Last spring Gretchen Coffin, the farm stand manager, of Allandale Farm, called me to see if we’d be interested in buying two baby lambs that would be ready in September.  I jumped at the chance!  We are committed to using as much local ingredients as possible and whole local lamb was pure excitement.

The summer flew buy with all of the Hells Kitchen craziness and, of course restaurant weeks, and we found our selves at the end of August with no menu and lambs on the way in a few weeks, Chef Izzy kicked out a killer menu and the dinner was so yummy.

Here’s the menu and pictures….

Allandale Local Farms

Lamb Tasting Menu

Hors d’oeuvres

Mini  BLTs

House made lamb “Bacon”

Butter head lettuce , heirloom tomatoes

Rosemary aioli

Coriander Scented lamb

Phyllo triangles

Caramelized onions, toasted pine nuts

fig chutney

Steamed Scallion Ginger “Momo’s”

Ground lamb- Spinach and Cilantro

Soy Sake and Sirracha sauce

Appetizer

Frisee and Arugala salad Duo

12 hour Confit belly  bacon lardon

And Pearl onions

Cask aged sherry vinegar

House made fennel crisp

Entrée

Trio of Lamb

Sausage Merguez- Roasted Red pepper

Moroccan Spice

Slow baked salt crusted leg of lamb

With orange peel, sweet basil, Summer Savory

“Shepherds Pie” honey glazed rainbow mixed

carrots, Sweet “Providence Corn”

Dessert

Cherve Cheesecake

Summer berry compote

Pistachio Praline

hanging in the walk-in

Dimitrias, Kat, and Izzy giving the lamb some lovin'

and the process begins, breaking down 2 lambs took about 3 hours

Izzy gives me some pionters

primal parts

We do dinners every month, if you’d like advance notice about them, sign up on our website Tremont647.com

Spring is here! Well, sorta… March 21st was the first day of spring, but it still cold: no soft green blossoms on the trees and certainly vegetables aren’t coming from the farms – yet. New England chefs get so excited for the change in availability for what we can (self imposed rules) use on our menus. Of course, we could use asparagus all year round, California will gladly ship it to us, anytime. But somehow asparagus in January doesn’t seem right, and honestly, maybe it’s me but it doesn’t taste as good, a little woody and tough.

I love springtime for cooking. It’s almost as good as late summer, which is my favorite. To me, spring dishes are light and crisp – with a teaspoon of winter and heaviness. They are green and pink, with light butter and lavender. The flavors scream “hey, I’m fresh, eat me now!” or “wake up because we have a long road a head of us!” I love spring.

We’ve just plowed through two packed restaurant weeks and now it’s time to focus on spring and change the menu. Diners will see some spring ingredients now and as the growing season gets better and better, we’ll add more favorites. A friend asked me ‘do chefs really just think about ingredients and what they will do with them’? I’m here to tell you the truth: it’s actually a fantasy scenario, seriously: ‘First, I’m going to do this, and that… and then I’ll do this’… We generally have ingredients swirling around in our heads like notes for a symphony, they come in and out and we try to fit them together so they are coherent, groovy and tasty – all along paying attention to how long the dish takes to prepare so we can get it out of the kitchen in a timely manner. And once that dish is complete and we are satisfied with its outcome, we switch our focus to another configuration and the notes start again with a new tune and we hear the song of summer…

Some of the new spring menu items

Cream of English pea soup
Jamon Serrano, olive oil cruton
Mint and chervil Crème fraiche

Tremont Tostada Salad
Veggie spring bean chili, radish, avocado,
Queso fresco

Wood grilled Lamb Skewers
Cucumber Tatziki salad, Lemon, dry chili oregano crust

Crispy- Creamy Spring Polenta
With Apragus, parmesan, Smoked tomato
Fresh Jumbo Lump Crab

Fishermans Risotto Paella
fennel, spring peas, parsley, saffron Lobster Broth

Here are some spring ingredients I am thinking about

Asparagus
Morels
English peas
Fava beans
Runner beans
Pea tendrils
Fresh garbanzo
Spring onions
Spring garlic
Rhubarb
Soft shells
Lamb
Duck
RABBIT
Fiddleheads
Ramps
Crones
Scape
Leeks
Vidalia onions
Walla Walla onions

I feel like all I do is bitch about what is wrong with food these days. Honestly, I’d rather talk about heirloom pork, organic tomatoes, or the CD I am jamming to now (which happens to be Cold War Kids’ Robbers & Cowards). Unfortunately, this morning I stumbled across that which must be written about.

I am not feeling well. Last night in the middle of service I realized that I was very sick. I thought maybe it was from not eating, which I forget to do all of the time, or maybe not enough water since it is very hot. Nope, I am sick, bummer. I slept a ton, made some yummy Maine blueberry pancakes that were sweet and tart – I love pancakes, I am going to focus a whole blog one day on pancakes. But I digress.

Being sick, I am drinking tons of Emergenc-C, raspberry flavor, which of course is not actually raspberry flavor (but again another blog) and OJ. I poured myself a glass of XXXXX Organic Orange Juice, it states it has calcium added and it is pasteurized, not from concentrate.

Just pouring it into a glass is where the problems started. It looks like thinned out Ralph Lauren linen white paint with a burnt cyan crayon melted in it, unusually viscous but not overly thick, smooth looking but very strange. How anybody said “YES! this is just the product we want to sell” and “oh we’ll tell them it’s organic and they’ll just buy it up” is beyond me.

It is disgusting. It’s almost creamy, and not good orange creamy like a creamsicle. This is strangely smooth and sweet. Yes it does have an orange taste but now, with the after-taste, I can get notes of pith, chemical, and sour kumquats.

They really want you to know it’s not from concentrate, which is fascinating since this reminds me of the frozen concentrate we bought when I was a child and I would try to eat, since it was overly sweet and rich.

I would give anything for a glass of fresh-squeezed OJ. From the farm to fork! Or at least to the glass, in this case. I can’t believe I’m going to paraphrase Joni Mitchell (how do I even know this) but “we need to get ourselves back to the garden.”

We decided to go to Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands for a family vacation.  I spent a few summers on Orcas Island at Camp Orcila and have super fond memories.  The San Juan’s are lush, pristine, and calming.  I can see why people vacation and sail here all of the time.

One day we decided to go strawberry picking, we had seen signs for a farm near the house we rented.  We pull up to the farm and there’s an umbrella in the center with the farmer and family and/or friends sitting there.  They tell us to take a bucket and go start picking, 3 dollars a pound, go have fun.

Row and rows of small green leafy bushes with the cutest little strawberries were everywhere.  Funny enough you’d think this 38 year old chef would have been strawberry picking before, but nope, never.  Growing up in Seattle I picked my share of blackberries but never a strawberry. 

I was there with my mother, sister, brother in law and the cutest little strawberry picker of them all, Tessa Simone my beautiful niece. 

 

Mostly we see strawberries from California (Driscolls) in the grocery stores, and my understanding is that this varietals when left on the vine to fruition is one of the most incredible strawberry one can ever have.  The problem is that it is never left on the vine and this varietal is used because it gets so big and looks so good before it is fully ripe and thus is very good for shipping.  And then we get a strawberry that is flavorless in February and everyone uses them for Valentines.

On my knees picking the strawberry I was so enthralled how beautiful they were, the best ones when you gave them a little twist the stem would stay with the plant and in my hand was this beautiful little soft red gift of nature.  Popping one in my mouth was a wonderful experience.  A small snap or even crunch followed by an explosion of juice fills my mouth.  Interestingly it had a slight tart taste at first followed by a big sweet juicy rich strawberry flavor, maybe even a small hint of salt and herb that gave it a such a startling flavor that I had to have another one right away.  And of course another. 

Sitting in this field, eating some of the best strawberries I have ever had and watching Tessa eat strawberries, to date, is one of my favorite food/family memories ever. So we picked 5# of strawberries and headed off to the organic farm next door to get dinner.

What did we do with the Strawberries?  We Patron Strawberry Gimlets, yum!!!!  Strawberry shortcake, of course.  And then I made some strawberry jam, lay up. 

 

Every day I want to eat just picked strawberries.  Everyone should.