Uncharacteristically for me, this has nothing to do with that! Just couldn't let it pass unnoticed.
So just a few this and that’s to occupy some of your Friday time..
which is the 13th, in case you had not noticed, be careful out there…
Events
As you all know, April is Archeology Month, and in honor of that, tonight
there is a nice program down at Historic St. Mary’s city. Several of the archeologists there will be
making a little presentation on their recent digs and findings. No charge of course, it is in the Visitor
Center at 7:30. With MFO in Wisconsin I will
be there.
Sunday there is the inaugural concert of the Waterside Music
Festival Series. Silberschlag and his orchestra are entering into an expanded
bunch of concerts apart from the River Concert venue. Concerts are planned for Woodlawn, National
Harbor, and perhaps Porto Bello. There is
a $25 fee, but supporting one of our unique attractions here in SOMD. Although I am not sure, I suspect you might be able to try some
Slack Winery product. I’m still on the fence there.
Food Related
I got my latest copy of Cook’s Illustrated the other day,
and after passing on the Kimball column about how wonderful Vermont and its
people are, sI tarted leafing through the recipes and insightful tips (like how to use your barbeque tongs as a
makeshift bottle opener) and came across a recipe called “Really Good Crab Cakes”. Mercifully no mention of “Maryland Style” was
to be found, but the premise of this piece was that while freshly picked crab
meat is preferred he wanted to “come up with the best (gasp) possible crab cakes….regardless
of whether I was starting with fresh crab meat”. A little side bar rated commercially
available crab meat with Phillips Premium Crab Jumbo top rated (at $27 for 16
oz.) and passable canned Miller’s Select.
I went on to look at the recipe and found a twist I had not heard of
before. It contained a bunch of stuff
(celery, onion, garlic, heavy cream, Dijon, Old Bay) but I came up short when I saw “4
ounces of shrimp, peeled deveined and tails removed”. Say what?
Well, the reason is that he wanted to make a sort of binder
to hold the crab together. Somehow he
came up with the idea of using shrimp (to enhance the briny sweetness and plump
bite of the crabmeat). and decided on a mousseline. “blitz 6 ounces of shrimp in the food
processor (yes, the recipe called for 4) with 6 tablespoons of cream, old bay, Dijon,
hot sauce and fresh lemon) he loved it, and the science editor called it a true
“meat glue”.
Anyway the whole preparation is pretty extended: soak the
crab in milk 20 minutes, toast panko crumbs, puree some and sauté some of the veggies,
combine, let cool, mix in this, add that, and finally come up with 8 panko
coated items which you then fry in oil (after firming in the fridge for 20
minutes). While intriguing, it strikes
me as just plain silly. Cook’s
Illustrated at it’s best!
Coming and Going
The whole restaurant/food service business is strange. Talk about volatile! Openings and closings, revolving chefs,
revamping, and as they say, Change is the only constant.
As a case in point in our little community, in my very last posting I talked
about Chef’s American Bistro morphing into Café Kilimanjaro (with a sidebar of
Lone star becoming Brasserie 235). Well,
this morning I learn that not only will American Bistro be shuttered, the operation
will move to the retirement center in Wildewood (home of multiple attempts at a
restaurant, the latest being La Tabella).
It sounds as if La Tabella will be no more (due to the unfortunate death
of the owner) and instead it will become “Brasserie at the Village”. He seems driven to have a Brasserie.. anyway it will feature an “upscale European
and French menu, introducing lots of seafood, a raw bar, domestic and foreign
beers and an exciting array of small vintners wines and an array of well made
scotches, whiskeys, gins, vodkas, and cordials.” He is shooting for around Mother’s Day. Back in the day, Chef ran the restaurant
there whatever name it was then.. tavern?
He has never thought small. I will not repeat my feeling about the
space, regardless of what is on the table..
And lastly, a pleasant feature of the food business. I treated myself to a solo dinner at the Dry
Dock last night, and was delighted to see one of the “old team” of long ago
appear as a manager to augment the owner who has been devoting a lot of
time to that. She departed years ago to
open her own place up in Prince Frederick.
Once the business gets you, it’s hard to let go. She was a great server, and now I’m sure her
talents will do nothing but elevate the Dry Dock even more. I had a fried oyster starter last night that
were some of the best I’ve had in a long time.
Just the right size oysters in a light batter that stood up in little
peaks, not just a clumpy shroud surrounding the meat. It was crisp, and the oysters just
creamy. I should have had a dinner
portion.
Okay, that’s it for a Friday the thirteenth. MFO points the MOMSTER east tomorrow to
arrive on Sunday. I bet when she arrives
she will want to be
DFD
ps/admin.. you might notice that i have been playing around with font sizes, some thought the "old" was too small, but now some think the larger is too big.. Opinions welcomed. I'll leave today's "small". i only have two choices.
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