Cooking with Herbs Demonstration

I invite you to come see me demonstrate Cooking with Herbs at Blandy Farm, the State Arboretum of Virginia, in Clarke County on Sunday the 11th of October at 2pm. The demonstration is free and I will be providing samples. For more information, click over to the restaurant web site.

Craziness

Many of you know that I'm willing to take on some crazy challenges. My latest is a fundraiser on Thursday September, 24th (already all sold out) for the benefit of Preserve Frederick in conjunction with the Piedmont Environmental Council which will use the funds to publish next year's edition of the Buy Fresh-Buy Local guide, a listing of sources for local agricultural products for use by us chefs and the general public. It also lists restaurants with a commitment to local products and that's where One Block West comes in.

Starting yesterday morning, local farmers started dropping off vegetables and proteins here at the restaurant and more items will come in today and tomorrow. My challenge is to feed 60+ people a delightful menu on Thursday from items, many of which I haven't even seen and don't even know about yet. Crazy? Just slightly, but my cooks and I will carry it off.

Stay tuned later this week for the menu that evolves from this lunacy. So far, we have the following items to work with:

apples
yellow squash
green peppers, yellow peppers, red peppers, Habañeros
butternut squash
beets
pole beans
leeks
cherry tomatoes and regular tomatoes
corn
salad greens
potatoes
leg of lamb
natural chicken
pork shoulder
various cuts of Angus beef

Thanks to the following farmers for their kind support of this event:

Echo Ridge Farm
Freight Station Farmers Market
Hardin Natural Chicken
Hedgebrook Farm
Linda's Mercantile
Marker-Miller Orchards
North Branch Farm
Richard's Fruit Market
Virginia Lamb

Bird Eggs & Blogs

Way back in August of last year, a lone woman came into the restaurant on a Friday night and proceded to order her way through the menu. Only after she was finished with her dinner did she introduce herself to me as Christina Ball of Virginia Living magazine.

What came out of that visit is an extremely well written article about the restaurant entitled "Bird Eggs & Blogs" that appears in the April 2009 edition of the magazine. I really do enjoy this magazine and I'm not saying that just because they had something nice to say about the restaurant; I've been getting the magazine for many, many years.

Mardi Gras Dinner

We're offering a 4-course prix fixe dinner celebrating Mardi Gras on Tuesday, February 24. We'll offer both the $37.50 prix fixe dinner and our normal à la carte menu. The Mardi Gras menu is:

Duck and Andouille Gumbo
Shrimp Rémoulade
Grillades and Grits
King Cake

Come join us! Reservations: 540-662-1455 or on-line.

Shad Roe is Here

I wrote last year that I hadn't seen shad roe any earlier than the 12th, yet I had them arrive on the 5th this year in 15F weather, no less! Six sets for your degustatory pleasure; call to reserve yours now. 540-662-1455.

Guinea Hen

Tonight, local guinea hens begin their run on the menu, until they are exhausted. I have 16 hens from Haskins Family Farm in Middletown, Virginia. Photo courtesy of JoePhoto from flickr.com.

Chefs love guinea hen because they're small enough (about two pounds) to roast and they don't tend to dry out as do pheasants, which is very important for restaurant service. They're also really versatile birds; anything you can do with chicken, you can do with guinea. Customers love guinea hens because they taste more chickeny than chicken. Ask my kids about guinea, if you have any doubt.

Domesticated from birds in the pheasant family that call west Africa home, the average guinea is a good looking black bird with tiny white circular spots all over, making it look silver from a distance.

They're kind of fun to have wandering around the yard—they're hell on bugs—but they have an idiot cackle that can drive you nuts after a while. That cackle makes them pretty reasonable watch animals, though. Nobody surprises you if you have guineas around. But, if you've ever tried to move a flock of them out of the way so that you could move your truck, you'd know they aren't the brightest of creatures.

Here's your daily dose of trivia: a young guinea is called a keet.

Bob and Mary Haskins sell their products including eggs, chickens, guineas, and Berkshire pork at various locations including the farmers market on the Old Town Mall in Winchester on Saturday mornings. You can reach them at info@haskinsfamilyfarm.com.

Calling All Oyster Fans!

I have just heard about a way that you home chefs and oyster lovers can win 4 dozen oysters from Marx Foods. To sweeten the deal, if the winner is one of my customers, I'll shuck the oysters!

Marx Foods is offering live oysters from Puget Sound, a dozen each of Pacific, Kumamoto, Virginica, and Olympia oysters to be delivered at the winner's convenience up until the New Year. While we have some fabulous east coast oysters (Virginia's own Chincoteagues from Tom's Cove are briny amazing, if a bit fragile to shuck), the Pacific Northwest is home to some equally wonderful oysters such as the tiny Olympias and the small Kumamotos. If you love oysters and have never tasted these oysters, put it on your must-do list.

To win, all you need to do is to post a comment between now and October the 19th on the Marx Foods blog stating what you would do with the oysters if you won. That's not so hard is it?

Well, in my case, it might be. First, I'm a professional chef, so I won't be getting involved in a contest aimed at home chefs, but second, my comment would involve a bottle of Dom Pérignon and several X-rated details that wouldn't be fit for publication. ;)

The blog readers will vote on the winning entry between the 20th and the 24th of October. I'm guessing that the winning comment will not involve cooking the oysters. That's just my hunch as an oyster lover. Why waste a perfectly good live oyster by cooking it?

Disclaimer: I buy from the wholesale company of which Marx Foods is the retail arm. I came across this contest on their web site. I get nothing out of this. I just thought it would be fun to see some of my customers enter the contest and perhaps win.

Vacation Reminder

This is a reminder that we are closed the week of August 17th for our annual holiday. We will reopen for lunch on August 26th at 11:00am.

It's been an entire year since our last vacation and I am really looking forward to it! I need some down time, to get out of confines of the four walls of my restaurant, to actually leave the city limits of Winchester, to sleep past 7 in the morning, to spend more than five minutes in a fleeting conversation with my wife, to eat in other restaurants where some chef other than me is worrying about the menu, to watch my first movie in a year, to read a book for longer than two minutes, to splash water on my kids in the swimming pool, to actually browse some of those food and wine magazines that decorate our bar, to sit down to a meal, and finally dear customers, to have an entire week without seeing any of your smiling faces!

I may blog from the road, but I also reserve the right not to! I'm definitely not taking the laptop with me.

Dinner with Chef Ed

Want to be invited to dinner at my house on Sunday the 21st of September? A bunch of my friends are coming to dinner then and you can join them.

Update September 22, 2008: View the menu here.

Each time you eat dinner at One Block West between now and September 13th, you can enter your name into our random drawing to be held on the 13th.

The format of the dinner is mystery basket. Each couple that attends the dinner will bring three or four ingredients and using the total collection of ingredients, I will make dinner. I'll supply the primary proteins and the wine. I guarantee that it will be a lot of fun.

Come down to the restaurant and enter the drawing today!

Fine Print

You must dine with us to participate.
Limited to customers of legal drinking age.
Your odds of winning depend on the number of entrants and the number of times you dine with us during the contest period.
The sole prize is limited to dinner for two on September 21, 2008.
The prize is non-transferable.
If the winner cannot attend, we will redraw for another winner.