Rum dinner, part deux

Last year, a rum tasting dinner at Elliott's Oyster House got me thinking about beverages other than wine to match with food. This year, Elliott's once again had a dinner with rum pairings. This year, instead of shots of rum (a challenge not only to pair with, but to drink 5-8 shots of rum and navigate the walk home) the five courses were paired with custom rum cocktails. So along with Chef Jeremy Anderson, the beverage team got into the act. With wonderful results!

First, the appetizers featured the return of "salmon candy," cured with brown sugar and Mount Gay rum and smoked. We also had oysters on the half shell with a Caribbean-style essence of salsa: mango, jalapeno, mint, and other flavors combined and juiced, then sauced on the oysters. That's one flavor I have to replicate here at home; I think it would be a great compliment to a ceviche. With this course we had a Bacardi Limon cosmopolitans and Caribbean margaritas.

Next we get a seafood "mojito" with scallops, rock shrimp, calamari, and ahi marinated in mojito. Very refreshing, and though I thought the delicacy of raw ahi was a little lost in the mix it did contribute a nice texture. The cocktail with this course was rum with blood orange juice, Grand Marnier, and sparking wine. A striking red contrast to the seafood.

Our favorite course came next: smoked black cod with a black rice cake and mango-papaya vinaigrette. The smoked cod was rich and silky, and had just the perfect touch of smoke. The chef said it only took 15-20 minutes for the black cod to take up all the smoke it needed, after marinating in ginger, coconut milk, habaneros. and rum. This course also had the best cocktail pairing: "Le Petite Fleur," with white rum, Cointreau, grapefruit, and lime served up with an orchid. Just the right tanginess to cut through the richness of the fish.

For the main course, we had something I'd never tried: veal cheeks, braised in root beer and dark rum. It was served over a sweet potato cake, with a sour cherry chutney. Somewhat leaner and not as rich as beef cheeks, but very good just the same. The cocktail? A rum Manhattan with Mount Gay Extra Old rum, Vya vermouth, and a rum-infused cherry. I really liked the cherry.

(During this course, I told Dave that I wished that ducks had cheeks -- they'd probably be terrifically good!)

Finally, individual banana tart tatins with a rum-infused ice cream. I don't know why I've never thought to make a banana tart tatin - it's a great little dessert, and there are so many tropical flavors you can then match with it. This was a nice time for "Rhuba Coffee" with Bailey's Irish Cream and Bacardi rum.

Great dinner, and this year it seemed a little easier to walk up the street and roll into bed.

It ain't easy being green

I have no idea why my husband's office decided to have their "green" event on the 19th instead of the 17th, but I'm just the cook, not the organizer. He had to bring a green dessert to be a good team player. I figured everyone would opt for something with lime Jell-o. But we all know that I just can't do what everyone else was going to do. So I made green mint marshmallows. Marshmallows are just gelatin and hot sugar syrup with flavoring. Quite simple *as long as you have a powerful stand mixer.* Because you have to whip it for about 15 minutes at 90 mph to get a good fluffy product. Then handle it with powdered sugar and cornstarch because that stuff is STICKY! Pour it into a prepared pan and let it sit overnight. I used a pizza wheel and some scissors to cut it up into bite-sized squares, dredged them in more of the sugar-cornstarch mix, and they were very cute and minty. Actually, I used a mix of peppermint and butter flavoring to get a bit of a buttermint thing happening. I felt a little like I used to when Mike was in Little League, making cupcakes for the team party.

Homemade Corned Beef (and other cured things)

An update on the "Great Corned Beef Experiment" and other adventures in preserving: It worked! I spent a lot of time trimming the fat from the brisket. I just didn't think it needed that thick coat of fat, so where possible I left just a very thin layer. After a week of sitting in a bucket of brine in my wine fridge I took out all the pieces, cut them into meal-size portions, and vacuum packed them. I cooked one for my mom, who had never had a corned beef dinner before. For comparison, I also cooked a commercial corned beef. I also sent a piece over to my ex-husband, who has always loved corned beef and knows how to cook it, to get his feedback. Overall conclusions were consistent: richer flavor, better texture, good color. For a twist, I turned one corned beef flat into pastrami. (A flat is the flat half of a whole brisket; the other half has two pieces of meat separated by a thick layer of fat and is called the point. The top piece of meat on the point cut is called the "deckle" and it is much more marbled than the other muscle in the brisket.) I never knew that pastrami was just smoked corned beef with a pepper/coriander crust. That turned out with a flavor about as good as any pastrami I've had, once more much leaner so a healthier choice. The bacon also turned out well, though quite mild in flavor. I am turning part of the belly into pancetta, the non-rolled version. That requires some drying time in addition to the time in the cure. So we'll get to taste that in another week. But it smells really good! With the aforementioned pastrami in a sandwich, we had some of the home-cured sauerkraut. It smelled rather funky when I opened the crock, sort of like sour milk, but I knew that was just the lactic acid concentrating on the cloth on the top of the cabbage. The sauerkraut also turned out quite mild. In fact, I think it would be a great substitute for coleslaw on a pulled pork sandwich. Because it is fresh, the cabbage isn't that beige translucent stuff you get at the market; in fact it still has some of the green color and is quite crisp. Now I can hardly wait for August and cucumber season so I can try curing some kosher pickles. Now, since today is St. Paddy's, I'm making a corned beef for my husband to try. He was out of town for all of these curing chores, but is very happy to be eating the results.

Another great "underground" dinner

I've written before about "underground" dinners I have known. Last night, one of the best -- chef Joseph Conrad of Qube in Seattle, who's been in the city for just seven months. Boy, am I glad he's here. A combination of a finely tuned palate, a playful attitude towards food, and an amazing calm efficiency to his kitchen equate to seven+ courses that surprised and challenged my mouth and made it very, very happy. Photos and a little bit of description. Bet it will make you hungry!

An amuse-bouche of cured salmon and pickled cantaloupe inside avocado. Great array of textures and tastes - creamy/salty/ tangy.

This "seaweed" salad was comprised primarily of fennel fronds, with hijiki seaweed and tangerine, dressed with a nicoise olive viniagrette. Honestly, I never thought about cooking fennel fronds to serve; I just use them under fish when I roast it.

This was truly cool: yellowfin tuna "ramen" noodles with minced Asian pear and edamame, and a white soy broth/dressing. the radish sprouts added a nice spicy note, almost like having some wasabe alongside.

How about a little chorizo, made with shrimp instead of pork? The sausage rounds were topped with croutons and had a frisee salad hiding yummy pancetta cubes. The chorizo had some coarse-chopped shrimp integrated with the ground meat so in texture and appearance it looked like the fat you see in the pork sausage.

About here I was beginning to wonder if I'd make it through the entire meal! This is Maryland wild striped bass, over a fennel puree garnished with hearts of palm, pomelo, and trout roe. I usually don't care for fish skin, but I polished this one off.

Now for the pasta course, of course. But nothing ordinary about brioche gnocchi with black truffles and fois gras foam.

You almost can swing a cat and hit someone serving braised pork belly -- but with orange and sambal chile styrofoam and a tangerine jus? I think not. No, that's not a chicharrone on top, it's the styrofoam.

Dessert? Chocolate, of course. A Vahlrona chocolate cake with dulce de leche, Mexican hot chocolate emulsion, chicory coffee syrup, and "chile sugar."

With coffee I got a nice surprise. (When is a second dessert not a nice surprise?) This one was a mind-bender. Foie gras shortbread topped with fleur de sel, and some ethereal marshmallows that looked like chocolate truffles coated in cocoa, but were pretty much the exact opposite in texture.

The final amazing thing about this meal? I didn't have the wine pairings, so it was a little easier to waddle out to my car!

Bacon and corned beef

I've now got about 18 pounds of pork belly under cure -- six pounds for pancetta, with juniper and nutmeg added to the mix. One reason there's only six pounds for pancetta is that I have to skin the belly for pancetta, and it's a lot of work and time. For bacon, you leave the skin on and then remove it after the smoking/heating to 150 degrees, and that's a lot easier. Before I could get the cure on, I had to run out and buy some more tinted curing mix (TCM) because making the brine for the corned beef took more than I expected, or maybe I thought I had more than I did. Either way, the brine for the beef is now nice and cold, so my next task is to trim the briskets. Yes, I bought two whole briskets for this. I have NO IDEA what I'm going to do with 25 pounds of brisket. But it will keep longer than a regular roast, especially since I'll vacuum pack the finished product. Later today: pictures and descriptions from the "underground" dinner I attended yesterday. An amazing meal... .....but for now, back to the kitchen with me!

How Does My (Aero)Garden Grow?

Well, the tomato plants are beginning to bloom, and within a couple of days I expect the pepper plant will, too. I've served at least a dozen salads out of the greens garden, and am now having a hard time keeping up with it (doesn't help that SO is traveling for a few weeks, lots less greens get consumed when he isn't home). Both kinds of basil are a foot tall, so I picked up some fresh mozzarella and some Montrachet so I can have the cheeses with the basil, yum! The dill is threatening to take over the corner, but so is the mint. The chives are a little less robust, their roots have some white fungus or something that might be stunting their growth. The thyme isn't really what they should have put in the herbs package, as it is a low-grower and is getting shaded by all the other plants. However, it seems happy and I'm planning to use some of it in my curing/preserving activities this week, in the bacon. I'd post a photo but my SD cards and my computer aren't speaking just now, not sure why they are mad at each other. Oops, though, this blog is about food, not computers ;-)

Homemade Sauerkraut and Other Brined Things

I have discovered that I like sauerkraut if it is good. By good I mean fresh, certainly not canned. As it turns out, patience (along with some salt and cabbage) is all you really need to make your own. So tonight I am putting it all together, should be ready in less than a week. Tomorrow I'm going on a quest for pork bellies. Gotta make some bacon. I guess that's cured, not brined. Though a dry brine is part of the cure. I'm also going to get a nice chunk of beef brisket and make corned beef (yes, just in time for St. Pat's day). Somehow I suspect that by the end of next week this place is going to be more than a little aromatic!

The Zen of Tapioca

Beat the eggs well, and strain them so there aren't any cooked chalaza in the custard. Bring it to a boil over *medium low* heat -- this cannot be rushed! Unless, of course, you like little brown bits of dairy. Stir constantly, with a silicone spat or plastic whisk. But don't add a bunch of air, this will ruin the texture. Be patient and gentle. Don't turn up the heat and stir madly. Patience. (Anyone who knows me knows that I'm not a particularly patient person...I consider the making of tapioca to be a lesson for me.) Reduce the heat the moment it starts to bubble -- or risk wearing big splops of custard on you and your cook top. This is where a gas range is helpful. Simmer over the lowest heat you can get, and even if your recipe says stir occasionally, take the time and patience to keep it moving. Otherwise the tapioca may clump (is that the reason you took a disliking to tapioca when you were a kid?). This is going to take about ten minutes. Now, wait. The first cooling is so you can add the vanilla and not have it all vaporize. Now, after you stir in the vanilla, you can steal a spoonful. But it's still really hot, so don't burn your tongue. After that, the waiting. Put it into small containers so it will cool faster. The faster it cools, the sooner you can savor that custardy-chewy texture. Put a little in the freezer; it makes great frozen custard. But be careful, you may eat it all before it gets to that frozen nirvana! I know, lots of people call it "fish eyes and glue." But not me!

Grow your own

Somehow this has a different meaning than it did 30 years ago. Sigh. (Pause for a moment to mourn lost youth...) Okay back to reality. I've splurged and gotten a set of Aerogardens. If you haven't heard of them, they are a setup for hydroponic/aeroponic gardening. I'm growing assorted herbs in one, cherry tomatoes and jalapenos in another, and salad greens in the third one. It's been less than 48 hours since I "planted" and I already have 1" high lettuce plants. Many of the other seeds will take as long as two weeks to germinate. However it has been really fun to sit here and practically watch the lettuce grow -- the 1" plant this evening was a barely sprouted seed this morning. One advantage of the grow lights in this setup is that I can move a few of our more tropical houseplants, including a plumeria start I'm nursing, into my office to share in the bright full-spectrum lights. And maybe it's good for me, too, all that nice bright light when it gets dark about 4:30 p.m. Yes, I will admit that with the cost of the setup and the cost of seed pods, etc., it's not very cost-effective -- unless you consider that I'm getting organic produce as fresh as it comes. In addition, living near the waterfront means that my plants on the deck get very dusty and sometimes that "dust" is from the exhaust of container and cruise ships. Not terribly healthy, so that stuff (mostly sage and thyme) requires some significant washing.

Delayed gratification from Thanksgiving

This last Thanksgiving dinner was another deep-fried turkey. It was really great, but that's not exactly what this is about... this is about turkey stock. I put the carcass into the freezer, and a month later made turkey stock for soup out of it. I've never used a fried carcass for this. I could not quite believe what a deep, rich, brown stock this made. It was so great, I'd be temped to deep fry another turkey just for the stock! In fact, I may try frying bones for brown stock instead of roasting them some time to see if it works for other meats. We had also put some leftover gravy in the freezer and so I used that in the soup. Got six quarts of soup, all for my mom because she has her arm in a cast and can't use her right hand. So I did what I could to help, I cooked. I also made them several pounds of pulled pork and some marinara sauce. All so all that needed to be done for a meal was boil pasta or heat up rolls.

Playing with oatmneal cookies

First, sorry I've been "slacking." There are reasons, but they don't have anything to do with food, eating, or cooking so I won't go into them here. I'll just do a few postings today that will kind of cover what's been going on lately in my kitchen and my tummy. Today I have been playing with an oatmeal cookie recipe I've been developing. I've always liked chewy cookies more than crisp ones, and I found an interesting recipe a couple of months ago. But did I follow it exactly? Of course not! First, I added some "Skor" bits (like crushed Heath bars without the chocolate). That added some more chewyness and gave them a little bit of a caramel feel and flavor. But then I was browsing the aisles at the grocery store and saw something new: caramel bits that were essentially Kraft caramels unwrapped and turned into little pea-sized bits. So next I topped each cookie with a few caramel bits. They melted in and added more caramel flavor and texture. That batch got rave reviews from a wide variety of people. Today I mixed the caramel bits into the dough. That resulted in crispier edges, because the bits near the edges melted out and turned into hard candy. I don't think that's better than the previous version, but if DH ever gets home from work today (more overtime) then I'll see what he thinks -- I'm sure he'll need quite a few samples to make up his mind!

Cooking with Jerry Traunfeld

Well, maybe not cooking exactly, as this was a demonstration class. Rather, it was having Chef Traunfeld, known for his 17 years running the kitchen at The Herbfarm, prepare a meal for 14 people while we watched, listened, and learned. The class was at Dish it Up!, a local kitchen store that has a very nice facility for cooking classes.



I've eaten at The Herbfarm several times, and meals there are always memorable. I loved standing at the counter where they plate the courses to talk to the chef about what he was doing (that kept me from drinking too much of the great wines Ron Zimmerman serves). Chef's last night there was last weekend, and he's getting ready to open his own place in Seattle, hopefully by the middle of next year. He does already have a name picked out: "Poppy," after his mother.

Anyway, the theme in this class was local and seasonal -- and around here that means lots of wild mushrooms and crab, among other things. Chef had some beautiful matsutake mushrooms, a huge cauliflower mushroom, immaculate porcinis, and the usual chanterelles and other fungi. He made a crab flan with a roasted slice of matsutake and greens that was delicate and delicious.


A great demo was making strudel dough for a lentil and goat cheese strudel. It actually looks like I can do it, and I plan to give it a try. And the strudel was good, I think that filling would be really good doing vegetables farcis, too.

This wild mushroom and farro risotto, I swear, had $100 worth of mushrooms in it. I don't think I'd had farro before, which is a pretty ancient grain. It's nutty flavor and chewiness was a good match for all those 'shrooms.



We ended the class with a fresh huckleberry cobbler with rose geranium ice cream. And espresso. I get so excited when I get to watch someone with Traunfeld's passion work. It was very inspiring. Definitely looking forward to his new place!

Wine dinner at Elliott's Oyster House

Last week we had an incredible dinner at Elliott's Oyster House when they brought in wines from Terra Blanca (Washington State) and let Chef Jeremy loose on matching seafood with them.

We started with oysters on the half shell (duh) but a real treat was having the tiny Olympia oysters, the only ones truly native to the Northwest. The first course was a white prawn and grilled stone fruit Napoleon with a pomegranate beurre blanc, paired with a 2005 Yakima Valley viognier. Yummy!

But it got better. I'm not much of a chardonnay person, and especially not with a salad. But that's what we got, and it was heavenly. Actually, it was a lobster and wild mushroom tart served with frisee. (2004 Red Mountain Chardonnay)

Next came two courses of "surf and turf." The first was a seared scallop with oxtail, on a slice of seared butternut squash with veal jus. This was paired with a merlot (2002 Red Mountain), which had just the right level of fruitiness to compliment the sweetness of the scallop and squash.

The second surf and turf was just off the map -- the chef used some body meat of the king crab that is actually shaped like a pocket, and inserted a seared beef filet into it. I've never seen anything like it -- sort of like a reverse steak Oscar, served with a classic Bearnaise sauce. Of course for this you have to have a rich red, and we had a 2002 Onyx, a Bordeaux-style blend.

And after all this? Apple fritters (made from choux paste) for dessert with a 2005 late harvest Riesling.

After all that wine, we were really glad we only had a short walk to get home!

A beautiful Tarte Tatin of my very own

Baking class last Saturday, focus on layered doughs (croissant, puff pastry, pate a choux). We made a tarte tatin in class, and it was very nice. So I decided to try my hand at it with a mass of puff pastry that still needed its "turns" and so needed to be rolled and folded six times.

Cooking the apples is interesting, in that you have to take a couple of leaps of faith: first that the skillet you've just put a stick of butter, a cup of sugar, and six sliced apples can really hold it all. It did - barely at first, then just right as the apples cooked down. Then also faith that boiling all this stuff on high heat isn't going to create a burnt sugar mess. It didn't. As you can see, it turned out beautifully! I did not do the concentric layout of the apple slices -- I didn't see any like that when I was in Paris, and you can get more apples in if you let them settle themselves into position.

A twist on eggs benedict

What do you do when you have Dungeness crab meat, tarragon, and puff pastry just begging to be used? I don't know what you do, but I made a nice brunch dish today:

Made puff pastry shells, and a "real" Bearnaise sauce out of Peterson's Sauces. Moistened the crab meat with a little sauce, put it on the shell, topped with poached eggs, sauce all over, asparagus on the side. Yum...a little Champagne never hurts, either...

The Bearnaise was the challenging part, as I had to whisk the egg yolks and 1T water per yolk over simmering water until it turned into a very thick foam (a sabayon). The nice thing about doing the sabayon, though, is that you don't have to worry about the sauce breaking when you put in the clarified butter, so you don't have to dribble it in, just pour in slowly and stir gently with the whisk off heat. Then add the seasoning reduction and salt to taste. I'm glad it turned out well.

Homemade Mexican - one of my labors of love

I've always loved Mexican and Southwestern food. I've been cooking from "Feast of Santa Fe" by Huntley Dent for more than twenty years. Homemade tortillas and tamales and refried beans are just so incredibly different from the stuff in cans and most of what you get at "Mexican" restaurants. I haven't made these things in ages, and got a hankering for some of that this week. It was triggered by the nice meaty pork spareribs I bought on sale -- all I could think about was marinating them in mojo, cooking them low and slow, and shredding the meat. Shredded pork has so many yummy applications. First, soft tacos. Homemade tortillas, homemade red chile sauce (basically a Rick Bayless recipe), and guacamole. There's nothing like a freshly made tortilla! Except homemade tamales are even better. Take the shredded pork, add some red chile, some raisins, cinnamon, cumin, and toasted chopped almonds. Make the masa (with real lard, not shortening) and beat it until it's really fluffy. That's how you get really light tamales, not those heavy concrete ones that sometimes show up on my plate in a Mexican restaurant. Now, this is not a quick-prep meal. Making 16 tamales is time-consuming, then you need to steam them for about 90 minutes. I also put pinto beans on this morning, and while the tamales steamed I seasoned and mashed them up for frijoles refritos. During that time I also finished the chile sauce for the tamales -- red chile paste, tomato puree, some guajillo chile powder (for more heat), and simmer until the raw flavors are gone. Shred up some lettuce and jack cheese, slice a few radishes, and you've got one heck of a meal. Best thing about homemade tamales? They keep and reheat wonderfully. So I can look forward to some more tomorrow! I'm sorry about no photos today, we ate everything up before I even thought about taking a picture ;-) P.S. The weather is nowhere as nice today -- cold wind, rain, thunderstorms, and hail. And the soups turned out really well. Added diced red pepper to the beef barley, since Dave likes that and it's for his lunch. He says it's really good. (I can't eat bell peppers, even though I can eat chiles.)

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

End of September already. And it's a gorgeous day -- 65 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. The sun is sparkling off of the bay across the street, and sailboats are drifting by. This is the view from my home office:

So much for my budding dreams of hearty winter soups, at least for now. I was contemplating some borscht, maybe some beef barley. But for a few more days, we'll stick with salads and grilling while we still can.

I will make the borscht this weekend anyway, as I have the beets already cooked. I used some of them diced in a salad with diced carrots and red onion, with a little lime juice. It was surprisingly good. All the leftovers from that are a perfect base for the borscht. I've got a big slice of beef shank to make the broth, which I'll end up using for the barley soup as well (along with the meat from the shank).

Beautiful buns

Baking, especially bread, has never been my strong suit. But I am steadily working at correcting my deficiencies in that area. A few days ago Dave wanted hamburgers for dinner. I had ground beef in the freezer, but no buns. I didn't want to go out, so I decided to try once again to make soft white bread from scratch. At 1pm, no less.

I did find a recipe for a milk bread, and for once I had milk. It was a simple recipe, really, and even without taking any shortcuts I had hamburger buns before 4pm:

Beautiful fine crumb, not chewy but robust enough to stand up to a burger and all the trimmings. Yippee!!!

The mystery of gumbo

Until yesterday, I'd never eaten gumbo. Nor had I made it. I think I haven't eaten it because my aversion and allergy to bell peppers puts a lot of cajun cooking out of reach for me.

But it is Dave's birthday, and he loves gumbo. And I did just see it prepared on "Good Eats." And I had a quart of crab stock in the freezer, and okra is in season around here. I reasoned that I could use a poblano chile in place of green bell pepper, and get a passable facsimile of gumbo. So I decided it was worth a try.

One thing I do when cooking something new or using a new ingredient is a literature search. I comb through my cookbook collection and the Internet for a set of recipes that seem to be what I'm try to get to. With gumbo I discovered that there are as many different gumbos as grains of rice in the pot! Lots of recipes that don't use okra, but since "gumbo" is derived from the West African word for okra, I decided that okra needed to be part of my recipe. So that narrowed things down some.

For the roux, the oven method seemed the most foolproof, and it worked perfectly. For the sausage, I had made some andouille-flavored sausage (using smoked paprika for the smokiness) and cooked it in small balls the day before, and I used that. The seafood was frozen large shrimp.

I didn't want slimy okra, and I found a technique that calls for sauteing the sliced okra until the slime is all gone. So I did that and just added the cooked okra to my pot. The file powder went in at the end, and it sat for a few minutes to make sure all the flavors were melded.

One challenge when you're cooking something that you've never eaten is that you don't have a taste memory to compare with. So since Dave has eaten a lot of gumbo, I used him a lot. Eventually he proclaimed it good, and we wolfed it down with steamed white rice.

Not bad for a first try, even if I do say so myself!

Later today we tackle foie gras...yum....

An amazing birthday dinner

Dave is celebrating a "significant" birthday this month. I'm spending most of the week cooking many things that he enjoys, but on Sunday we decided to go out to dinner. But not any dinner -- Chef Celinda at 94 Stewart (and her sous chef Jeff) planned and prepared this one especially for us. She seems to have had a pretty good time taking the budget I gave her and putting together a five-course meal with paired wines.

We started off with figs with an ale-washed cheese and balsamic. The wine, which was quite sweet, paired really well with it, even with the balsamic.

I think my favorite course may have been the "soup" -- a red and yellow tomato gazpacho with Dungeness crab and fresh horseradish. It was both beautiful and tasty. The Graves we had, which tasted of a lot of wood initially, harmonized perfectly with it, and the play between the tangyness of the tomato, the spice of jalapeno, and the sweetness of the crab was just plain fun.

Next we had two different meat courses -- veal medallions with poached pear and wild muchroom risotto, and moulard duck breast rubbed with pistachio and spices. The risotto was subtly scented with allspice, and it all went with a 2001 Chatea Ste. Michelle Cold Creek Merlot. With the duck (which you can see was cooked perfectly) we had an Australian Shiraz.

Finally, we closed with a dense vanilla cheesecake topped with a Colheita port caramel sauce, and a glass of the same 1980 port alongside it. Overall, we had a great time and a great meal, and I think Chef had about as much fun as we did.