New menu items

I haven’t had time to write much but we have been busy this week working on menu ideas.  Chris, Jon and I have been focusing on dinner entrée items.  We have been working on a tuna dish with Portuguese chorizo,  a dish that is a variation of duck l’orange, a boneless short rib and the pork dish that we have focused on for the last few days.  The pork dish is Idaho Berkshire pork with maple cap mushroom jus, butternut squash gnocchi, roasted sunchokes and peppered apple relish.  This weekend we plan on a few more practice runs with the pork dish and spending some additional time on the duck dish.

I did get distracted today when the soy sauce powder and coconut powder arrived from WillPowder.   We are looking forward to experimenting with these two items soon.  Another distraction this week was the arrival of Chef Jon’s second child.  He and his wife have a baby girl named Ava and we are happy to report that everyone is doing well.

We have been particularly busy in the restaurant and in banquets over the last two weeks.  It has been great to be busy and keep the staff working even though the snow that we have had does get the staff thinking about the upcoming ski season.

We have also been working on getting ready for the March of Dimes Signature Chef event on Thursday, October 23rd.  We have ordered the Utah elk shanks and the mushrooms for the mushroom ragout.  Chef Raymond and Chef Tim have been working on several dessert items for the dinner menu and this evening I spent some time with them as they were making ice cream pearls for the March of Dimes event.  Here are the photos of Chef Ray working with the dewar and the liquid nitrogen creating the pearls.

Monday I leave for Idaho to visit Snake River Farms and go through the processing plant where they process the domestic Wagu and Kurobuta pork.

Posted on April 23, 2009 at 2:53pm | in In The Kitchen |