Georges Bank just opened this past Sunday night at midnight.  The first to arrive at the docks, the day boats returned with fresh, beautiful fish making the catch immediately available to all eateries and grocers by early morning.  I received a faxed list overflowing with seafood. 

Georges Bank is located east of Cape Cod and south of Nova Scotia.  This underwater plateau is larger than the state of Massachusetts, has depths ranging from very shallow to 150 feet.  The entire area was once part of the North American land mass.  It is now one of the richest marine habitats, spawning grounds and fisheries in the world.

The United States controls 80% of Georges Bank and Canada 20%.  The search for oil and natural gas in Georges Bank has been a hot topic in both countries.  The US has warring parties concerning the future of the area as well as Nova Scotia who is positioning itself to remove the current moratorium in place in Canadian waters. 

This amazing region brings to our tables Flounder, Cod, Haddock, Herring, Scallops, Lobster, Clams and more.  The harvest quota for each species is strictly regulated due to the collapse of the region’s fish populations in the 90’s because of  over fishing and commercial bottom trawlers.  It has been said that the trawlers are the ocean equivalent of clear cutting in forests.

But we can be an educated consumer.  Get your grills out, make your compound butters and go buy some great fish while they are in season.  Just be aware of the topic, the history and especially the future.

We make all the soups served at Rockhill Bakehouse Café located in downtown Glens Falls.  I am completely in love with ALL of their amazing breads so I consider it an honor to create soups that will be accompanied by thick pieces of buttered Jalapeño Cheddar or Pane Bello Breads.

When ordering from the list of 72 soups that we offer, Rockhill has the choice of one called the Chef’s Choice.  This is a soup that reflects what ingredients are in season and in house at the time.  Today, I am making one and I thought I would write the recipe down for everyone as I make it.

My three main ingredients will be Smoked Turkey, Zucchinis and Tomatoes.  And on we go……..

·         First, I simmer turkey bones/carcasses in water that I save from roasting turkeys.  I just began the process and this will take about two hours for a nice broth to form.

·         I’m dicing lots of onion, zucchini and tomatoes that I will sauté in olive oil.  I want this to be rich in veggies so don’t be afraid to bulk it up.

·         I’ve decided to add minced garlic to the soup.  It is so hard for me to walk past the garlic and not throw it in soups.  And………..I’m going to add carrots.  They offer beautiful color and add great flavor and, ok, they are very good for you.

·         I’ve just strained the broth and it smells amazing.   Rich yet light.

·         I’m adding the broth and all the sauteed veggies together in a soup pot.

·         Let’s add some basil, a little oregano and a bit of crushed red pepper flakes.   Add the pepper flakes to your liking but try to put enough in to give the soup interest without being hot.  I’m now adding kosher salt and some black pepper.  I’m going to add some garbanzo beans here.  It will give the soup body and texture.

·         And I’m now letting it simmer for 45 minutes or so.

·         At this point I’m going to dice the smoked turkey small, add it to the soup and allow it to simmer another 30 minutes.  If you like your turkey to stay in nice little chunks you can certainly simmer it for five or so minutes but I like my turkey to break down just a bit especially since it’s smoked and I want some of that flavor to infuse into the broth. 

·         After tasting the soup I’ve decided I want a stronger smoke flavor.  Now, there are good and there are bad liquid smokes.  Good Liquid Smoke is made with a distillation process. 

·         I’m going to add some good Liquid Smoke a tiny bit at a time until the soup is where I want it to be on the smoke scale. 

       And there it is!  Just what I was looking for and it’s yummy.  Add some aioli on top with some fresh basil leaves. 

If you want to try some you’ll have to visit Rockhill  Bakehouse Café this week or make it yourself!

It was the first gorgeous Saturday evening of 2009.  The breeze was light and warm.  The sidewalks were still warm from the day of sun.  We were catering in the downtown center of Glens Falls where beautiful old warehouses and factories are being restored and filled with flourishing businesses focused on moving into this new century with style and global awareness.  The area can only be described as “the village”, hip and full of energy.

Now and then I like to bring new items to events just to turn people on to them.  Only arriving earlier that day was my newest item, Black Lava Sea Salt from the Hawaiian Islands.  It is a glossy, beautiful black and the crystals are a smidge smaller than the French Sel Gris.  The salt is a blend of harvested sea salt and purified volcano charcoal.  This salt is evaporated in above ground pools that are formed naturally from lava flows. The striking color and smoky flavor overtones make it a perfect finishing salt.  The salt is rich in trace minerals and the charcoal offers detoxifying benefits. 

I served it sprinkled on mini lamb and chicken gyros on that perfect spring evening and the black speckles looked just great on the Tzatziki sauce. 

If you’d like to try some of this amazing salt I found a website that offers it and many other types of salt.  I, myself, cannot have enough salts.  They don’t say “salt is the spice of life” for nothing.

Hawaiian Black Sea Salt

This past weekend we catered an Open House for Mannix Marketing owned by Sara Mannix.  They just moved into a gorgeous 3^rd floor spread in downtown Glens Falls, NY.  The building seems to be an old factory and boasts beautiful, wide-plank wood floors, lots of large windows and a soaring ceiling.  For some views check out these pics:

 Pictures of the new Mannix Marketing Offices

We were there to welcome the almost 200 Open House attendees.  We filled a 16 foot table with all sorts of noshing foods including Artichoke and Pancetta Antipasti, various thin-crust galettes like Shitake Mushroom with Gruyere Cheese, Potato Gnocchi in a rich Truffle Sauce and some of our very popular dessert shooters like Mango and Lime Custard Parfaits.  We also put out quite a few cheeses. 

Now, Michael and I are very into cheese.  We anticipate the arrival of new cheeses like some people await a baby.  One of the cheeses we featured was a blue cheese from Spain.  It’s a raw cow’s milk blue named Valdeon.  It comes wrapped in huge Sycamore leaves and weighs approximately five pounds.  This cheese is creamy and mellow yet intense and complex.  I think I’m in love and I’ll be keeping this one around for a while.

You have to check out this beautiful, tasty cheese:  Valdeon Cheese

One of our corporate clients is having a training session next month and wanted to do something fun and different for the catering portion.  Baseball and  spring training came to mind.  As it turns out the corporate client is a huge fan and asked us to “just come up with something”.  Michael, my partner, put together a ballpark menu that will make anyone want to hear the crack of bats but the jewel for the event will be the dogs.  Not just any dogs but the Official Dog of the World Series Champions, the Philadelphia Phillies who wrapped up the title in five games.  Our client was thrilled. 

Hatfield generously helped us out by making a special shipment.  We’ll be serving them with all the fixings in hopes that a baseball game might break out.  The Phillies are very proud of their hotdog.  If you haven’t seen the video for their fascinating invention, the Hotdog Launcher, you need to check out this video.  It’s great! 

The Phillies’ Hotdog Launcher  

Since we serve many, many hotdogs in our Adirondack BBQ catering company, Michael and I decided to carry the Phillies’ dog for the entire year.  It certainly has a good story.  We even took it a step further and are considering using the official hotdog of each World Series Champion every year.  We will be ‘following the dog’ through the years.  The Series has a new meaning for us now.

It shouldn’t take pinched food budgets to promote an interest in simple foods.  When it comes to the meals you make your family think of all the amazing foods the lower working classes of the world have made for their families.  Salads like Italian panzenella, Indian and Thai curries, Irish boiled meat and potatoes, amazing soups and stews like Vietnamese pho, American pot roast, German Sauerkraut, Spanish American Beans and Rice and so many more.A couple of quotes for thought:

I’m in Kissimmee, Florida for my daughter’s college graduation!  It’s been quite cold.  But I went to the local farmer’s market anyway to see who was braving the 40F weather.  It did freeze and the oranges did get frosted in areas but the farmer’s fought back by spraying the orange groves with water to coat the fruit and hopefully keep it from freezing. The farmer’s market turned out to be great.  I bought sweet onions with the green tops on, ya pears, red naval oranges, honey bell tangerines, ruby grapefruits, 100s tomatoes so tiny and sweet we couldn’t't stop eating them, Florida avocados so big they rivaled cantaloupes and many other fruits and veggies.  I found a baker selling his wares at a booth.  I bought pineapple banana bread and apple spiced bread.  They were great so I made little tea sandwiches with them.  I’ll be returning to the great Northeast soon but right now I’ll peel my way through as many citrus as possible. 

We are very familiar with busy weekends but this one was a little different.

First, Friday ran into Saturday as we produced and served 40 gallons of Roasted Salmon Chipotle Chowder at the very popular Chowderfest put on by Experience Saratoga.  That translates into just shy of 1100 servings.  

Then, I spoke at the popular and most beautiful “Well Wed” Bridal Show (check out their magazine featuring Upstate NY) at the Canfield Casino on the subject of “Green Weddings”.  I talked about the farmers I use and why it’s important to use local producers and small producers world-wide.

On Sunday we woke up very early to begin a day of sub making.  That’s right….deli subs.  These are not on our usual fare but we have dedicated ourselves to helping out a new troop of Boy Scouts, Troop #46, who decided to break off a very large troop.  Our first venture together was a Super Bowl Sub Sale.  The Scouts hit the pavement and took orders for freshly made subs delivered to them on Super Bowl Sunday.  They did quite well in sales.  We kept 30% to cover food cost and we donated the labor to produce them.  I spent four hours on the slicer!  So they have 70% of their sales to spend on some much needed camping equipment!  Our next event with this troop will be a Chicken BBQ this spring or summer.

And if that was not enough, we also produce a lot of wholesale soups for Rockhill Bakehouse in Glens Falls.  68 gallons this week!  If you haven’t eaten at their cafe in downtown Glens Falls you need to stop in.  The sandwiches are all served on their amazing bread.  My favorite?  Curried Chicken Salad with artichoke hearts and then grilled on a Panini grill!!!  And they have great soup.  

While I did watch all the events of this historic Inauguration Day, I also paid attention to the caterers of the Day.  There were many in Washington and we received some feedback from two.

One of the caterers, Ridgewells Catering of Washington, DC, had the privilege of catering one of the evening galas.  With an expected attendance of 10,000, they offered some insight into the impressive food quantities their team had prepared. “We’re preparing 95 gallons of guacamole, 400 pounds of crudites and we’ll be serving 200,000 pieces of dessert.”

Occasions Caterers, also of Washington DC and also involved in catering of the day, expected a long day with events running non-stop. Communications Manager, Davielle Shevitz was quoted as saying, “We’ll definitely be busy.  The biggest challenge of the entire day is logistics, especially relating to security. Our trucks have to stay overnight inside the security zone, so we have to be really aware of the perishability of our food and as a result prepare food that keeps well.”

Events of this nature and scale are a good opportunity for reflection.  According to Ridgewells, “We’re grateful to be here in the nation’s capital and grateful to have these events. Just grateful all-around.”     

Four times a year Black Diamond Caterers opens its “doors” to potential clients to come and eat.  For the last two years we’ve held our tastings at The Batcheller Mansion here in Saratoga Springs.  Touring this amazing Inn is reason alone to attend.  With its incredibly perfect Victorian charm, the inn lends itself nicely to our quarterly tastings. 

Scheduled for Sunday, January 25, I’m not sure of everything I’m making for foods but I have some ideas.  What I like about these tastings as opposed to private tastings for clients is I can make many more foods and a much wider variety.  

One of the foods I know I will be making is our Italian Presentation available off our “Signature Hors d’Oeuvre Reception” menu page.  It’s filled with an Artichoke and Pancetta Antipasti, Gnocchi with Truffle Sauce, Shaved 24 month aged Parmesan Reggiano drizzled with the most incredible Chestnut Honey from Umbria (yum!), assorted Salumi, Fennel and Lemon Olives, my own Tapenade and my own Cannelloni spread (which I eat by tearing bread off and swiping big scoops) and lastly, my Goat Cheese and Pesto Torta.   

Now……. aren’t you hungry?  If you are in the market for a caterer, click on “Contact Us” for all the information and we’ll welcome you with open arms, a prosecco and some Torta!