Posted on March 20, 2012 by William
We have been working hard hammering out the details for our premier farm dinner series. Well, we are now one step closer! We have decided to use Napa Valley Coffee Roasting Company coffee for our events.
I met Charlie today at the Saint Helena roasting house and sampled many selections. He seemed pretty excited when I mentioned that it was all going to be French pressed. I can’t blame him. So, look for Charlie’s roasted coffee at our events as we celebrate all the greatness Napa Valley has to offer! 

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Filed under: Dessert, Farm Dinner, Local | Tagged: Coffee, coffee roasting company, Dinner, Farm to Table, Ingredients, Local, napa valley coffee roasting company | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 19, 2012 by William
Yep, a lot of us are addicted to soda. 4 out of 5 of us in this household are junkies. And last I heard, soda doesn’t do a lot of good for our health. With that being said, I want to serve soda at our farm dinners. I am not one of the four addicted in our house, however I think a well crafted, Italian style soda, made right on the farm would be a welcome addition in the hot afternoons. So, I’ve got this cool mid-century 10 gallon soda keg from Niagara Falls Pepsi-Co that I have thought about using for about 5 years now. I bought it when I lived in Hawaii and It’s been collecting dust. Well, today I disassembled it, changed all the crumbling o-rings, scrubbed it, sanitized it, and ran scalding hot water through it. I wasn’t even sure if it would work, so I charged it with CO2 and looked for any leaks. Stayed sealed tight and this is what I ended up with:

So, this is what I am going to do. I am going to fill the tank with farm spring water and carbonate it. We will have fresh fruit and berries (whatever’s in season) that we will turn into syrups. As our guests are arriving, we will pour the syrups into glasses and top them off with freshly carbonated spring water. Voila! A round of homemade farm fresh sodas for everyone. Or how about a peach and amaretto flavored soda? A light blast of farm fresh cream? This is gonna be awesome!
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Filed under: Farm Dinner, Fun, Italian Soda, Local | Tagged: Dinner, Farm to Table, Farmers, Farming, Ingredients, Local, Soda | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 6, 2012 by William
Here is a good example of Cry-o-Blanching I demoed for a group of 10 chefs from Beijing, China who participated in my Modern American Cooking lecture I did last month. The carrots are peeled and cry-o-vac’ed and then frozen. Ideally they are frozen in liquid nitrogen. Then they are allowed to defrost at room temperature and then frozen again. The process is repeated 3 times for these carrots, but can be done on any number of different vegetables or fruits. The number of freeze-defrost cycles would vary based on the ingredient and desired texture. You end result will resemble a traditionally blanched item but with a great, fresh flavor not dulled by a drop in boiling water.
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Filed under: Extreme Temperatures, Texture, Trend | Tagged: Cryoblanch, heubel, Ingredients | Leave a comment »
Posted on July 29, 2011 by William
Some great snacks for an upcoming event. Home made buttermilk crackers, grilled rosemary flat bread all topped with tapenade, hummus and pesto. 
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Posted on July 26, 2011 by William
I have finally (FINALLY!) hooked up with the Port Orford gang and they are now sending me fresh albacore tuna straight from the Oregon coast. Here’s a special we’re running with it right now… Sesame seared with a nice Asian slaw, tomato puree and avocado. Turned out really delicious…

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Filed under: Community, Local | Tagged: Dinner, Fine Dining, heubel, Ingredients, Kitchen, Local, Oregon | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 23, 2011 by William
I made a lot of ramp butter with some more ramps I got. Thinking something with oven braised rainbow trout….


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Filed under: Condiments, Forage, Fun, Local | Tagged: Chef, Cooking, Dinner, Fine Dining, Forage, heubel, homemade Butter, Ingredients, Local, Oregon, spring | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 22, 2011 by William
Here is the first dish I made today using my truffles for Sunday Brunch.

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Filed under: Forage, Local, Sous Vide, Truffles | Tagged: Brunch, Chef, Fine Dining, Forage, heubel, Ingredients, Local, molecular gastronomy, Oregon, Sous Vide, Wild Mushrooms | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 21, 2011 by William
Found a use for these great Oregon pickled ramps.
I’m pairing them with a salad of crispy Spring
new potatoes, grilled asparagus, pepper bacon and a cider-mustard vinaigrette. It’s finished with avocado puree, hard boiled egg and micro turnips/pea tendrils from our kitchen garden. Can’t wait for the local albacore tuna season to open up!
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Filed under: Forage, Garnishes, Local | Tagged: Chef, Cooking, Fine Dining, Food, Forage, homemade Butter, Ingredients, Local, Oregon, spring | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 20, 2011 by William
Funny, I didn’t even know these existed until I saw them. And the aroma…
WOW! Seriously. These are unreal. It’s frustrating though because I am having a hard time devising my next special for them for some reason.
I just want to smell them. 🙂 Hopefully I can come up with something soon. The weather has been warm and sunny. Not really what you would think of for truffles I’m only used to using during cold winter months. We’ll see…
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Filed under: Forage, Local, Truffles | Tagged: Chef, Fine Dining, Forage, Ingredients, Local, Oregon, Wild Mushrooms | Leave a comment »
Posted on May 7, 2011 by William
So, I took the plunge and purchased a 50 liter bag of “Hydroton”. This is the clay like rocks I started experimenting with to grow microgreens under out grow lights in the kitchen.
It cost $35 and we are now converting all our indoor growing operations to utilize it. Our most recent planting includes pea tendrils, micro radish and micro beets. The tendrils have been tested and work great (see prior post) but the other items have yet to be seen. Germination has already taken place after just 2 days.
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Filed under: Farming, Fun, Garden, Garnishes, Local, Trend | Tagged: Cooking, Experiment, Food, Garden, Gardening, heubel, Ingredients, Local, Oregon | Leave a comment »
Posted on February 27, 2011 by William
It’s a respectful thing to work with such a time proven menu. Very traditional. I am very happy I also get to have a portion of the menu that is highly seasonal and modern. Best of both worlds. Drawback? Well, 30 years ago, it was chic to use what were, back then, modern ingredients. “Exotic” herbs were dried and used as we use fresh herbs just clipped from our garden. Broth bases were used and considered a “gourmet” item. Times have changed. These recipes haven’t. So, I continue to work on ways to improve the ingredients while staying true to tradition and the dish itself. Point in case, I have started making my own chicken base. There are a couple recipes we use that are over 50 years old and very popular that use it. My version contains nothing more that organic chicken from Washington. Nothing more. And I use it exactly the same as the processed stuff that has an ingredient list longer than this blog post. Come by and try the difference for yourself. I reduced 5 gallons of chicken stock to 28 ounces of “base”. It’s amazing…

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Filed under: change, Chicken, Local | Tagged: Experiment, Ingredients, Local | Leave a comment »
Posted on January 6, 2011 by William
We get our coffee custom roasted from Good Bean Coffee just down the road. We have a lot of guests purchase this coffee from us by the pound whole bean. We made some ica cream with it and paired it with chocolate cream crepes and toasted cornbread. Wait…. What? Yeah, it was uber good…


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Filed under: Local, Texture, Uncategorized | Tagged: heubel, Ingredients, Local | Leave a comment »
Posted on October 18, 2010 by William
In the works is some lemon confit. Should be ready in 3 days for our new Alaskan True Cod Special…


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Filed under: Curing, Garnishes | Tagged: heubel, Ingredients, produce | Leave a comment »
Posted on October 11, 2010 by William
These button chanterelles make a great garnish.


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Posted on June 22, 2010 by William

Head on over to www.stovemonkeys.com to get yours for free…
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Posted on May 1, 2010 by William
Here’s some shots of what the ingredients used for Molecular Gastronomy look like…



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Filed under: Agar Agar, Molecular Gastronomy, Texture | Tagged: Chef, Cooking, Experiment, Fine Dining, heubel, Ingredients, molecular gastronomy | Leave a comment »
Posted on April 18, 2010 by William
Peas, radish, asparagus, spinach and fennel with beet emulsion and pea tendrils.

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Filed under: Farming, Garnishes, Greater then the sum of it's parts, Local | Tagged: Chef, Cooking, Farm to Table, Farmers, Farming, Food, Gardening, heubel, Ingredients, Local, Oregon, produce | Leave a comment »
Posted on April 8, 2010 by William
With truffled potato chip salad and beet emulsion.

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Posted on April 7, 2010 by William
We have been reconditioning our gardens and are just about ready to plant some seeds. Tonight is suppose to get below freezing but we hope that the weather will soon hold. Looking at planting heirloom tomatoes, red, purple, white, yellow and orange baby carrots, pickling cucumbers for pickles, summer squash, radish, herbs, herbs, herbs, baby broccoli, peas, kales, and whatever else I can squeeze out of this little area!
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Filed under: Farming, Fun, Local | Tagged: Chef, Dinner, Exhibition Kitchen, Farm to Table, Farmers, Farming, Fine Dining, Food, Gardening, heubel, Ingredients, Kitchen, Local, Oregon, produce | Leave a comment »
Posted on March 27, 2010 by William
Wow. This will change the way we garnish our plates forever. Soon we will be able to snip and garnish to order. Thanks to Sean Brock at McCrady’s restaurant in Charleston for the inspiration.



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