Spring & Summer - 2012

Good Beautiful, Crisp, Clean, Sring Day, World!

So - The Boulder Country Dinner.  The Wisonsin Cheese Tour & Tasting.  Chicago - Alinea.  NYC - WD~50, Restaurant Daniel, Le Bernardin.  Virginia - The Inn @ Little Washington.  Honolulu - Chef Mavro.  What do all these places, restaurants and people have in common...?  Correct!  This is what I will be experiencing this spring and summer - all in the name of food education; to learn more about the people, chefs and food that make up the bushels of Gastronomy in America.  Ultimately, this helps my current students @ Johnson & Wales, my former students @ The Art Institute, my friends & guests at the table in the country @ The Boulder Country Dinner (next dinner is up and coming on the 12th of May, y'all...) and quintessentially, myself - how I see the world through food, kitchens, gardens, farms, dining rooms and saute pans... 

Call me @ 303.667.3768 to make a reservation for The Boulder Country Dinner.  See you in The Country.  Peace.
~R

‘A Spring Tasting Menu…’

Herb * Potato * Asparagus * Fresh Hen's Egg * Rabbit * Grass-Fed Beef * Sheep's Milk * Garden Peas * Ricotta * Chevre * Chickens * Spring Lamb * Frais de Bois * Strawberry * Lobster * Suckling Pig * Mint * Ham * Foie Gras * Poussin * Veal * Rhubarb * Chocolate

…with a French accent!

Suprises & Treats on the Deck

with a Special-Cocktail-of-the-Evening…

Canape

'12Seasons Chevre, Parsley, Colorado Honeycomb, Backyard Greens'

Soupe

'Pea Porridge, Pea Consomme, Mirepoix, Pea Butter Crouton, Fresh Hen's Egg'

Poisson

'Lobster Ragout, Asparagus Salad, Potato Truffle Mille Feuille'

Entrée

'Spring Leg of Lamb, Wild Lettuces, Triple-Fried Potato, Morels, Mustard Flowers'

Intermede

Salade

'Suckling Pig, Spinach, Acorns, Walnuts'

Dessert

'Pickled Rhubarb, Sheep's Milk Yogurt Sorbet, Salted Caramel'

Wine pairings to follow… Let me know if you have any specific food allergies or dislikes… Call me for additional information @ 303.667.3768. Send your remittance/check to:

Chef Robert N. Corey dba The French Manner & 12Seasons

P.O. Box 270487

Louisville, Colorado 80027

Upon receipt of payment, I will send you confirmation of your reservation and directions to the ‘Country House’. See you in the country!

Wine, Port, Cheese & Chocolate Tasting Notes - Vail 2012

Wine, Port, Cheese & Chocolate Tasting Notes – Vail 2012

Chef Robert N. Corey, C.E.C.

The Taste of Vail April 5 - 8, 2012

'Got E = mc2 ?' (one of these two figures has a high IQ...the other one wears a red cap!)

The Cliff Notes version of the tastings...: Food changes wine – wine rarely changes the food.  The moral of the story is to pair food to taste (your taste) and to the wine style, not necessarily the varietal. 

The following are my notes compiled from lectures and tastings at The Taste of Vail in Vail, Colorado – April 5-8, 2012.  Remember that personal subjectivity is crucial when pairing food with wine.  Wine is certainly the most difficult of the alcohols to pair with food.  Acidity, oak, leather, green bean, vanillan, malic acid, etc...  When pairing food and beer simply mirror the flavor and taste profiles, and the same with spirits and food.  With wine one must recognize the style of the wine, the taste and flavors of the food and work from there… Pairing food and wine can be the hardest as acid and bitterness are prevalent.  Sour food is very wine friendly.  So, that's easy!  Select and adapt accordingly. 

1.      Classifying Wine: Taste.  Profile.  Style.

A.     Fruity & sweet (includes dessert wines).

B:  Dry white wines, w/o oak or very little oak influence (includes most sparkling wines).

C:  Dry white wines with oak and/or light, fruity red wines.

D:  Strong red wines with tannins.

Within each of these categories, there are several levels, corresponding to the intensity of the characteristics, such as oak, tannin, sweetness, etc. 

2.      Classifying Food

Any specific dish, or cheese, will contain one or more of the five basic tastes:  sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein/umami.  These dominant tastes in the food will have a profound effect on the taste of the wine. 

A.     Sweet & protein/umami dominated foods reduce wine aromas and make wine textures (acidity, bitterness, astringency, and tannins) stronger.

B.     Sour and salt dominated foods make wine textures milder (richer, smoother, sweeter) and can accentuate aromas.

C.     When the tastes in the food are balanced, with no one taste dominating another, the wine will remain relatively unchanged, just as the winemaker intended.  This is the standard objective in food and wine pairing.

3.      Cheese

Cheese is commonly classified by its style or firmness, type of milk, country of origin and by its age.  When pairing cheese with wine the most important thing to think about is its taste profile.  Every cheese contains varying levels of sweetness, protein/umami, acidity and salt.  By evaluating the sweetness/umami versus salt/acidity in the cheese and grouping them into categories based on taste profile, you can pair the appropriate wine to any cheese.

A.     Fresh, Creamy Cheeses; Protein/Umami and Sweet Dominant (lack of salt & acidity)

Examples: fresh Mozzarella, Ricotta, young Brie, Camembert.

Reaction: The protein and sweetness will make wine taste stronger and accentuate bitterness and tannins.

Solution: Lighter-style wines with soft tannins and crisp, fresh flavors.

Suggested Wines: Low-Oak wines such as Chenin-Blanc, Gerwurtztraminer, Viognier, Sauvignon and Chardonnay to light reds such as White Zinfandel, Beaujolais, Pinot Noir and lighter-style Merlots.

             B.  Young, Tangy Cheeses; Acidity & Protein/Umami Dominant (no distinct acidic bite).  Examples: Chevre/fresh Goat Cheese, Crescenza, Tomini.

            Reaction: These cheeses soften high acid and low-astringency wines but will strengthen full tannin, high stringency wines.

Solution: Crisp to high acidity wines, with low to moderate oak, and low tannins.

            Suggested Wines: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Dry Reisling, Chablis-Style Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, lighter Chianti, Zinfandel and Shiraz.

             C.  Young, tangy and salty Cheeses; Acidity & Protein/Umami Balanced (most universal category of cheeses – will taste good with the widest variety of wines).

Examples: Young Cheddar, Gruyere, Cambozola, Blue Castello, triple-crème Pierre Robert, aged goat Crottin, low-salt Feta.

            Reaction: The balance of flavors will have a virtually neutral effect on the wines or may soften the astringency/tannins in wine and accentuate fruit flavors. 

            Solution: Because of the universal quality of the cheese, play with your favorite wines.

            Suggested Wines: Riesling, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Shiraz, Zinfandel, Cabernet Sauvignon. 

D.     Aged, Salty Cheeses; Salt & Protein/Umami Dominant (highest amount of salt and concentrated flavor).

Examples: Roquefort, Stilton, Parmesan, Asiago, aged Sharp Cheddar, Feta.

            Reaction: Salt dominance has an initial reaction of softening the wines with a secondary strengthening of astringency  and tannins from the high protein. 

            Solution: Theses cheeses need softy, sweet wines or dessert wines, or strong, rich, but soft tannin wines.

            Suggested Wines: Theses cheeses traditionally served with sweet and fortified wines such as Port, (with Stilton) or Sauternes (with Roquefort) since the cheese make the wines milder and richer.  Try Late-harvest wines, Vin Santo, Ice Wine, sweet Sherry, Madeira, Amarone, Zinfandel, or Shiraz.

In general serve soft cheeses with soft wines and hard cheeses with hard wine.  Either way, enjoy. 

Peace. ~R

At Play in the Culinary Sandbox

One of the pleasures of teaching at a culinary institute is the ability to play with toys - equipment that is usually not available to the average Joe.  Here are pictures of various purees spun @ 8,000 RPM.  The duration is 30 minutes to 120 minutes.  Playing in the culinary sandbox...  

 Cantaloupe, Butternut Squash & Beet (above)

 Blueberry, Pea & Butternut Squash (above)

 Butternut Squash, Blueberry & Pea (above)

 The Centrifuge Settings

 Beet - probably my favorite...

 Cooking the beets in a water bath @ 85 degrees C.

 A loaded centrifuge - a beautiful thing...

 Mise en place #1

Mise en Place #2

See and taste the finalized products to be used in the Boulder Country Dinner.  Peace.

Updated Menus - 12 May 2012

‘A Spring Tasting Menu…’

Herb * Potato * Asparagus * Fresh Hen's Egg * Rabbit * Grass-Fed Beef * Sheep's Milk * Garden Peas * Ricotta * Chevre * Chickens * Spring Lamb * Frais de Bois * Strawberry * Lobster * Suckling Pig * Mint * Ham * Foie Gras * Poussin * Veal * Rhubarb * Chocolate

…with a French accent!

Suprises & Treats on the Deck

with a Special-Cocktail-of-the-Evening…

                                                                                 
Canape

'12Seasons Chevre, Parsley, Colorado Honeycomb, Backyard Greens'

                                                                              

                                                                                                  Soupe

'Pea Porridge, Pea Consomme, Mirepoix, Pea Butter Crouton, Fresh Hen's Egg'

                                                                                                  Poisson

                                                               'Lobster Ragout, Asparagus Salad, Potato Truffle Mille Feuille'

                                                                                                    Entrée

                                                  'Spring Leg of Lamb, Wild Lettuces, Triple-Fried Potato, Morels, Mustard Flowers'

                                                                          Intermede

                                

                                                                                                     Salade

                                                                                   'Suckling Pig, Spinach, Acorns, Walnuts'

                                                                                                     Dessert

                                                                    'Pickled Rhubarb, Sheep's Milk Yogurt Sorbet, Salted Caramel'

Wine pairings to follow…  Let me know if you have any specific food allergies or dislikes…  Call me for additional information @ 303.667.3768.  Send your remittance/check to:

                                                            Chef Robert N. Corey dba The French Manner & 12Seasons

                                                                                               P.O. Box 270487

                                                                                      Louisville, Colorado 80027

Upon receipt of payment, I will send you confirmation of your reservation and directions to the ‘Country House’.  See you in the country!

                                                       12Seasons is a member of: SLOW FOOD USA

Peace.

Your Invitiation...

  The Boulder Country Dinner – 12th of May, 2012

‘The devil is in the details! Chef Robert Corey¹s Boulder Country Dinner series is the equivalent of having your bucket list meal – and best of all you get to repeat the experience every month!  Guitarists call Hendrix a guitar player's guitarist.  Chefs call Robert Corey a Chef's Chef! What else can be said about gourmet cuisine, wine and fellowship in this bucolic country setting? Jump on it, you will be happy you did!’

~Christopher J. Davies, Co-Founder, Editor & Publisher - Wine Country International® Magazine & VinoTasting

The Boulder Country Dinner series continues with a Food & Wine pairing on Saturday, the 12th of May, 2012 at 6:00 p.m.  Once again we will be at the ‘Country House’ in Niwot, Colorado.  I invite you to come to our table to dine with us in the country!!!

We will set a table for 20 guests.  Seated together you will dine communally, outdoors or indoors as the weather permits.  The fashionable concepts of a Seasonal Menu a la Slow Food, Farm-to-Table, Local and Organic, are integrated within one vision – my food is carefully and caringly sourced, prepared and served to you, usually with a French accent. 

The Dinner will be composed of seven-courses of my ‘Nouvelle Classics’ paired with wines – all with seasonal tones.  My impetus comes from Springtime produce from Munson Farms in Boulder, Colorado.  Some of my dishes have progeny from The French Laundry in Napa Valley and Eleven Madison Park in NYC.  The wine service will be a tasting of novel and boutique wineries that deserve our attention.  My plates and bowls are small, multiple course creations - it will not be fine dining, but the dining will be fine.  Please advise us of any special seating needs or dietary requirements.  The cost is $100.00 per person (including wine service), paid in advance to secure your place at the table.  So…Guess who’s coming to dinner?

                                                     ‘A Spring Tasting Menu…’

What's in Season? Herb * Potato * Asparagus * Fresh Hen's Egg * Rabbit * Grass-Fed Beef * Sheep's Milk * Garden Peas * Ricotta * Chevre * Chickens * Spring Lamb * Frais de Bois * Strawberry * Lobster * Suckling Pig * Mint * Ham * Foie Gras * Poussin * Veal * Rhubarb * Chocolate

…with a French accent!

Canape

'12Seasons Chevre, Parsley, Colorado Honeycomb, Backyard Greens'

Soupe

'Pea Porridge, Pea Consomme, Mirepoix, Pea Butter Crouton, Fresh Hen's Egg'

Poisson

'Lobster Ragout, Asparagus Salad, Potato Truffle Mille Feuille'

Entrée

'Spring Leg of Lamb, Wild Lettuces, Farro Rizotto, Morels, Mustard Flowers'

Intermede

Salade

'Suckling Pig, Spinach, Acorns, Walnuts'

Dessert

'Pickled Rhubarb, Sheep's Milk Yogurt Sorbet, Salted Caramel'

Wine pairings to follow…  Let me know if you have any specific food allergies or dislikes…  Call me for additional information @ 303.667.3768.  Send your remittance/check to:

Chef Robert N. Corey dba The French Manner & 12Seasons

P.O. Box 270487

Louisville, Colorado 80027

Upon receipt of payment, I will send you confirmation of your reservation and directions to the ‘Country House’.  See you in the country!  -R

American Cuisine Today

American Cuisine Today

Chef Robert N. Corey, B.A., A.O.S., C.E.C.

An Introduction to American Cuisine Today

Chef Robert N. Corey, B.A., A.O.S., C.E.C.

Spring 2012

“Revolution & Evolution’

The sheer size of our country, the multitude of cultures within our borders and the breadth of products we produce make qualifying a ‘definitive American food culture’ extremely difficult.  Perhaps that difficulty actually defines us.  We are a conglomerate of Food Cultures, a Culture of Cultures.  America is geographically diverse, topographically challenged, immigrantic, 50-stated and food opinionated! 

America is ethnic and global.  We are what we eat, eats as Michael pollan has stated.  Our roots are European, mostly Spanish and English and, now, Asian.  Our oldest restaurants are standard European in design and cuisine.  Yet, we are more than restaurants.  We are street food and Farmer’s Markets and Food Trucks.  European food is the blending of flavors and Asian cuisines are the street parties in our mouths. 

The great ethnic food cultures of the biggest immigrant cities in America are in LA, NYC, Chicago and Miami.  Great food happens here but it can be found in the smallest hamlets and villages in the country, too.  Travel to the upper Midwest lake communities and to smoky valleys of Appalachia where there are cultural food offerings on every table.  the same is true on the beaches of Puritan Cape Cod to the Navajo hogans of our native Americans.  It is all so bloody good, unique and real.  Travel the country and taste it from street vendors to michelin freaks – all the while looking over your fork at someone who hopefully understands and appreciates it as much as you do.  Smile.  Sometimes food experiences can be like seeing the sunrise for the very first time. 

‘I hear America cookin’

It’s coming round again

There’s Pork and Corn a growin’

From Kidz to Women and Men.’

-Betty Fussell, ‘I Hear America Cooking’.

 We are cooking on the precipice of a new dawn.  The Revolution of American Gastronomy.  The cuisine in America is like her history – it involves freedom.  The freedom of expression.  The freedom to be creative.  The freedom to break boundaries.  The Statue of Liberty, a.k.a. ‘The New Colossus’, stands in New York Harbor and has beckoned, since 1886, with the words of Emma Lazarus:

‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

We Americans are a multi-cultural epic and ethnic collaboration of all the world’s people.  Diversity reigns in America.  Thus, our food follows suit.  In spite of this grand arrangement, the cuisine in restaurants must still impart a connection – a connection to the land, the spirit of its immigration, of the culture and of the season.  food must always taste good, make sense, and sate us in a visceral and physical manner.  We must cook to make people happy.

There are four Evolutions in the Revolution of American Gastronomy, and undoubtedly there are more to come.  In order to get where we are today, however, Chefs in America (and not always American chefs) had to join the movement to the past – the return to the land.  The objective was to find and source the best ingredients and if you couldn’t find them to find someone who would grow them.  The purely American Cuisine began by cooking those indigenous American products well while breaking the ties to European traditions of cookery.  Getting away, bit by bit, from the ‘classics’ brought new freedoms which allowed American Chefs to affect International Cuisine, as well.  Now the world comes to America to cook…

American Cuisine today is about bounty.  The bounty from our gardens.  Here lies another evolution in American cooking.  From Farmer’s Markets in Long Island to farms in the Carolinas, to Mid-western corn behemoths and fertile California valleys, American Chefs are clamoring for local, organic and sustainable products.  We are embracing cooking with the seasons and we are revolting against animal proteins inoculated and modified.

And, glory be!  we are learning to cook again.  A lost art that began to slip away in the 50’s, has found resurgence.  Cooks and Chefs are entertainment Kings and Queens!  Who will lead us into the middle of the century?  An American?  European?  Asian?  Whoever leads us it will still be an Evolution of American Cuisine.  In America, we are that Evolution, chefs who are the proverbial mixed, melting, conglomerate pot that is the American Dream.

In American Cuisine Today we shall explore the American landscape, find its gastronomic pulse, taste the culture-of-the-moment and dive into the ocean of the American palate – one great restaurant at a time.  We will be creating Spring Tasting Menus from the minds of the country’s best Chefs and from Dining Rooms across the land, from sea to shining sea.

We Americans may be defined by who our natural or adopted parents (family or country) might be.  More specifically we are defined by how we were raised and what events or rituals shaped our memories, and by what defined by our food preferences.  What we eat can be who we are, or what we wish to be.

‘Pioneers in American Cuisine’

The First New Age (The 70’s) – ‘The Classical Period’:

Jean-Louis Palladin

Alice Waters

Robert Mondavi

Julia Child

Graham Kerr

Madeline Kamman

James Beard

Waverly Root

Craig Clairborne

Greenpeace

Closer To Home (The 80’s) – ‘The Regional American’ Influence:

Paul Prudhomme

Dean Fearing

mark Miller

Wolfgang Puck

Jasper White

Larry Forgione

Jonathan Waxman

John Folse

Jeremiah Tower

Bradley Ogden

The Big Explosion (The 90’s) – ‘The Contemporary Period’ (Also known as ‘The Las Vegas Period’):

Thomas Keller

Alfred Portale

Charlie Trotter

Charlie palmer

Daniel Boulud

Norman Van Aken

Eric Ripert

Gary Danko

Jean-Georges Vongerichten

Rick Tramonto

Todd English

David Burke

The Food Network

Alfred Portale

New Chefs, New Issues (21^st C.) – ‘The Cutting Edge Period’:

Slow Food

The Green Movement

Seasonal, Sustainable, Local and Organic Food

Grant Achatz

Nathan Myrvold, Chris Young and maxime Bilet

Food Trucks

David Chang

Daniel Humm

George Mendes

Wiley Dufresne

Joel Salatin (Polyface farms, VA)

Dan Barber

Bryan Voltaggio

Michael Ciramusti

JB Prince

PolyScience

Linda Runyon (ofthefield.com)