Fall is here..

An excerpt from a letter I penned earlier today, perhaps a little poetic but frames my current state of mind...

"I have forgotten how much I love fall and how much nostalgia comes with it! I can smell it in the air. The trees are nearly at their breaking point, about to erupt into the beautiful shades of orange. The summer tomatoes are nearly done, and we are starting to see varieties of pumpkins and squashes arrive on our cutting boards. My desire has changed from refreshing dishes to heartier, and I find myself grabbing for more spices, namely the omnipresent fall spices. White wine is being exchanged for red, and warm soups are running through my mind. And I find that I am needing to bring my sweaters to Charlottesville."

A Reminder

Last night, we had the couple who married the previous night on site dining at the chef's counter in the kitchen. As with protocol for the counter, with chef's tastings as they did, and with those who celebrated such a momentous occasion on site, we plan and treat the guests with extra attention and courses.

With the idea of champagne sorbet for one of our desserts, I had planned to make it the previous day, but realized that it could be a very celebratory starter and item.

The couple came in and sat, and they were both glowing with happiness and excitement. We said hellos and congratulations, and I began to plate up the champagne sorbet with a multitude of flowers that I had picked through the garden; Borage, Filabert, Rose, Mint, Oregano, ...., and I served the dish to them. The wife was expounding with happiness, exclaiming about how beautiful the dish was and how perfect (the night) , and everything was.

Goosebumps came, and instantly I remembered why I cook. Perhaps her happiness wasn't so much our food and company, but still it hit quite hard. She would remember this night the rest of her life, and I was glad that I could somehow positively affect it.

A few years ago...

I began to realize the inherent attachment and love of the Tidewater region of Virginia, specifically nearing the Northern Neck, Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. Fostered from a young age, I have annual memories of the trip east from Richmond, through flatlands of first woodlands, into Pine and farmland, en route to my best friend's "River House" along a inlet to the Potomac River.

Memories of the times on the river, and the delicious bites echo inside me, creating an itching to get out there each year, and now the thought of one day perhaps a restaurant there.

If I were given one last meal in the world, it would likely include urchin, potatoes, and a very large table of perfectly steamed blue crabs(perhaps one or two soft shells) washed down with a Yuengling.

The growing awareness of the food around me and those cooking it has brought about the idea that no one is taking advantage of the bounty surrounding the bay. The fresh fish, crabs, oysters, and the produce growing on its banks. I think the region could become what Breton is to France, and that idea exhilarates me. (Investors, please inquire within.)



I have recently relocated to Charlottesville, VA, and am working at the Clifton Inn and thoroughly enjoying my times thus far. Although I haven't anyone on my days off to spend my time with, and no car to boot, the time has been promising.

I have the interest in harvests once again in France (Rhone and Champagne,) Italy, this coming fall, and we will see what comes of that. And the ever insatiable desire to travel to Vietnam, and Breton....

Nearly daily that I am working, I am to come up with the Amuse Bouche at work. Recently, I found in the acres behind the restaurant Reindeer Moss growing, I crispified it and served it with mushroom puree...turned out to be a tasty bite.

Thanks for reading. Check back soon.

Links of Interest

Below are a few items of various interest. 

http://www.terracycle.net/en-US/brigades/solo-cup-brigade.html

Awesome program to recycle solo cups that will get reused for puppies water bowls, money goes to charity, and with prepaid shipping at no cost to yourself! 

Above, a photo showing vineyards in same field with the contrasting difference
of the left field the owner choosing not to use fertilizers, and the right, does.
Which wine would you rather drink??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EUAMe2ixCI

Ted Talks by Dan Barber, Chef/Owner of Blue Hill in New York, a restaurant based on fresh and local food, done beautifully. A speech about a thriving ecosystem, beyond worthy of a watch. 

http://www.onthefutureoffood.org/the-speech

Future of food speech given by His Royal Highness of Wales, Prince Charles. Thought provoking and incredible speech about how in danger the future of food is.

TedX by Rene Redzepi, Chef/Owner of Noma in Copenhagen. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KkWF5E0Wlg

We open her...

Dry cork. Off putting smells of vinegar, gasoline. Will she be alright? Stored improperly for perhaps a touch too long during its 21 year life? To decant?

We let her sit. Breathing, the first kiss of air in 21 years.

Slowly, she makes a ninety degree u-turn.

Aromas, sips change from disappointment to promise, to grins, and finally full out smiles.

I don't know that you can say that you have had wine(or food, for that matter,) until you've had one that truly strikes you, drops you onto your knees and keeps you up at night. One that makes you beckon for more, addicting consumption but wavering inside that the more you sip, the less that remains.

This was the case for one of the birthday wines that I had, a 1991 Gran Reserva Vina Tondonia from esteemed old school producer in Rioja, Heredia Lopez. (fact sheet here)

I've heard wines be described as humans, with personalities, changing day to day with it's flavors and enunciation of what it has to offer.

By the end of the evening, the wine was offering up notes of dark red fruits, tar, leather, with full palate flavors reverberating throughout for a beautiful minute. Beyond remarkable.


My heart races writing this. I hope that you too have had or will search out an experience with food or wine like the one described above. Appreciation for those who preach about food and wine will  be gained, and you will soon find yourself on a lifelong journey for better and better things to consume.

Pictured, right. Also had the chance to taste a '93 Reserva Blanco!

Script on Food; Flavour, Taste, and Senses

Back in the day The Fat Duck had this on their website, and I found it late one night. It kept me up at night the following days, and I had multiple copies printed out that I would carry around and read. I found it addicting-ly provoking and brilliant. I rediscovered it a few days ago, and it is beyond worth posting here and reading.


                                                                                                                    

This whole subject is incredibly complex, possibly the most complex of all processes performed by the human body and it starts in the womb; It has been shown that flavours can be passed from mother to baby through the amniotic fluid as early as 11 weeks (six months before birth); By the time that we are born into the world, we have already experienced many of the flavours from our mothers diet.

The process of taste aroma and flavour perception is being researched around the world. Knowledge gained from this research has far-reaching implications, be it detecting disease by smell or re-kindling the faded palate of an elderly person.

Eating is a multi-modal process (involving all the senses). Any comments concerning food being just about taste are misguided. Try drinking a fine wine from a polystyrene cup or eating a beautifully cooked piece of fish off a paper plate with a plastic knife and fork, it is not the same.



Both physiological and psychological factors come into play and in many cases, they cannot be separated. Take-for example- a fine wine drunk from a polystyrene cup; the shape of the cup will affect the perceived smell and flavour of the wine (physiological) and the material will affect the feel of the cup in the hand and on the lips (psychological).

Taste is one of the six senses (some say we have more), the others being touch, sound, sight, smell and proprioception, (the sense of "ourselves") our bodies own on-board computer.

The sense of taste can then be broken down into five basic categories. All of which happen in the mouth and nowhere else. These categories are salt, sweet, sour, bitter and Umami (the most recently identified taste named by Ikeda in Japan in 1908). There is a current theory that fat is actually a taste but this has yet to be proved.

We have up to 10,000 taste buds on the tongue and in the mouth. These regenerate so that the receptors that we use today will not be the same as were used a couple of days ago. Although different parts of the tongue can register different tastes, the classic drawing of the tongue showing it divided into different sections for the four different tastes (there were only four known at the time of this 19th century illustration) is totally wrong.

The aroma-or what we sometimes call flavour-is registered in the olfactory epithelium situated between the eyes at the front of the brain. It contains hundreds of receptors that register aroma molecules contained in everything that we eat and smell.

There is a simple but effective and enjoyable way of demonstrating what most of us don't realise; Smell and taste-are registered in different parts of the head. Have ready some table salt and biscuits, fruit or in fact, anything easy to eat. Squeeze your nostrils tightly enough to prevent breathing through them but obviously not too tight to hurt. Take a good bite of biscuit or fruit and start chomping, making sure that the nostrils remain clenched.

You will notice that it is impossible to perceive the flavour or aroma of the food being eaten.

Now, with nostrils still squeezed and food still in the mouth, lick some salt. Although it was impossible to detect the flavour of the food that was being eaten with clenched nostrils, the taste of the salt is unhindered.

Finally, let go of your nostrils and notice the flavour of the food come rushing into your headspace.

When we eat, taste buds on our tongue and in our mouths pick up only taste but no flavour. The molecules in food that provide flavour (known as odour or aroma molecules) pass up into the olfactory bulb where the flavour of the food is registered.

When the nostrils are squeezed however, the air supply passing through the olfactory bulb is cut off, preventing us from registering flavour.

As if this wasn’t enough, the brain has to process information given to it by the other senses and sometimes, things can be not quite what they seem.
Here are just a few examples of the senses influence on determining what we taste and our emotional response to it.

1/ A few years ago at a Sommelier school in France, trainee wine waiters were put through a routine wine tasting until-unknown to them- a white wine that they had just tasted had been dyed red with a non flavoured food dye and brought back out to taste and evaluate. Something very interesting happened. They all made notes on the assumption that the wine was what it looked like; red. In this case, the eyes totally influenced flavour perception.

2/ True or false; chewing gum loses its flavour after a certain period of time? True, but not as quickly as we might think. Basically, what happens is that when we chew, the sweetening agent in the gum gradually dissolves in the mouth and is then swallowed, reducing its sweetness. We grow up with the association of menthol and mint with sweet taste every day when we brush our teeth.

The brain tracks the sweetness and as this reduces so too does the perception of the mint and menthol flavours. In reality however, it has been proven that these aromas are still in our headspace for several hours.

Basically, we register the rate of change of flavour and it is this that can enable a more exciting eating experience.

One way to avoid this satiated effect is to create bursts of flavour. At the restaurant, we do this by using small cubes of jelly that literally burst in the mouth. It is actually quite easy to do this at home. Certain spices-coriander seed for example-can give a wonderful burst of flavour, much more exciting than incorporating the same amount of coriander powder.

Another example of this is to make a cup of coffee with one ground bean; it will be most insipid. Now take the coffee bean whole and pop it into your mouth. Crunch it several times and then knock back the cup of water. The same amount of coffee and water when served like this will provide a far greater burst of coffee that will last in the mouth.

In fact, it is this principle that was the catalyst for the much publicised bacon and egg ice cream. The idea with this dessert was not to create a dessert that was based on breakfast but to play with the whole concept of encapsulation.
Eggs thicken ice cream custard because the proteins in the egg coil up and thicken the mix when subjected to heat. Like the coffee bean, the coiled up proteins are now in an encapsulated form and can have a tendency to make the resulting ice cream taste of egg by supplying bursts of egg flavour.

In order to avoid this potential egg flavour, I reduced the cooking temperature of the custards accordingly, resulting in incredibly clean ices. I then started to wonder what would happen if I made custard loaded with egg yolk and overcooked it, to the point of scrambling.

If then, the mix was pureed and passed through a fine mesh sieve before churning, what would the ice cream taste like?

Well, the first mouthful transported me back to my youth and the fond memory of Saturday mornings when my mother used to make fried egg on toast. Although a study in the science of ice cream making and flavour encapsulation, this ice cream had created the emotion of an English breakfast!


3/ only two types of odour are intrinsically repellent and although I don't think that it is appropriate to talk about these in a food guide, many smells that we think would be repulsive can actually be perceived as being pleasurable if their context is changed. For example, the smell of old socks has been shown to be pleasurable when introduced as Parmesan cheese!

Context is so important. What about a wonderful bottle of chilled Muscadet, sipped by the banks of the Loire on holiday in sunny France, tucking into a platter of plump fresh oysters? The same wine brought back to England just doesn’t taste the same.

Context can be created by the most simple of things. The description of a dish on its own can create all sorts of problems and indeed, it was this area that was my first foray in to the world of flavour perception, some seven years ago.
The dish was a crab risotto served with crab ice cream.

Described as crab ice cream, this dish presented a barrier to the diner. Let’s face it; ice cream has to be sweet doesn’t it? Well, no, it doesn’t and indeed didn’t used to be. Savoury ices were popular in Victorian times but have long since fallen out of fashion. The same ice cream however, described as frozen crab bisque, presented no barrier, as the term ice cream had been removed.

4/ Sound can also play an important role in the perception of texture-a valuable part of the whole taste process. The perception of the crispness of a food can be modified by playing with volume and pitch.

In a test carried out by an experimental psychologist at Oxford University. Crisps from the same packet, eaten with the sound of the testers own crunch being fed back to them in real time changed when the volume or pitch were altered.

We have had a sound processor made that can do just this. The results are fascinating and above all, great fun.

Whilst it is not possible to create a crunchy banana, a less than crunchy apple can be made to be crunchier and even perceptively fresher by modifying the sound of the crunch, listened to in real time and popping candy? When listening to the amplified, pitch modified sound of popping candy running riot in the mouth, one cannot help grinning like a Cheshire cat!

5/ Our likes and dislikes are forged by memories. I use this word loosely as we could say that we also have a genetic memory.

For example, we are designed to like fat. It is the learned association of fat with poor health and obesity that prevents us, or rather some of us from liking fatty foods.

The senses act as warning systems, taste being the last of the sensory barriers and bitterness, the last of the taste barriers. It can prevent us from eating foods that could be harmful and although we might be genetically pre-disposed to liking or needing certain tastes, it appears that we have the ability to be able to modify these wants or needs. For example, we grow to like bitter foods; tea, coffee and beer are generally not acceptable until we reach a certain age.

I began thinking about this whole subject a couple of years ago when I noticed that more and more customers were commenting on the fact that the red cabbage with grain mustard ice cream served as an appetiser just got better each time they ate it. Interestingly enough, this was the only dish on the menu whose recipe had not changed over the past year.

It seemed that the barrier being presented (unintentionally) with this dish was the vivid purple colour of the cabbage gaspacho; a colour not normally associated with food. To some diners, the difficulty of accepting this colour interfered with the appreciation of the dish.

Smell is the most powerful memory trigger of all of the senses but we differ so greatly in what smells hit the right or wrong notes. As well as our own emotions differing greatly from person to person, we all live in our own sensory world. I know that this might seem a little spiritual but we do see, hear and smell things differently.

It was-up until quite recently-considered that we had around three hundred receptors that between them were responsible for registering all aroma molecules on earth. It is now thought that we have some four hundred but only use about three hundred of them. We do not all use the same receptors and therefore register flavour molecules differently. Two people tasting the same banana will not necessarily register the same flavour. The same goes for sight and sound.

As if this whole process was not complicated enough, the olfactory system is ipsilateral; that is to say the left side sends signals to the left side of the brain and right to the right. So what relevance does this have to the way that we perceive flavour? Well, the answer is quite a bit actually. The left side of the brain controls speech and the right side controls emotion. It was and in some cases still is thought that flavours presented to the left nostril would be easier to identify and describe whilst flavours presented to the right could elicit a more emotional response.

Whilst this argument does seem to have some evidence to support it, it is by no means conclusive.

What seems to be far more relevant however is the fact that air does not flow through each nostril at the same volume. This asymmetrical difference changes every few hours. Have you ever noticed that when our nose is blocked, it seems to be more blocked in one nostril that the other?

The whole process of flavour perception is multi-sensory. We all have our own perception of life. Not only do we see, hear and taste differently but we have our own, individual personal experiences, emotion and memory. As long as this continues, the world of eating will be a very exciting place.

Whimsy

Dishes can be formed and born from nearly any idea or ingredient. There are always parameters to work with, but often the inspiration arrives from multitudes of sources.

With the idea of creating a dish based around the Easter holiday featuring the one and only Bunny Rabbit, the following dish was born. Although cooked for a dinner party amongst friends, it was intriguing to see the progression of ideas.

Braised Rabbit with Egg Souffle, Carrot Puree, Elderflower Apricots, Pickled Leek and Caramelized Onion and Rabbit Consomme.

With the intent of a lighter spring dish, all flavors were bright and clean. Carrot, Rabbit, Egg, whimsy in my mind and hopeful to bring a smile to the guests face. Onion centric with Spring in the air, wild onions of all types abundant.

A photo journal of Meddle

They say pictures speak a thousand words. Although a bit late, below you will find beautiful pictures from Meddle, taken by Sara Adduci. I hope you enjoy.

Urchin, from Maine, Blood Orange tapioca and Cava Gelee

Oyster, Old Salt Rappahannock, Emulsion, tender Salsify, Samphire and Oyster Leaf

The Chicken or The Egg...63* Egg and Skin, Parsnip Nest, Mustard dehydrated and pickled, Jus and Green Apple

Goat. Loin and Baharat Sausage from Spring Gate, Curd, supple Carrot, Pickled Date, Juniper, and greenery 

Beet. Ice Cream, Malted Chocolate Coffee and Barley Soil, Malt Meringue, Sorrels and Coffee Snow

Thank you to all who attended and supported us.

Spring

Winter's gone, and time has flown.

Meddle was met with great success and a wonderful time.

Since then I have also cooked in DC at friend Johnny Spero's popup for his upcoming restaurant, suna. There is a lot to update and today has come as the first "free" day in perhaps two months. I hope to sit down in the coming days and perhaps scribble a few thoughts.

April is lining up to be exciting, with many great events planned.

Hope to post soon.

On 21...

The day arrives.

This post and the following thoughts are a long time coming..

The law of 21 has haunted my life for the past three years, and the experiences missed unable to be repeated.

The tasting of 100's of beers, wines, liquors, in the various restaurants that I have worked and traveled to throughout the United States. This is my profession, the food and beverage industry, and pairing thereof, and for the past three years the tastes and pairing I have missed have been detrimental to the furthering of my palate and education.

To say that I harvest and produced wine in France, and travel back to the United States and cannot purchase or have an ounce of that wine, is mind blowing.

What happens when midnight strikes this evening, is a switch changing physically inside of me, a maturity suddenly found? In my various travels throughout Europe, not once was I carded in the six plus countries I visited. What does that say of our society, where with one ounce of alcohol in my system or possession I could be thrown in jail?

I can agree with consumption comes maturity and responsibility. I can agree that alcohol is best left out of high schools and the hands thereof.

I'm not asking for 16, 17, or 18. I can agree that European societies are quite different than ours. But why not 19? Or 20?

What are we doing with the blind eye to the act of binge drinking throughout college campuses across the country? To the kids thrown in jail for possession or consumption responsibly of alcohol, who may not be 21 yet, but are acting responsibly.

This all comes from a soon to be 21 year old whom on my birthday tomorrow and the following days, will choose to consume 1991 wines drank with delicious foods: Riesling, Gran Reserva Tempranillo and Alsacian Muscat. Not shots, upon shots.

Just some thoughts to think about.

Meddle Menu

And here you have it, the menu, in ingredient form....

Meddle Menu

1. Oyster, salsify, sea beans, oyster leaf, seaweed

2. The chicken or the egg?

 3. Goat, baharat, juniper, carrot, dates, goat curds

4. Beet root, malted barley, coffee, dark chocolate, sorrel

Tickets go on sale tomorrow!

Tickets for Meddle go on sale tomorrow. !!!

Tim has outlined the process on his Tumblr, http://timbereika.tumblr.com/ . Please reference there before purchasing to make it a smooth process with no confusion!

Stay tuned on Monday for the release of the menu !

And so was born: Meddle

With the strong desire to cook creative food, cook once more with my friend and mentor Chef Tim Bereika from Secco, and the thought of bringing Richmond a popup that was exciting and new, Meddle was born.

We began to throw the idea around quite a few months ago, and solidified both of our desires to see our dream become reality. The difficult part from the beginning was figuring out where to start..where it would be, how we could do it, when, what we would cook, how we would create the menu.

Through back and forth emails, tweets, meetings, Facetimes(21st century cooks!), ongoing google documents, we finally released information and the confirmation of our endeavor.

Thus far it has been an incredible growth and beautiful thing to watch, and the excitement both Tim and myself feel is overwhelming. Perhaps we should film our next creative session-it is truly remarkable our relationship and ping-ing of ideas. The collaboration is brilliant-ideas, techniques, and ingredients that we will display momentous. The realization that it will all be coming to fruition in a few weeks is mind blowing.

And I can't wait to show you all what Tim and I can do in the kitchen.

I hope to see you there!

Meddle

This should be fun. Be prepared for creative food set in a lovely environment. Tim and I are very excited about this and have been planning for months. Be there on Sunday or Monday, or miss out! Stay tuned to Tim and I's blogs and twitters for more information, and I hope to see you there! 

Meddle, a Richmond pop-up restaurant from chef Tim Bereika of Secco and Collin Wagner, runs 2 days only February 19-20, 6:30-9:30PM in the Roosevelt space on 25th Street.

Meddle will be a limited-run, two-day restaurant that will “pop-up” in the Roosevelt while that restaurant is closed on Sunday and Monday night.

* 45 seats are available each night
* Four courses for $65, tax and tip for food included
* Beverages are available a la cart for an additional cost
* Menu available by 1/16
* Tickets can be purchased at Secco Wine Bar
* Seating times are staggered and available by request on a first come, first serve basis
* Cash only
* All ticket sales are final
* Please no special dietary requests.

Follow Tim and Collin on Twitter for updates on the event.