Category: Cooking

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Cooking

Another Day in the Kitchen…at the Village Pub

Earlier this year, Chris Gulker and I spent a Saturday with Dmitry Elperin in the kitchen of Woodside’s Village Pub – one of our local 1-star Michelin-rated restaurants. That escapade was for us to learn how to roast chicken – see Chris’s post.

Today, my daughter Tracy and I returned to the Pub to learn all about cooking for Thanksgiving – and what a wonderful time we had – eight of us students crowded around the kitchen at Village Pub. We had such a wonderful time!

Here’s the full review I posted tonight on Yelp:

Like Sandi H., we also participated in the Thanksgiving Cooking School at the Village Pub today. This was my second class with Dmitry Elperin – both have been superb.

There’s nothing quite like being in the kitchen with a great chef as he’s describing how he cooks – and tries variations to the recipes. Today’s menu was classic Thanksgiving – wonderful brined turkey (super moist!), stuffing, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts with chestnuts (my first time for those – yum!). A cranberry/apple chutney added wonderful contrast.

Sommelier Michael educated our nose and palate with four great wines to accompany this meal. He walked us through a blind tasting – sharing what we found as we first swirled and breathed in the aromas and then tasted the wines. A French white burgundy (Michel Gros) and an Oregon Pinot Noir (Willakenzie) were the main course wines. The madeira he poured to accompany pecan pie for dessert was an amazing food pairing!

All in all, another great Saturday event at the Village Pub! Congratulations to Dmitry and the VP team for a wonderful time!

Here’s a photo I snapped of Dmitry in action:

Dmitry Elperin - Village Pub - Woodside, CA - Photo by Scott Loftesness

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Cooking Food and Drink

Some Simple Lessons from Village Pub

Today, Chris Gulker and I headed to Village Pub in Woodside for Chef Dmitry Elperin‘s cooking class on “Classic and Contemporary Cooking Techniques for Meat”. Eight of us spent a couple of hours in the Pub’s kitchen with Dmitry as we prepared Roast Chicken, Striped Bass, Leg of Lamb and accompanying vegetables – before sitting down to a wonderful lunch of what we had cooked!

IMG_2030-640x480.jpgDmitry started out simply seasoning the Leg of Lamb and getting it into the oven. Next, we prepared roasted eight chickens (Fulton Valley Farms “air chilled” free range, organic, etc.) – stuffed by each of us with different veggies and herbs. We roasted them on a variety of different settings – some veggies, etc.

The striped bass was also stuffed with some fresh veggies and herbs, lightly oiled and seasoned with salt and pepper, positioned on a rack of veggies – with fresh asparagus as an anchor. Dmitry also demonstrated a salt-crusted technique for one of the striped bass – egg whites and LOTS of kosher salt make a paste to seal in the fish for high heat roasting.

We had 3 wines to accompany lunch: Melville Chardonnay from the Santa Rita Hills near Santa Barbara, an Oregon Willamette Valley Pinot Noir from McKinlay, and a Mendoza region Malbec from Tomero. A special chocolate soufflé and an accompanying scoop of vanilla bean ice cream finished us all off!

What a way to spend a Saturday afternoon! Dmitry is a great teacher for these sessions – watching his easy flow as he led us through the prep was a delight. All of it was delicious – but that salt-crusted striped bass was especially great – light, great flavor, surprisingly unsalty – just wonderful! Another great lesson that a wonderful meal is mostly about using high quality ingredients simply prepared.

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Business Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Cooking HDR Photography Lily Living Menlo Park Photography

Grey Saturday Musings

Taking it easy on this grey, overcast and sorta chilly Saturday in Menlo Park. Grocery run this morning (Trader Joe’s, Draeger’s), a nice 0.6 mile walk with Lily, catching up with the morning papers, and now enjoying the aroma of the short ribs simmering on the stove! More about those short ribs coming soon over on Scott’s Kitchen!

Chris Gulker‘s mentioned Anne Knudsen to me on our morning walks. She’s a great Silicon Valley photographer friend of Chris – see her latest photo of him!

Don Neff forwarded a link to this article on Gizmodo: How To: Create Stunningly Realistic High Dynamic Range Photographs. See some of my earlier posts about shooting HDR on my Canon 40D. It’s been way too long – I need to carve out some time for another HDR shoot day sometime soon!

AIG sucks again. This story in tomorrow’s New York Times says they’ve got to pay out $100 MM in bonuses “to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year.” A chapter 11 filing would have forced a cram down on any “contractually obligated” bonuses. Who’s in charge of this circus, anyway?

Late tonight, the WSJ comes out with another story about AIG bonuses – it’s actually worse than it appears! This crap has to stop!