Purple Off

Another competition has arisen between myself and my sous John and we have gone to the polls to settle this. Above we have two very different methods of making braised red cabbage. This competition is very specific. Please vote by comments and If you want to be anonymous that's ok. If you know us please tell us your name. It's nice for bragging rights more than anything else.

Here is the question:
WHICH BRAISED RED CABBAGE IS MORE PURPLE, A OR B?

Please let us know. John lost last time and wants some redemption. To make this a little more formal we will close the polls one week from today.

Truffle Fest Pictures

PREPARE TO BE OVERWHELMED. My wife took a lot of pictures. As I said before we had a blast as some of the pictures will show.

An obscene amount of truffles from day 1. This was the story for the entire weekend

More of the Same. People were using truffles like they were button mushrooms. Awesome

This is an up close picture of our Tea smoked duck from the first night. We served it on wontons with homemade black mustard. We cured it for three days and slow smoked it with Lapsang Souchong.

Chef instructor Jules Pernell from USC.

A large bowl of truffled ranch courtesy of Sam Poley of Durham Catering. Delicious!

My sous chef John Mersinger cutting up a lot of tea smoked duck.

The beautiful house were we served our smoked duck, foie gras, and truffled brie.

Cane Creek Farms Pork belly made by Amy Lynn Lafreniere of the Umstead Hotel and Spa.

A picture of two of our three passed hors d'oeuvres. The top one is foie gras tourchon, black currant jam and shaved truffle. The bottom is our tea smoked duck with housemade black mustard.

My ugly mug working in the kitchen at the Double Tree hotel in Asheville pre party.

John getting ready the first night.

Sam Poley's roasted salmon.

Bill Harrison from The Umstead.

Me again cutting crostini

A celebratory drink at 11am on saturday. John, Bill from the Umstead, and I after finishing the risotto competition.

Two pictures of the plate John and I put out for the competition. We tried to think of ways to use risotto that didn't involve a traditional bowl of risotto. So we used the risotto rice like sushi rice and served it with seared scallop in the center, Mache tossed with verjus and pickled truffle.

A picture of the photogragher, my beautiful wife, and Amy Lynn from the Umstead.

More Champagne after the competition.

This is John first thing on saturday morning stirring our risotto with a lot of love. He looks so happy to be stirring while I kept asking what was taking him so long.
(It didn't really take that long)

This is a quick shot of the crew from the Umsteads' plate going out to the judges. It looked amazing.

John and I with the man Franklin Garland. Franklin and his wife Betty, provided all the Truffles, and Accomodations for the chefs. We were really pampered.

The large bottle of Chimay going on Ice on saturday morning. If you look closely you can see this is a 22qt cambro. That's a lot of beer.

A bunch of picture of most of the chefs at the competition with Franklin and Betty Garland front and center.

Bill working hard to make sure the chimay gets cold!

Some of us awaiting the results of the competition. Yes that is Iron Chef Walter Royal all the way to the left. He was a judge and is a super nice guy.

Saturday night I am describing our scallop dish to 120 people.

Yes look at the date on that Medoc. I went out into the dining room to brag to my wife that I was drinking a 1996 Medoc in the kitchen. She in turn shows me this bottle of 1988. Both were amazing. This is a little nod to lavash lifestyle we were living for 3 days in Asheville.

John and I trying to look pretty at the last event on Friday. These great outfits were courtesy of our restaurant Owners Ed and Deborah Roach who were so kind to let us both attend the event.

National Truffle Fest Part 2

The First Annual North American Truffle Festival is coming up in a few short weeks. Tickets are still available. I wanted to post the menu for our wine dinner we will be cooking the first Thursday of the event. Each chef is cooking 4-5 course to be paired with wine and each meal is for roughly 12 people, so tickets for this event are going fast. Here is what we have decided to cook. Remember this is a truffle driven event so get ready to eat some truffle.

Amuse Bouche

Tuna Crudo, Litchi-Green Tea Gelee, Telicherry Pepper

First Course

Chicken and Foraged Mushroom Consommé Royal, and Shaved Truffle

Second Course

Diver Scallops, Risotto, Shaved Truffle, Sorrel and Verjus

Third Course

Pheasant en Crépinette, Pheasant Sausage, and Chestnut Jus

Fourth Course

Ile Flottante

Floating Island, Raspberry Mousse, Caramelized White Chocolate Custard and Almond Tuile

National Truffle Fest

We are really lucky to live with in close proximity of so many farms. But we are even luckier to be 30 miles from the oldest truffle orchard in the US. Garland Farms Truffles is right down the road in Hillsborough, NC. We are featuring their truffles in our New Year's eve menu but even more exciting they have started the First Annual National Truffle Fest to take place in March of 2009. At the Biltmore of all places! And they have asked me to be one of the chefs to participate. This is a huge honor for me and I am truly thankful and excited. For those of you who love truffles, you should definetly come. The website has all the details. And please stop by and see me if you decide to check out the event.

Swoosh Off

This is a good old fashioned swoosh, whatever that means. So John and I have swooshed red pepper coulis on two different plates and we'd like you, the people to vote. Which plate is more pleasing aesthetically. Forget Iron Chef, this means so much more. So please vote no matter who or where you are. For those of you who do know us personally please leave a name so we can poll the jury so to say.

Picture A:


Picture B
TO VOTE CLICK ON COMMENTS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN. YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE A BLOGGER ACCOUNT JUST CLICK ANONYMOUS AFTER YOU TYPE YOUR VOTE.
We will check the status in a couple of days. Please vote in the comments section, and Good Luck John your going to need it.

Coming soon: Dueling Specials.

Bocuse d'Or

The Bocuse d'Or is the Olympics of the culinary world. It happens every 2 years in Lyon France and is coming up in January 2009. The NY Times has nice article about the USA's involvement over the lifespan of the awards. No one from the US has ever placed higher than 6th place.
In an effort to up America's showing Thomas Keller and Daniel Boulud are putting a together a competition with Paul Bocuse's son Jerome call Bocuse d'Or USA. The winners will get to train with Keller and Boulud before going to France. I think it's awesome that America is finally taking the culinary world seriously. I hope this all proves to be successful and allows America to place first. Although I'm sure to be at the bottom of around 20,000 applicants, I figured why not try so I will be filling out an application to the Bocuse d'Or USA.