When Fashion & Food Meet!
I was asked to participate in a fun event for the Les Dames Escoffier In May, 2010. The idea of this event was to show artistic insipration using multiple formats, food and fashion. I was paired up with Michelle Tan, a designer with a shop in bucktown on Damen Ave. We picked words out of a hat, one was food and one was fashion, our words were ginger and geometric. Michelle and I had the worst schedules, when I was in town she was out of town and vice versa. Finally I went by her store and saw the outfit, it was amazing! As soon as I looked at all the plaid design with the crinkle cut edge (I know theres a fashion term but I’m a chef its crinkle cut! Its my blog!) I knew exactly what I was making. Alobster and ginger filled ravioli using squid ink to mimic the colors and crinkle edge tecture. She a frilly head piece our model was going to wear so I made a petite herb salad with crispy rings of shallots and shoestring potatoes. Underneath the ravioli I placed a celery root slaw and drizzled the plate with a bit of chili oil. The night we walked out on stage was pretty funny, both of us barely worked face to face on this project but we both sported our black hats and found out what true rockers each of us really are! Thanks Michelle, I had a blast. Go Check out her sight and visit the boutique http://michelletan.com/
Pop Up Vegan Tasting
The email came through that guests of theJames hotel needed a vegan tasting menu, excellent! Its not often we get requests for vegan cuisine afterall we are Chicago’s premier steakhouse! This day took me back in time when I was just a line cook working at Trio in Evanston for Chef Shawn McClain, I was on entremetier (veg station). We had tons of food requests, special diets and overall a passion and audiance to create great cuisine highlighting vegetables.
I started out with some simple nibbles in the lounge, grilled eggplant arancinis that we placed on a bed of crushed nicoise olives with roasted garlic and fresh oregano. Three sisters farm grit cakes topped with smoked mushrooms and sweet and sour peppers. The last nibble was truffle root vegetable crostinis. Look at that knife work, my Sous Chef Nolan clearly passed skills class!
We had to play with our new kitchen toy, seeing the look on my Sous Chef Dino’s face when he plays with the cryovac machine is priceless, he’s happy Dino! We made compressed watermelon carpaccio topped with marinated kumatos, watermelon radish, slivered onion rings, cucumbers, fried capers, fried ginger and mint.
We had some beautiful local baby carrots, I cooked each seperately golden with garlic, orange with ginger and purple with chilies. They were cut into small rounds and tossed with dried baguette and the remaing cooking liquids and parsley to make a panzanella. This was wrapped in basic eggless pasta dough and baked. Garnished with olive oil poached fennel and a pesto of arugula and hazelnuts.
At this point in the evening the rest of the guests at the table were eating steaks and drinking bigger red wines, so I took a simple and beautiful approach to match. Grilled king trumpet mushrooms, asparagus and watercress emulsion, corn shoots and (below) caramalized caulifower and olive oil crushed yukon gold potato gratin with fresh thyme.
Dessert, I didnt get to take a picture but it looked and tasted amazing. John a.k.a. PC1 and Amanda made a heirloom apple crisp with organic oat struesal and orange sorbet. A fun day of cooking during a classic Chicago winter blizzard!
DandyID
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