This weekend I went to Tiffany's family Easter dinner. I decided that even though most of the food was home style cooking to stay true to my cooking style and make a seafood risotto. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1 lb shrimp, peeled and deviened chopped up
1 lb crab claw (you can use any kind, claw was on sale though)
1 onion
1 red pepper
1 container Swanson chicken stock (fresh stock, or even a seafood stock would be better but for time store bought will be fine)
Parmesan cheese
butter
salt
pepper
Old Bay

1. Toast arborio rice in skillet until it gets a lightly toasted color, in another pan lightly caramelize onion and red pepper in a small amount of butter.

2. Add toasted arborio rice to onion and pepper mixture, then add a cup of stock and shrimp to the rice, add a little bit of Old Bay and salt. Keep stirring.

3. After most of the water is soaked up by the rice add the crab meat and more stock, and a little bit of old bay, salt and pepper. Continue stirring.

4. continue adding small amounts of water as the water gets soaked into the rice, until the rice is tender.

5. When the rice is tender and you no longer need to add water or stock to cook it add 3 T of butter and 4 oz of Parmesan cheese. Season with salt, pepper, and old bay to taste.

Pictured To Left Macarons from Bouchon Bakery, New York City.

Last night I was having a discussion with a friend while having a beer and she mentioned a place in New York City doing recipes with breast milk. From what I'm finding looking things up, chef Daniel Angerer at Klee restaurant in Manhatten is making breast milk cheese from his wife's and business partner's supply. The idea supposedly came when the freezer at his house was full of breast milk. He is not selling the cheese as a menu item, but providing it as an amuse-bouche if requested.

The recipe link to Daniel Angerer's blog

Would you try breast milk cheese, ice cream, at a restaurant???

Excellent article in this months issue of Wine Spectator magazine on Chef Thomas Keller. The article focused on his numerous failures, with some mixed in successes, that eventually paved the way for one one America's greatest restaurants, The French Laundry in Napa Valley, California. And in time the empire of great restaurants he runs, Per Se, Bouchon, Bouchon Bakeries (and yes Tiffany they make macarons there), and Ad Hoc. And the Creator of culinary dishes on the big screen, the ratatouille dish created by a rat, and the sandwich created by Adam Sandlers character in Spanglish.

The article described his failures in opening a restaurant in New York (leaving so much debt he almost couldn't open French Laundry), lying in France to get a apprenticeship, working with Daniel Boulud in the early 1980's at the Westbury Hotel (well before either were famous chefs), not going to culinary school, and the job hoping in between all those events. Then to the chaos of the first night, with no menu plan and no saute pans. To the single biggest event for the restaurant, two paragraphs by columnist Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle that followed a description of cab drivers using whistles to scare deer away.

His theory on the dining experience is the idea of diminishing returns. The first taste should make you say WOW and soon it is gone. "We want you to say, 'I wish I had one more bite of that,' and then the next plate comes arrives and the same thing happens, but in a different way, a whole new flavor and emotion."-Thomas Keller.

For his books and the running of his restaurants Thomas Keller believes that collaboration with everyone has been key. Kellers book Bouchon was mostly written by chef Jeffrey Ceriello and the rest of the team at Bouchon, and Sous-Vide was mostly written by Chef Jonathan Benno and the team at Per Se. He is said to be a calm chef who no matter how busy, behind or overwhelmed hew becomes, he still goes for the touchdown with every dish.

Last year Thomas Keller Restaurant Group employed over 1,000 employees and served about 1.6 MILLION meals at nine locations.

"I look at wine as another way to share the experience of the table. It's part of the equation" -Thomas Keller

"We tend to over analyze cooking, and people become intimidated by it. At whatever level, it's product and execution."-TK

"... where I learned what cooks actually do. We nurture people, we nourish them. I thought, what's more honorable than that?" -TK

"Thomas was not a yelling and screaming kind of guy. I'm not either. He taught me to put a big emphasis on responsibility. Creating a team is not something every (chef) does well. For Thomas it means knowing what you need to do, and what the next guy needs to do, and stepping in to help without getting in the way." - Eric Ziebold of CityZen, Washington DC about working for Thomas Keller

While doing some research on wine and the sulfur smell in them (Virgina Tech website on wine making) I found out about a wine blending class to learn to make Meritage wines at a Virginia winery. The winery is one of two hosting this course from Virginia Tech and while looking at the other events I found information about the class on April 18th. (so far not signed up to take either class, but probably will)

The Meritage wine is American wine made with the grape blend commonly found in Bordeaux wines. A Mertitage red wine must be made from Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot grapes. A white wine version of Sauvignon Blanc, Semillion, and Musadelle grapes. No grape can be more than 90% of the wine The winery is limited to making a maximum of 25,000 cases a year and the wine must be one of the two most expense wines made at the winery. The winery must also join the Meritage Association in order to put the Mertitage label on the bottle.

While shopping at Dean and Deluca in Georgetown this weekend I found some interesting ingredients, SALT. Not your ordinary iodized table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, or herb salt blends, but different styles and colors. Pink Himalyan, Black Lava Sea Salt, Chardonnay smoked salt, Murray River(Salmon colored from Australia), Alaea (dark red salt from Hawaii). I'm interested in how these will effect the flavor in dishes and improve flavors.

I will be experimenting with a few dishes on how these salts are used in finishing dishes and the unique flavors that they impart.

Yesterday I went to DC to wonder around, see the cherry blossoms and just get away from the small town atmosphere. While in Georgetown there was a line around a building...for cupcakes. Georgetown Cupcake has 2 bakeries, in Georgetown and Bethesda. The line for a cupcake wrapped around the bakery and in front of the door to the restaurant next door. The people in the line say yes the cupcakes are worth the 45 minute or more wait to get a couple cupcakes. Why not find out how good a 45 minute cupcake is? So we waited in line. While in line you would hear people in taxi's stuck in traffic and others walking by saying things like "I would never wait that long for a cupcake."

Cupcake flavors- Everyday= Chocolate, Chocolate (yes 2 different styles with chocolate), red velvet, vanilla, choc and vanilla, vanilla and chocolate
On Saturdays- Chocolate ganache, coconut, chocolate coconut, lemon berry, and mocha
Seasonally this time they had- salted caramel, cookies and cream, and Irish cream
Price= 1 at $2.75, 6 for $15 and 12 for $29

After waiting for 45 minutes we decided lets just get the full dozen and try all but the coconut ones. How good is a cupcake that requires over a 45 minute wait to get one? DELICIOUS, WOW it is an amazing cupcake.

After the wait I learned that if you call ahead the next day with your cupcake order they will box them for you ahead of time and you can avoid the long line. But if I do an impromptu trip down in the Georgetown area I will probably wait in line again for a Georgetown Cupcake.

Unfortunately many people afraid of missing out on something would not wait in a line for a cupcake, but in reality miss out on delicious food.

Many times I've heard people say things like the food takes so long to make, but tastes so good. There is an ART to food that sometimes requires a wait, you have to decide do you want quick shitty food or are you willing to wait for something amazing.