gfron1

This is a very hurried set of chocolates to sell for the holidays. I was trying to get anything out before it was too late and did pretty well (Thanks EZ Temper!) From left to right: Lavender honey Beet, fennel pollen Orange, kumquat vanilla Double shot espresso (espresso caramel, Ethiopian bean ganache) Passion fruit caramel

I'm very jealous and hope you'll report back...better yet, tell Chef Andrew that he has a fan boy over in the States.

Maybe twisting fermented as baked? Maybe in a jar in his kitchen window? But I have no idea.

I feel like it wants to mash or break up something.

1) What is your favourite restaurant (apart from your own): Absolutely fell in love with Nur in Tallin Estonia. Don't know if they're still there but the passion was as strong as any restaurant I've been. 2) What is your most important ingredient in the kitchen, and why? Yes, salt and acid. Those can make or break any dish. Beyond the basics I would say my flours. I now have over a dozen locally grown, freshly milled flours and each is crucial to the recipe I source it for. 3) What tool is most important in your kitchen, and why? Depending on the hour either my offset or my chef knife 4) Which restaurant, anywhere, is your dream destination to dine? Andrew Pern's Star Inn the City in York. His cookbook is still my favorite of the hundreds in my collection and I'd love to enjoy his food and hospitality. 5) What trend do you see becoming popular in restaurants in the next year? I think the balancing against the locavore movement is going to gain traction. I'm seeing more and more of the top chefs respond to that just as they've responded to molecular gastronomy - "We've done that. We've learned from that. It's a tool in our toolkit. But now I want to cook the best food I can regardless of where its from." 6) What trend would you most like to see go away? (Not a new trend by any means) I want to see an end to superfluous quotes on menus. I want an end to instructions on how to eat food. And I want all of the chef-orgasm descriptors to go away - let the food speak for itself. Examples (in order): Broccoli "steak" - It's not steak damnit! It's a broccoli floret cook on a grill! (Make me want to scream every time) "Please enjoy your kale leaves by using our shears to snip the leaves from the stalk and swipe them in the various sauces." ...this is real...don't get me started. "This is our 6-month baked tomato sauce." Um...no it isn't. If you wasted 6 months of utilities baking your tomatoes then you're a complete idiot. (And no, it was not a solar oven. I asked.)

I ended up with the NutriMill. I'm using it less than expected because it turns out we're buying 100% local grains, and that means the farmers are grinding for us to our specs - in other words, we're doing way too much for the NutriMill.

yes to all of that (whole and ground, and with a wet grinder). For drying we leave out overnight lightly covered.

There are two changes that I've noticed (the third change is digestibility, but I haven't noticed any changes there). First, is depending on the grain, my current wheat comes off almost like parmesan cheese by the time I'm done with it. I use that same grain for my wheatberry salad for that very reason. Second, is texture. I like the crisp chew of sprouted grains in my bread. Hard to explain but crisp chew is the best I've got for you. We grind to two different levels - one very course and one more refined.

24, plus a dozen at the bar, plus cocktail tables and outdoor seating in season. The concept has always been that I want direct contact with each dinner customer - no servers, no need to do any more than reach across the counter to give them their plate. 24 is about all I and my sous can handle at maintain the quality we expect. Bar customers will get small plates and possibly prefix menus.

Sounds like you would like my grits special today - Fitz's (a local company) root beer braised lamb neck grits with smashed fried potatoes. In other news...fingers crossed everyone...

Camel milk drama! I'm still trying to find a store that actually has it in stock.

OMG! I could open a whole business around that idea! Maybe I'll do a pop-up weekend.

Anyone who knows my cooking knows that I'm all about supporting local foods...well...apparently I will have a few gallons of local camel milk here in St. Louis next week. I'm thinking yogurt and fresh cheese to start, and maybe make a caramel, but what else? Anyone use it before? Suggestions? Warnings?

There's a number of different types, and quite frankly I'm a fan of all of them, but my favorite is the pale colored wood parched variety...typically the most expensive. Almost looks like sticks instead of the slick black long grains.

@chefmd I have zero control. Even if someone did have control it would be the distributor of the publisher, not the lowly author. I'm glad to see them doing a little price cut. It had a good run on Amazon, but we are at the one year point so it would make sense that they would try and move the inventory.

Just wrapped up our first week. Very exhausted. I love the energy of creating everything new balanced with the fear of making it (or not), but the hours are long. Very long. HERE's another fun article about the opening. Apparently my challenge will be to get folks in for breakfast. Lunch did fine every day but breakfast was only good on Monday and Friday. It'll get there with word of mouth. Every guest has been super excited by the food. Hash - Duck confit, 100 layer apple, sweet potato dressed in cayenne maple, real wild rice, egg Callas - Missouri jasmine, Minnesota wild rice, sorghum syrup. Sorta like a rice beignet. Root Marrow - Asian seasoned roasted root vegetables, hollowed and filled with carrot or beet hummus; carrot halwah, seeded crisps A little snack for myself - marigold caramel on my fresh made english muffin.

What's fun is that we cut it open for the picture. The guest will just see two or three beets on their plate and not know what's inside until they cut in.

What a whirlwind. We got into the kitchen 15 days ago. There was no 220 outlets so I couldn't hook up my convection oven. Finally got electric 8 days ago. We open this Monday. That's sorta a 2 week turnaround, or 1 week if you count when I finally had a full kitchen. We did our media preview day yesterday and there is a building frenzy...now my sous and I are scared that we'll run out...that's not a good thing IMO. Anyway...here is the menu and a couple of pics. Cassoulet (Missouri white beans, Green Finn Hippy pork and duck; fried beans, toasted rye crumbs 100% Missouri flour; duck soup dumpling (dumpling wrapper made using same Missouri flour). 100% grown, raised, seasoned from Missouri. Beet salad (Beets filled with savory lemon curd, goat cheese bavarian, topped with granola powder, local greens, pickled onion, bronze fennel and a slice of the same rye bread)

I had heard that too but no one seemed to care, and it wasn't just me as a chef doing research - a table next to ours was and his flash went off...they immediately stepped over for a chat. I sorta had the sense that he was on the Bieber I'm sorry tour (followiing his handling of the LA reviewer scandal, or maybe just a few harsh reviews)...very humble and very soft-spoken.

Last week I had the opportunity to eat at Jordan Kahn's Vespertine in Culver City, the new restaurant that Jonathan Gold just proclaimed the top in the city. I decided to fly across the country because I have long held that Jordan is the most creative chef in the country in recent years. I'm sure others could make the claim for a number of chefs, and certainly anyone from that opening class of Alinea, but Jordan, to my way of thinking, ups the ante every time. I was so disappointed when I failed to dine at Red Medicine before he closed it that I swore I would not miss his next restaurant. And hence my trip. Plenty has been written already about the spaceship experience, but it all starts with collaboration. Collaboration with ceramic artists. Collaboration with metal smiths. And most importantly the collaboration with the architect who built this amazing space just for Vespertine. I'll note that this is across the street from his daytime restaurant Destroyer, which was the r&d part of my trip related to my own restaurant opening next week. The building is three stories plus a roof space which is enclosed in the grid. First floor - entrance and art installation; Second floor - main dining; Third floor - kitchen; Fourth - roof lounge. There is also a outdoor garden with heated concrete benches surrounded by horsetail plants (you can see a bit on the bottom right of this pic). As would be expected at this price point the team had done its research. As I walked up the street (I was staying at a nearby AirBnB) the valet greeted me by name even before I was on the property calling out, "Good evening Chef Connoley." Just to be clear that means he had researched my face and background. They didn't know who my guest was (who is far more famous and important than me!), but I didn't tell them who I was bringing. After foraged seasoned sparkling wine in the garden they brought us into the first floor where we were sent to the third floor. As the door opened Chef Kahn was waiting for us. Greetings and pleasantries, dietary concerns and preferences, and then he just chatted me up about my upcoming project...He and I have a lot of parallels although in very different realms, but near identical sensibilities and philosophies. He sent us up the stairs to the roof where we were again greeted and sat at a low cushioned bench. Custom furniture everywhere including this table that was pegged for lights and dishes to be placed anywhere...all custom fit of course. The manzanita branch held some kelp and seaweed both natural and with superfluous quotes. Then snacks... I don't remember everything and you can decypher from the menu at the end of this post. All were delicious. All were intriguing. All were beautiful. This one was a cracker set inside a ceramic "bone" that cracked open to reveal the crackers... The star of the night was, as often is the case, the most simple - mango encased in sunflower petals. My VIP guest for the evening and I enjoying an early buzz while the LA sun sets. My spouse Tyler is insanely jealous that he keeps missing out on my LA trips, last year to n/Naka and then this one. Oh well pooker, keep dreaming! It was down to the dining room next. I was a bit on a budget (I know that makes no sense eating here at $250 per person but that meant I had to go with the cheaper wine pairing ($115 v $185). We saw the wine book...huge and custom designed case and covers. Then the courses started coming out (around 10 I believe). Sweet pea stuff: Scallop stuff I remember this one - some crab dip...not my favorite - a bit boring but still yummy The only dud of the night - turkey. Interestingly I've since read other people saying the same thing - I think its time to kill your darlings: And then we were done. Staff brought us back to the first floor and out to the garden for housemade liquors on the seated benches with an opportunity to view the stars with a provided telescope. It was too cloudy for us but a neat idea. And one final nice touch...a note from the chef. I assume everyone gets one, and maybe they're all personalized as mine was: The menu provided via email the next day: And a quick comment to say that as much as I loved Vespertine, I equally loved the more casual Destroyer across the street. Superb oatmeal and berry bowl. Interesting take on avocado toast, although a friend screamed, "Deconstructed avocado toast? F&%k off!" This last pic is a comparison of Destroyer's avo toast and Sqirl's that I got the next morning.

...and what was I just saying...Eater's response.

Yesterday Jonathan Gold proclaimed Vespertine to be the top restaurant in LA. I just ate there last week and thought it was amazing, but it's only been open a month or so. Last year a chef in St Louis was a semifinalist for Best Chef, Midwest after having been open only a few months. That restaurant's quality has dropped dramatically in its second year. I know that most of the magazines, and JBF, consider best "New" restaurant to be up to three years old, which to my mindset is smart because it's not about what you can do one night, but repeatedly over time. So I'm wondering what other examples are there of chefs and restaurants proclaimed "The Best" a bit too prematurely only to fall and not be so great.

A little late, but I don't want to assume that you know "the obvious," so how bout some professional kitchen basics: 1. Wear non-slip close toed shoes. 2. Wear long pants (or mimic whatever you know the chef to wear) 3. Wash your hands always, often, forever and well 4. Don't touch the chef's knives unless they offer them to you 5. Be aware of your surroundings so you don't bump into something and ruin other projects the chef may have going on 6. Be honest about your knowledge. If they chef says, 'dice a mirepoix' and you don't know what dice or mirepoix is, just ask...most chefs love to teach.

One event at a time please....but I had mentioned to Kerry before that as I continue to get established in St. Louis I would love to suggest it as a site for a future event. Today I toured Bissinger's Chocolates with the head chocolatier who was extremely generous with his knowledge, and I was surprised at the level of hand crafting that was still going on. On a side note, Rick Jordan is ceasing operation and maybe leaving the field. Sad since I think he's one of the top in the nation...plus side I'm checking out his used equipment [please let's not sidetrack the intent of this thread with comments. I just wanted it stated so we can talk about it in Niagara.]

While we wait for the building to come to fruition... I'll be opening a new daytime café