviews from the locals.

Anyway, a few days go by and we ended up there for a quick dinner a couple nights ago before seeing a movie. We walked into this simple little joint with palm trees and ocean painted on the walls, tacky table cloths and place mats and Spanish guitar plucking from a boom box in the corner, pretty cool little place. This little Cuban dude behind the counter welcomes us with a huge grin and broken English. When I saw the panini press and the hand written menus, I knew we were in for a treat.

I look up and point to the "Cuban Sandwich" written on the wall, the wife goes safe and gets a pressed club sandwich (yes, she's a big fan) and a couple beef and chicken empanadas. Our new found Cuban buddy suggests a couple authentic Latin-esqe soft drinks to go with it and, within a few short minutes, we were crunching down on our heavenly prizes.

The empanadas were hand made and filled with spicy flavorful beef and shredded chicken. I dashed a few drops of habanaro hot sauce and we were in heaven! Perfectly made with love, I'm sure.

Now, when I tell you this Cuban sandwich was the best I've ever eaten, well, there's no need for too much proof. I've had some others made by very reputable sources (including my own kitchen!) and none of them can even hold a candle to this bad boy.

He put this slow roasted pulled pork on it that must have been made by someones loving mother or something, thin slices of smoked ham, slices of pickles, Swiss cheese a little mustard and some mayo and it was pressed between a press made especially for this task. Perfectly crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside with juicy pork fat oozing out along with mayo-ey (is that a word) cheese glistening out the sides, JEESH MAN!!! And yes, even my wife's Cuban-style club sandwich was pressed to utter goodness.

We washed our meals down with "Iron Beer Cola", a fruity version of coke, and "Malta", an alcohol free malty cola that reminded me of malt balls or something, perfect.

Of course, one can't visit a Cuban joint and not get an espresso! They are a bit different than the espressos you may be used to as they add sugar during the pressing and are served in really tiny cups, smaller than your average demi-tasse.

Needless to say, it's on the top of my list of best meals and definitely nailed the best sammy award! Check it out if you're in the area.

Some pics for you:

Cute neighborhood joint, eh?

Iron Beer? Yes, it's yummy.

Yea, the burps make your eyes water, lol

Chicken empanadas with firey habanaro sauce.

The beef empanadas were our favorite and we liked the green sauce a little better, too.

If anyone asks, my wife does NOT like espresso! :) (she hates this picture!)

A burger with a fried egg? And, BACON?

So, I had a really long week at work last week and my wife went out of town to watch the Bristol race with her family. We hadn't seen each other in a few days so I thought it would be nice to take her to lunch on my day off, this past Monday during her lunch break.

We go to this place in Charlotte called Brazwells. They don't seem to even have a web page yet as they're pretty new. It was the old Press Box for years (a shitty, dirty hole in the wall that has been around for decades. I was afraid to piss in their bathrooms back then) and has really gotten a face lift!

It's clean and new and full of life. The dining room/ bar area is pretty typical for a current American style sports bar acting as a "pub" with wide screens and HD sports playing on every screen. Hotty bartenders and server chicks running around with really tight "give me a bigger tip" jeans on. This is what I was told as, being as my WIFE was with me, and I'm a VERY happily married man, I didn't even THINK of looking for myself! (ahem)

Anyway, the great thing about this place is this huge patio bar area in the back. Full of seats under really nice tree cover and ESPN playing silently on the walls and this "music" playing in the background (new wave garbage, I must be getting old, lol) and ceiling fans.

We open our menus and start looking through. The wife orders her usual, a Club sammich with nothing but mayo, cheese and meat on white bread (toasted, of course) and me, I was in the mood for a burger, a good old fashioned Carolina burger with chili, slaw, mustard and onions, yum. They offered hand cut fries too, YAY!! We were in like Flynn (wtf does that mean!?)

Our server, taking our order by memory as most new restaurants do these days (side rant; why is it that suddenly its considered more "efficient" or "proper" for the servers to take our orders by memory lately?! I mean, my entire life up until a few years ago, when we went to a restaurant, the waiters or waitresses (got to call them all "servers" now) wrote down our orders on little pads and, magically, our orders came to us EXACTLY how we ordered them. If I wanted an extra lime for my steak, BAM, 2 wedges of lime. If someone wanted to dip their fries in Ranch dressing (yes, Ranch ain't just good with raw broccoli florets and carrot sticks) we'd get a side of ranch. Now, they like to take it by memory and ALWAYS (yes, ALWAYS) forget some little detail. And, if the poor bastard has more than two tables in their section, forget about getting that extra pickle or stack of napkins with your ribs you requested! (rant over).

Any who, I order that burger, you know, the one with chili and slaw and stuff? 20 minutes later, she lays down this perfect club with these amazing fries in front of my very pleased wife. And then, she lays down this big ass 1/2 pounder with fries and this yellow love sack stares back at me.

Is this a FRIED EGG!???


Proving my point that taking an order by memory is a bad idea, she gives me this "sunrise" burger with bacon and a fried egg on top instead of the "southern" burger I ordered just a few short minutes ago. As she walked away, I realized that there was no chili, slaw OR mustard anywhere near my burger. But, but, there was a fried egg on it man!! I ate it anyway and it was divine. The burger meat was a little tough and flavorless, but with a few shakes of salt and pepper, a great burger. The fries rocked too (sprinkled with Greek seasoning I think)

Thing of beauty, eh?

Cigars, tiny veal, small batch liquors and BIG ASS SKRIMP!

Well, yea, another great night. We did something really fun and exciting; a cigar dinner for the members and it went really well. I wrote a 5 course tapas-style dinner using the freshest ingredients cooked over oak charcoal and, yes, everything was YUMMY!!!

Menu looked a little something like this;

1st course, 4-7 sized prawns (gigantic), grilled over oak on a chunky avocado cocktail sauce

2nd was asparagus wrapped in prosciutto over lemon garlic aioli (after this course, Charlies Cigars on Johnson Road gave the members one of two cigars to start off with followed by a small batch liqour to gulp down, let the fun begin)

Intermezzo of local musk melon and mint sorbet

3rd, petite veal lolly pops with caramelized onion demi

4th was (my favorite) hickory smoked duck breast (which was then
rendered crispy on a saute pan and finished to mid rare on oak coals,
baby arugula (tossed in Olive oil, rice wine vinegar and s+p) then
drizzled with an orange reduction sweetened and garnished with fried
capers. (another shot of small batch booze to lube them up a little more)

5th, dessert, mini assortment of cannoli, raspberry truffle rolled in
brownie crumbs and a mini eclair. (second cigar and a shot of Port to bring it all together!)

Everything was done from scratch from smoking the duck, to making the sorbet and the mini desserts to pulling the teeny weeny baby cow from its mothers womb!! (yes, I was kidding).

Check out the pics below.

Oven dried tomatoes done right...

My neighbor/ fishing buddy/ story teller and friend stopped by the other day and gave me a huge bag full of, what looked like, baby Roma tomatoes fresh from his garden. Coming to the end of the local tomato season, which has been very rainy this year, there are an abundance of hanger-on tomatoes staying on the vines for all to enjoy. Problem with that is, what to do with them all! You can only make so much marinara sauce, right?

I came up with this simple recipe on how to use up some of your tomatoes before you run to the store and buy more canning jars!

These are oven dried tomatoes and are great for salads, making pesto, tossed in pasta or just snacking on.

First, cut the tomatoes in half and toss them in a bowl. Make a simple vinaigrette with 2 parts olive oil, 1 part white balsamic vinegar, a little crushed red pepper flakes, dried thyme, oregano, basil, granulate garlic, onion powder and salt and pepper. Toss everything together well with your hands and let sit for a few minutes to marinate while you wait for your oven to preheat to 300F.


Lay them out cut-side-up on a roasting rack, drizzling any left over marinade over the top and put in the oven until lightly dried out and still a little plump.


This will take 3-5 hours, depending on the size and moisture content of the tomatoes. About 2 hours into the drying process, start taking the smaller ones out of the oven as they became dry and let the larger ones finish up for a little longer. Total time for my tomatoes, just under 3 1/2 hours.

Let them cool completely and store them in an air tight container with a paper towel in the bottom in your fridge for a few days and enjoy.

William Sanoma cooking demos continued

For those of you following along, I've had the great pleasure to do cooking demos at one of the best cooking gadget stores in THE WORLD (albeit, a bit over priced, but, they're great people anyway).

These last two demos I've done have been bridal showers with a brunch theme. I showed everyone how to use this great stuffed pancake pan that made these cute round filled pancakes.


First, you just heat up this special pan, add a little butter, pour enough pancake batter in the bottom of these round cups to fill them about 1/3 full or so. Then add your favorite pancake filling. In this case, we used mascarpone flavored with cinnamon, orange zest and vanilla and apples that I cooked in butter, yum, and top them off with a little more batter until the cups were about 3/4 full. They cooked up, were flipped over with these special chop-stick-looking-things and finished until they were golden brown and a little crispy on the outside and soft in the middle, jeesh. Too good!


This last one, we did crepes filled with certain things. I revisited the same mascarpone filling used in the stuffed pancakes, macerated strawberries, apples, Dulce de leche and fresh made whipped cream out of one of my favorite gadgets, the nitrous oxide whipped cream maker! Yes, I had to have one, so now I do ;)






We had such a blast! I love hanging out with strangers, showing them how to cook and hamming it up the best I can :) Another one coming up in a few days, I'll keep you posted.

23 years to become a CEC

Back when I was 13, I started working (illegally, I'm sure) for a small diner in New Hampshire for a crazy French Canadian woman named "Lorette" as a dish washer. She ALWAYS smoked Pall Mall filter-less cigarettes. Whether she was rolling out a pie dough or cooking bacon on the grill, her ash never fell. Weird and mysterious, lol. She had me doing all sorts of fun stuff! Cutting fries in the dank, dark basement, washing pots and pans, pouring coffee, buttering toast and frying bacon. I didn't know that the work sucked back then, I just knew I was COOKING! Like my idols on TV were doing all those years earlier. I can still smell the coffee/ cigarettes/ fried bacon smells of that place. I can still hear Lorette's growling/ raspy voice from behind her griddle screaming at me to "Hurry up and wash those coffee cups, we're almost out!", WOW, what a trip.

Fast forward 23 years and here I am. 1000 miles away from that nasty diner and that crazy woman. God knows I've been through a lot but here I am! Alive and kicking! After all that work and a lot of help along the way, it arrived. The document that separates the men from the boys (OK, or the girls from the woman :) ) And I have just one word to describe it:


"Beautiful." It's as beautiful as any piece of paper could ever be. It showed up in a filthy white card board envelope a couple days ago, kinda anti-climactic, to be honest. I was more excited to get the two cookbooks I ordered from Amazon.com that arrived at the same time than I was to open my "prize" from the ACF.

Was it worth the bullshit to get it? Well, maybe. Was it worth the money? Well, for what I spent, I kinda expected more than just a laminated card and a pretty piece of paper, maybe a bag of cookies or something? Could you guys have, perhaps, made the certificate from parchment like they do when you graduate high school? No kidding, my GED is printed on better quality stock than my CEC certificate and it was a LOT easier to achieve and shit tons less expensive than the latter as well. Ah, but it's still gorgeous :)

After it sank in for a couple days and after I stared at it a few times, the overwhelming desire to scream, "I DID IT!" came over me at least twice. Aside from the lack of pomp and circumstance the ACF puts forward for you, it's still pretty awesome to know that, after 23 years in this business, I can finally tell people I'm a chef and it mean something to both parties.

A good friend of mine, before we became good friends, told me once over the phone while I was sitting in the parking lot of a local Starbucks that I would never become anything in my life or career besides a "lousy sous chef". Oddly enough, at the time I was HIS sous chef!

Not sure what brought that up at the time besides his need for an ego boost, but it pissed me right off. Up to that point I defined myself by my work and WHO I worked for instead of WHY I worked and how I could better myself and MY OWN CAREER!

That statement brought me back to my senses a little. Instead of people pleasing for a bunch of self centered, self righteous wanna-be chefs, I began to focus on me and how I could become the best chef ever. I'm still working on that to this day but not for someone else, for me. It also made me realize how important a good team is for a chef to become successful. Those dudes, all into themselves and the "look what I can do" attitudes rarely mention who got them there. If it wasn't for my team and the people that have helped me through out my career to become successful, I would be, still, just a "lousy sous chef". Thanks for saying that to me that day bud, I guess I needed to hear it!

Now, the day has finally come where, oddly enough, I'm a CEC and the guys that have pissed on me along the way are either still working their same dead end jobs, have gone backwards in their careers or are dead. I have them all to thank for this great day! If I hadn't had my ass kicked by you all, well, my life would be very different, for sure.

Now I'm at the "now what" stage in my career. I reached this goal, now what? I guess I'll have to pray about it and wait for guidance. God is good and will always lead the way. He put people into my life knowing that I am only motivated by the people/ things in my life that try to get in the way. You know who you, lol.

Stay tuned for my next adventure!

Visit to Poplar Ridge Farm

In search for another local produce farm to feed the needs of my new menu, I found Poplar Ridge Farms during a Google search. Search engines are a wonderful thing man :)

Even though I'm currently using two local producers, Barbee farms in Concord and Nise's Herbs who has an amazing farm stand at the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, there's always room for one more. Is too much awesome locally grown produce a bad thing?!

After driving for about 45 minutes from the club, I arrived at this amazingly beautiful farm in Union County. It's out in the middle of nowhere and man, talk about a mini paradise! As I drove into the gravel drive and up into the farm, a sense of peace combined with a child like excitement came over me. I saw all this food growing all over the place. For a chef, it's like ground zero. All I needed was a salt and pepper shaker and my knives.

Any who, I met with one of the owners, the beautiful Marianne Battistone and the farm manager Tony Phillips as they gave me a full tour of their farm. Tony showed me some amazing heirloom variety cucumbers, tomatoes and this red okra I wanted to fry up right on the spot! Asparagus plants, beans, corn, oh my! Shook hands with a couple of the farm employees, great guys. Everyone seemed happy, fulfilled and proud of what they do.

Marianne showed me around the other side of the farm where they grow herbs, lettuces, flowers and the like. We peaked around in the cooling house where there were tons of garlic, potatoes and butter nut squash curing and waiting to be eaten (by me, hopefully).

The entire property was like a serene garden of Eden fully equipped with horses, iron gates, a cooking class-room and a pool that would put anyone into an envious state (especially today, it was HOT out!).

As we were walking around discussing doing business together, all I could think about was what sort of things I could make with all those items coming out of the ground. "Yeah, I could roast those with a Duroc pork chop, wilt that tossed in a citrus vinaigrette, saute this, poach that!!!" Good thing I had to leave or I just may have had to run to the grocery store, buy a tent and start cooking! But, I digress.


Of course, there were samples! We nibbled on sweet 100 tomatoes and baby head sized heirlooms that had to be seen to be believed.

Also, if you ever want to eat some of the best local produce in the area, check out their CSA info here. I'll post some menu pics and blog about the new menu soon enough, stay tuned.

Our family Wilmington trip

My family came to town to visit us for a few days this week from New Hampshire. My entire family has had an affinity with both the sea coast and, of course, food so a two day trip to Wilmington, NC seemed like a great idea to appease both appetites. But, unfortunately, none of them share my love for a good cigar :)


We saw some amazing sites. The Battleship North Carolina is an amazing thing to see. You could spend HOURS on that ship and still not see it all, just awesome. It's one of the highest awarded ships from world war 2 and permanently docked there in Wilmington on the Cape Fear river.


We walked the "River Walk" while gorging ourselves on home made ice cream stuffed in fresh made waffle cones. The smells sucked us in and it was really hard to resist eating at least 2 a day. Every moment the Kilwins Ice Cream shop was opened, there was a line of at least 30 people running out the door. The ice cream shop across the street could only look on with amazement as we all ate our frozen desserts, wondering why said ice cream shop had no customers. Maybe its because they aren't making their own cones. The smell of a house made waffle cone would bring most people to their knees!



We took a horse drawn wagon tour pulled by Ned and Bobby, two rescued horses, around one of the historic neighborhoods in the area. Some of the houses on the tour were built in the late 1700s and still in tact. Its really impressive to see all the amazing homes that look like they did back in the day. Some of the streets are still covered in cobblestone and caused the wagon to bounce us all over the place, lol, funny.


We couldn't be in a great port town without visiting a few great restaurants. There were some really amazing places to eat during our stay. We started off with a great fried fish platter and bar apps at the Surf's Bar and Grille, yum.

One night we ate on the river walk at a place called The Pilot House where I had a really good carpaccio appetizer followed by an awesome tuna main course (I ordered it very rare, of course :) ) mom had a maple glazed salmon, sis had the fillet Mignon and wifey had the crab cakes. We all split a few shrimp cocktail and the girls split a bottle of wine, great night of noshing.

For a quick light lunch, we stopped by a place that makes their own beer, The Front Street Brewery (FST for short). The place was PACKED!!! I mean, there must have been like hundreds of people eating great food and drinking the local brew. There were these HUGE brass beer brewers (no idea what they're called, lol, I'm a chef and I don't drink!). We chowed down on one of the best pulled pork sammiches I've ever had, sweet potato fries, burgers and check out the picture of Frogmore Stew, a local favorite. :)

If you're ever in Wilmington, North Carolina, I think you'd agree it's a great destination to get away for a couple days and hang out by the water. You're really close to some great beaches too. We hung out at Wrightsville Beach and collected shells and put our toes in the sand. That's my idea of relaxation man. Toes-in-sand and the sounds of the ocean is all I need.


And, lets not forget the scenic walks through the local neighborhoods checking out the amazing churches, T-shirt shopping at Wing's, the aquarium and last, but not least, the laughs in the hotel. Wow, good thing we have a sense of humor, eh? Gotta love it.

Cooking demo series begins at William Sanoma

This morning, I began a series of cooking demonstrations for a local William-Sanoma. We began the series with a summer menu based on local and seasonally available produce taking advantage of their incredible selection of gadgets! The demo started at 11 am and went for a couple hours. We also had a local gardener discuss his business and the importance of organic gardening. He brought me some of his victory garden produce which was perfect for the three recipes I demod for the crowd of about 25 people.

More to come so stop by again in a few days!

Check out the pictures:

I started off with a roasted corn and grape tomato salad. The "picked that morning" local corn was rubbed in olive oil, grilled on a table top electric grill and put into this amazingly fresh salad.


This dish was a cold and refreshing cucumber soup. These cucumbers were so fresh and flavorful that when I grated them, people way in the back of the room could smell them, awesome.


Here is a zucchini and tomato dish using really fresh veggies and herbs. Drizzled with some amazingly fruity extra virgin olive oil and maldon sea salt, it was amazing!


The above recipes can be found on their web site.

Farmers market food demos are fun!

I had the pleasure to demo at two local farmers markets in the area these past few weeks. Kinda odd how I got roped into doing that, but was really fun. One of them was a neighborhood farmers market right smack dab in the middle of an eclectic artsy district in downtown Charlotte. I met some of the nicest and down-to-earth people Ive had the pleasure to meet.

I was setup under a small tent in front of the vendors. It was a wicked hot summer day, about 98F and the humidity was close to that as well, yuk! :) With my thick Egyptian cotton chef coat and black pants, I wasn't very comfortable, to say the least, lol. But, when you love what you do, what's a little sweat, ah?

After gathering some generous samples from a few vendors, my demo started. Armed with my wares of a propane burner, salad spinner and cutting board, I did grilled ostrich loin simply seasoned with salt and pepper and local herb infused olive oil, yum, on top of a simple garden salad tossed in a white wine vinaigrette. The entire thing was quick, easy and light almost in a refreshing way. A few visitors gathered around to try the samples and learn a few tricks. I'm such a ham, lol.

The other market was on the other side of the planet, seemingly, in Concord. It's located in a small park in the middle of a tiny rural area in the middle of nowhere. There are some incredible salt of the earth farmers and producers that just rock. They were glad to give me a few samples to cook with, such nice people.

Most vendors at farmers markets are just awesome to be around. They're mostly always happy and love to talk about what they grow or produce. From the health benefits of buying them to where the seeds come from, the breeds, to what soil they use to tons of preparation suggestions. And, when they find out you're a chef, they become almost GIDDY! We both click and realize that their produce, meats or cheeses are going to get a great final resting place.

At the second market, I took my tonnage of samples and, armed with my tiny Weber charcoal grill, hard woods and my favorite boos cutting board, began the creation process. I grilled a marinated skirt steak, sliced it thin, slapped it into a grilled fresh corn tortilla (yes, I made those too, lol) and topped it with their choice of two types of salsas; one made with local peaches, grilled and tossed with sweet onions and hot peppers, the other was a 4-chili and heirloom tomato salsa. Yeah, the 30+ samples went very fast, to say the least.

One vendor gave me like 3 pounds of really fresh okra that I had no idea what to do with. Having grown up in New Hampshire where I've never even HEARD of the stuff, let alone ate it, and, having only ate it in stews and fried in cornmeal after I moved here to North Carolina, I really hated the stuff, to be honest. Its slimy and tastes like it feels, lol. BUT, I had all this left over charcoal heat that was a shame to waste and just tossed some of the okra straight on the grill grate hoping for the best. Wow! It was charred and crisp with no slime! It tasted like the hard woods it was cooked over with a slightly grassy sweet taste, yum! After the cautious okra lovers looked at me like I had 3 heads, I made a few believers out of them. Wow, a healthy way to eat that stuff!? It was a proud moment :)

Cooking, in my opinion, is so much more than just applying heat to food and putting it in your mouth. It's about the creation and thought processes, the gathering of ingredients and information, the teaching and mentoring and the gratification you get from doing all those things. That's what cooking is, its like an all-in-one rush that you cant get from any other profession. Just seeing the look on someones face when they love your food or the excitement they get when they learned how to make something from nothing is what its all about.

I signed up to do a few cooking demos at a local William Sanoma these next 2 months. I'll keep you posted and I'm looking forward to these demos as well!