EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE.

Movin' on up....

2012-01-16T19:40:00.002-05:00

I've moved addresses. Yep, that's right, From now on, my blog will be located at www.chefandrewlittle.com. Simple.

I like the new format and hope that I'll be able to share even more content, more consistently. Please hop on over and check out my new digs!

TIME MAGAZINE

2011-12-08T21:27:00.004-05:00

Seems the folks over at Time Magazine have picked regional foods as a hot trend and they happen to think that New PA Dutch is pretty cool. I agree!

Check out the link below.
Top 10 of Everything 2011

Yep, Pork and Sauerkraut

2011-10-31T13:49:00.000-04:00

Made in America - The Cookbook

2011-10-05T10:33:00.003-04:00

Have you ever left a dinner at The Sheppard Mansion or The Carriage House Market and thought to yourself, 'I'd love to have that pretzel roll recipe'?

Well, buy Lucy Lean's new book 'Made in America - Our Best Chefs reinvent comfort food' and you'll have that recipe! Yep, you read that correctly. The pretzel roll recipe is featured along with recipe from Daniel Boulud, Alain Ducasse and John Besh. What a huge win for PA Dutch food! I've always said that our regional cuisine can go toe to toe with any other regional cuisine and I think the inclusion in this book goes a long way to proving it! Lucy did an amazing job with this book and I'm really excited to have had the opportunity to share a small taste of New PA Dutch cuisine!

The books are available for purchase at both the restaurant and Carriage House Market. Pick one up after dinner or your weekly shopping in the Market.

Education Nation - Day 6 'Good enough is never good enough'

2011-09-30T22:05:00.005-04:00

I'm fixated on shoo fly pie. I go to the York Fair and do shoo fly pie 'tastings' where I eat every available shoo fly pie and decide which one I like the best. As with the chicken and dumplings, Shoo fly pie=PA Dutch. Plain and simple. Shoo Fly Pie Float=New Pa Dutch. Plain and Simple.

This is the 2011 version of The Pie. Last year, it was a deep fried molasses ice cream. This year, well, you'll see. Molasses soda. Spiced ice cream. Toasted oat whipped cream. Pie crust twist. Done. Holy cow.

We're always looking to make it better. Good enough is never good enough.

Education Nation - Day 5 'Be Who You Are'

2011-09-29T23:20:00.004-04:00

I don't know if it gets any more PA Dutch than 'creamed chicken and waffles'. No, this isn't Snoop Dogg's Roscoe's Fried Chicken and Waffles. This is Andy's Creamed Chicken and Waffles.

Wanna 'Eat like you live here'? Then you NEED to tuck into some chicken and waffles.

What's up with 'Be who you are'? We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We're just trying to put together great plates of food that honor the cuisine of our area, respect the product and producers and make people happy.

So, here it is. Creamed Rettland Farms chicken, oyster mushrooms, tiny vegetables and a toasted oat waffle. I gotta tell you....it's REALLY good.

Education Nation - Day 4 The Importance of Looking Back

2011-09-29T00:02:00.005-04:00

The long and the short of this post is 'know your history'. How many times have you heard someone talking about a current event say 'if they had studied their history, they would have never done THAT'?

I take 'looking back' very seriously. At the restaurant, we are trying to present a real sense of our area. The flavor of the land; an experience you can't get anywhere else. In order to do that, we need to look to the land, but also look to our past generations and see how their foods can influence and inspire the food that we cook and the menus that we write today. Creativity for creativity's sake is simply mental masturbation. Cuisine needs roots, plain and simple. You HAVE to look back in order to look forward. In 'looking back' we are able to explore dishes like 'schnitz und knepp', shoo fly pie, chicken and dumplings, and scrapple. Reading old cookbooks from the area is a great resource, but one of the greatest resources in talking to people about dishes they loved growing up or dishes they were served at a gathering that still resonate in their memory.

One such item is sauerkraut balls. Sauerkraut is one of 'our' things in central PA, having been handed down by German ancestors. Anytime we can do something interesting with sauerkraut, I'm in. The idea of sauerkraut balls actually was put in my head by my dad a couple of years ago. He related a story to me about how great they were and told me bits and pieces of the ingredients. Basically a 'Cliffs Notes' version. After doing some research in old, local cookbooks, I came up with a Sheppard Mansion version. This isn't a 'play on' or 'deconstructed'. It's simply inspired by a classic PA Dutch dish. There's no cute, whimsical term for them either. They are simply 'sauerkraut balls'

So, what is a sauerkraut ball? It's basically a mix of ground Rettland Farms pork, sauerkraut, brown butter, sage, rye bread crumbs, and eggs. Once cool, the mix is rolled in bread crumbs and fried. The dipping sauce is a whole grain mustard cream and arugula adds a final sharp bite to bust through the fattiness. I gotta tell you, these are really good bites of New PA Dutch food. Book yourself a reservation and give'em a try. Yes, you can even giggle when you say 'balls' during your order.

Education Nation - Day 3 What Does Food Mean to You?

2011-09-27T18:18:00.004-04:00

Food isn't just a convenience. It's not just something you 'grab'. The act of cooking can affect people in many different ways. For home cooks, cooking can be a calming influence at the end of a long day. It can also be a stressful event if you aren't comfortable over the stove(at The Sheppard Mansion, we're looking to make cooking less stressful and more FUN and REWARDING through our cooking classes and demonstrations at The Carriage House Market. Note that I said it would be FUN and REWARDING, not 'easy peasy' and done in 5 minutes with 90% store bought garbage.) For professional cooks, cooking is a way of life. You don't choose this life, it chooses you.

For Day 3 of Education Nation week, I decided to explore the question 'What does food mean to you'. I posed this question to Brent Golding, my sous chef and Michelle Leonard, my baker. I also pose the question to you. Please use the comment section of my blog to tell everyone what food means to you. There is no correct or incorrect answer. It's how you feel. What is of utmost importance is that we start a dialogue. Start talking about food.

EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE!

P.S. As a reminder, free apples for all children who come to the Carriage House Market this week! Pass it along and lets start talking food!

Education Nation - Day 2 - How to make butter

2011-09-26T17:05:00.004-04:00

Butter doesn't just show up magically on the shelves in the grocery store. I've posted a quick video below showing how we make butter from local Apple Valley cream in the kitchen. This butter makes its way on to the table during our tasting menus and is also used in the pastry kitchen as we're making our saturday morning favorite, pretzel croissants.(stop by the Carriage House Market any saturday and pick up a dozen or 2!)

This is also a fun exercise to do with your kids. As you can see, it really doesn't take any time at all and if you have access to amazing cream, it's a snap!

Grab the Wii remote out of your kid's hand, get in the kitchen and COOK!

As always, EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE!

P.S. Don't forget. Bring your child to the Carriage House Market any time this week for a free apple. Also don't forget to SPREAD THE WORD!!!!!

Education Nation

2011-09-25T19:13:00.002-04:00

This morning I caught a little bit of TV before heading off to the garden and was inspired by some interviews and conversation regarding NBC's 'Education Nation'. If you don't know me well, you may not know that I am the son of two retired public school teachers; to say that they were 'public school teachers' is like describing Michael Jordan as a 'basketball player'. Needless to say, they were good.

Real good. I decided on another career path, but the desire to teach and help inspire kids is physically hard wired. So, after watching these conversations this morning, I immediately started to think 'what can I do'? Teachers, as much as they try, can't do it on their own. The education of our nation's youth is EVERYONE'S responsibility. Think it's not? You're wrong.

With inspiration in hand, I've decided to feature educational videos every day this week via my blog. This week we'll be talking about REAL FOOD. How to cook it. How to grow it. Who grows it. I want you to engage your children about food. REAL FOOD. Not chicken nuggets from the freezer section. Not frozen pizza. Here's the deal. Come to the Carriage House Market this week(wed-fri 10-6 sat. 8:30-4). Bring your child and we'll make sure that your son/daughter leaves with a free apple and perhaps a little bit of literature so that you can talk about local farms and the people who produce amazing products in your backyard.

So, I say again. Bring your kid; leave with a free apple courtesy of The Sheppard Mansion. No obligation. Come in, say hi, grab and apple and browse around. Or don't. Having your child take a big bite out of south central PA is really all we want......

Listen, we're bringing in A LOT of apples this week and I want to give them all away. Please tell your children's teachers about this.(what a wonderful field trip....walk over to the Carriage House Market and grab an apple....just sayin') Tell your friends. Tell your enemies, I don't care. What I do care about is putting local apples in kid's hands. Period.

Check out the video.

HARVEST DINNER 2011

2011-09-16T21:55:00.005-04:00

Yep, it's back again. Harvest Dinner 2011. So, what is it? Is it 'farm to table'? Sure, but even TGIFriday's claims to be 'farm to table' these days. Is it 'artisan'? Sure, but allegedly so is Olive Garden. Will it be as fresh as a Quizno's 'Farmer's Market Fresh Salad'? Well, no, it won't. It'll be fresher because our produce doesn't even hit the farmer's market. It goes from the ground to our back door. By the way, I've been to the Quizno's in Gettysburg and I HIGHLY DOUBT they are buying their salad greens at the Outlet Farmer's Market. Just sayin'.......

Hey, I've got an idea. Let's dispense with the overused buzzwords and terms that have been hijacked by corporate food America. Let's call it what it is: AWESOME. Food produced here and a cuisine inspired by the people and their dirt. The Pennsylvania Dutch call it Boddeg'schmack. Look it up.

Do you live in York and really dig the local food movement? This is where you need to be. Do you live in Gettysburg and think Beau Ramsburg is dreamy? This is where you need to be. Do you live in Northern Virginia and want to TASTE south central PA? This is where you need to be.

What: The Sheppard Mansion 2001 Harvest Dinner
When: October 9, 2011(yep, that's the sunday of columbus day weekend) 6PM
Where: The Sheppard Mansion
Why: Because you like great food, drink and conversation

Here's the menu:

Snacks:
Fried Rettland Farms cheddar/preserved tomato dipper
Little loaded baked potatoes
Brent Golding's hay smoked pork cap/green tomato chutney
Garden potatoes fried in lard

A Study in Dried Corn
pudding, soup, cracker, buttered bread sauce

Morgan had a little lamb...and we bought it at the 4H Sale
lamb ragu, brown butter egg noodles

'Pork and Sauerkraut'
Rettland Farms pork rillette, arugula, sauerkraut sauce

Sheppard Mansion Farms Beef
Fingerling potato puree, pine roasted carrots, mushrooms chips

Beet Funnel Cake
Brown Butter Ice Cream, licorice, turnip candy

Cookies and Candy
Whoopie Pies with white chocolate pepper jelly
Pretzel caramel filled chocolates
Carentais melon pate de fruit

As usual, we'll have some engaging speakers before and after each course. We'll also have our youngest speaker ever at a Harvest Dinner!

I really love this dinner because it's a chance for us to showcase some amazing products, but it is also a chance for me to say thank you to our amazing purveyors for yet another great growing season. It's a celebration, baby!

FYI....This is a ticketed event. $105 per person gets you all of that food, beverage pairings, tax, tip, conversation, etc. Tickets can be purchased by calling The Sheppard Mansion 717.633.8075

Let's talk about beets, baby!

2011-09-14T19:18:00.005-04:00

Beets. Either you love them or you hate them. I happen to love them, so we grow them in the Culinary Garden and sell them at the Carriage House Market. Here's the thing. I've heard a bunch of people tell me that they 'don't know what to do with beets' or they 'taste like dirt'. Well, folks I'm about to present you the opportunity of the early Fall.

I'll be setting up a little space in the Carriage House Market this Saturday at 1pm. Yeah, saturday's are busy days for us in the kitchen, but I want to get out to the Market and talk about beets. I'll talk about a few different cooking methods, canning/preserving methods and there will be FREE SAMPLES. Also, if you mention this blog post, I'll give you a little handful of beets to take home and experiment with. That's right. FREE BEETS.

So, if you're a beet lover, don't miss this little demonstration. However, if you're a dyed in the wool beet hater, I WANT YOU AT THIS DEMO. I'm gonna turn you into a beet lover. Period.

Here's the DEETS.

Who: Me and you, silly
What: An amazing cooking demo featuring Sheppard Mansion culinary garden beets
Where: The Carriage House Market
When: 1pm, THIS SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17.
How much: IT'S FREE!!!
How long: It'll last about 45 minutes, I do have to get back inside for dinner you know!

Don't forget, mention this blog post and walk away with a handful of beets to cook at home. Also, there will be 'just dug' beets available for sale in the Market. Think we don't have enough? Go ahead and try to sell us out.

Oh, also for you readers who read all the way to the end of the post. Tell your friends. If we get more than 25 people total in attendance, I'll give everyone a free slice of chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. Seriously. Tell your friends....Bring a group. Jason Konopinski I'm talking to you.

This Week's Tasting Menu

2011-08-30T10:31:00.002-04:00

Hot off the printer folks. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS. Will the 'meat doughnut' be part of the snacks? I guess you'll just have to make a reservation and see......

August 31, 2011

Snacks

_____________________

Sheppard Mansion Scrapple
Fig, lovage, licorice

_____________________

Sheppard mansion Heirloom Tomato
Grilled bread, onion, cucumber, balsamic vinaigrette

_____________________

Pennsylvania Trout
‘pork and beans’, maple gastrique

or

Cod
Creamed corn, summer sausage, mushrooms
_____________________

‘Chicken and Waffles’
crispy chicken liver, oyster mushrooms, pea shoots

or

BBQ Rabbit
Leek, pickled mushrooms, cornbread

_____________________

Sheppard Mansion Farms Beef Tongue
Sweet corn pudding, garden tomato, basil vinaigrette

_____________________

‘Schmierkase’
soft pretzel, smoked sauerkraut, apple butter vinaigrette

_____________________

Seckel Pear Dumpling
Butterbourbon cream

_____________________

cookies and candy

You say tomato, I say.....TASTING MENU

2011-08-02T22:47:00.004-04:00

You guessed it. This week, next week's, the following week's tastings are going to be 100% inspired by Culinary Garden tomatoes. Want some teasers?

Tomato tarte tatin, lemon verbena ice cream, red wine caramel

Tomato sorbet, crispy cheese curds

Scrapple, sweet corn, local mushrooms, tomato vinaigrette

BLT. yeah, it's a BLT, but not like any BLT you've had before.

Here's some pics....It's gonna be epic, you don't want to miss these celebrations of our garden's amazing tomatoes. reservations are filling fast....get a spot while the tomatoes last!!!

Preach it, Alton

2011-07-26T13:34:00.002-04:00

What does foam do? Cover up bad cooking, by and large.

Show me you can cook a carrot properly. Show me you can cook a carrot perfectly 100 times....then we'll talk about the little white powders.

UPDATE:
David Chang has taken to the Twitterverse criticizing the Alton Brown video above. So, I thought perhaps an explanation was in order. First, everyone should know that I have the greatest respect for Chang and love his restaurants....LOVE his restaurants.

Here's my problem: I don't understand why practitioners of modernist cuisine are so insecure. There is very little to argue in Brown's points.(with the notable exception of 'it's not food') Yes, it is imperative to have a cook who can reproduce a perfectly executed chicken breast 100 times. Yes, it is imperative to great cuisine to have cooks who can execute a perfectly cooked carrot 100 times. And above all, it is imperative to have cooks who know how to properly use salt. Are too many 'wet behind the ears' cooks straight out of culinary school too interested in 'meat glue' and not interested enough in how to light the pilot on the oven,the best way to pit a cherry or the proper time to pick beans? Yes. His point that foams generally cover up bad basic cooking is also, in my experience, very true. In the wrong hands is spherification a bad idea? Yes. Is it over done? Yes, in the same manner that bacon cupcakes were never a good idea. Chang himself just tweeted last week that 'Cooks today not as skilled as past generations, labor laws too stringent, not a bad thing but certainly the demise of dining in general' I've got to think he's referring to the 'basics' not their ability to use methylcellulose.

In the end, Alton Brown isn't blazing any trails with his comments. It's been said before, but I can't agree with Chang that he's 'mostly wrong', because he's not.

Cantloupe meet Cucumber

2011-07-07T14:39:00.003-04:00

Cucumbers are bursting, bursting, bursting in our Culinary Garden. In addition to incredible half sour pickles that will be available for purchase at The Carriage House Market, we're bringing these amazingly flavorful cukes into the restaurant.

This salad starts with cucumber and local cantaloupe. Both take a ride in the vacuum sealer and are then lightly dressed with olive oil, vinegar and maldon sea salt. Cucumbers are also pureed with a touch of sour cream, cumin and coriander to make a smooth sauce. Crab hushpuppies(yes, I said crab hushpuppies. Moist little fried balls, filled with crab and a touch of Old Bay. You're welcome) provide a neat little garnish while cilantro and mint finish the dish off. This is a super fun summer dish utilizing what seriously are some amazing garden cucumbers.

Scenes from the garden - June 29, 2011

2011-06-28T20:14:00.010-04:00

Pics, pics, pics..... Make sure you scroll the whole way to the end....the tasting menu might be listed.

If there is a nicer, more vibrant garden, I haven't seen it. This is amazing stuff folks. Period.

I'm really excited about this menu....it's really inspired cooking. Check it out.

STARTING THIS THURSDAY!!!

June 30, 2011

Snacks

_____________________

Sheppard Mansion Scrapple
Cherry, sorrel, peas, olive oil

_____________________

The Sheppard Mansion Garden
Vegetables, lettuces, and flowers picked from our gardens

_____________________

Wreckfish
Sweet pepper confit, garden peas, torn bread, chow chow vinaigrette

or

Chesapeake Bay Puffer Fish
Cherries, corn, peas, lovage, fava beans

_____________________

Rettland Farms Pork
Tarragon gnocchi, peas, birch

or

Rettland Farms Chicken
Waffle, peach, maple, sherry

_____________________

Calotte of Beef
Porcini mushroom, foie gras ‘slaw’, bordelaise

_____________________

‘Cheese Sticks’
black truffle coated cheddar cheese curds, Chow chow vinaigrette

_____________________

‘York Street Treat’
Black raspberry, pretzel, lemon thyme ice cream

_____________________

cookies and candy

Rabbit....and things rabbits eat

2011-06-22T22:31:00.007-04:00

So....here's a fun dish. Could have easily been called 'circle of life'.

Here's the inspiration:

I like gardening. I hate things that invade my garden and eat my produce. Rabbits are a frequent visitor to gardens all over this area. SO.....how about a dish using our garden produce, flowers, and lettuces(the things rabbits like to eat) and also including a bit of BBQ rabbit loin because I like to eat rabbits.

This is the point in the post where I have to say if you're squeamish about eating rabbit click away from this post and go check out Disney.com. You don't want to read this and frankly, I don't want you reading it.

Rabbit is delicious. It does not taste like chicken. It tastes like rabbit. Delicious rabbit.

The real star of the show here is the vegetables. The base of the dish is a carrot butter. Followed up by an array of vegetables. Here's a shot of the mise en place.

The rabbit loin is cooked sous vide, marked on the grill and glazed with bbq sauce before plating. The veg are simply warmed in beurre monte before plating.

The showcasing of the vegetables is very important to me. You might look at a plate like these and think 'what's the point of all those leaves and little vegetables?' Well, the point is that every component on the dish either holds hands with the others or provides a boost to another ingredient. Take salad burnet for example. It may just look like something I pulled from the herb garden to make an interesting plate and while it does add a visual appeal, it also acts as a bridge between the carrot puree and the snap peas. Another example is the caramelized onions. Sweet on their own, they provide an additional sweetness to the baby beets and create a bridge between the lemon verbena and the beets allowing the beets to have more impact by the addition of a citrus note. So, yeah, a little bit of thought goes into these dishes.

Speaking of dishes....the plates are very important, too. These plates are made by a great friend of the restaurant, Terry Tessem and really fill out my message of 'Eat Like You Live Here'. Not only is the food sourced locally, the inspiration for the dish is local, but the very plate you're eating it on was produced a few miles from the restaurant. It is a TRUE taste of the area!

Philly gets the Scrapple treatment

2011-06-13T22:17:00.003-04:00

I was lucky enough to bring my own version of scrapple to the viewers of NBC10 in Philadelphia today. I had a blast and I think I've turned a few people over from the 'scrapple dark side'. SCRAPPLE AGAINST THE WORLD! Check it out.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com.

Scenes from a tasting menu....

2011-06-04T22:45:00.005-04:00

....I visited the Culinary Garden this morning and picked some amazing little broccoli. Not a whole lot to say about this dish other than it was inspired by this AM trip to where we grow our food!

Scallop, pine nut sauce, Sheppard Mansion Garden broccoli, sherry vinegar, peanut brittle

The garden is really starting to POP right now and our own produce will start inspiring our Tasting Menus.....Do yourself a favor and tuck into one of these menus. There is simply NO BETTER WAY to experience The Sheppard Mansion Experience. R U experienced?

It's PATIO TIME.

2011-05-27T21:17:00.004-04:00

Yep, Summer has started. After what felt like months of continuous rain, the skies have cleared and we're smack in the middle of some pretty hot summer weather. Everybody likes to spend summer on their patio, right? Everybody likes smokin' acoustic music, right? What if you could combine the relaxed environment of a backyard patio, some sweet music AND some amazing food? What if you could do it all at The Sheppard Mansion? YOU CAN.

Starting Friday June 3rd and continuing every friday through the Summer, we'll be providing entertainment on our patio from 6-9pm....AND central PA's most amazing drinks, wine and beer.....AND....oh, yeah....THERE WILL BE FOOD. Our full a la carte menu will be available starting at 5pm. BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. There will be a SPECIAL PATIO MENU, only available on friday nights, only available on the patio. Seating is limited and there are no reservations. First come, first served. I would suggest setting up a tent and camping out if you want to get a seat because this is GONNA BE HOT!

Not to worry if you were planning a special occasion, hoping to dig into one of our tasting menus or simply want to dine inside on a friday....the Dining Room will be open, too!

So, since everybody likes a good tease, the patio menu is listed below. Better get a paper towel or two, because this menu's gonna make you drool.....

‘Sheppard Snackers’

barbequed pork belly sandwiches, Housemade Pickles

Fried Oyster Po’ boys

Lettuce, chow chow vinaigrette

crab dip+bread bowl= ☺

Sheppard Mansion Farms Beef Flatbread

Caramelized onion, horseradish, cheddar, arugula

Green Tomato Gazapcho

Garden herbs, shrimp

‘Chips and Dip’

A basket of fresh fried potato chips and black truffle crème fraiche

‘Bologna and Cheese’

cured meats, cheese, pickles, mustard, bread

Clams Casino Bites

Crispy collard greens, lemon cayenne mayo

Pennslytucky Poutine

Fries, cheese curd, smoked chicken, truffle gravy

A six pack of Natty Boh for the Kitchen

Show the kitchen some love……

OK, two things. 1)Yes, you read that last item correctly. You'll have the distinct opportunity to buy the hard workin' kitchen crew a six pack of the finest beer available in the land of pleasant living. Show us some love, folks. 2) There will also be a 'secret' menu available on the patio.....I'm gonna let you in on the secret. We're cool, right? OK. Two items that won't be listed on the printed menu, BUT will be available to those people 'in the know'. Let's keep this just between us, ok?

THE SECRET MENU

The Dutch Dog

A bacon wrapped, deep fried hot dog, topped with truffled sauerkraut, mustard and served on a pretzel hot dog bun

The Big Boy

A short rib and marrow stuffed Sheppard Mansion Farms cheeseburger served with the most amazing fries you've ever tasted. Period.

The 717 Sundae

Salted Pretzel Ice cream, caramel popcorn, malt, dark chocolate

These secret menu items will be a little more expensive than the regular patio options, but will be 100% worth every penny. Truffled sauerkraut? Good Morning.

So, there it is folks. Take every friday off for the rest of the summer(tell your boss I said it was cool), dust your tent off and camp out for a seat. YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS!!!!

Culinary Garden Update

2011-05-10T16:43:00.001-04:00

HOT NEWS FROM THE HOTTEST CULINARY GARDEN IN CENTRAL PA!!!! Check it out.

EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE!!!!!

Pretzel Croissant

2011-04-16T19:01:00.005-04:00

Do you like fun? Well then, boy do I have something to shove in your pie hole!

We have this little thing called a pretzel roll that we serve as part of our bread service and we sell it in the Carriage House Market. I think it's a good little roll. I also happen to really like a dark, flaky, buttery croissant. They're VERY hard to find....usually you find pale, barely baked and soft croissants with NO flavor. Yippee!!

Ever wonder what happens when a pretzel roll has a couple 40's of Natty Boh and makes eye contact with a croissant who has had a few too many wine coolers? Well, first a lot of sweaty dough bumping happens and then the pretzel croissant happens. Simple as that. Not much else to say here other than they are available only on Saturday(still warm from the oven at 8:30am) and only at The Carriage House Market in Hanover, PA.

Go ahead.....treat yourself and 10 of your closest friends. These beauties sell out quickly, so I'd recommend calling The Market and reserving a dozen or 3. Local IS Luxury!

The Culinary Gardens - Soil Preparation

2011-04-11T16:53:00.004-04:00

I'm excited. Yesterday, we were able to get our hands dirty digging in the dirt. Did we plant anything you might ask? Nope. We spent the day simply on soil preparation. Removing clumps of grass from the expanded portion of our garden and taking out what seems like a never ending amount of rocks and stones from the soil. We were also able to dump the last of our kitchen compost on to the soil. OK, now that i've given you the garden update, let me tell you what I'm excited about....(as if that wasn't enough)

If you read closely, you'll notice my continued use of 'we' not 'i' or 'my dad and i'. Sunday was a really special day at the Garden because the whole Sheppard Mansion team took part in what amounts to serious grunt work. That's right. The whole team. Cooks, dishwasher(yes, dishwasher), baker, waiter, and store clerk all took part in getting the soil ready for what I know is going to be an AMAZING season for us in the garden.

Here's a short little video to update you on our garden progress....does anyone else think that rich, Spring dirt is sexy? Maybe it's just me...

If you follow my blog(if not, read some other posts, they're good for your health), you'll know that I'm a little frustrated with the over use of the term 'farm to table'. Suddenly every restaurant that buys food from a farm is calling themselves 'farm to table'. Congrats. Listen, I use WebMD, that doesn't make me a doctor. If you have a farm connected to your restaurant, you're 'farm to table'(hello, Chris Edwards and Patowmack Farm, wassup?)....if you don't, you're simply sourcing good ingredients.(small caveat...growing your own herbs, while a great idea, doesn't qualify either) Simple as that. If your cooks, waiters, clerks, bakers and dishwashers help in the garden you're, well, let's think of a term....SHEPPARD MANSION.

It MEANS something to work with produce that you've grown. It MEANS something to eat at a restaurant where the staff has worked in the fields to bring you the most amazing produce. Think about that the next time you tuck into a bloomin' onion. Here are some words from Sheppard Mansion Sous Chef Brent Golding on the importance of working in the garden.

Certainly, there is a realization that we can't grow produce for ourselves year round. That's when our brilliant group of local farmers comes into play and quality sourcing is key. We also don't grow everything under the sun. However, when we can grow it, we are. It is difficult to describe how working in the dirt to raise produce informs your cooking. The very best way to get it across is for you to come eat the food.(maybe it would help to take a walking tour of the Culinary Gardens....anybody interested?) Taste carrots again for the first time. Taste leeks, beets(yes, beets), snap peas again for the first time. It's gonna be an amazing grooking(that's my new word....growing and cooking) season in the 717. Have you make your reservations yet?

Sheppard Mansion - The Herb Garden - Seeding Radish

2011-04-07T15:12:00.003-04:00

Okey Dokey.....We're still cleaning up and preparing the culinary garden, but today was a perfect day for seeding some radishes in our herb garden. The video pretty much says it all...it feels great to put my hands in the almost warm soil and get the season started.

The radishes are seeded in the area where we grow basil during the summer. Right now, it's a little too cold for the basil and by the time the weather warms up, the radishes will be out of the ground and ready for summer herbs.

Don't forget....the best place to grab the very same seeds we're using on the property is The Carriage House Market AND the best place to learn about working a home garden is THE CARRIAGE HOUSE MARKET!!!!

ON April 30th at 2pm, I'll be sharing a presentation with our head culinary gardener, Jim Little. We'll cover topics ranging from starting your home garden to cooking the produced picked from your garden. I know what you're thinking....'hey, how much does it cost?' Here's your answer.....FREE. Come, hang out, talk about gardening and food, have a few snacks plucked from our gardens and take a guided tour of the on-site gardens.

It's a beautiful time to be outside and thinking about Spring!!!

Sheppard Mansion: The Experience

2011-03-29T17:45:00.008-04:00

The tasting menu. This, like many great ideas, has been taken hostage by any and all halfway restaurants in tourist towns across the USA....kind of like 'farm to table' or 'artisanal'. Both culinary concepts are great in theory, but when restaurants are offering 'tasting menus' that are really three course prix fixe menus and saying they're 'farm to table' when all they're actually buying from a local farmer is salad greens every now and then....well, to me, something is lost. Something serious.

At the Sheppard Mansion, we still offer what we, for now, are calling a 'tasting menu' every day that we're open. I've titled this post 'The Experience' because that's what you get when you order this menu. It's not 100% about the food. Believe me, the food plays a big part in it, but it's about the service(yes, your waiter most likely helped plant some of the veg on your plate and can explain in great deal every step of the process). It's about the pace and a sense of place. It's about the wine and taking time. You see, we're not just slapping some shit on a plate and calling it a 'tasting'. Alot of thought has gone into not only the flow of the menu, but the wine pairings, the handmade salted butter....in short, the details. It's the very best we can do. Period.

Listen, if you want to come in to the restaurant and get a plate of food, we do that....but that's kind of like listening to Stairway to Heaven and not listening to the whole album(you do realize 'when the levee breaks' is on that album, right?) If you're a 'greatest hits' kind of person, that's cool. I like the 'deep cuts', this is my blog and I'm gonna talk about 'em. Nanny, nanny boo boo.

Here's one thing you can expect if you are 'experienced'. We call it 'the chippy egg'.

Minutes after you select this menu(good choice, BTW) you'll receive a glass of bubbles(if you've selected the beverage pairing....if so, good choice again, folks) and a number of snacks. These set the tone for the rest of the evening and give you a little glimpse of what you're in for.... Because these first bites are so important for setting the tone, I really wanted show 'who we are' and allow the waiter a little bit of time in explaining the dish to begin the 'show'. The 'chippy egg' is the answer.

The explanation of this dish at its simplest is this: A bag of fresh fried potato chips, egg custards topped with a ragout of truffled pigs feet.(not pictured because the egg custards looked SO COOL)

Here's the long version: 1) THE CHIPS: Hanover is the SNACK FOOD CAPITAL OF THE WORLD, damn it. So, it's who we are. The chips arrive in a little brown paper bag stamped with either 'Eat like you live here' or 'Local is Luxury', again....it's who we are.

2) THE EGG: We stand on the shoulders of innovative farmers to create a sense of place with our food. That food is rooted in the dirt of our area and one of my favorite rock star farmers is Beau Ramsburg of Rettland Farms. His eggs get the lead singer treatment here, via a savory custard served nestled in a bed of hay.

3) THE TRUFFLED PIGS FEET: Ummm, because they're delicious and Ramsburg raises pigs better than anyone on Earth. Duh, winning.

4) THE SERVING VESSEL: the stoneware your first bites arrive in was created by local potter and general cool ass guy, Terry Tessem. Yeah, even the plate your first bite is served in is local. EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE..... Oh yeah, of course the hay is local. We're not at 56th and 5th, you know.

So, there you go. All of that went into the first few bites you'll take during THE EXPERIENCE. Sure, it's a lot of small courses. Yes, it takes about two and a half hours and yes, it's the very best we can do. So, let me ask you: Are you experienced?

1st Annual SodBusters Dinner

2011-02-28T09:58:00.002-05:00

We're starting a new tradition on The Sheppard Mansion property this year. In past years, we've had a bunch of fun putting together our end of season Harvest Dinner, so we thought it would be appropriate to have a sister event at the beginning of the season to celebrate being able to get our hands dirty digging in the dirt. You read that correctly. We're throwing a big party to celebrate our ability to get back into the dirt and prepare our ground for planting.(or is it just an excuse to have a party???? You be the judge...)

Here are the DEETS: We're shaking things up and putting tables in The Carriage House Market. You read that correctly. This dinner/blowout extravaganza will take place in The Carriage House Market. Tunes will be crankin', food will be served family style, and wine will be flowing!

MENU: The food will all be 'garden inspired'...Fried Rettland Farms Chicken, Sheppard Mansion Farms grilled beef, truffled deviled eggs, potato salad, Samuel Martin's salad greens with chow chow vinaigrette, and yes.....there will be whoopie pies for dessert.

SPECIFICS:

WHAT: 1ST ANNUAL SOD BUSTERS DINNER
WHEN: MARCH 25TH, 6:30PM
WHERE: THE CARRIAGE HOUSE MARKET, THE SHEPPARD MANSION
WHY: WHY NOT?
HOW MUCH: THE TICKET PRICE IS $55, ALL INCLUSIVE. FOOD, WINE, BEER, TAX, GRATUITY, FUN.....ALL INCLUDED.

Seating is limited and you don't want to miss this. Reservations can me made by calling The Carriage House Market or The Sheppard Mansion 717.633.8075.

Hey, there might even be a celebratory busting of a mason jar of sod.....who knows?

The Beauty of Disagreement

2011-02-20T12:21:00.002-05:00

This comment was posted to my last entry by and anonymous writer:

'I was born and raised in Lancaster, but had the good fortune to be schooled in New Orleans. Although I am the first one to stand up for many things South Central PA; I am also the first to acknowledge that our PA Swiss/German cuisene is no match for the Spanish/French/Creole/Cajun flavours that South Central LA is famous for. I think what you are doing is wonderful, but our culture is what it is and as my grandfather said..."wishing won't make it so." '

I've thought of a number of ways to respond to this comment and have settled on addressing it in a full post.

There are a number of ideas that jump to my mind with regards to this comment. First and foremost is that you can't simply say 'we're better' without something to back it up. That's like the team that wags their finger saying 'we're #1' without putting on their pads and stepping on the field of play. Louisiana has beignets, PA has faschnauts. New Orleans has King Cake and PA has shoo fly pie. LA has jambalaya and PA has slippery pot pie. Both areas have a rich history and heritage with regards to charcuterie and using every bit of the animal.....and so on.....I could do this all day.

The part of this post that I actually wanted to address is the idea that 'our culture is what it is and wishing won't make it so'. I was born and raised in central PA and have CHOSEN to come back to this area to do what I love to do and celebrate the flavors of my area. I appreciate how diverse our American food culture is and especially appreciate those who work tirelessly to represent the individual flavors and culture of their respective areas. I think it is unfortunate that the person who posted this comment doesn't feel the same way about where they were born and raised, and quite frankly doesn't stand behind the flavors of south central LA enough to post their name along with their words. I'm not 'wishing' for anything with regards to MY culture. It stands proudly on its on, just like the foods of the American Southwest, the Pacific Northwest, New England and Louisiana. I don't need to think that any one is any better than the other. They are all special in their own way and we should be proud to live in a country where such a diverse food culture is represented.

I have to be honest here: I'm pissed off. I'm pissed off that somebody's picking on the area that I love. However, I'd like to thank you, anonymous poster. Your post has made me take the time to sit down and write this response. Your post has stoked an already raging fire in my belly and now I'm going to work even harder to make sure that people can be exposed to the flavors that I love. The flavors of my childhood. Listen, I'm not 'wishing it'.....I'm DOING IT.

New Pennsylvania Dutch

2011-02-04T21:00:00.008-05:00

Yeah, you read that correctly. New. Pennsylvania. Dutch. Classy, huh?

Here's the thing: I've been talking to a lot of people lately and a common question that comes up is 'what kind of food do you cook'? While 'new american' is a popular catch all term, it doesn't really say much or create much anticipation or differentiation. After some serious thought, we all settled on 'New Pennsylvania Dutch'. Why? Here's your answer.

I'm a south central PA boy, working with growers and producers who are proudly from south central PA, cooking food inspired by south central PA. So......why try and be anything other than south central PA? It informs the way the menu is written and honestly, it informs the way we cook. The chocolate chewy caramels that you get with your check? My great aunt's recipe. The corn fritters we serve in summer? Another family gem. The fact that we churn our own butter? Yep, my family was in the dairy business in Hanover for many years. You see, you can take the boy out of Dutchy-land, but you can't take the Dutchy out of the boy, awhile.

I've cooked in many different locations, traveled throughout Europe and happily call Hanover, PA my home. I've gathered much from my work experiences and travel, but when you get right down to it, I'm inspired on a daily basis simply by walking out my front door. Many chefs hop a plane and go to France, Vietnam or Italy for their inspiration. I hop on my bike and ride out to my garden or take a quick trip to the apple orchards in Adams County.

When most people think of PA Dutch foods, one of the first things to pop into their head is buffets filled to the hilt with food. While the Lancaster area has popularized this idea, PA Dutch food is actually a very nuanced cuisine and is done a little bit of disservice by the perception that it is simply mountains of hearty 'farmer food'. As a cuisine, it has as rich a background as the foods of New England, New Orleans or the American Southwest. I'm exploring those flavor profiles. The tastes that bring back memories of my childhood and hopefully the childhood's of folks from the area. If you're traveling to the area, I want to give you a taste of the area. You see, I'm crazy proud of this area. If you're coming here from out of town, I want to give you an expression of the area. I actually think of this restaurant as a love letter to south central PA because it is.

So, what can you expect from a restaurant that calls its cuisine 'New Pennsylvania Dutch'? Well, why don't you let me let the photographs below lead you......you really have to taste it to know it!

GREEN, EGGS AND HAM - Asparagus, country ham, caviar, brown butter mayonnaise

SMOKED TROUT, ONION TART, PINE SYRUP

SAUERKRAUT TORTELLINI, SUNCHOKE PUREE, DRIED CHERRY, SAGE

CHOCOLATE WHOOPIE PIES WITH GRAPEFRUIT CURD FILLING

That's just a little taste. We're always batting around ideas about how to best express the area that we love so much. Who knows what familiar flavor profile we'll unlock next....I suppose the only way to figure that one out is to make a reservation....

How about everybody give their Dutchy a little work out....anyone familiar with this gem? My grandfather used to say it....

'Heile heile hinkle drecht bis morgen früh und alles recht'

Here's to asparagus wishes and warm sun dreams!!!

The Best Way to Ring in the New Year!!

2010-12-30T17:34:00.003-05:00

As we're busy prepping for an amazing New Year's Eve service, I thought I'd share a quick video that not only will be great for brunch on Jan 1, but I think also will give everyone a solid idea about our amazingly rich food culture in south central PA. It is a awesome experience for me to work not only with food products from my 'home turf', but also interpret the flavors that make this area so special. I know it's a tease, but look for loads of content in the new year. I'm very excited about 2011 and I hope you will be able to come to the Sheppard Mansion and share in my excitement!

Hey, the restaurant turns 5 this year.....Think we'll have a party???

DO YOU REALLY WANT STRAWBERRIES IN DECEMBER?

2010-12-28T17:43:00.003-05:00

Hey, is anyone actually reading this blog anymore???

It's been a busy holiday season, but that's no excuse for not posting SOMETHING.... Here's a little video magic; perhaps a taste of what is to come in 2011. MORE VIDEO!!!

Just for kicks....here's a look at Tim Brown's strawberries; simply GREAT stuff!!!

Pheasant

2010-11-19T11:17:00.004-05:00

Yeah, it's hunting season here in central PA. The air has turned from cool to cold in the early AM and the rake is the yard tool of choice. This time of year I think a lot about game. Not just venison or quail, but pheasant and squab, too.

Pheasant is a fun bird to work with and I decided that I wanted to present both the breast and leg/thigh meat in a chilled dish this Fall. The dish features a pheasant that has been cooked, deboned, tossed with a small amount of gelatin, brown butter, regular butter, parsley and salt and pepper. This mixture is then rolled and chilled. The other pieces to this puzzle are a turnip remoulade to cut the richness of the pheasant, crispy shallots because why not, and an apple butter vinaigrette which brings the dish home to the 717 and solidifies it as EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE food! Enjoy!!!

Shoo Fly

2010-11-15T18:41:00.003-05:00

I LOVE Shoo Fly Pie. If you asked a bunch of people for a couple of thoughts about food in central PA, shoo fly pie is likely to be an answer. However, and I know frequent readers of the blog will not be surprised by this, I'm picky about my shoo fly. I don't like shoo fly cake. I don't like a pie that has a soggy crust. I don't like a high crumb to molasses ratio. And so on..... In case anyone is wondering, I have 'taste tested' every shoo fly pie available at the York Fair. Yeah, I know. Crazy.

So....I've wanted to create the ultimate shoo fly experience. Inspiration comes in many forms and I'm constantly inspired by the raw products that surround me, the terroir AND my area's food heritage. Shoo fly is a huge part of that story(scrapple is too....look for my ideas on scrapple in a future post). In considering shoo fly flavors and texture, I was stuck on the idea that a bunch of pies that I've tasted come out dry. Basically, too much crumb. AND....I didn't want to simply produce a pie. So, what to do, what to do? First stop: Source a great molasses. I am fortunate to be able to buy sorghum molasses from my good friend Josiah Martin. Josiah's uncle makes the most amazing sorghum molasses that has a great color and flavor....It's not bitter, but also not too cloyingly sweet. So, molasses, check. Next stop? What flavors would go with shoo fly? Shoo fly is a pretty sweet flavor profile, so I decided to go two ways. One was to make a red wine caramel. The other was to take a dice of fresh apple. Now, I have a balance to the sweet with the red wine caramel and apple, a little crunch with the apple. One final touch? Salt. All that sugar needs a little salt to balance it, so I thought of brown butter roasted pecans tossed with salt and sugar. OK. On to the shoo.

Ever have fried ice cream? If you have, you're seeing where I'm going with this one. I made a sorghum molasses ice cream. Made the crumb topping traditionally associated with shoo fly pie(although I like to add malted milk to my crumb mixture....sue me) Once the ice cream was solid, we scooped it out and coated it with the shoo crumb mixture. Frozen solid. THEN.....dropped into 375 degree oil and fried until crispy and golden brown. HELLO LOVER!!!

Here are a couple of shots of the finished dish, but you really need to get your butt to the Mansion and eat this dish. It is warm, cold, sweet, salty, amazing, Eat Like You Live Here food!

From All of Us, To All of You: THANK YOU!!!

2010-11-07T16:36:00.005-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I've been a little lax about posting on the blog. Well, I haven't exactly been sitting around twiddling my thumbs or building the ultimate spit ball machine. You see, a little market has popped up in Hanover. Popped up right behind the Mansion. That's right, The Carriage House Market is open for business.

I'd write a long list of all the things the Market sells, but I'd rather sum it up this way: If it's local and you're cookin' it, we're sellin' it. No, we're not selling pineapples and lemons. Yes, we are selling amazing salad greens, fresh bread and the most incredible meats. We're also cranking out some wicked soups that are ready to eat. Want a quick meal? How about a quart of white bean soup and a loaf of rustic french bread!!!

LOCAL IS LUXURY: Ever want to get in touch with your local farmers, but you just can't seem to make the specific time a farmer's market is open? We've taken care of that problem for you. The Carriage House Market is open wednesday-saturday 12 month of the year and is selling all the great products that I currently source for the restaurant.
Every time I find a passionate producer for the restaurant, we'll be selling their raw products in the Market, allowing you the luxury of eating like you live here!!!

LET'S TALK ABOUT BREAD, BABY!:
Simply because I think sleep is overrated, we've decided to bring fresh baked bread to The Carriage House Market. Not only rustic boules, pretzel rolls and parker house rolls, but we've added the hippest thing to hit Hanover since the Hanover-Delone bonfire.....STICKY BUN SATURDAYS!!!!(for those of you who line up at the door before we open on saturdays; YOU MAKE BEING AT WORK AT 4AM TOTALLY WORTH IT!!!) A brief serious word: I know many people have come to the Market only to find the bread shelf as bare as the toilet paper aisle just before the first snow flurry. I'm sorry about that....People are eating the bread as fast as I can put it on the shelves. Seriously. Please don't despair. I'm am so overwhelmed by the area's response to our baked goods that we are taking steps to not only produce more bread, but also a wider variety of baked goods. We'll be working extra hard to make sure you get your bread!!!

To everyone who has stopped in at The Carriage House Market, THANK YOU! To everyone who hasn't....wathca waitin' for??? EAT LIKE YOU LIVE HERE!!!

Harvest Celebration Menu

2010-09-22T21:54:00.003-04:00

OK......here it is. The menu for the October 5th Harvest Celebration. Starts with snacks and sparkling in the Carriage House Market(sneak peak time) then on to the menu. So, here you go. Read it, then make your reservation at 717.633.8075
We'll have some new guests this year and I'll be playing the role of chef AND producer at this event. PLUS, you'll also get a sneak peak at the store that is going to change the way you shop for amazing ingredients!

Snacks:
Whipped Lardo on grilled bread
Mini Macaroni and Cheese
Rettland Farms Berkshire Pork BBQ Sandwiches with Truffled Slaw
Candied carrot soup shooters

ONE
A Puree of Sheppard Mansion Farms Dried Corn Soup, pork dumpling

TWO
A selection of Samuel Martin's Fall Vegetables, Morgan Ramsburg's Lamb Meatballs

THREE
Crispy torchon of Rettland Farms Chicken, waffle, maple balsamic syrup

FOUR
Grilled Sheppard Mansion Farms Beef, Mansion Farms potato and carrot, horseradish cream

FIVE
Prune and armagnac stuffed apple dumpling, warm cider cream

HEY, put your tongue back in your mouth!

Celebrate the Harvest!!!!

2010-09-20T08:07:00.002-04:00

Well, it's that time of year again. A happy/sad time for me. I love Fall and am excited about the new flavors that will be hitting the menu, but I really have a tough time saying good bye to Summer. This summer has been an amazing one for the Sheppard Mansion family, as we've pulled a ton of produce that is beyond compare from our own gardens. I will really miss heading out to our culinary garden, but am already working with my dad on planning a garden four times as big for next year!

With the changing of seasons in mind, it's time for our annual Harvest Dinner. Hey Andy, is this like a 'farm to table' dinner. Well, sort of, but not really. I suppose you could consider what we do on a daily basis 'farm to table'. This is more of an opportunity to kick back, drink some wine, eat some food and celebrate the 2010 growing season and harvest. As in year's past, I'll be inviting some of my favorite producers to the dinner(a special wrinkle in this year's dinner is that I'll be speaking not only as the chef, but also as a producer. I'll be able to fill you in on the ENTIRE process from seed planting to harvest to menu concept to cooking. Cool? I think so.)

The evening will start with snacks and sparkling in the newest addition to the Sheppard Mansion brand. The Carriage House Market. That's right, all the amazing products I get to work with on a daily basis will soon be available for sale at the market that's going to 'change the way you think about, cook and eat food'. Be one of the first people to see the force that is THE CARRIAGE HOUSE MARKET. Following snack time, we'll head into the main house for a multi-course extravaganza featuring the most amazing products central PA has to offer. Between courses, my rockstar producer(hey, I'm one of them this year. Sweet.) friends will take a minute to talk about their products and I'll talk a bit about the concept behind the dish. Wine. Oh, yeah. There will be wine.

This is gonna be a rockin' good time that you DON'T want to miss. You might even see Beau Ramsburg breakin' bad to the Thong Song on a table top....Or you might not.....but you'll never forget yourself if it happens and you missed it!

HERE'S THE DEETS: Tuesday October 5th. 6pm. $105 includes EVERYTHING. And by everything, I mean.....snacks, sparkling, amazing food paired with amazing wine, tax, gratuity.

Phone 717.633.8075 to reserve your table. There are only a few left.....YOU DON'T WANT TO MISS THIS!!!!

Jam

2010-09-09T18:54:00.008-04:00

Have you ever gone to a concert and watched two musicians stand toe to toe and pass a melody back and forth? If you have, you know what an amazing experience this can be. Two musicians, using a limited set of 'rules' who are playing off of what each other has created. By the end of the 'set', they have created something that is much larger and complex than the beginning theme.(for those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, think the banjo scene in Deliverance) Ever wonder what that would be like in a restaurant setting? Well, here you go. My good friend and uber-talented chef Andrew Deery and I are planning to go toe to toe on September 28th at his restaurant Majolica in Phoenixville, PA. It's a evening entirely based around FUN. We're taking the doors off the kitchen, plating trays in the middle of the room and cranking our favorite tunes during the snack and sparkling hour. During this time, Andrew and I will be passing around our favorite snacks, shooting the shit with EVERYONE and I may even do a) a hand stand or b) sing along to Born in the USA or c) both at the same time! Once we get down to 'serious business', we'll hope that everyone will get out of their seats, come watch what we are doing and TALK ABOUT FOOD!!!! The evening will close up with trays of cookies and candy(white chocolate covered pork rinds anyone?) while Andrew and I explore the inner beauty of Pappy Van Winkle bourbon. Here's the menu.(actually, click on the menu....it'll make it bigger and clearer....since I'm not a web wizard, it looks like shit in its current state!)

Alright, I've got you hooked and you want to make a reservation right now, don't you? Well, I'm happy to say that this particular dinner SOLD OUT in 36 hours. Yeah, that's right. SOLD OUT IN 36 HOURS. So, Andrew and I have decided to do what all rock bands do that have sold out dates.....we're adding another date. NOVEMBER 5TH. The menu will be different(it's gonna be hard core Fall folks.), but the attitude will be all the same. Honestly, this dinner is also filling up fast, but there are a few seats left. You know you don't want to miss it...... click here www.majolicarestaurant.com for details. I hope to see you there!

Hot Potato

2010-09-07T17:01:00.002-04:00

My dad and I brought another crop in this past week: potatoes. Not any ordinary potato. We planted two varieties of potato this year, the german butterball and the la ratte fingerling. The pic above is our haul of la ratte fingerlings(over 100 pounds!!!)

There isn't a whole lot to say about these babies. I'll be posting how we utilize each of the potatoes over the next few weeks, so be on the lookout.....or, better yet, drop by the restaurant and try some for yourselves!

These beautiful potatoes(both the la ratte and german butterball) will be for sale along with our incomparable heirloom tomatoes at this friday's market at the Gettysburg Outlet Center. Why don't you go out and buy yourself 10 pounds or 50?

Tell your melons to stop looking at me.

2010-09-02T21:29:00.004-04:00

I love melons. I love caressing melons. I love cradling melons. I love the sweet aroma that a perfect melon gives off when it is held 'just right'. I like to nestle my face between two freshly picked melons and feel the sun bathed warmth all over my face.(if you think I didn't have the most amazing time writing that last paragraph, you're nuts!)

Anyhow, by now your familiar with our bumper crop of melon this year. You might also remember that I recently returned from a trip to Italy where I had a lot of cantaloupe wrapped in melon. One particular meal that stood out was a combination of cantaloupe, ham and clove. That was the inspiration for this dessert.

Yes, dessert. I know, I know, I know. Dessert is meant to be chocolate cake with peanut butter icing or a baked alaska or something like that. This dessert is nothing 'like that'.

I took our amazing charentais melon and made some ice cream. Candied some of the world's best bacon(ours) with brown sugar, made a clove cake, tossed in some lemon verbena granola, compressed charentais melon and a finish of vanilla beam cream cheese. It all comes together pretty nicely and is an interesting interpretation of the classic savory cantaloupe and ham. If you get to the restaurant within the next few weeks, you'll notice there are a few 'garden inspired' desserts. I would order one of each if I were you!

The Next Big Thing

2010-08-28T22:18:00.008-04:00

The envelope pictured below landed on my desk a couple of weeks ago. If you look closely in the upper left corner, you'll recognize a familiar name if you frequent the restaurant and/or blog. Ramsburg. As in Rettland Farms. As in rock star pork, chicken and egg producer. The guy I'm proud to call my friend, Beau Ramsburg.....but wait, that envelope says M. Ramsburg, Andy. You're right, it does. M. Ramsburg.....Intrigued? I was.

When I opened the letter, Morgan Ramsburg, Beau and Cat's daughter, had written me explaining that she was raising lamb as part of a 4H project and she would be showing them in mid-August. In the letter, Morgan asked if I would consider bidding on her lamb with the hopes that one of her animals would make it back to The Mansion. Did I think twice? No. During the showing, one of Morgan's animals was selected as the reserve grand champion. First showing. Reserve grand champion. Yes, this kid is a Ramsburg.

Last weekend, Heather Sheppard Lunn trekked over to the South Mountain Fairgrounds and placed the Sheppard Mansion's bid on Morgan's lamb and yes, we landed one!

The lamb is back from the butcher and I've gotta say, 'HOLY AMAZING.' That's a professional opinion.

When I was a kid, I used to closely read Sports Illustrated. One of my favorite sections was the 'Faces in the Crowd' where up and coming stars would be chronicled in the opening pages of the magazine. I think in some cases, this section served as notice to the older generation in each sport that a new, great group of stars was working their way to the top. Well, if there was a 'Faces in the Crowd' for agriculture, Morgan Ramsburg should be brightly featured. Keith Martin at Elysian Fields Farms, watch your back....from the looks of this lamb, you've got a 'situation'.

Morgan's lamb is going to hit the menu this friday in the form of five individual preparations from five different parts of the animal all presented on one plate. If you've had lamb before, congrats. If you want to TASTE WHAT'S NEXT....I would suggest getting yourself a reservation for this weekend at the Mansion because I know this animal won't be around for long. There even might be an outside shot that you'll look across the dining room and there will be Morgan, getting the rock star treatment by the Sheppard Mansion staff. If you are lucky enough to spot Morgan, don't be bashful. Ask your waiter for a sharpie and ask Morgan to sign your menu. Honestly, how often do you get to taste the next big 'food thing'?

I'm working through tons of possible ideas for presenting this lamb and I hope you'll be able to make a reservation for this weekend to try one amazing lamb.

Check back to the blog to see how the ideas work themselves out this week....

Garden Update - August 25th.

2010-08-25T08:49:00.002-04:00

I'll let the video do the talking.

Oh, and here's a definition for 'GTL' from Urban Dictionary. If you don't know what GTL means then somehow you're missing the most important show to hit TV screens in the past 20 years.....

The process of staying fresh and mint. Stands for "Gym, tan, laundry." Must be done everyday to achieve maximum potential. Side effects include fist pumping. Coined by the eloquent Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino from MTV's ground breaking Jersey Shore.

Did I mention that we have some corn??????

2010-08-22T09:54:00.004-04:00

First, a word about our corn. I like to call it 'no no' corn. Basically what that means is that nothing other than dirt, rain and our hands have touched our corn. No herbicides, no pesticides, no nothin'. 'No No Corn'. So, what that also means is that occasionally you might encounter a worm here and there. A small price to pay for amazing flavor in my book. Simply brush the worm off or cut out the bruised area and go on eating the most amazing corn you've had in the past 30 years.

So, did I mention that we brought in a huge haul of corn? I think I did. Basically, what that means is that it's time to be creative with our abundance. We've already dried enough corn to get us through the winter and now it's time to think about how to celebrate this bumper crop in the present. So.....corn, butter and salt are GREAT friends. Butter, salt and biscuits are GREAT friends.....so.....sweet corn biscuits are born. See, this chef thing isn't that tough. It's just a matter of connect the dots!

I utilized our usual biscuit recipe, bumped up the amount of salt to balance the corn and boom: done. I think these little devils are a superb seasonal addition to our bread offerings and I hope you will, too.!

Tomato Tarte Tatin

2010-08-19T20:02:00.003-04:00

Yep. Tomato tarte tatin. Most likely, if someone said 'dessert' to you, a tomato tarte tatin would not be the first thing to come to mind. That's OK, because I'm gonna work to make it something you not only think about, but enjoy!

So, I've got a ton of tomatoes coming in right now and am looking for interesting ways to use them. Why not dessert? I'm not a huge fan of heavy, sweet desserts and since the tomato is considered a fruit, I figured, why not?

I start with a good group of Akers West Virginia tomatoes that I have peeled the skin off of and cut in half. I love the Akers tomato and this growing season has been especially good for Akers(read: I've got a boat load of them.). The next step is to add sugar, vanilla bean and butter to the bottom of a copper pan. Neatly arrange the tomatoes cut side up in the pan and cook over moderate heat until a syrupy caramel forms.(Note: the more moisture in your tomatoes, the longer this step will take. If you use those nasty tomatoes from the grocery story, the cook time will be almost immediate. Actually, if you plan on using tomatoes from the grocery store, please stop reading now. I don't want you to make this dish.) Once you've reached caramel stage, sprinkle about 6 leaves of lemon verbena over the tomatoes and place a circle of puff pastry over the tomatoes. Prick with a paring knife and cook at 425 for about 20 minutes. Once 20 minutes has gone by, remove the tarte from the oven and shake it to make sure it is loose from the sides. Then......flip it over on to a plate.

The other components of this dish are sour cream ice cream, basil granola(it's awesome, trust me), some flowering basil from the garden and caramel. Done.

FREE STUFF ALERT!!!!!

2010-08-16T18:59:00.007-04:00

My dad and I harvested a ridiculous load of sweet corn from the garden today....

Just a little back story on our corn crop for 2010. The corn was a little bit of an afterthought. You see, we had originally planted carrots and leeks which did not take in the early stages of the garden, so we decided to cut our losses and quickly put in four rows of yellow corn. If you're a tried and true central Pennsytucky resident, you've already recoiled at the thought of 'yellow' corn. Trust me, folks. I know what the hell I'm talking about.

It seems that white sweet corn is everywhere in today's farmers markets. You can count your lucky stars if you can find bi-color. Well, that's where I have a huge problem. I really don't like the current versions of white sweet corn because the seeds have been manipulated to the point that they taste 'too sweet' and don't have a solid 'corn flavor'. Honestly, this pisses me off. I want my corn to taste like corn, not corn flakes. So, the answer is yellow corn.

If you're lucky enough to have any old cookbooks laying around(and by old, I mean old like 1930's old) or you have family recipes that utilize corn, take note of the fact that almost all of the recipes call for some degree of sugar. You see, corn wasn't always as sweet as BIG AG currently makes it. Not even close. I can already hear the yelling from the hills...'well, if the recipe calls for sugar that means that the olde timey corn wasn't sweet enough and this new corn is a modern marvel of technology.' Well, hold on to your smarty pants, buster. The addition of sugar to old recipes put the control of the sweetness in the hands of the cook. Which, quite honestly, is where it needs to be. Want a corn pudding that isn't so sweet? Don't add the sugar called for in the recipe. Want a corn ice cream? Add a little more sugar. You see, I don't have ANY desire to have a chemist in Iowa deciding for me how sweet or savory my corn pudding should be. SO.....say it with me......'yellow corn'.

Yeah, I made you read all of that stuff, simply to find out about the FREE STUFF ALERT!

Thank you to everyone who took me up on my offer of a little free garden tomato salad last week..... This week(August 18-21), we're going to be offering a little gift of corn from the kitchen. My great grandmother had a recipe for corn fritters that I grew up on and honestly, really enjoy so I thought they would be the perfect vehicle for getting our corn IN-TO-YOUR-BELLY! Mention this blog post WHEN YOU MAKE YOUR RESERVATION for this week(August 18-21) and we'll send you a plate of my great grandmother's corn fritters on us. I couldn't be happier with this year's crop of corn...it has only proven to spur ideas for next year's garden!

FYI, if for some reason(I honestly can't think of a good one) you can't make it to the restaurant this week to nosh on your complimentary plate of corn fritters, the yellow corn that we grew will be for sale at this friday's Farm Fresh Market at the Gettysburg Outlet Center. Look for the Sheppard Mansion Farms booth. Will the most amazingly flavorful heirloom tomatoes be at the booth you ask? See below. I think we'll have a few for sale!

Leavin' on a jet plane.....

2010-07-22T09:16:00.005-04:00

That's right. I'm heading to Tuscany tonight for the next 12 days. In addition to trying to get a decent amount of rest, I'm going to try and answer the following questions:

1) Can I eat an entire ham during my stay?

2) Does red wine taste different if you're drinking it at 9am, poolside?

3) Will the famed Tuscan saltless bread taste like a brick of sawdust or be remarkable?

4) Is there any gelato in all of Italy that is better than the raspberry soft serve in a pretzel cone from York Street Treat?

Those are questions I'm looking to answer. Please check out the blog as I'll be trying to post the answers frequently while I'm there.

Isn't that a cool pic? Well, here's a deal for you: Make a reservation between August 4th-7th, mention this blog post, and I'll send you this very dish(made with our kitchen garden's tomatoes and cucumbers....they look great and will be bursting by the time I get back!) compliments of the kitchen. How can you beat that? Well, you can't. Period.

State of The Garden July 13th

2010-07-13T10:42:00.004-04:00

I'm posting a couple of videos below showing the status of the garden today, however I thought it might be fun to take a look at where we started. Enjoy!

Again, I'll just let the video do the talking. I'm really happy about where the garden is at this point in the season!

I pulled up one German Butterball potato plant today....here's what I found.

Sometimes you have to slow down and look around....

2010-07-12T15:24:00.019-04:00

We were lucky enough to have a visit from the PA Secretary of Agriculture, Russell Redding a couple of weeks ago and one of the many things I took away from our visit was his phrase 'sometimes you have to slow down and look around.' I'm not sure this is the exact quote, but I know the idea is correct.

Yep, that's Secretary Redding sporting the 'Know Farms Know Food' hat in the herb garden.

This past weekend, I noticed a couple of our guests strolling the property either before or after dinner and thought about the Secretary's statement again. We live in a society that has forgotten the pleasures associated with dining and wants everything faster(I just want a 'quick bite'), more casual(you mean I can't wear my sleeveless Budweiser t-shirt to your restaurant? You're a damn elitist), more choices(What do you mean you don't have 17 iterations of boneless, skinless chicken breast?) and most of all cheaper(You mean I don't even get a salad or foil covered baked potato with that?). I have to be honest with you, I think it's a bunch of bullshit. Certainly, there is a time and place for that type of eating, but it's simply that. Eating. It's not dining. It's not an experience. It's not even good most times, it's simply either quick, cheap, casual or some combination of the three, but don't kid yourself. It's not good.

There is a place where you can slow down, look around and have a dining experience that is more that just 'eating'. It's in Hanover, PA. So, slow down, have a glass of champagne or a beer and drink in these photos from the past couple of weeks. If you're so inspired, please come an visit us so that you can see these things in person. I'd love to look out the kitchen window and see YOU strolling our property. Actually, why don't you ask your waiter if you can pop your head in the kitchen and I'll take a short stroll around the gardens with you?

GARDEN UPDATE

2010-06-15T21:13:00.004-04:00

I think the appropriate thing to do here is to simply let the video do the talking.

GARDEN OVERVIEW

TOMATO LOVE

FYI....It occurred to me after posting this video that in the first five seconds it appears that I have perhaps the hairiest wrist known to man. I can assure you, it's dirt!

DEEP THOUGHTS

BORAGE!!!

THE GARDEN - JUNE15TH

Watcha Doin' this Sunday?

2010-06-09T23:23:00.002-04:00

Answer: Attending my grilling class at the Mansion.

That's right. It's time for our annual summer grilling class. It happens this Sunday, 1pm at the Mansion. Outside. Grill. Drinks. Alcoholic Drinks. Beef, pork and chickens for sale after the class. Anything else you need to know?

OK, so it's $45 per person. What does that get you? Well, I'll be demonstrating how to grill salmon, the 'perfect' Sheppard Mansion Farms burger, Rettland Farms pork belly, and a few surprises. In addition to tastes of the food, Karen will be mixing up some of her signature 'farm to glass' cocktails and we'll have some amazing Pennsylvania beers.

So, like I said....you're gonna call the Mansion(717.633.8075) and secure your spot, right? There are a few spaces left; get one while they're HOT!

How many hours are in a day?

2010-05-27T00:26:00.006-04:00

Right. There aren't enough hours in a day. Just like everyone else, my 'to do' list is huge and seems to get longer when I sit down to rewrite it. So, what's the point?

Well, sometimes you just don't have enough hours of daylight and you're not sure when you're gonna be able to come up for air. However, sometimes the radishes have to get picked. Radishes don't give a damn if you're busy. When they're ready, they're ready. Period. So, get your ass out and pick them.....and pick them I did; after dinner service. Tonight. Check it out.

This first pic is from this past sunday when we planted 24 heirloom tomato plants.

OK, so check this video. Yes, it's a moonlit night and that doesn't come across in the video. Sorry, but come on....I'm picking radishes at 10pm!!!!

Here's the finished product. French breakfast radish.

And, here's your final video. Radishes cleaned, lined up and ready for service tomorrow morning. Farm to table? You betcha. wink, wink.

Oh, and if you don't have an iPhone and are picking radishes at 10pm, I highly suggest investing in one. The flashlight app was a life saver tonight.

Playin' in the dirt.

2010-05-11T19:40:00.012-04:00

Wow. It's been way too long since I've posted. Sorry about that! This Spring has been very busy and I guess I just fell a bit behind on posting.

So, in order to make up for my lack of post-ability, I've got a bunch of content to throw your way over the next few days and I promise to post with a bit more regularity. Honestly, with so many interesting projects in the works and such great products coming to our back door, I feel like I could post every day!

OK, here we go.....updates from the garden.

A couple of weeks ago, we started processing this piece of land.

After an initial pass by the tractor, the cleaning of the soil(raking grass and picking out rocks) was under way, followed by multiple passes with our tiller.

OK, let the planting begin! In the photo below, you can see the mound to the left which are piles of grass and debris that we sifted off the soil to make for a smoother dirt of planting....you can also catch the stakes poking out of the ground which label our rows.

During this first stage, we planted the following seeds: sunflowers, chinese asters, golden marguerite, german chamomile, firmament, chives, sweet mace, scarlet nantes carrots, plum purple radish, borage, and french breakfast radish.

Round 2 of planting concentrated solely on potatoes. Namely two varieties. La ratte and german butterball.

I have to take a second at this point and let everyone know that I'm not doing this garden on my own. My dad has been an enormous source of information and physical labor and without his help, NONE of this would be happening. So, thanks Dad! YOU should thank my dad every time you enter the restaurant this growing season. During Round 2 of planting my dad and I were joined by Mansion waiters Sam Jacquez and Brian Roark. Can you believe that shit? Some restaurant waiters can blather on about the restaurant's alleged farm to table ethos, but how many waiters can not only describe the variety of potato that you're asking about, BUT can they also tell you that they planted those potatoes? These guys got their hands dirty putting those seed potatoes in the ground. They got a sore back digging down into the soil to create the trough for the seeds. I gotta thank Sam and Brian for showing up the day after a long Mother's Day service to help us plant these special potatoes. So, if you've been to the restaurant, you'll recognize Sam in this picture, cutting seed potatoes.

In this shot, you'll see Brian placing the seed potatoes. Again, here's one of our waiters working the garden, growing your food. Why on God's green Earth would you want to eat anywhere else?????????

This final shot is my dad pulling soil over the newly planted potatoes. The first thought that came into my head when posting this photo was 'God bless sweatpants'.

That's where we're at with the garden. The herb garden on the property has been giving us onions, edible flowers and herbs for weeks....I encourage you to come a little early for your reservation, grab a glass of champagne and stroll the gardens. It's such a relaxing way to start the dinner!

Ramps Have the Best PR Firm EVER......

2010-04-20T22:07:00.003-04:00

Yeah, I said it. First, let me mention that I've been a huge supporter of ramps in the past. Now, I've grown up.

So, what exactly is a ramp? Basically, it's a wild leek that calls West Virginia and parts of the mid-Atlantic home. I suppose the taste is sort of like a garlicky, leeky, spring onion. For a couple of years now, the 'food trendsetters' have been tripping over themselves heaping praise on this wild sprout like it was some new type of caviar we've never tasted before. Like I said above and you can see from this pic, I've cooked my share of ramps in the past.(the ramps are in the center of the photo, along with a host of other spring ingredients)

The problem is that I just don't get it. I don't understand why every alleged 'foodie', food magazine, and chef seems to drop everything they're doing in the name of ramps. I saw recently that a restaurant in New York City(and if it's happening in New York City it MUST be cool) was doing an entire ramp tasting menu....ramp ice cream, ramp sorbet, no thanks.

For me, I'd much rather elevate a stellar spring onion from my friend Samuel Martin or even better pulled fresh from our gardens. Or, how about pristine asparagus? Or the first of Tim Brown's strawberries?

Listen, I had ramps on our early spring menu this year, but I've finally come around to trusting my gut and palate(both of which are saying 'what's the big freaking deal'), so I'm telling the food intelligencia to piss up a rope. Even though all the cool kids on the playground are doing 48 course ramp tasting menus, I'll be the kid by himself on the other side of the playground covering himself in charred spring onion vinaigrette and wrapping just cut asparagus in country ham. Oh, I'll also be the chubby kid in the too tight Twisted Sister t-shirt stuffing morels with bone marrow and oxtail.

I suppose the lesson here is to cook what you love to eat and don't let trends or others influence you. If you're not feeling it, then you're not feeling it. If you cook what you love to eat and the people who raised what you're cooking are passionate about producing food, then you could honestly elevate dog shit to a higher level.*

*NOTE: Please take my word on elevating dog shit to a higher level. There really is no good reason to try this at home.

Pea Tortellini and Beef Tongue

2010-04-14T15:50:00.006-04:00

OK, here you go....pea tortellini, beef tongue, morel mushrooms, pea shoots, radish and horseradish cream.

It's difficult to describe how delicious this dish is. It certainly melds the green flavors of the peas and shoots with the earthy quality of tongue and morel mushrooms. Finish that off with a drizzle of lemon oil and some horseradish and I think you've got a match made in heaven!....If you're the type of person who turns their nose up at beef tongue(seriously, it's like eating the best beef you've ever had) then you need to put your big boy pants on and give this dish a try....YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!!!!

Not Much to Say Here, a picture says a thousand words.

2010-04-06T23:07:00.003-04:00

The incredible Andy Smith paid us a visit a couple of weeks ago and I've been working on interesting ways to get his photos on my blog....I've been messing with wrapping them up in a neat little video.......this is the first experiment. Enjoy the show!

Pork Belly

2010-04-04T11:42:00.007-04:00

Ah, yes. The pork belly. You see, the culinary world is much like the fashion world and pork belly has certainly had its 'Members Only jacket moment' in the sun recently. Its gotten to the point where there is almost a backlash against bacon and all things pork because almost every food mag and restaurant has taken a seat on the 'pork train' and we've seen some ridiculous, 'creative'(by creative, I really mean stupid) uses of bacon. As a result of the hoopla, I've eaten a bunch of great pork belly, but I've also eaten some iterations of pork belly that were, at best, horrible.(like so bad, I was wishing it had just been turned into grocery store bacon instead of the dish I had just eaten) These bad versions are the primary reason that I'm REALLY glad that everyone is backing away from the pork belly craze. The secondary reason is that now we can get back to properly executing what is a really amazing cut of meat to cook.

I've never claimed to be the first guy at the offal/non-tenderloin cuts party. However, I sometimes I do claim to be that guy at the party who is dancing by himself in the corner way to early in the evening. Yeah, I said it, I'm drunk with my love of offal and when the magazines and bloggers stop talking about pork belly or lamb neck or beef tongue or duck testicles, I'm still gonna be cooking them because, for me, it's not about the hype or trend; these are just way more flavorful cuts than a pallid plate of beef tenderloin.

So, back to the point. Pork belly. More specifically, this dish is wildflower honey glazed pork belly with a mushroom duxelle smeared brioche crouton and spring vegetables(asparagus, baby carrot, spring onion, morel mushrooms, pearl onion). First we take the belly and give it a quick cure of salt, sugar and pepper. Then, it's packed and off to take a bath for 24 hours. After coming out of the bath, we gently place the belly between to pans and weight it down over night. Once chilled, the belly cuts cut into portions and held until we're ready to complete the dish.

When it's time to start the dish, we dust the belly in Wondra flour and gently brown each side of the meat. The meat is then removed from the pan and the pan is deglazed with a mixture of wildflower honey, sherry vinegar and pork stock. Once gently reduced, the pork is added back to the stock and basted until the stock reaches a nice glaze consistency. Unlike other dishes, we do not add a knob of butter to the pan because we're looking for the acidity of the sherry vinegar to help cut the richness(and YES it is rich!) of the pork. The crouton is fried in chicken fat(yeah, it's good) and smeared with a mushroom duxelle that has been deglazed with Pernod. So, crouton+duxelle+pork belly+glazed vegetables. Finally a bit of glazing liquid as sauce for the plate and we're done.

So, this is just another sneak peak into our Spring menu which hits this wednesday. If you've never tried pork belly, come by and give this a shot. If you've had pork belly before, but weren't blown away by it, come by and give this a shot. Oh yeah, be on the lookout for a killer beef tongue, too!!!! I'm off to find my Members Only jacket.

Green, Eggs and Ham

2010-04-01T10:32:00.006-04:00

Well, it's officially Spring! With the warmer days and greener grass comes a pretty major overhaul of the menu. Time to roll out the fresh green flavors!

Asparagus, along with chives, is one of the first Spring items to poke through the ground(actually, we've already cut a bunch of asparagus on the property) so naturally it would make an appearance on the Spring menu. The one dish in particular that I always choose to showcase asparagus is my own nod to Dr. Seuss, Green, Eggs and Ham. There are no 'green eggs' on this dish....that's why I put a comma between the 'green' and 'eggs'. Simply put, the dish is comprised of green items(asparagus), eggs(bernaise, caviar) and ham(always a country ham)

I took the opportunity to take a look back at some of my photos last night to see how my interpretation of 'green, eggs and ham' has changed over the years. Believe me, it has! So, here's a trip down memory lane for me and an interesting look into the evolution of a dish for you. Regardless of the plating, the basic concept of the dish has remained the same: present amazing asparagus and a few other flavors which are meant to enhance the main idea.

2005
At the time of this photo, there wasn't a restaurant at the Sheppard Mansion yet. I was living and working in Bucks County, PA. I'm pretty sure this was the first iteration of 'green, eggs and ham'....part of a multi-course tasting menu at EverMay on the Delaware. The major components here were asparagus, bernaise sauce, country ham and a little bit of caviar for good measure.

2008
Fast forward to 2008 and the Sheppard Mansion. The plating is a little different and I've added a sunny side quail egg, some micro herbs and radishes to the mix.

2010
The here and now. This is what the dish looks like today. The components are still asparagus, caviar and country ham(specifically Surryano Ham here), but I've added another egg element(brown butter mayonnaise), some roasted and chilled fingerling potato(which add a really nice creamy note), lemon oil, radish and edible flowers and flowering herbs. I think this dish is really, really sexy.

I hope everyone will be able to visit the restaurant this Spring and taste this dish. As the days move forward, I'm going to try and post shots of many of our new Spring items. Enjoy!

Perspective

2010-03-22T20:04:00.006-04:00

I'm adding a full scale garden to our repertoire at the restaurant this year.

To those of you who have been to the restaurant before or follow my philosophies, this might not see like that big of a deal. If you read on, I'll describe how it really is.

Since I've been at The Sheppard Mansion, we've grown some items for our kitchen on the property in various guises. In our first growing season, we produced not only herbs, but also some limited vegetables(scallions, radishes, etc.). Due to the success of the restaurant and the space that we have, we had to limit our growing on the property to simply herbs and flowers simply to keep up with how much we were cutting the plants!

This year, we're going to go back to my roots and plant out a full garden. I can hear you already 'what does he mean, back to his roots'? Let me explain.

Before I landed back home, I was the chef at a restaurant in Bucks County, PA called EverMay on the Delaware. Maybe you've read about it (click here) At EverMay, my dad helped me build what I thought were some amazing gardens.

So, that's how we get to the 'roots'. You see, I'm inspired by so many things that occur naturally in a garden. Our gardener at EverMay, Robert Lazaro, one time spotted me constantly raking and smoothing a small patch of dirt in my garden. He came over and asked me what the hell I was doing and I told him that I not only liked the look of perfectly cultivated dirt, but I liked the smell of it, the touch of it.....etc. He nodded, looked at me like I was crazy and went about his tasks. See that's the thing: I love the feel of warm dirt on my hands, the smell of tomato leaves, the way dew beads on vegetables first thing in the morning, the snap of raw peas eaten straight from the vine, the eternal fight with weeds. I used to take guests on a guided tour of my gardens before each dinner service and was always very happy to see how they reacted to seeing the vegetables that were making it on to their plate growing in front of their eyes. It's pretty amazing stuff!

So, I'm going back to my roots. I don't intend to fully supply the restaurant with produce this year or even in the years to come. That's a job for the pros like Kathy Glahn and Samuel Martin. However, what I do hope to get out of this is to get back to a more informed and inspired way of cooking and creating menus. You see, when you get your produce off of a truck or even from a super high quality grower, you can tend to lose the perspective of exactly how hard it was to produce those amazing products. Sure, you admire them and think that you're doing the best you possibly can while you're cooking them, but I'm here to tell you from experience, until you've cooked products that you've taken months to grow, you have no idea. None.

Here's the spot.

I've always wanted to write a cookbook inspired by my gardens and food called 'Playin' in the Dirt', but since nobody from Random House or Artisan is beating a path to Hanover to sign me up, this blog will have to suffice. I toyed with starting a separate blog to chronicle simply the garden process, but thought that was stupid because a major point of this project is to talk about how the garden work informs and inspires the food. So, this will be the spot to check for updates regarding 'Garden 2010'.

I encourage all of you to start your own gardens and cook from them. Also, seek out restaurants and chefs who are looking to their work in the field to inspire what they put on the plate. Two chefs that I really enjoy following are Christopher Edwards and Kyle Lee McKnight

What's on my mind?

2010-03-18T11:32:00.002-04:00

The warm days and vanishing snow(thank you!)have got my mind doing a full court press on Spring menu ideas. I've written before about how the menu gets written, but this time, I'd like to shed some light on the beginning of the creative process. The beginning part for me is simply throwing every idea that pops into my head on paper and see what happens. I don't limit the ideas to simply food items or techniques. As you'll read below, literally everything that pops into my head makes it on the paper. So....if you're interested in a sneak peak of the early Spring menu, here it is in its earliest form.

The pic below is a Spring addition to our bread service. Yes, not only does the menu get a big ol' overhaul, but so does the bread service, desserts and cookie tray. These little gems are olive, bacon and dijon stuffed rolls. Sound good? They are, but don't take my word for it(what do I know?), get in to the restaurant and try them out!

Early SPRING 2010

Morels
Country ham
Celery Root + Foie + Popcorn
Pork Belly
Ramps
Peas
Fiddlehead Ferns
Lamb Neck
Tarragon
Asparagus
Shad Roe
Watercress
Chives + flowers
Smoked Maple Syrup
Green Flavors
Last of the wood fires
Sweetbreads
taste like dirt
Crispy gnocchi
Rabbit pot pie
Skate
Raw Tuna
Farro
Bulgar
Fromage Blanc
First cut grass
warm sun
honey roasted radish
spring eggs
bone marrow
carrots
young garlic

More to come......

Wanna feed the world.....

2010-03-12T11:33:00.000-05:00

......let's start with figuring out how we're gonna feed ourselves.

So.......

2010-02-23T21:54:00.002-05:00

Please take the time to watch this.

redrum, redrum, redrum

2010-02-10T22:10:00.003-05:00

Yes, I'm ready to get out of the house and back in front of the stoves!

If you live within two hours from Hanover, you've been hammered with back to back Storms of the Century. Yeah, I've had enough of it. Is it April yet?

So, here's a suggestion for you. Come out and join us for dinner friday night. We're running our Valentine's prix fixe friday, saturday and sunday night. $60. That's right. Take your Valentine out for a special friday night or just celebrate getting the hell out of the house!

Here's the menu. Hope to see you this weekend!

One

Lobster Macaroni and Cheese
Elbow macaroni, lobster, cheddar, country ham

Crab Cake
Napa cabbage slaw, remoulade

Terrine of Rettland Farms Pork
Radish salad, mustard jus

Mushrooom bisque
Brioche croutons

Two

Spinach and Frisee Lettuces
Hard cooked egg, ham hock, bacon vinaigrette

Romaine Lettuce
Stilton, dried fruits, port wine vinaigrette

Three

Salmon
Mushroom risotto, beurre blanc

Seafood Fettuccine
Shrimp, scallops and crab in an old bay cream sauce

Rettland Farms Chicken
Potato puree, root vegetables, truffle jus

Beef Tenderloin
Roasted potato, French beans, lobster gravy

Four

Flourless Chocolate Cake
Kahlua whipped cream, caramel

Vanilla Panna Cotta
Passion fruit sorbet

Meyer Lemon tart
Whipped cream, raspberries

BUTTER.

2010-02-01T11:32:00.008-05:00

I eat a lot of different foods. Complicated, easy, expensive, cheap, exotic, mundane....you get the picture. If it's edible, I'm gonna try it. Regardless of how many different foods and combinations of foods I eat, I always go back to one seemingly simple combination: warm bread and salted butter. This simple combination always makes me smile. Think about it. Who doesn't like buttered toast or the crisp snap of a proper grilled cheese sandwich? OK, before the diet and cholesterol police get too excited, let's move away from the idea that 'butter is BAD' and let's treat butter as a luxury ingredient.

There are a few food stuffs that I have an amazing love affair with. One is bacon and another is butter. I started out liking bacon, but realizing that if it was made on a small scale, it could be way better than commercial bacons that are bought in the store. So, a couple of years ago, I started on a journey to make the best bacon I could and through much trial and error(what a tough job; eating bacon and trying to figure out how to make it better....) Now, we're getting raw pork bellies that are raised in an amazing manner and we have a recipe that I think makes some of the most amazing bacon I've ever tasted. Yes, at one point, I even did a blind 'bacon tasting' where I lined up four of the most commercially sought after bacons and mine. We had some cocktails and ate bacon all night. Now that's my idea of a dinner party! Come to think of it, in the interest of quality control, I think it's time for another bacon tasting. Who's in?

Anyhow, I told you that story, so that I could tell you this one. I've always admired great butter and have even tried my hand at making it a couple of times, but I never was able to get the flavor that I wanted. Again, I'm coming back to the idea of terroir. I think food should taste like where it came from and dairy products are a great vehicle for doing this. So, I've tried many different angles to get where I want to be, but I never really felt like the product was a 'knock it out of the park' success. It was good, but not in any way remarkable and if we were going to produce this butter at the restaurant, it needed to be remarkable to warrant the time it takes to produce. So, last week, I got the butter itch again and decided it was time to get a technique together that was going to produce a remarkable butter. Honestly, I was just thinking to myself, 'it's time to stop pissing around and make an amazing butter. So here we go.

The first issue: Starting with amazing local cream. Well, we get our dairy products delivered in cool ass glass bottles from an amazing farm outside of East Berlin called Apple Valley Creamery, so check that bad boy off the list.

Next issue: Technique and tools. I'm lucky enough that our kitchen has a large number of historical kitchen tools lining the walls, one of which is a butter churn. We also already have a china cap and marble slab for tempering chocolate. So, check.

As for the technique. I churned the butter until the buttermilk 'broke' and then drained the buttermilk off. I then scooped the butter out of the churn and placed it in the china cap and rinsed it off with cold water until the water ran clear. Then it was on to the marble slab, where i kneaded the butter until all appearance of moisture was going.

So, now it was time to add the salt. Incidentally, I churned 3 quarts of Apple Valley cream and once all the kneading was finished, I ended up with about 2 pounds 9 ounces of butter. OK, salt time. What to do, what to do? Do I want to add kosher salt to this butter or something a little different. One thing I love about aged cheeses is getting that little pop of salt in your mouth. I LOVE that. So, I wanted salt with a larger crystal. So, grey salt? fleur de sel? I knocked out grey salt because I wanted a cleaner flavor for the butter and fleur de sel is a much cleaner flavor, BUT I decided to go with my current salt crush, Maldon.

The final step in this process was to place the butter back on the marble and knead in the salt. Once that was finished, it was time to taste.

I have to preface the tasting portion of this post by saying this. Cooks are strange people.(If you read this blog, you already know that) We are around food all the time, think about food all the time and taste food all the time. So, it's not real easy to impress us. However, when you have a product that cooks keep dipping their spoons or knives into like it's some new addictive drug, you know you've got something special on your hands. That's what happened with this butter. Before we could turn around, the cries of 'where the hell is the rest of the bread' started. Everyone was guilty and not ashamed of it. Listen, I already get what I feel is the best bread outside of Philly and NYC(and better than ANYTHING I've had in DC, sorry.) So, once that bread was a little warm and this butter slowly melted into it's yeasty pores......it was 'eyes roll back in your head good'. Seriously.

The final step was bagging it up and storing it.

Due to the time it takes to produce this butter, we're only offering it as a compliment to the bread course on our saturday tastings. However, and I don't really do this much, I will tell you that now that we've got this recipe and technique down, tasting the butter alone is worth the cost of the tasting. So, if you haven't yet tried our multi-course tasting, what's wrong with you? AND, if you have, this is a perfect reason to come back soon!(I'm talking to you, GreenAkeys.)

PA Farm Show

2010-01-17T18:05:00.007-05:00

So, I'm back in PA after a week and a half respite in east Tennessee. The days since I got home have been spent cleaning our kitchen, waxing the floors and preparing for what is going to be a stellar 2010. I also did a short appearance this past friday at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.

I went to Harrisburg excited about presenting a recipe utilizing PA mushrooms and also very excited about seeing the bounty of PA producers.

When I arrived at the Farm Show, I was advised that I would have a special guest cooking along with me on stage......'OK, I thought. That should be fun'. Little did I know that it would be PA Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding. AWESOME!

I think I had the Secretary talked into working at the Sheppard Mansion on weekends, right up until I had him puree our soup with a stick blender. I think that was where he drew the line!

I had a great time cooking with the Secretary and talking with the many folks who came to my demonstration. Even though it just ended, I am looking forward to attending next year's show! I can't stress enough how important it is to attend the Farm Show. Knowing where your food comes from is of utmost importance and by attending the Farm Show, you can meet the people who work so hard to provide us with the food we cook. There isn't a better place to be in January in PA if you're into food!

Hello to 2010

2010-01-03T12:45:00.004-05:00

After last night's service, 2009 is officially in the can and we are taking a short break to get ready for 2010. 2009 certainly was an interesting year and I'm looking forward to what 2010 has in store for us, but right now, it's a bunch of blank pieces of paper in my notebook. Here's wishing all of you health, happiness, good eating and drinking in 2010.

Just a couple of housekeeping points:

1) We reopen January 22nd. Make your reservations NOW. Yes, the notebook above is blank, but do you really think I don't have some cool ideas floating around in my head?

2) The restaurant is closed, but the answering machine is on. PLEASE leave reservation requests for our opening weekends and Valentine's weekend on the machine. The requests will be taken on a first come, first served basis and confirmed after Karen and I return from our southern swing. Yes, as of the end of service last night, we already had a good deal of reservations for Valentine's weekend. You don't want to be that guy calling around the day before expecting to get a table, do you?

3) Let's make 2010 the year of the saturday evening tasting menu. It is by far the best way to experience the full scope of our experience and it's a crazy good DEAL to boot!

The 'O' matters....a lot

2009-12-20T17:48:00.003-05:00

I'm a huge fan of macaron. Please don't confuse them with 'macaroon' which is a curious mix of coconut, egg whites, and sweetened condensed milk. At best, this macaroon is a too-sweet, coconut transfer system. As worst, it's absolutely nasty.

The one 'o' macaron that I love is primarily associated with the French. For me, it is primarily associated with Pierre Herme. Check this post out from my visit to Herme last January.....I'm still thinking about it and haven't even come close to having an American version of macaron that I was satisfied with......well, until now.

So, what's to love about a macaron? Let's start with the cookie. In its basic form, it's a sandwich cookie. The cookie part is almond flour, confectioner's sugar, egg whites and sugar syrup. Yeah, you got it. It's a meringue cookie. Crispy on the outside, moist on the inside. The filling can be butter cream, gels, Nutella, basically anything that can be a filling.

Last week, I decided to add macarons to our cookie tray that we present with out checks. So, I let the tinkering begin. Once I had solved various issues including browing, chunky almond meal, cracking cookies, etc, I decided to roll the macarons out and in true Sheppard Mansion style, I decided to use our homemade raspberry verbena jelly that I preserved in August with Tim Brown's top of the line fruits.

So, here's the finished product. I'm still working on a chocolate macaron filled with nutella and a pretzel macaron with salted chocolate ganache. Stay tuned!

I love Beau Ramsburg.

2009-12-14T19:25:00.007-05:00

Is that too much sharing?

If you are an infrequent reader of my blog(shame on you), then you'll need to be clued into the fact that Beau Ramsburg is the rock star farmer behind Rettland Farms, in addition to being the creative mind behind the blog Farmgate Philosopher. Rettland provides The Sheppard Mansion with pork, chicken and eggs(oh, and alfalfa hay for when I decide that it would be a great idea to bake ham hocks in hay. Holy crap was that dish good...too bad people were wigged out about hay.) So, when I say that Beau provides us with pork and chicken, I don't mean boneless, skinless chicken breast or pork tenderloin. He brings us the whole dealio. That fact affords me the amazing opportunity to work with chicken feet, necks, pork jowls, tongue, tail....you get the point. The good stuff or if you're a rube, the stuff you turn your nose up at without even ever trying it.(INSTANT QUESTION: Would I serve it if it tasted like shit?) It's OK, that means there is more for those who are looking for massive flavor. So, that brings us to this dish.

A torchon of Beau's Berkshire Pork with pickled baby vegetables, herbs and flowers from the garden and a mustard cream.

The method we used was to confit all the pork offal(head, tongue, tail, etc.) in lard. Once cooked, the meat was pulled from the bone, seasoned, formed into cylinders, wrapped in plastic wrap and hung in our walk-in to chill.

The reason I love Beau Ramsburg is because of this torchon. It is, pure and simple, a piece of pork flavor dynamite in the mouth. You can't get this type of flavor from an animal that wasn't well treated. It's just impossible. Furthermore, I feel that the tastiest parts of the pig are included in this dish. Not to take away from the flavor of the rest of Beau's animal, but this is simply the good stuff. I talk way too much about terroir and how I want my food to taste like where it comes from. This dish accomplishes what I sent out to do every morning when I put on my coat and apron: express Central PA on the plate and in the mouth.

To those of you who had this dish, a sincere thank you and I hope you enjoyed it.(I speak in the past tense because this dish has been put to bed for a little bit) To those of you that didn't take the plunge, I feel sorry for you. You missed out on a remarkable food experience. Perhaps another time.

Once again, the photos are courtesy of Andrew Smith. Please check out this photo blog, VisualRealia

Homegrown

2009-12-08T16:35:00.002-05:00

I take a ton of pride in the products and producers that come in to my kitchen at The Sheppard Mansion, be it Ramsburg's eggs, chicken and pork, or Kathy Glahn's amazing produce or our own beef, I think these products are the best that you can find in any restaurant anywhere. Yes, I said anywhere and notice I didn't say 'some of the best'. I said THE best. These products are a full expression of our terroir, as it's tough/impossible to express an area without locally raised foodstuffs. So, suffice it to say, I love those products. However, some of the freshest, most vibrant ingredients on our menu don't ever have to make a trip in a truck to get here. They are grown on the property. That's right. You can go outside and see them growing right in front of your eyes....you'll most likely run into me or one of the guys out cutting herbs and greens just before or during dinner service. OK, so 'that's not so special', you're thinking....I'd have to agree with you; BUT this is. We're still snipping herbs and greens from our garden. You see our boxes face directly south and are situated against the brick house, so the soil stays pretty warm even in the face of snow. You cut your herbs in the snow?

Yep. We do. That's dedication.

The Shoo.....

2009-12-05T10:12:00.004-05:00

Here's to a PA Dutch classic. Some might consider this an acquired taste. Some might turn their nose up at, but there are few foodstuffs that scream Central PA as much as shoo-fly pie. I grew up on shoo fly pie, chocolate shoo fly pie(sup, Ramsburg?) and its kind of dry cousin, shoo fly cake. I say 'kind of dry' because I judge shoo fly pies on the ratio of moist molasses to crumb topping and shoo fly cake has a thick cake layer.

So, what exactly is shoo fly pie? It's basically a crust filled with molasses that is thickened with an egg and finished with a crumb topping. So, as with any other dish that has few ingredients, the ingredients are very important. Oh yeah, you gotta love molasses. Period. This pie is basically just a molasses transport system. So, search out a molasses that you like. Also, I like to add some dark coffee to my pie...I think the bit of bitter that the coffee adds as it cuts the heavy sweet of the molasses.

So, here's the recipe we use at the restaurant:

1 9 inch pie crust
1 cup molasses
3/4 cup hot, dark coffee
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
3/4 C AP flour
1/2 C packed dark brown sugar
1/4 C malted milk
2oz. butter

Whisk together the molasses, coffee, baking soda and egg in a mixing bowl. Pour mixture into the pie shell. Combine the flour, brown sugar, and malted milk in a bowl and cut the butter into the flour mix until it resembles coarse sand. Sprinkle the flour and butter mix evenly over the molasses. Bake the pie at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then lower the oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 30 minutes.

I like to make a puddle of caramel sauce on the plate, put the shoo on top of the caramel and top the pie with cinnamon stick ice cream. Simply Central PA. Simply delicious.

Pickin' on the little guy....

2009-12-01T21:34:00.003-05:00

I'm gonna reference this article a lot, so read it first then come back to your regularly scheduled reading.

Ah, it seems the weather is perfect for a Humane Society/PETA throwdown. Well, I've got a few spare minutes to knock this puppy out of the park so here goes.(bonus points for those of you that picked up on the irony of the term 'puppy')

In the spirit of full disclosure, I own two cats that are very old and I love both of them very much, so there.

So, the Humane Society has decided to pick a fight with Hudson Valley Foie Gras over elevated pollutant levels. Hmmmm, have you ever been to north eastern North Carolina? Next time you're on your way to the Outer Banks, turn off the AC and roll down your windows. You'll enjoy one of the most rank pig shit smells, courtesy of factory pig farming, that will literally make you want to throw up.(Pass the factory farmed pork chops, please) THAT is elevated pollutant levels. Wonder why the Humane Society isn't doing anything about that? My guess is that Big AG has pockets too deep, so it's easier to piss in a little guys pool than take on the real problem.

Paul Shapiro has characterized Hudson Valley as a factory farm. I'm was deeply saddened to read this part of the article because I think Mr. Shapiro has done some great work with regards to exposing ACTUAL factory farms. Perhaps he should plan a trip to North Carolina or Colorado or Iowa and get back to the roots of factory farming. I think he has forgotten.

The real tragedy here is that once again in America we've trained our eye not on a situation worth fixing, but on a situation that is easy. Can you take issue with how foie gras is produced? Sure. BUT, hey, if you don't like it then just shut up and don't eat it. Hudson Valley Foie Gras and Sonoma Foie Gras before it are EASY targets. Why doesn't the Humane Society and PETA go after factory farmed beef and pork or....I've got it....that turkey you all just ate for Thanksgiving that was jammed in a crate and living in its own shit for months.(Please read this it'll make you think that the Humane Society and PETA should be going after factory farmed turkeys) Go after those guys. Oh, wait, you want an easy fight, so you're gonna take on an industry with low profit margins and no lobbyists in Washington. Right. Way to be a hero.

People want to argue that gavage(google it) is cruel. OK, seriously? Have any of you ever been to a Ryan's 'Steakhouse' or Old Country Buffet or the York Fair? That shit is cruel. Listen, humans force feed themselves on a daily basis. If some of the people I've seen at the KFC buffet could line up and have a tube inserted into their mouths that would get the instant potatoes and gravy into their system faster, I'm sure they would gladly pay extra for the experience.(Just as an aside...could we do away with ALL paper napkins if buffets would just offer tubes for us to slam our food down? I gotta call Greenpeace...this idea is HOT...Wait, if Greenpeace bit on the idea, then would they be at odds with the Humane Society? YES, it would be a full-scale activist WAR or lawsuit which is a close as these folks get to war, lest they get their smooth hands dirty.)

Listen...I love foie gras. I love cooking it, I love eating it. Yes, it's a fattened liver of a duck. Big deal. Again, if you don't like it, don't eat it. I think being an exclusive vegetarian is boring, but hey, it's your call. Don't tell me that I can't cook foie gras because some folks think it's inhumane. I'll make that decision. A decision that each of you consider every time you decide to buy Big AG's factory farmed beef, pork and chicken at the grocery story. That's inhumane.

I will continue to buy my foie gras from Hudson Valley because I think they are a fantastic ARTISAN foie gras producer..... AND, I will continue to cook it because it's just so damn delicious.

Nothing about food....

2009-11-25T21:48:00.015-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving. Tomorrow will be the first Thanksgiving in 9 years that I'll spend the entire day with my family and I'm really very excited about it.

Truth is, I'm not a huge fan of turkey, but I am a HUGE fan of folks gathering around the table and celebrating together. It's something that's a little lost on us today in our 30 minute meal/I don't have time world. The idea of celebrating each other and relaxing for hours over food and drink. I would like to propose that we establish eating holidays once every two months. You know....1 day every two months or so that is dedicated to the joy of the table and conversation. Call me crazy(it wouldn't be the first time), but I think it would be very nice.

Tomorrow, we will take a day to give thanks. Make sure to thank whoever cooks your Thanksgiving meal; they deserve it.

In the spirit of 'nothing about food', I've posted some awesome candid photos that the master Andy Smith took a couple of weekends ago at the restaurant. A month or so ago, I lent Andy my copy of Marco Pierre White's White Heat and mentioned to him how inspired I have always been by the black and white photos in the front half of the book. Well, here are some black and whites of us cooking. Enjoy.

By the way....in case anyone cares, I'll be eating freshly baked sticky buns and drinking champagne tomorrow AM while I watch the Macy's Parade from start to finish. What are you doing?

Just messin' around....

2009-11-18T23:58:00.005-05:00

Here are some shots from my iPhone(nothing close to what the MASTER Andy Smith can do) of a warm autumn salad that I'm considering for the menu. The veg are all separately prepped(roasted, glazed, etc.) and then warmed on pickup in country ham butter..... the purees are salsify and caramelized shallot(cooked with thyme and pureed with cream cheese) beet jus, dehydrated olives. Boy, does this eat good!!!!

Naming Conventions

2009-11-16T23:49:00.003-05:00

I have to admit, in the interest of full disclosure, that I've been guilty of that which I'm about to rant in the past and have since reformed my ways. Actually, no I haven't. I've just grown up a little bit.

Also, by 'you' I mean chefs everywhere.

LET'S GET OVER THE STUPID NAMING CONVENTIONS ON MENUS. There, I've said it. Well, Andy, what do you mean 'naming conventions'. What I mean is let's call a spade a spade. About .001% of the dining public gives a shit that you're cooking your egg at 61.5 degrees C. Just call it a soft egg and be done with it. Also, nobody gives a shit that something was cooked sous vide. You don't write 'cooked in a copper pot' on your menu. Sous vide is simply a technique and the circ. is a tool, much like a copper pot or stand mixer. Can you imagine a dessert menu that said 'Carrot cake made in a stand mixer'. No, you can't and possibly don't care.

How about this gem? Calling a piece of peeled tomato flesh 'tomato sashimi'. Hello? Wouldn't simply 'tomato' suffice? AND....carrot confit? Technically, confit means cooked in its own fat and I have yet to come across a carrot that had fat, so..... If by carrot 'confit' you mean a carrot cooked in carrot juice, then say carrot cooked in carrot juice or how about this one: carrot. Here's where we get to the root of the problem. Carrot cooked in carrot juice doesn't sound nearly as sexy as carrot confit.

This last one I've been especially guilty of in the past: using quotes on the menu. OK, three things. 1) using quotes to be whimsical and show that you're not taking the literal definition of a technique was really cool when Keller did it in the 90's. It's getting lame now. 2) Using quotes on the menu isn't your license to screw up whatever you put quotes around. Oh, so you don't really know how to make a perfect Sauce Bernaise, so put quotes around it and it can be your own little 'riff'. It's not a riff. It's lame. 3) Using quotes to describe that you're 'doing a play on' something is so last week, too. The dining public isn't stupid. If you've got a concord grape sorbet and a peanut butter tart, they get the fact that it's peanut butter and jelly. Call it what it is and be done with it. If the guest doesn't 'get it', 9 times out of 10 it's not because you didn't put the name in quotes, it's because it was a horrible idea to begin with.

I'll say this again. I've been guilty of most of, if not all of the above in my career. That doesn't make it right.

All chefs have egos. We desperately want to be separated from the crowd, because let's face it, there are a ton of talented chefs out there. I think that in our striving to stand out, we're taking too many liberties when writing menus. The conventional wisdom is that if we can write a sexy, shocking menu with lots of buzz words and techniques, our restaurant will get discovered and that will lead to people beating down the doors on a tuesday night. That might be true and in the age of the internet and PR firms, menus can be viewed by anyone with an internet connection. However, I'm preferring to go the other way(are any of you frequent readers surprised that I'm a little different?) and follow a 'less is more' rule when writing menus. Sure, the technique will still be there and the same amount of ingredients will be there. Yes, I will still notate which farms our products come from because I believe that these remarkable products stand apart because of the people who raise them. It's not just a sneaker. It's a Nike sneaker and by that logic, it's not just a pig, it's a Rettland Farms pig and that matters; if it didn't matter, I'd leave it off. I want our restaurant to be judged on the merits of our food and service; not on whether or not I'm using all the current trendy buzzwords on the menu. You don't eat the menu, do you? The bottom line in all of this blabber is the question that I always come back to: 'How does it eat?'

If the answer is 'that's the best piece of food I've ever put in my mouth', then who needs a menu?

Let's Make a Deal

2009-11-08T19:20:00.003-05:00

OK, brace yourselves. Holiday season is upon us. I'm sure we've all spotted our first 'get'em while they're hot' holiday shopping commercial on TV. Kinda sad, isn't it? Oh well, let's roll up our sleeves and make this year one to remember.

Once I saw that first commercial, I was ready to start thinking about holiday party season. I really enjoy seeing guests in their festive holiday wear through the kitchen window as they arrive at the Mansion for company holiday parties or family gatherings. The holidays are a very special time for us at the Mansion and we want to share that feeling with you. SO.........give us a call and book your holiday gathering! Let us do all the work...all you have to do is sit back, relax and drink in the holiday cheer! How about this? Bring a group of 20 people and get a private room. That's right. A dining room all to yourselves!!!! So..... Company party? We can do that. Family gathering? We can do that! Prime rib dinner with all the trimmings? We can do that! Cocktail reception? We can do that! Lunch with the office? We can do that! Lunch with 20 of your closest friends? We can do that! A blowout multi-course chef's table complete with wine pairings and me serving you? We can do that!(well, me serving you is the hilarious part!) How about convincing the boss to take you to the Mansion for lunch and then giving you the rest of the afternoon off??? WE CAN DO THAT!

Karen is anxious and waiting by the phone for your holiday requests(yes, yes....dates are filling fast.).....LET THE DEAL MAKING BEGIN!!!! Actually, how about I take the first shot? Here you go.....BOOK A PARTY OF 20 OR MORE PEOPLE IN THE MONTH OF DECEMBER AND WE'LL GIVE YOU 2 $50 GIFT CARDS TO USE HOWEVER YOU WISH.(HELLO PRESENTS.....) Come on, you know you want to.

HOLIDAY HOTLINE - 717.633.8075

A tale of two hot dogs

2009-10-29T18:49:00.004-04:00

I love a good hot dog. Not a dressed up 'were trying to be cool' high end hot dog, just a simple, everyday hot dog. Don't know why, I just do. Maybe it's a genetic thing.

My mom is originally from Easton, PA where they have a hot dog that is hands down everyone's favorite and has been for many decades. Actually, it's been a favorite even after moving locations multiple times. As a kid, I used to go to Jimmy's when it was at its Delaware River location(I'd like a table for 2 please at James on the Delaware) and get her 'taste of home' every time we visited the area. Jimmy's has since moved to a shopping mall just off of Route 22 and it's only now that I'm older that I have a full appreciation for what they do. You see, they only do hot dogs. You walk in and the guy behind the counter simply asks 'how many?' and 'with everything?'. That's it. You can get a bag of chips or a soda if you want, but their business is hot dogs and business is good. A Jimmy dog consists of the following. A steamed/roasted hot dog, mustard, onions, a full sized pickle spear and bun. The bun is steamed and I would bet a large chunk of $$$ that the hot dogs and bun have met up with beer somewhere along the way. Just a guess, but I've eaten quite a few of these dogs. I actually used to alter my route home from the CIA simply to have a few hot dogs from Jimmy's. There is something very special about the steamed goodness that lives inside those cellophane wrappers. By the way, there is a very specific way they wrap up the hot dogs for you and it hasn't changed for as long as I can remember. This is just a great hot dog.

OK, so let's remember that I'm Hanover born and bred.....so is my dad. As you can imagine, Hanover has its own claim to hot dog fame. There are not many things that make me as happy as two hot dogs with everything and a fry with chili. Don't know how to explain it, it just makes me smile. That smell. Those onions. I could go on and try to describe the taste sensation, but I have to just back away from the computer and say that if you've never had one, you should come to Hanover and try it. AND, if you have had a hot dog with everything and don't like it, then you have the palate of a donkey's backside. Plain and simple. Oh, for the true Hanoverians who are going to ask me if I'm a Famous or Texas guy, well let's put it simply. There is only one true hot dog with everything in Hanover and it lives at the FAMOUS.

Oh yeah and in the Hatfield and McCoy battle that is Easton vs. Hanover family hot dog wars. Hanover wins.....

Inspired.

2009-10-20T22:22:00.004-04:00

I've got a few cookbooks. OK, that's bullshit. I've got more cookbooks than a Barnes and Noble. Period. AND, I've read most of them. So, suffice it to say, I've 'been around the block' with regards to cookbooks. I have my favorites and it's not easy to break into that group.(it's surprisingly small) Yes, I've got all the Ducasse books....Helene Darroze? Check. Anne Sophie Pic? Check. Herve This?(are they cookbooks or science books....) Check. Pierre Herme? Check. So, what are my favorites? If you knew me, you'd know.

When I first started cooking I was inspired by one book. Patrick O'Connell's Inn at Little Washington Cookbook. Not surprisingly, I ended up cooking there and learning the daily 'in's and out's' that went into building the nuts and bolts behind that book. That singular book drove me in the early years of my career.

Now, many years removed from my time at The Inn at Little Washington, I'm back in Hanover, the town where I grew up, and I'm trying to build a sense of regional cuisine that people from all over the US and abroad can identify as truly 'of our area'. Promoting the terroir, if you will.

A book landed on my doorstep this morning that has touched me in a way that no other book has in many years. Yes, I've read this hot book or that celebrity chef book, but nothing has moved me as much as this book. It's the closest thing that I've experienced since I opened the cover of Patrick's book nine years ago.

Sam Beall has created a cookbook that, although I'm not even close to finishing, provides an instant 'sense of place' and transports the reader to the east Tennesse foothills that he obviously loves so much. This book takes you there. Makes you want to eat the food of the foothills and does so by telling such an amazing story.

I've not really started to 'dig in' to this book, but I will say this: It's already speaking to me.

America is blessed with a diverse culture, which has spawned an amazing array of regional cuisines; many of which we are still waiting to discover in their contemporary iteration. It doesn't matter if it's Creole, Southwestern, Tennessee Foothills or wonderful central Pennsylvania. Each has its spokesperson and leader and with this book Sam Beall has transported me to east Tennessee.

Do yourself a favor and BUY THIS BOOK.

Disclaimer: I've never met Sam Beall. Have only visited Blackberry Farm once for about 30 minutes. Am getting no compensation for this post. THE BOOK IS JUST THAT GOOD. However, if as a result of this post, someone from Blackberry Farm would like to invite me to do a guest chef dinner at said property....I'd certainly have to give it some consideration. :-)

Simple Pleasures

2009-10-19T22:50:00.003-04:00

Here's the thing....when friends visit the restaurant, many times they come bearing gifts for the kitchen.(which we REALLY appreciate). I'm not talking about Mauviel cookware or socks. No, I'm talking about the simple pleasures that really light the twinkle in obsessive, hungry and thirsty cook's eyes. An example is perhaps a case of National Bohemian beer.....or the ever popular Nutter Butter cookies. However, when friend and fellow blogger Carol Blymire visits, she always showers us with the third of my obsessive food and drink trifecta, Pop Tarts.(She's been able to source dulce de leche and blueberry muffin pop tarts....wha?) Yes, the guys cooking the foie gras, truffles and south central PA's most amazing meats and produce are overcome with joy at the sight of a $12 case of beer, peanut butter cookies and toaster 'pastries'....oh yeah, just a small detail, we rarely even toast the Pop Tarts, just open the package and eat them raw. A delicious snack for the cook on the run. So, with that, I give you my very own discovery .....Gingerbread Pop Tarts.(who ever said I couldn't source great products?) I'll report back as to just how delicious they were.

Ouch!

2009-10-18T16:39:00.001-04:00

Hello thumb. Meet mandoline blade. Back once it doesn't hurt like hell to type.

Shoo Fly Pie

2009-10-15T00:03:00.003-04:00

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Yeah, I wish I could claim it, but this gem goes to Da Vinci. However, I have to say that this quote rang through my head when I was considering shoo fly pie on our menu.

I love shoo fly pie and have since I was a kid. In Lancaster County and the surrounding area, restaurants and stores can be known for their pies and whether or not they have a dense crumb or have more of the 'goo'. I have a high school friend who now lives in California and is after me to send him my recipe for shoo fly pie so he can make a taste of home in Cali.(It's coming.)

As Fall rolls in on us in Central PA, I get the itch for shoo-fly. I suppose you could bake a shoo-fly any time of the year, but for some reason, Fall makes me crave the molasses and crumb. It just fits.

So, I'm considering how to put shoo-fly pie on the menu. Can I blow it apart and do a interpretation of shoo-fly? Well, yes I can, but ......do I want to? No. This is when the quote hits me. Some things shouldn't be overthought and overwrought. Shoo-fly pie is one of these things. However, it needs to be done perfectly to be relevant. So, what is the perfect shoo-fly pie?

Perfect shoo steps. 1) Flaky, sweet crust. Check. 2) 3/4 goo level.(high quality molasses is KEY here. The 'goo' is basically molasses bound with a little egg. Hint...a little bitter goes a long way to round out the over the top sweetness. What's bitter? Coffee......) Check 3) 1/4 crumb level what has move flavor than simply brown sugar and flour. Check. OK, so I've got what I consider to be the perfect shoo pie.(I like the goo level and can't stand a dry shoo fly pie)

So, now the pie is out of the oven....what can go with it? Well, I decided on a little caramel sauce, some cinnamon stick ice cream and chocolate crumbles. No bells and whistles, just basically a slice of pie and ice cream...but a damn good slice of pie and ice cream. When you've got two major components in a dish you have no room for error. The pie must be perfect. The ice cream must have just enough spice to cut the sweetness of the pie and caramel. No room for error.

I love this dish....not sure I love it more than the sticky bun with white chocolate ice cream, but I love it. Don't ask me to choose between my kids.

Harvest Dinner Deep Thoughts....

2009-10-13T16:57:00.003-04:00

We finished up our two day Harvest Dinnerpalooza late last night and as I sat in the dining room after everyone had left I thought to myself 'this is a great beginning'. You might think this odd(well, if you don't think my blog is a little odd, you should seek medical help) that after two nights of preparing the finishing touches on our annual dinner I would be considering a beginning not an end. It's easy think about 'finishing up' after an evening that was as fun and exciting as the evenings we had, but I was ready to build on what we laid out during those two nights.

I won't go into details about the dinner. If you wanted the details, you would have been at the dinner. If you still want details, sign up for next years dinner(we already have commitments, so I'd call NOW).

Three years ago we produced our first Harvest Dinner to a small group of people, who although small in number were very excited about the scope of the dinner. Honestly, after that dinner I remarked to Karen that I didn't want to do another Harvest Dinner. I wasn't sure people 'got it' and we really didn't have that big of a crowd....in fact, i think only one dining room was used. During the summer months of last year, the question came up 'do we want to to another Harvest Dinner?' I got on board, but I have to say I was pretty nervous about whether or not we'd have a good turnout. Well, in 2008 we filled two dining rooms for the dinner and had another amazing time.(I'm not sure what I worry about....if our staff were left with just the producers who grow for us and no one came, we still have an amazing time....it would just be tough to pay the bills.) Fast forward to 2009 and we had two full NIGHTS of celebration. So, in three short years this yearly celebration of our producers and their harvest has grown from using only one dining room to two full nights. That's the beginning I'm talking about.

I'm a 'want it yesterday' kind of guy. I expect things to happen NOW and have a problem with waiting. So, it's comforting for me to look back over three years and see the building success of our harvest dinners. So, after the dinner when I was able to reflect a little bit I realized that this dinner and every day after it marked a beginning. The beginning of bringing our style of food and food products to people. Every day we have the ability to make an impact with how creatively we are sourcing, pairing and preparing the food. There will never be an end to this, just a series of new beginnings as we discover new and innovative ways to work with the amazing products that are delivered to our backdoor.

Special thanks to Kathy Glahn, Beau Ramsburg, and Heather Sheppard Lunn....without your inspired products we'd have no reason to put on a crisp white coat every morning and do what we do.

Old School

2009-10-10T23:30:00.005-04:00

We're a 'what's next' society. Always looking for the hip new ingredient, cultural cuisine, chemical, powder, equipment.....the list goes on and on. Pick up any food magazine, watch TopChef or Iron Chef America or read the food section of any national newspaper; people are gaga over molecular gastronomy. It's the 'new black' of the culinary world. Is it fad or is it here to stay? That's a debate for others to have and another time. My point is that the old school stuff has proven the test of time and there simply is no molecular gastronomy or avant garde cuisine without the basics. A lot of cooks want to 'run before they can walk'. Playing with foams and making 'apple caviar' before they can even describe the steps to making a solid consomme. I've seen cooks who were highly decorated from culinary school who's excuse for consomme as cloudy as muddy water was that I didn't buy high enough quality ground meat. Hello?

So, let's go old school. I'm making a tortellini of smoked chicken with hard cooked egg, root vegetables and a chicken consomme as the first course for our Harvest Dinner. Yeah, it's basically a refined version of chicken noodle soup. So, how about the chicken consomme? First, I started with roasted chicken bones and a hand full of chicken feet. I poured chicken stock over the bones and feet and added a bit of mirepoix vegetables.(bay leaf, peppercorns. Check)This stock simmered for about 4 hours and then was strained and chilled, so I'm starting my consomme with a very rich stock....lots of body. Today, I poured the cold stock into a pot and added ground pork, pureed onions and carrots, lightly whipped egg whites, bay leaf, peppercorns and some red wine vinegar(how many people know what the acid from the vinegar or tomatoes is for? Free tour of the bowling alley for a correct answer....) I slowly brought the stock up to temperature while constantly stirring. When the stock reached temp., the raft started to form. What's a raft? The raft is the clarification net that traps impurities as the stock gurgles through it. As the egg whites and pork reach temp. they form at the top of the stock and form one of the most beautiful sights in cooking. When you carefully vent the raft and see beautiful clear stock bubbling through, it is an amazing sight akin to a beautiful sunset or a blooming flower.

Once you've allowed the consomme to bubble through the raft(once you've gotten good formation of the raft, turn the heat down to simmer or you'll break the raft) it's time to get the consomme out of the pot. I find that a siphon works best. Following the siphon step, then it's time to strain through coffee filters. After sending the consomme through a never ending series of coffee filters. Then......yeah, this is a labor intensive process....it's time to take paper towels and blot off any noticeable bits fat that might appear. After all of this, the final test is whether or not your consomme is so clear that you can read the date on a dime. Well, I didn't have a dime...I had a quarter. So, here's what I got.

The finished product had a ton of body and an amazing chicken flavor. Why does this matter? Couldn't you just use regular, ordinary chicken stock? Well, yes you could, but you'd be ordinary. If you're satisfied with being ordinary, that's cool. You have to live with yourself.

Try a little old school some time. You'll be glad you did....AND, you won't be ordinary.

Sorry the photos aren't as clear as the consomme. It was an iPhone night...didn't have the digital camera.

Where does your beef come from?

2009-10-09T23:41:00.004-04:00

Much has been written about ground beef over the past few days. If you're out of the loop, check out this article in the New York Times. Actually, let's be truthful. It seems we're getting bombarded with news alerts about a different food recall every week. I am of the opinion that the best thing you can do to not only get the most flavorful food, but the safest food is to know where your food came from. When I get beef, I know where it came from.(if you're living in Hanover, you do too. You've driven past them countless times)

Want flavorful food? Want safe food? Want food with a story? Want food that represents the area where you live? Well.......know where your food comes from AND talk to the folks responsible for producing that food. Period.

By the way....you can have access to the very same beef I use at the restaurant. Yes, you can cook this amazing beef at home. Call the Mansion at 717.633.8075 for details on how to get you hands on this great product.

What did you eat today?

2009-10-08T23:21:00.003-04:00

I put things in my mouth for a living. Good, bad, underseasoned, overseasoned, smooth, fade, sweet, salty.....you get the point. The chef's palate is his most prized tool.(By the way, it's also the home cook's most prized tool) Not a sharp knife, not an immersion circulator, not even a trusty spoon. Without taste, there is no reason for the others. So, not only is on the spot flavor analysis crucial, but having 'flavor recall' is VERY important for developing dishes. So, every new taste gets filed away for use at a later date.

So, I told you that so I could tell you this. I ate an apple today that redefined honey crisp apples for me. Redefined honey crisp apples. Suffice it to say I've eaten a few apples in my life.(including the amazing Arkansas Black) Yesterday, my friend Samuel Martin delivered a half bushel of honey crisp apples to the restaurant. Now, I know there are honey crisp apple available at your local grocer. I've even had honey crisps from Lancaster County. The hook here is that the apples I got weren't 'perfect' looking. They were a little spotty and didn't glisten with the sheen of grocery store apples. However, they were easily the size of softballs and HEAVY. This is a good sign in my book.

I took my first bite. Crisp, snap, full of juice and LOADED with complex flavor. Initially, I was hit with a bit of tart flavor, but that was quickly overrun with caramel, the caramel then gave way to part cider, part grass. The bite(yes this was the first bite) then finished with the floral scents of honey. I know all of this seems a little over the top, so let's boil it down to this. This apple was a revelation. No food pyrotechnics, no liquid nitrogen....just an amazing apple plucked right from the tree. It was so good that I really had no desire to think about what to do with this apple. I just closed my eyes and filed that taste away.

Times like this make me wonder if we savor the food we eat enough on a daily basis. I'm not gonna lie to you, I eat fast food. I eat junk food. However, I also can sit back and really TASTE the food I'm eating.

So, what did you eat today?

Harvest Dinner

2009-10-07T23:27:00.005-04:00

Yes, we're in year 3 for our Annual Harvest Dinner. Every year that we have produced a Harvest Dinner I'm been excited to show off not only the pristine foodstuffs that are delivered to our backdoor, but it's also a superb opportunity for our guests to get up close and personal with the people who produce our food.

For this year's event, we've upped the ante. Not only are we lucky to have Beau Ramsburg(chicken and pork), Kathy Glahn(produce) and Heather Lunn(Beef) join us to talk about their products, but we've added two special wrinkles that I'm especially excited about. We're also having the fine men from Charles Nells meats(our butcher) to talk about the butchery process and what happens during the time the animal leaves the field and gets delivered to my back door. With this addition, we've completed the path from farm to table. Guests will be able to ask questions about every step of the process, which I think is super cool. The latest addition is also very cool and very special for me. Renee Catacalos, editor of Edible Chesapeake magazine, will be joining us and sharing her expertise with our guests. If you haven't had a chance to read Edible Chesapeake magazine, shame on you, but.....there will be plenty of copies at the dinner.

Hey, Andy. Can I still get a ticket? Yes, we have a few seats left. When is it? Monday, October 12 at 6pm. How much is it? $95 which includes wine pairings, tax, gratuity. Yeah, it's basically a ticket. Yeah, it's an incredible, stupid crazy deal. What's the menu like? Glad you asked.

Here it is:

‘Chicken or the Egg’
Tortellini of smoked rettland farms chicken, hard cooked egg, housemade noodles, root vegetables, foie gras broth

_____________________

Salad
A composition of greens, shaved vegetables and mushrooms from our area

__________________

Cheerwine glazed Rettland Farms Pork Shoulder
Fingerling potato salad, pickled turnip and celery root
_____________________

Sheppard Mansion Farms Beef
Strip loin, offal pain perdu, shallot puree, horseradish sauce

______________

Apple Cider Doughnuts
Caramel ice cream, toasted almond crumble

There you have it. There will be snacks with bubbles before the dinner gets started.(sweet and salty toasted pumpkins seeds anyone?) Don't miss your chance to get up close and personal with the best products and producers that south central PA has to offer. To secure your reservation, call the restaurant at 717.633.8075. Mention this blog post and get a free tour of the bowling alley.... :-)

Take me home country roads.....

2009-10-06T14:57:00.008-04:00

Yesterday was an amazingly beautiful Fall day along the East Coast. Great day for a little drive. So, Karen and I decided to head down to Virginia and check out some apples.

I'm sure you've already got a few questions. 1) Aren't you from Hanover, so what home were those country roads taking you to and 2) Isn't Adams County, renowned for its apples, almost in your back yard?

So, here's the answer to question 1. If I had to have an adopted home, it would be northern and western Virginia. I spent my college years in Harrisonburg, VA attending James Madison University and cut my cooking teeth as a cook at Patrick O'Connell's Inn at Little Washington, so I've spent some time in VA. I'm not exactly sure why, but I really have an intense connection to Virginia, so I look at it with fond memories and as a second home. The simple beauty of the area is very inspiring.

Question 2. Yes, Adams County is bursting with apple orchards, however, we were in search of a specific variety: Arkansas Black. After a quick internet search, we found an orchard in, you guessed in, Flint Hill, VA that had a ton of fantastic Arkansas Black apples.

So, we jumped in the car and headed south. First stop, the Apple House in Linden, VA for barbeque and apple doughnuts. Simply amazing. The next stop for us was Moore's Orchard, just outside of Flint Hill. Moore's also happens to be the orchard where Laurence Gottlieb, former executive sous chef at The Inn at Little Washington, used to buy his apples for the Inn.

After a short conversation about Laurence and the Inn, we got down to business. I tasted the Arkansas Black(and wasn't disappointed that we drove 2.5 hours for this apple) and a Stayman and decided on a bushel of Blacks.

This pic isn't of a full bushel, I assure there are lots more apples than that!

So, why all the fuss about the Arkansas Black apple? Well, it's not so much about this particular variety,(I have a lot of love for honeycrisp, too) as it is about branching out and finding new varieties of apples. According to an article in Saveur magazine only 11 varieties of apples(out of an estimated 14,000) make up 90 percent of all apples consumed in the USA. So, we've seen a revolution with heirloom tomatoes over the past 10 years and I think apples are next. There are so many different varieties and each has its own distinct flavor profile and distinct usage. If you live anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic region and are buying Washington State apples from the grocery store, you should be ashamed of yourself. I've heard a lot recently about 'convenience' and how 'I just don't have time'....if you're in that group that doesn't make flavorful, sustainable food a priority in your life(eating REAL food isn't about elitism and doesn't have to be expensive, it's about priorities) and want to continue to buy flavorless, unripe food at the grocery store because you think it's easy, I can't help you and frankly, don't want to. If you wanna make it a priority to get good foodstuffs to your house for your family, let's talk.

TAKING CARE: We live in a world where we are constantly hearing news reports about millions of pounds of ground beef being recalled(can you actually fathom how much a million pounds of ground beef is, much less 44 million pounds....how many beef did that take?) or a salmonella outbreak in leafy greens or scallions. All of this leads me to the question: How much care is the factory farm industry taking with your food? You don't have to be a genius to know the answer to this question.

So, Andy, why are you getting on this soap box? Karen took the pic above and while it is an awesome shot, you can't see the huge smile on my face. Really, it's there. Why smile? As we decided on buying a bushel of Arkansas Blacks, I turned around and noticed that the lady who sold us the apples was taking each individual apple and placing it in a box for us. Why is this significant? Well, first, it was A LOT of apples. Second, she could have just dumped the basket into the box and have been done with it. Nope, she took(and I joined her for the second basket) each individual apple and placed it on newspaper, so that it wouldn't get bruised or damaged. She was TAKING CARE of the food. This wasn't something super soft like an ultra-ripe peach. They were apples. Tough apples. I got the feeling that she could have been selling anything, regardless of how soft it was, and she would have taken the same amount of time making sure it was properly placed in our container for transport. It was almost reverential. This experience leads me to the following questions. Do the people you buy your food from 'take care' of it? Do you 'take care' of it once you've gotten it home. Do you 'take care' of it while it's cooking? Do you take the time to savor it once it's on the plate?

The Mac is back. A story of love and hate.

2009-10-04T21:42:00.006-04:00

OK, for the dozens(I'm not exaggerating) of people who have called the restaurant, now you've got your answer. Yes, the lobster macaroni and cheese is back on the menu.

So, what's the 'love/hate' part of it, Andy? I'm not crazy about the dish. The idea gained popularity a couple of years ago when chefs like Thomas Keller and Patrick O'Connell started to interpret this American classic. I remember being taken with Patrick's interpretation during my first days working in his kitchen. Macaroni and cheese in a parm. tuile topped with white truffle? Yes, please. Well, it's 2009 and 'dressed up' macaroni and cheese is dying in ubiquity(yeah, it's a word now.) Every one is doing their spin on it, some OK, some downright terrible. From a culinary view and a menu planning standpoint, I'd LOVE to be able to take the lobster macaroni and cheese off the menu and move on. You see, we only have 4 slots at the top of our menu, one of which gets taken up with the macaroni and cheese. So, that limits me to showing only three new dishes on our menu. I'm not really crazy out that. That's the hate part of the story. Although, it does give me a chance to use our awesome country ham.

Here's the love part. People move toward restaurant cooking for many different reasons. Back to Patrick O'Connell again, he's famous for saying that 'you don't choose this profession, it chooses you.' He's right. So, as chefs, we're all here for different reasons, but because cooking chose us. I think one thing that drives all of us is the satisfaction that we get when someone digs our food. Well, sometimes in your career you get a dish that people really like and you can't take it off the menu. This isn't a 'beef tenderloin' situation where people just order it because they like mushy, flavorless food. People like this dish. They anticipate when this dish will come on to the menu; call and ask if it's back; wonder if they can buy large quantities of it to eat at home. I appreciate that people like this dish. I love that they come to the restaurant to eat it. I'd be stupid to take it off the menu, right? How about I serve the mac and cheese with a complimentary side of beef tongue????

The photos on this post are obviously not taken by me....they're too good. They were taken by my good friend and photographer Andy Smith. I love they way his pics tell our food story. Simply amazing.

Hassenpfeffer

2009-10-04T00:08:00.005-04:00

God bless you or gesundheit.....Yeah, saying hassenpfeffer sounds like you've got some wicked allergies.

When I was considering new menu items, I knew I wanted to do some type of preparation with rabbit. I wasn't sure if I was going to present the whole animal or just the legs. After a few different ideas, I landed on doing some type of twist on hassenpfeffer. Honestly, I just like to say hassenpfeffer. Traditionally, hassenpfeffer is a stew of marinated rabbit. So, what to do, what to do.

First, I decided to bag the rabbit legs with apple cider. Then there was a trip to the hot tub at 69.9 degrees for 12 hours.

Once the rabbit is out of the tub, it's chilled and held for service. So, what goes with apple cider braised rabbit leg? Well, how about brown butter egg noodles? So, we make our own egg yolk heavy pasta dough and, once it's cooked toss it with brown butter. The final touch is a bit of root vegetables. The rabbit legs are napped with a sauce made from apple cider, white wine, heavy cream, garlic and shallots.

So, how do you take a rustic German rabbit stew and make it completely over the top? How about grating some black truffle over it? OK, talked me into it.

I love this dish. It shows off a little technique on our part, allows us to have brown butter egg noodles(aren't these one of life's amazing pleasures? If you've never had them, do yourself a favor and get you some) on the menu and gives us the opportunity to grate some truffles! Hope you'll check into the restaurant and try it out!

Sticky Buns

2009-10-03T00:20:00.004-04:00

I usually don't talk too much about desserts on the blog. I don't know why, maybe I'm just biased toward the savory foods, BUT I do like desserts and will try and be a little better about talking about our dessert program on the blog.

I'm really excited about this dessert. I've loved sticky buns since I was a kid and always thought it would be fun to spin sticky buns on to our menu at some point. Actually, a prune and armagnac sticky bun made an appearance last winter with melted brie as a cheese course. This time around, I've gone back to my good old friend armagnac, however this time with golden raisins. I'm topping it with white chocolate ice cream and a sauce made from the baking juices. The dough is a brioche with salted butter and dark brown sugar swirled in.

I could eat this dish every night and not get tired of it. Well, I don't know about EVERY night, but you get the point. I love the mix of caramelized sugars, fruit, a little bit of liquor and white chocolate ice cream. Simply amazing!

I had a couple of shots of the perfectly plated dessert, but I settled on posting this shot. I plated the dish, took some photos and then put the plate off to the side. When I came back, the ice cream had melted into the sauce and just looked amazing. So, here you go, no food styling, no lighting, just a lusty, sexy plate of food. Come on, you know you wanna get some!!!

What do you have at the end of the day?

2009-10-01T23:12:00.002-04:00

This post can be filed under the broader heading 'Stuff they don't teach you in culinary school'.

A lot happens in our day. There are gonna be the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. At the end of the day, what we take home with us is the work we did during the day. We know when our heads hit the pillow that we put out the best work that we could possibly do that day and that tomorrow we're going to wake up and do the best that we know how to all over again. Nobody can take that away from us or give that to us.

Smoked Ham Hock Baked in HAY!!!!!

2009-09-30T22:16:00.003-04:00

Yes, you read this right. Smoked ham hocks....baked in hay. OK, I'll admit this isn't something you run across that often. I was actually inspired by a No Reservations episode where Tony Bourdain visits with Marco Pierre White and Marco described baking a rabbit in hay. As Marco describes it, all of the answers are right in front of us, we just need to look to Nature for inspiration.

So, I did a little research and found that alfalfa hay was the most desirable for baking, so I called up Beau Ramsburg, uber-farmer to the stars and asked if he could get me a bale of alfalfa hay. After a few minutes of 'what are you gonna do with that?' type questions, my hay was on the way.

I decided that I thought smoked ham hocks would be an interesting jumping off point for my baking in hay idea. So older recipes I found called for baking a whole ham in hay, so smoked ham hocks weren't that far off. Here's a video of my set up. Basically, a deep hotel pan, some apple cider and alfalfa hay.

So, once I was setup, I got one of our ham bags(the bags we use for wrapping our cured hams and hanging them in the curing room) and stuffed the hocks in the bag so I could keep the excess hay off of the hocks.

After a couple of hours in the oven, the hocks came out and got a quick rinse under cold water. From there, I shredded the hocks and added some gelatin to apple cider.....then tossed the shredded hock with the cider and packed it into a terrine mold.

So, I gotta tell you. The hocks took on a decidedly grassy, hay-like(imagine that) flavor. It works really well with the smoke of the hock and the sweetness of the cider(the hay is actually a bit sweet). On its own, it's really good. However, once I pulled the hock out of the terrine the next step was 'what to pair with it?'. Here's what I came up with.

The base is pumpernickel bread toasted in brown butter.....then the terrine topped with Maldon salt.....sauerkraut vinaigrette, sunny up quail egg....cornichon, radish sprouts. I gotta say....the terrine is really pretty tasty on its own with a smear of mustard, but.....adding the pumpernickel bread and a little 'egg gravy' puts this bad boy over the top. I know the sound of anything 'baked in hay' will deter most folks from trying this, but it is really delicious.... I think the first step in 'baking in hay' was a great success and I can't wait to try out some other ideas.

What kinda food yous guys got there?

2009-09-29T18:57:00.003-04:00

OK, so I've actually fielded this question in its current grammatical state, so that's my get out of 'you're being a dick' jail. If it actually happened then I can write about it, right?(I'm honestly not sure about the spelling of yous, but you get the point)

So, this does beg the question of 'How do you describe your food?'. That's legit and I'm gonna take a stab at it. I will start off by saying that this is a tough question for me to answer. It's right up there with 'what's your signature dish?' My stock answer to that one is....That's like asking a parent which of their children is their favorite.

So, how would I describe our cuisine? Well, we used to say it's refined American cuisine with French influences. Actually, I suppose that's not a bad description, but it's so much more than that. Is the food influenced by the area? Yep. Is it seasonal? Yep. Respect tradition? Yep. Innovative? Yep. Bottom line is that it's a cuisine that's built from my personal experiences. I spent a bunch of years below the Mason Dixon line, so there is certainly a southern soul to the food. I grew up in south central PA, so there are definitely PA Dutch influences. Growing up, we spent a lot of time in Balitmore and DC, so the Chesapeake Bay and its flavors play a role in planning our menu.

I work very closely with farmers and butchers, so I've got a healthy respect for and, oh ok I'll say it, love of offal.

So, what can you expect when you sit down at the Sheppard Mansion? Well, certainly refined American cuisine that is based on classic French technique. Well-sourced products? Yes. Innovative techniques? Yes. A little bit of Chesapeake, some PA Dutch twists and a little dip down South and maybe some tongue? Yes. The other thing you can expect is that every day we are doing the very best that we can to present a very interesting dining experience for you.

Good Bye Summer

2009-09-28T20:44:00.006-04:00

Summer has officially kicked it. We've seen it coming for weeks, summer produce slowly being switched out for the bounty of Fall. I can't really put a finger on how I feel about this Summer. Suffice it to say, it was strange. This week brings our full Fall menu. It's 'game' time! I'll be posting the new dishes this week, but I thought I'd leave you with my favorite pics and dishes from this summer.

Execution

2009-09-27T23:19:00.004-04:00

The culinary world is much like the fashion world. Styles change. Trends and fads come and go. One constant, regardless of trend fad or style, is execution. It doesn't matter if you're at a diner or a Michelin three star restaurant. Execution is king and consistency is queen.

There are many moving parts that go in to presenting a plate of food. Part of it is dreaming up the concept of the dish. Part of it is teaching the technique behind the dish. Part of it is preparing that dish over and over again with the same consistency of execution. The last 'part' is the one that matters most. You can write amazing menus with amazing ideas. You can be a great teacher of your techniques to your staff, but when it gets right down to it, if the cooks who are in the shit at 8pm on a saturday night can't execute your ideas consistently, who cares? All the planning, sourcing, writing, teaching, etc.....it's all for naught if the execution sucks. Pack it up and go write cookbooks or something.

I love food. I love cooking. I love restaurants and 'restaurant life'. However, if I really dig deep the thing that really drives me is execution. You can do something a million times perfectly and it will be that one million and first time that you burn it or under season it....and the world goes sideways. It has to be perfectly executed every time. Every plate. Here's an example: The 19 year old kid in the picture above works hot 1st course at the Mansion. He handles a whole host of dishes in addition to the amuse every night. He's got a lot of dishes that require multiple steps but the one that always makes him roll his eyes is the foie gras;(in fact I don't even order it as foie gras during service. I call it 'damn it') it's also the order that can quickly put him in the shits if other orders stack on top of it. It only requires two steps. Toast brioche. Sear foie gras. Everything else is plating. It's only two steps, why is it so bad? Execution. Toasting the bread to the perfect color and searing the foie gras to the correct doneness requires a bit of 'hand holding'. Basically, you're whole night can go sideways in the blink of an eye. Even worse is if a piece of too dark brioche goes to the pass....then to the trash and start over....and you're officially in the shit. Congrats.

It's perfecting execution that drives me. Every day is different and something you thought you had a handle on can step up and smack you in the face at any time. Can you peel this carrot faster and better than you did yesterday? Can you make 34 perfect pretzel rolls faster than yesterday? Will the plates look and taste as good at 8:15 when you have orders stacked up like an air traffic controller as they did at 5:30 when the night was starting?

Talk all you want about new cooking trends, fads, styles, foams, gelees, liquid nitrogen, whatever. No matter what you're talking about it all comes down to two words. Execution and Consistency. In order to be a great cook, you've GOT to master these two words. I'm still working at it....every day, I'm up against their wall.

Borage Flowers

2009-09-26T23:31:00.007-04:00

NOTE: CLICK ON THE PHOTOS FOR SOME SERIOUS DETAIL. BY SERIOUS, I MEAN LOOK AT THE DEFINITION OF THE FLOWERS. SICK, RIGHT?

I picked up these little beauties from Kathy Glahn today. It's so wonderful to be able to have a special relationship with your growers that you can suggest seriously specialty items to them and they grow them for you. She just always seems to find a way....awesome(see: huckleberries)

I draw a ton of inspiration from the French chef Michel Bras. I really admire how natural his food looks and how he draws inspiration from the land around him. Having the borage flowers at our disposal puts me one step closer to composing plates that 'pop' with not only flavor, but with a natural, refined look.

Questions....are they edible? Yes. Can you use them year round? We'll see. Where are they on the menu? Our 'green salad'. Yeah, it's not your 'usual' green salad.

Alaskan Halibut

2009-09-26T00:10:00.003-04:00

Yeah, so the beginning of the post is actually the finished product. In my never ending search for pristine products, I've gotten my hands on some amazing Alaskan halibut. This fish comes to us via FedEx and is literally two days out of the water when it arrives at our back door. I know what you're thinking....'Hey, Andy, aren't you the local, sustainable guy?'. Sure I am. However, this area can't supply all the ingredients that we use on our menu(especially fish and luxury ingredients....hello truffles.) So, in these cases, I source the very best products I can from very reputable producers.

This halibut was so amazing when it arrived.....as we were butchering it a ton of ideas ran through my head for how to present it. We also had some halibut cheeks(yes, cheeks) delivered, so I thought it would be nice to pair the fillet and cheek together on the same plate. Garnish items include brussels sprouts, bacon, butternut squash puree, beets and a golden raisin vinaigrette. The fish is simply dusted with wondra flour and browned. Once browned, we flip it over, kill the heat and baste it with butter, parsley and shallots. The fish finishes cooking in the pan and gets a wonderful nutty flavor from the browning butter. Interestingly enough, you get two totally different textures of fish on this plate. The cheeks carry a bit more flavor and a more dense texture. The fillets carry a nice fresh flavor, but texturally, they simply melt in your mouth.

I'm really happy, not only with the super high quality of this fish, but also the fully composed dish. Welcome to Fall!

Check out Scott describing our butchering process.

Dehydration......

2009-09-25T00:14:00.002-04:00

So.....I bought a big ol' dehydrator.

For quite some time, I've been talking about cooking what's in season, when it's in season. Well, here in south central PA, that means amazing asparagus in May, corn and tomatoes July through the end of September and ALOT of root vegetables from November until mid-April. While I am certainly happy to celebrate the wide world of root vegetables, I'm also always looking for new flavors to add to our menu.

This past June, The Sheppard Mansion hosted former Top Chef contestant Richard Blais for a dinner in conjunction with the Gettysburg Festival. Before the dinner started, I had a few minutes to give Richard a tour of our property and we got to talking about preservation(rumor has it that we have a room dedicated to aging hams and a pretty extensive cold cellar......I'll never tell) and how to take products that are at their peak and preserve them for use later in the year. Now, it certainly doesn't take a Top Chef and 'the guy from the Sheppard Mansion' to come up with this idea. People have been preserving foods for hundreds of years, primarily for survival purposes. No or limited refrigeration meant having to 'put up' foods for the winter.

What we are doing is trying to put innovative and creative spins on traditional foodstuffs. Making our own raisins? Check. Dried corn? Check. Dehydrated huckleberries? You got it. What's next? Who knows.....All I can tell you is that we're having a ton of fun working with the dehydrator and are sure to come up with lots of interesting uses for it!

So, here's the specs. It's a L'Equip 535 watt FilterPro.

Turning over a new leaf.....

2009-09-23T21:14:00.002-04:00

.....It's Fall. So, in the spirit of the changing seasons, I'm turning over a new leaf and am dedicating myself to posting on the blog every day. Yep, you read that right....every day. Check it...I'll be here with new ideas, thoughts, pictures, menu items, etc.

So many amazing things are happening here at The Sheppard Mansion that I need to let everyone know about it! I haven't been as frequent a poster on my blog because I've been tweeting(follow me @chefandylittle) about the restaurant, but I think alot of my tweets could easily be full blown posts and then all of you in the blogosphere could get a more detailed account of what's going on.

So, there you have it. I've been lax in posting....no longer. A post every day is what's gonna happen!

Happy reading and please feel free to shoot me topics that you'd like to see me discuss on the blog. In case you've missed it, I'm not usually timid with my opinion. Come on.....just ask me how I feel about beef tenderloin or factory farming or, or, or, or, you get the point.

Another Account.....

2009-08-27T22:35:00.003-04:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to take Frederick area food writer and caterer Rochelle Myers on a tour of some of the farms who supply our products, as well as Sheppard Mansion Farms. After the tours, I invited her into the kitchen and then, finally she sat down for dinner. Her account of the day follows. I encourage all of you to check out her blog: www.lotsofeverything.com to not only see the pics she took, but also check out her writing on other subjects. My thanks to Rochelle.....I had a wonderful time showing you 'how we do it'.

August 19, 2009

A Day with Chef Andrew Little, Sheppard Mansion, Hanover, PA

Filed under: food shopping, pork, restaurants, travel — by Rochelle @ 1:06 pm

I recently spent a day visiting farms and hanging out in the kitchen at Sheppard Mansion with Chef Andrew Little. He’s been after me for some time to come out and see what they do in the restaurant and how they work with local farms to supply foods. Andy is super-excited about what he’s doing and is eager to share it with others. I came along because I was curious, I enjoy visiting farms and I kept drooling over Andy’s photos, videos and status updates on Facebook and on his blog.

Andy suggested I show up at 11am, so I drove up past a bunch of small towns and over the Mason-Dixon line late in the morning. The mansion itself is not quite what I expected. Most of my knowledge about the place came from my knowledge of Andy. The food he’s producing is contemporary but familiar and would look at home in any number of sleek, urban environments. The mansion is definitely not sleek or urban, though (although it is situated at a busy intersection in an old small-town downtown area). It’s large, luxurious, Victorian, and packed with antiques. There are the sorts of crystal-spattered chandeliers and garland-draped mirrors that occupy my childhood fantasies of the rich life. The gardens are profuse with flowers, boxes of herbs and imposing architecture. The kitchen still has the original wooden china rail, on which a butter churn rests, along with old china cabinets, sideboards and a butler’s pantry that are very much in active use by the restaurant.

Andy ushered me into his truck, and we went off to the first visit he had planned: a tour of Kathy Glahn’s farm, Farm to Chef Gettysburg, where most of the produce for the restaurant is raised. When we arrived, Kathy dove right into taking me around and showing me her plants.

She didn’t really introduce herself, talk about her philosophy, or detail her relationship with Sheppard Mansion. That’s because she cares so much about these plants–she is so interested in what they produce and how they grow–that she doesn’t even think about telling media about those other things. She wanted to just get out there and walk around with me. And she couldn’t resist caressing the plants, moving the leaves aside to cradle the fruits and vegetables with her fingers.

Kathy raises an amazing variety of produce on her relatively small property, including a significant arbor dedicated to kiwi berries. There are picture-perfect heirloom tomatoes in vibrant colors. Kathy was particularly proud of some chocolate brown-green striped “chocolate cherry” tomatoes, which looked bizarre but delicious. She also showed me her tiny zephyr squash, the globelike lemon cucumbers and pumpkin eggplants.

Kathy wanted to show Andy some red celery she was growing, so she plucked a narrow rib off one of the small plants and offered it to him. Andy smelled it and passed it on to me. It had large, flat, dark green leaves that reminded me of Italian flat-leaf parsley; not the sort of fleshy green leaves and pale, thick stalks you see on supermarket celery. I tasted a leaf of Kathy’s celery and was overwhelmed with pepper and sharp anise flavors. These leaves would make a great herb salad next to a coarse pate.

As she walked around her farm, Kathy kept pointing out methods she uses to raise her crops. She does have a greenhouse, which was mostly occupied with a dizzying array of microgreens in shallow trays. She uses shade netting to shelter more delicate crops like lettuces, carrots and beets that otherwise would wither in the summer heat. She said she hasn’t been affected too badly by the current tomato blight, because she rotates her crops and doesn’t put in tomatoes where she recently grew other nightshades like eggplant and potato. A solar-powered electric fence kept away the deer who savaged the beets earlier in the summer.

The greenhouse held mostly microgreens when I visited, but it's used for other goodies throughout the year.

The solar-powered electric fence will hopefully allow more of the vegetables from the farm to go into human bellies instead of deer bellies.

Kathy sends Andy an email every week detailing what she has available. Andy tailors the menu to current availability and places an order. Kathy picks whatever was ordered early in the week. The produce is delivered to the back porch of Sheppard Mansion in time to prepare for the first dinners of the week. Kathy picks produce again later in the week for sale at the Friday morning Gettysburg farmer’s market–most of what she sells goes to either chefs or the farmer’s market. She also regularly donates produce to the needy.

After our trip to Kathy’s farm, Andy takes me to Rettland Farms, where Beau Ramsburg raises the pigs and chickens that are served in the restaurant. Beau is rightfully proud of the Berkshire and Tamworth pigs he’s raising. The animals were friendly and curious, running to the fence and poking their snouts out to investigate as we came to visit. Andy and Beau like the Berkshire breed because they are not bred to be as commercially uniform as more industrially-farmed breeds are. “They are not too lean, and they have more flavor from the intramuscular fat,” Beau explained.

Some of the Rettland pigs are raised in bedded pens, but Beau is also experimenting with pasture-raised pigs–an experiment that Andy was very excited to show me. Several pigs are currently living in a portable pen that is moved daily to give the animals fresh ground. I could see for myself how these pastured pigs are enriching the soil; their natural rooting behavior turns over the ground, and the turnip seeds Beau sows in their wake will probably result in some gorgeous root crop.

The pastured pigs live in a pen of Beau's design that is moved frequently.
The chickens are commercial white broilers raised in pens similar to the ones the pigs were enjoying. There are also some laying hens that are free to wander about during the day (several of them scattered when Andy and I pulled up in his truck). Each laying hen provides about 240 eggs per year, which Andy turns into delicious ice creams, custards and other dishes in the Sheppard Mansion kitchen.

We left Beau and went to Sheppard Mansion Farms, the farm owned by the owners of Sheppard Mansion, to check out the Scottish Highlands cattle who produce the beef served at the restaurant. This farm was gorgeous–the buildings were very old, well-loved and well-cared-for, and I loved the historic working nature of the property. The cows are also striking; they have long bangs and gentle eyes. They were curious and soft-natured animals, clearly happy with their pastoral lives.

“I think it makes a difference to have these sorts of happy cows,” explained Andy. “People come to the restaurant all the time having driven by these cows, and they are excited to know that these cows produce the beef on our menu. Also, I think it affects the guys in the kitchen knowing that these animals had a respectable life. I think that knowledge affects the way they handle the meat.” Andy is fortunate to get all the parts of the cow after the animals are butchered; he enriches his stocks with the feet, he enjoys access to rarer cuts like the hanging tender, and he gets to introduce the fine-dining public to more flavorful and interesting parts than the standard tenderloin and strip steaks served in white-tablecloth restaurants.

By this time, it was midafternoon, and I knew Chef Andy had a busy Saturday night service ahead of him. He drove us back to Sheppard Mansion, situated me in the breakfast room and told me to stop in the kitchen any time, and then he got to work. It didn’t take him long before he started showing me all the cool things they had at the mansion to support the restaurant. We went outside to see what they raise right on the property: lush boxes packed with a gorgeous array of edible flowers and herbs. Andy built these boxes himself. There are also some historic flowering plants; Andy explained that he produces a popular rose sorbet with the roses grown on the property.

There is also a carriage house behind the main property, where the restaurant’s walk-in refrigerator and some cooking equipment are stowed.

Andy enjoys preserving some of the great products he gets at the Mansion for future use. He makes pickles and preserves, and he cures his own pork products such as ham and bacon.

Andy introduced me around his kitchen, where his staff was busy prepping. And then he introduced me to Karen Van Guilder, the restaurant’s general manager. Karen took me around the property and explained some of its history. The Sheppard family has served as wealthy stewards of the Hanover area for generations; the property is still owned by Kathryn Sheppard Hoar. I love that the inn is still filled with original antiques and art.

I stood in the kitchen during the first part of dinner service, taking photos of some of the food as it went by and trying to be inobtrusive. I was interested to see that servers hand-wrote their tickets and carried them back to Andy, as I have only worked in restaurants that used a POS system with tickets. I was excited to watch these beautiful plates go by, especially since I’d seen for myself all the plants, animals, and procedures that went into getting them together.

After all the time I’d spent seeing how the food at Sheppard Mansion arrives on the plate, I was eager to sample some of the delicacies myself. Karen showed me to a table in the ladies parlor, where I was snowed with course after course of handcrafted food. I didn’t take photos in the dining room because I didn’t want to distract other diners, and after a few wine pairings my notes trailed off as well. I sat back and enjoyed the pleasures of flavorful, expertly prepared food in an opulent setting.

One of my favorite dishes was the “green bean casserole,” a dish that for me exemplifies what Andy is doing in the kitchen. First, there were green beans: Roma and yellow wax beans, perfectly cooked and molded into a cylinder. The beans were studded with tart pickled mushrooms. A few wispy rounds of fried shallot perched atop the cylinder. Then there were small home-cured, home-smoked lardons of bacon. The casserole didn’t involve any actual casserole dishes, but it was clever yet familiar, creative yet comforting in its flavor, texture and appearance.

I also loved the beef strip loin with pierogi and raita. The beef was one of the most flavorful cuts I’ve had the honor to enjoy, and I loved the herby-tart yogurt sauce alongside. The pierogies were fun as well as delicious, with a crisp outer crust and a shrimpy interior.

The biggest crowd-pleaser, however, was the dessert: funnel cake with sweet corn ice cream and blueberries. The quenelle of ice cream was gently corn-flavored, sweet and ultrarich. It melted into the hot funnel cake. The cake made me smile–who doesn’t love funnel cakes? Some lightly cooked blueberries provided much-needed tartness and a cloak of dark color to the dessert. I loved how this dessert showed excellent technique, whimsy, reflection of local traditions, summery flavor, and respect to the season all at once.

An Open Letter to Culinary Students

2009-08-24T10:03:00.003-04:00

The following is a reprint of a post that Facebook friend and chef Mark Mendez posted on his site. Upon reading this, I shot off an e-mail to Mark and asked his permission to reprint it on my blog. Obviously, he said yes. His post says all the things we, as chefs, have thought at least once in our career. We've all had experiences with kids who think that they're destined for FoodTV without putting in any time or they want to know how to work with an immersion circulator before they know how to steel a knife without their damn tongue sticking out and almost cutting off their hands. I actually had a wannabe cook who was our dishwasher ask for a prep list like the cooks so he could write 'clean the walls of the dish pit'. WHAT???? Hey, buddy. You're not a cook. You can't even run the dish pit, much less a station in the restaurant. You haven't put in your time. This is where the line between art and craft gets confusing for folks. You've got to know the ins and outs of your 'craft' before you can be an 'artist'. If you aren't willing to learn how to wash dishes efficiently, you'll never learn how to cook efficiently and you'll never be a top notch chef. You just won't. Hey, I've got news for all you punk kids. I can do EVERY job in the kitchen twice as fast as you as a fat, 35 year old man. Yes, including washing dishes. Yes, including turning vegetables. Yes, including even taking out the trash. If you wanna get where we've gotten, you gotta learn it from the bottom up and be your best at every level. You can't just flip a switch and start to care. Either you're hungry or you're not. Nobody with any type of longevity starts at the top in this business. Nobody. Please enjoy Mark's letter. I know I did.

An Open Letter to Culinary Students
by Chef Mark Mendez

I am angry, so forgive me if I rant. You gave notice after only two weeks on the job and then didn’t show up the next day and really screwed me. I know why you quit; it was hard work, harder than you thought it was going to be. The funny thing is, you worked an easy station and never even worked on a busy night, funny right? The sad thing is you don’t even know how hard it really is, or what it truly means to be a line cook. It’s not all your fault; they didn’t really prepare you for this in cooking school did they? They didn’t warn you that being a great chef requires first being a great cook. They didn’t tell you about the sacrifices you have to make, the hard work, the hours, the dedication, the commitment, the lack of sleep, the constant abuse of the sous chef, they didn’t warn you. You thought you would graduate from school and be like Thomas Keller in a couple years, that’s all it should take right? I know, I know, learning how to use you knife, make a great stock, or learning how to properly blanch vegetables is boring, it’s cooler to work sauté station or grill. I’m too old school anyway, no immersion circulators, no foams, no cutesy plates, no pacojet, boring really. Who wants to learn how to properly sharpen a knife or butcher a fish, so boring and tedious. Well I need to tell you a few things. One day, just maybe, you will be a chef somewhere. You will need to train and motivate the people who work for you, guide them, lead them, teach them, and inspire them. One day you will spend more time looking at a profit and loss statement than you do your station. You will miss prepping your station, making a sauce, butchering a piece of meat, even sharpening your knife. You will spend time in marketing meetings, staff meetings, partners meetings, vendor meetings, all kinds of meetings. You will spend more time in the front of house than you really want to; spend time outside of the kitchen promoting your restaurant, give interviews, agonize over food and labor costs, kiss your wife goodbye while she sleeps because you have to be at the restaurant early for some insane reason, and somewhere in there make sure you are serving tasty food. You will miss weddings, birthday parties, graduations, all kinds of things. You will alienate your friends and family because you don’t write or call enough. There are no sick days, personal days, breaks, this is not like a 9 to 5 job, get over it. Get ready for years of sacrifice, hard work, and stress. Learn as much as you can, read everything, ask questions, write things down, save your money and eat at other restaurants, show up to work early and offer to stay late, come to work on your day off just to learn how to make pastry or hone butcher skills. Taste everything you can, over and over, and ask the chef so many questions he gets annoyed.

Take care of yourself and sleep as much as you can and skip after work drug/liquor binging, so you wake up ready and on time. Travel and experience another culture eat their food and learn to speak their language. Learn to appreciate the time you have right now, enjoy the ride, the process, don’t be in a hurry to be a sous chef or make a lot of money, it’s not about that and it never will unless you are extremely talented and lucky. There is only one Ferran Adria or Thomas Keller, or Grant Achatz, and they all have worked extremely hard to get where they are and continue to do so. Enjoy all the bullshit that comes with this life, embrace it, learn to thrive on it. One day, when you are an executive chef or chef/owner, there will be an epiphany so powerful you will have to sit down. You will understand everything every chef or sous chef yelled at you, you will understand why we work why we do, you will understand why our profession is so wonderful, so unique, and it will hit you hard. I can’t tell when or where this will happen but I promise you it will if you work hard and keep your head down and do what your chef tells you. So keep this in mind when I give you a hard time and push you, criticize you and refuse that day off request. Maybe the next job you have you will suck it up instead of leaving them short a line cook on a busy night.

So, you wanna be a professional chef?

2009-08-09T19:30:00.002-04:00

Food is big. People are interested. There's a whole channel devoted to food(Wait, when was the last time you actually saw FOOD COOKED on FoodTV???? That's another post.) The life of the professional chef has been glamorized and packaged into slick TV shows from TopChef to Hell's Kitchen to Kitchen Nightmares, etc. Suffice it to say, we're starting to dig food in America. The advent of the blog and social networking has allowed anyone with a computer or smart phone to write about food(hello, I'm one!). So, there's a lot of content out there. A lot of opinions. Everyone's got an opinion(they're like assholes, right?) I've always wondered how many of these people who write about food(both amateur and professional) are actually willing to put on an apron and tough it out in a professional kitchen. Yeah, I said it. Tough it out. For all the flash, dash and glitz that's been heaped on professional cooking(and we appreciate it) at the end of the day it's just plain hard work. There's nothing flashy about scrubbing a 600 degree stove on your hands and knees after a 13 hour shift. Nothing. But it has to get done.

Rich Matosky acts as many things in my life. Friend, confidant, advisor, travel companion, whipping post, etc. In this post, he reprises a role that he took on willingly last year as a kitchen stage for a weekend at the Sheppard Mansion. After spending the weekend with us, he wrote about it. This year, I asked if he'd consider doing it again so that I could see from an outsider's point of view if we'd progressed as a kitchen team and restaurant team. You see, Rich is a very successful businessman by day. He's also obsessively driven to learn all he can about the pleasures of food and wine. He didn't NEED to come back out this year and stand tall in the kitchen, but he did. And now, he's writing about it again. Not many people are willing to take the physical punishment(even for a weekend) after working a full week at their 'day job'. He's earned the respect of each and every cook at the Sheppard Mansion many times over....I think you're gonna enjoy his writing....

‘So You Want To Be A Professional Chef – Redux’

A little over a year ago, I asked Andy Little, my friend and the Head Chef at the Sheppard Mansion if I could spend some time in his kitchen to work, observe, absorb and learn in an effort to both improve my own “dinner party chef skills” AND to see how a real professional kitchen works.

That tale can be read – or in the case of you newbies…read for the first time – here.

Ok, now that you’ve refreshed or newly informed your memory of both my whiny and ‘try too hard to be ironic’ amateur writing style, let’s get to the heart of why you now get to do it again…..

Andy made me do it.

Really. He did.

He wanted - from an outsider’s point of view – a narrative as to how his kitchen is different from last year – Oh, and he and the boys wanted some old but fresh meat to kick around for two days.

First a few points of reference…..between last year and this year…

- I weigh +/- 15 lbs less than I did last year….so this year you won’t have to hear me complain about either my feet or my back. Oh, and before you all congratulate me on that accomplishment….it’s recent and it really only got rid of the ‘new’ fat….now I have to work on the ‘old’ fat.

- Andy’s got a few new cooking “toys” I can’t talk about because he’s conducting food prep and preservation experiments with them out in the carriage house. It all looks kinda like the last scene from ET before they all escape on their bikes to ride off into the moonlight. ( Jeez, what a lame reference )

- Andy’s Team – Scott, Dan & the kid – Taulbee - have been together since soon after I left last year…..and it shows. Whatever I thought about how professionals worked together last year, times that by a multiplier of 10 and you’ve got what rocks the place today.

So let’s get to it.

We’ve had a really weird summer here in PA – it rained for so much of June that most people I know were starting to look and sound like Kurt Cobain…at home, at work and at play. I don’t consider that a good thing, but what can I say…I’m old and out of touch.

July, up until the end, has been SO beautiful - - think no humidity and cool temps - - that air conditioner sales were way off in this entire area for this time of year.

So, like last year, I was told to be at the kitchen door by 11AM on Friday. Unlike last year I had decided to ride my motorcycle, which many of my friends see as a total mid-life crisis toy, the 2 hours or so from Phoenixville to Hanover.

And what a ride……early morning, bright sun, cool temps, no humidity and a back-road route through ALL the towns in Central PA that evoke visions of Ozzie & Harriet ( ok – that one was before my time…..I saw that as reruns on the old UHF channels when I was a kid ) and a snow-less Bedford Falls ( Google it ).

Arrived early this year.

Off to a great start.

Pull in, store the bike in the carriage house, chit chat, was told to go change into the “uniform”….chef’s jacket, khaki’s, clogs, apron ( new style this year! ) and….wait for it….it’s coming….YES….’the goofy skull cap beanie thing’ ! ! !

My favorite.

Still makes me look like Buddha in a bathrobe on the beach about to hit the waves.

Oh well.

I told Andy ahead of time that since I was riding my motorcycle out to Hanover and that I would not be bringing any of my knives. He said ‘no problem’ and that he had a spare to lend me. This year, Andy’s ‘throw the amateur into it’ move was – ‘here’s your knife, it’s dull as a curb edge, go out to the carriage house and sharpen it on the sharpening bench.’

Coincidentally, about a month or so ago, I had found ‘religion’, ditched my Chef’s Choice sharpener and obtained a proper - old fashioned – sharpening stone, looked at a couple of tutorials on YouTube and redid all of my kitchen and pocket knives….with a modicum of real success. My knives are all MUCH sharper than they were before.

Then I watched Scott do his knife. For about 10 minutes. The same knife he had done yesterday. For about 10 minutes. The same knife that was sharper at the end of the day than mine are right after doing them – fresh off the stone.

Look, Listen, Learn.

That’s The Point.

So, I spent about 15 minutes on this knife. Frankly, did a god job on it. Brought it back.

Next up, I find out I’m “cold side” the whole weekend.

My being here this weekend – as an extra set of prep and service hands – was helping to facilitate “the kid” – Taulbee’s move onto the “hot line”.

Taulbee.

A year out of high school.

Already accepted to the CIA – Culinary Institute of America - version of those initials.

He’s been under Andy’s supervision since before he graduated high school and Andy convinced him to delay going to the CIA for a year to get some seasoning in a REAL, professional, high concept, high standard, high expectation kitchen.

Sort of like an old style apprenticeship.

And for the last year, Taubie has carved out the “cold side” as his own. Cold apps, salads and desserts.

And he’s done a hell of a job with it. Which is why Andy decided it was time to get him over to the “hot side”, expand his knowledge and skill-set and put him on a station that was ALWAYS active, ALWAYS different and required a little more “thinking on your feet”.

So “cold side” prep is mine for the weekend and if I finish the list that’s taped up at my station, I’m to ask everyone else what they need.

No problem.

Pretty easy….really.

The first thing on my prep list was “watermelon & cantaloupe”. OK.

What’s up with that? I had perused the menu, saw both ingredients as part of two separate dishes, so what do I have to do?

First thing I have to do is take the skin off of both the watermelon and the cantaloupe and slice them into +/- 2 inch disks.

Andy then takes me out to the E.T. LAB….I mean, the carriage house.

On the workbench is a commercial vacuum sealer and next to it is an immersion circulator. All tools of the “sous vide” crowd.

No questions. Just watch.
He takes a disc of watermelon, inserts it into a plastic bag, puts it into the vac sealer, pushes a button and – WHOOSH – compressed watermelon that – I swear to whatever higher authority YOU believe in – makes the fruit look like a KILLER piece of sushi grade TUNA.

“Now do the same with the rest of the pieces and the cantaloupe too”, Andy tells me, “And get back to the kitchen so I can show you how to prep these for service.”

I complete the task, refrigerate the fruit, and go back into the kitchen to find Andy un-bagging several examples of watermelon and cantaloupe that had been “compressed” yesterday.

I had to cube the watermelon for a “compressed watermelon, feta and arugula” salad and prep extra feta, clean, de-stem and “right-size” more arugula, store, date and initial the packaging and move onto the cantaloupe.

I had to “matchstick” the cantaloupe. Perfectly. Quickly ( which didn’t happen – either perfectly OR quickly ).

All for another “salad” of “compressed cantaloupe with mint crème fraiche, cured meat, orange oil, micro-greens, shaved radish and fresh cracked pepper”.

So what’s the point of the “compression”, you ask?

Think REALLY ripe fruit – intense flavor with lots of juice – all in a still dense, not mushy, state of just picked at the right time texture.

Without “fooling around” with either the “chemistry” of the ingredient, or the look of the ingredient, a piece of technology was used to take what is already there and intensify it’s flavor - making it possible to present – in the case of the cantaloupe dish – a familiar combination – melon and prosciutto – and combine it in a different way to simultaneously be familiar and different.

Which is REALLY cool.

The day, like last year, flows over itself. The time clicks away. The kitchen is quiet as everyone does what they need to do. I’m not nearly as lost as I was last year.

It was…..frankly….relaxing. It helps that the kitchen is fairly large and well laid out. Four people….each doing his own thing…..don’t really get in each other’s way. The ceiling is high, there’s lots of natural light from the large bank of windows over the sink area and everything that one needs to do their job is either within reach or is just a few steps away.

Few steps.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe THAT’S the metaphor for what is different this year from last.

Maybe.

So 4PM rolls around. Andy’s made the pretzel rolls. I didn’t have to do that this year. I guess he wanted them done faster than I can do them. Pasta’s been made, formed, portioned and chilled – by Taulbee.

Scott’s butchered and portioned the fish, fowl and meat for tonight’s service. He’s quickly completing his mise en place and the menus are being taped to both the “cold side” station and the “hot side” station.

Dan rolls in. Dan’s the man with the cool and un-rushed hands.

Dan looks like he’s cooking in slow motion. He doesn’t sweat….ever… and he’s always the one ready, willing and able to “improvise without compromise”.

I work for him tonight. He’s in charge of the “cold side”. He steps in if the “hot side” gets behind. He expedites if Andy jumps on the line.

But he doesn’t do it if he doesn’t think I can put out a salad or a dessert that is “up to standards”.

Give the amateur just enough rope to learn and succeed, but in this place where the dining room customer is ‘king’ ….not enough rope to compromise the food and hang myself.

After Dan sets up the station the way he wants it, it’s coffee time out on the back porch.

I spoke to this last year. It’s a real interesting moment, when all the work of the last 6 hours is complete and – depending on the number of covers for the night – before the work of the next 6 hours is expended.

It didn’t hurt that it was 75 degrees, no humidity, sunny with just enough breeze blowing to remind one why this part of the country can be a great place to live, work and play.

Service ends up being pretty easy.

The menu is – as always – interesting and diverse, yet still approachable in a town more known for its snack food than its high end, high concept restaurants.

“Pit Beef” is a REAL standout. It’s beef tongue that’s been smoked for 40 or so minutes and cooked… “low & slow”…. overnight.

It’s an unreal flavor combination and the dish ends up as a sophisticated – yet still recognizable – riff on your commonplace “pit beef sandwich” found in bars all over this area.

Not many people order it tonight. Dinner service ends and I realize a few things.

My back is not stiff or sore. My feet feel as good as they did twelve hours ago, I don’t have a headache and I’m as hungry as a horse.

I forgot to eat.

All Day.

Andy finds this out.

Tells me to go sit down.

HE cooks me dinner. And ya know what? He decided, come hell or high water, SOMEONE was going to eat the beef tongue tonight.

Ummm…..that would be…ME!

Andy whips up a dish of onions, mushrooms, and beef tongue….sort of like a “stroganoff” in a rich reduced stock sauce that was filling, delicious and the right thing at the right time under the right conditions.

And the flavor. Did I tell you about the flavor? Can I tell you about the flavor……unreal!

So while the kitchen gets cleaned up there’s a debrief to review both the good and bad of tonight’s service.

Friday night was fairly uneventful. A few small things here and there.

Working the line, Andy says, is all about preparation, cleanliness, speed and consistency.

Service time is production time. It’s not about the art or the menu design or the ingredient combinations. All of that is – should be – worked out ahead of time. All of that should already be decided.

Service is cooking and assembling and delivering a range of products and ingredients that – if properly conceived and then properly executed – will make the dining customer happy, satiated and feeling like the dollars they spent were well worth the time and effort to spend them.

Because, in the end, a restaurant IS a business. It needs to be thought of as a business, promoted as a business, marketed as a business, RUN like a business.

These are tough economic times. Many in the restaurant business….chef/owners in particular… are young. They either weren’t born or weren’t old enough to remember the 70’s….or in a whole other generation’s case….the 30’s.

To be able to run A RESTURANT BUSINESS, profitably, in today’s circumstances while still retaining the ability to conceive, source and produce high end, great tasting plates, night after night is – quite an accomplishment.

Especially in a town that LIKES its reputation as the “snack food capital of the world”.

Debrief over, everyone heads home.

I go to bed. Andy and Karen stay up to read, watch TV, play on the computer.

Not me. I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow. It’s half past midnight.

Saturday.

Not a good day for me.

I wake up. Early. Always do.

The plan is to go to a local “breakfast joint” eat, hit a farm stand to get a few things we ran out of last night – corn and watermelon – and be in the kitchen by 11:30 to prep for the night.

We eat breakfast. Pretty straightforward. Eggs & Virginaia Ham. Toast.

No problem. Go to the farm stand. No problem. Get to work, change, put my prep list together, go out to the carriage house.

Sharpen my knife. For 10 minutes. Bring in some ingredients form the walk-in.

Then it hits me.

I run to the bathroom. The one in the basement. I don’t feel well. I get sick.

I NEVER get sick. Not like this.

I have a headache.

I have a stomach ache.

I ….Have…..Other….Problems.

Andy says go sit in the walk-in. Cool off.

Great. I’ve got chills along with the flop sweat. The walk-in. Not a great place to be.

I sit on the porch. I try and relax and let the waves of nausea pass over me.

Eventually they do.

Prep goes on. No one says anything. Frankly, no one cares. I’m just an extra set of hands anyway.

Andy’s friend.

EVERYTHING will get done no matter whether I’m involved or not.

I begin to feel…not as bad.

I return to my station. Finish prep. Drink A LOT of Coke & water.

Can’t eat anything.

Service starts.

Things are smooth. Dan says I get to do everything I want to tonight and he’s only stepping in if he sees a problem or I get behind.

I don’t.

It’s a good thing.

A couple of corn soups are ordered. They go out. Clean plates come back. Everybody’s happy.

Until Karen asks Andy to taste the corn soup.

It’s “off”. It doesn’t taste right.

It tastes….different.

What happened? No one knows at the moment. Later it’s deduced as to why and when something might have happened.

It ends up being – in the current phrase of the media – a “teachable moment”.

On an immediate basis…what everyone does know is that there are 4 tickets in the window and ALL of them want corn soup and this batch of corn soup can’t be used and there’s no more – appreciable – amount of corn left in the walk-in to make another batch.

Here’s where the professionalism and training of someone who’s a REAL CHEF kicks in.

In less than 10 minutes Andy & Dan….without so much as a 5 word conversation are “stealing” ingredients from EVERYBODY’S station……Scott, Taulbee, me…. and are conceptualizing and COOKING an alternative to the corn soup.

And it was good…no it was great…because what was presented to the dining room customer looked, tasted and satisfied the expectations set forth on the menu…all without actually being corn soup.

Unreal.

Dinner service ends.

Tonight’s the current dishwasher’s last night. Chris is a nice guy….he’s going back to school as a PhD. Candidate in Public Health.

It’s a good time to be going back to school, what with the economy and all. He’s obviously a smart dude, personable, kinda gives off that air that most “academics” do…..his assumption is that he’s the smartest guy in the room, better educated than everyone else ( which he was ) and was destined for bigger and better things.

Which is cool….really it is. Becoming a PhD IS a big deal.

But Chris is a SLOW dishwasher. And he doesn’t like it when people try and help him “speed up”…..which in this kitchen is deadly.

Andy likes to say, “As the dish station goes, so goes the rest of the kitchen”

Which is why Andy spends at least one part of the day doing either the prep wash or the dinner service wash…..especially if the dishwasher is SLOW.

So on this…..Chris’ last night…..after a fairly event filled dinner service, Andy’s decided that he’s not interested in waiting until 1AM for Chris to get the dishes done and the kitchen completely broken down and cleaned up.

He and Dan dive into the dish station and all hell breaks loose.

And in 45 minutes time, the dishes are done, the kitchen is broken down, cleaned and put back together and we are all sitting in the bar talking about iPhones – and why I don’t have one, I mean – come-on – EVERYBODY has one.

Taulbie has one and he hasn’t got two nickels to rub together.

And FaceBook and Twitter and ALL the “professional” reasons it’s good to be on them ALL.

But I digress….

Why bring up those two taking care of the dishes?

Why does that impress me so?

I read A LOT of food blogs, articles, Chef PR, watch food shows, etc.

The food world is a diverse and interesting place and it’s increased visibility over the last 10 or so years has made “making a living” in food have many meanings.

As an amateur….”outsider”…..I consider cooking a “craft” much more than I see it as “art”.

That’s a subjective opinion – at best.

Some blogs you read, or PR you see, putting chefs up in the pantheon of Nobel Prize winners, or Artist’s because of their “intellectual” approach to food, their use of chemicals in an attempt to “break apart” and “reconstruct” something….mostly just to be able to amuse themselves …or worse….gain more press….

…all of that falls flat….FOR ME.

If your doing all that and making a living doing all that and happy – bless you.

But in my real life, I’m a businessperson. THAT’S what I relate to….people doing what they have to do, day in and day out to get a job done, in real time for real people.

Leading. Other People. Not with words or pretty….ARTSY…pictures….but BY EXAMPLE.

Which is why the whole dishwashing thing struck a chord with me.

“As the dishwashing station goes, so goes the rest of the kitchen”

Whatever it takes. No ego, no sense of superiority. No yelling. No question.

JUST DO IT.

Cool slogan. It’s true.

A true Craftsman understands that. Because they came up from – and through – the trenches.

After the kitchen is cleaned up…in record time….the “teachable moment” from the start of service is explored.

There’s more than one “teachable moment” in this example. There’s many.

Prep.

Taste.

Clean.

Organize.

Taste.

Look.

Listen.

Move.

Think.

React – intelligently.

Taste.

Learn.

So what’ different in Andy Little’s Sheppard Mansion kitchen between this year and last year?

For one, the same four guys are together….4 days and nights a week.

That’s a team. A tight, - cohesive - well oiled team.

What else?

Fewer steps?

Physically? Definitely.

Food-wise?

Fewer steps? Maybe.

I think what’s changed in the food between last year and this year is that while there might be one or two fewer ingredients on the plate the food seems more complex…in a good way.

The use of ingredients from a local farm network so carefully cultivated and illustrated in more detail all over Andy’s blog is as intense as ever, but the need to make sure that every one of those individual farmer’s products are in each and every dish is less evident.

It makes for a cleanly presented and clean tasting menu that illustrates the maturity of the one who conceived it.

Someone who has less of a need to rub people’s nose in what’s happening in his kitchen but who is getting more satisfaction out of the fact that for those that make the effort to sit in his dining room – they are never disappointed in having made the decision to do so.

Sunday.

Sunday morning I awoke to sun, cool temps and the realization that after thoroughly enjoying myself and learning a lot, I now got to get on my motorcycle and ride 2 hours – leisurely – home.

And my back STILL didn’t hurt and my feet weren’t sore.

I had learned how to make a couple of KILLER salads that will impress a few dinner guests ( OK, so the melons won’t be “compressed” like they are at the Sheppard Mansion – I have no ROOM for a professional vacuum machine ), that sharpening my knives via an “old” method is STILL the way to go, that being sick and “bucking up” to avoid being made fun of - as an almost 50 year old dude – was surprising to me…. and that “teachable moments” happen to even the best trained and most experienced professionals and if we stop learning…..we become “calcified” intellectually – and arrogant to boot.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

“And on the seventh day, he rested”

This is where it gets stupid folks......

2009-07-24T23:10:00.002-04:00

This is where the 'progressive food thinkers' lose me entirely......please read the following excerpt from NYMag.com ......

Alex Talbot, an experimental chef, recently moved to Bucks County, but before that he lived in Queens, and before that he was running the kitchen at a boutique hotel in Pagosa Springs, Colorado, which is where he was when he set out to create a dessert that resembled ice cream in every single way but one: He wanted it to be hot. “To do this in the hot state—that was the quest,” Talbot told me. On Ideas in Food, the blog he writes with his wife, Aki Kamozawa, Talbot posted a recipe for hot vanilla ice cream. All of the ingredients were easily found, as long as you had a good connection at Dow Chemical.

Here's my 'beef'.....there's NOTHING INVENTIVE about hot vanilla ice cream. It's called creme anglaise, make it stable, sculpt it into a swan, do whatever you want with it, but........I think the French cornered the market on this bad boy last century.

I know when I do my food shopping I always run down to Dow Chemical and stock up on some pantry items for a bitchin' dinner.