Symon Says

Happy Holidays to all!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday as much as me...friends, family AND three days off in a row, it just doesnt get any better than that!!!!

We had our big Xmas eve feast yesterday. Normally we do the seven fish and it is an all night party with family, friends and staff but this year we had a big brunch instead. Liz had the great idea to do brunch and although I was hesitant at first it worked out perfectly.

When we would do the seven fish bash it would ussually not end until about 5-6 in the morning. Between cooking fish for 60 people and cleaning up at 6 a.m. it made for a crazy long day and left us pretty wiped out for Xmas day.

Our brunch feast came out quite fabulous. Liz made her famous breakfast bread pudding with eggs, bacon, aged cheddar and scallions and some rocking coffee cake. I grilled up a whole mess of sausage including keilbasa, spicy italian, garlic bratwurst, country sausage and some chorizo. We also made some dips with pita chips and had some great cheeses from baricelli. Since I was running tight on time I made a stop at the Sausage Shoppe on Saturday and picked up some blood and tongue susage, some old style head cheese and smoked lieberwurst, all were incredible!!! Norm and company do such an amazing job. We also had a great ham some smoked salmon and a mess of pickled vegetables. What a feast!!!

The best part of this was that at 8:00 the party was winding down and Liz and I were in bed by MIDNIGHT!!
I think the pooches liked brunch better to since they definatelly prefer sausage and breakfast pudding to seafood....lol...They are still sleeping of the food coma as i type.

Next order of business is who won the contest...First off, everyone did a great job and some of your meals sounded fabulous but I had to go with Gynene..smoked pork fat drippings and toast!!!!! You know the way to my heart. I also loved how you were keeping up the traditions of your childhood (I've been thinking about my moms lasagna all week!!....lol)

Everyone have a great and safe Holiday season.....MS

G...please send me a email to lola@lolabistro.com with all your info, so I can send out you gift cards for the cooking classes!!!

Holiday contest

So I have an idea.

With the holidays closing in and everyone scrambling for gift ideas, I thought I would have a little contest.  Since all the cooking my classes at Lolita sold out in a day I am going to open up two spots in one of the classes (free of charge) to whomever makes me the hungriest while describing their plans for their holiday feast!!

You can write about what your going to eat or prepare, just make sure you make it juicy and tantalizing.  If your planning a big vegeterian feast you may want to make something up, since tofu has never made me hungry!!

Please make sure to include your email adress so i can contact you.  The cut off date will be Dec 22 and if you win I'll mail you out the giftcards for the class.

Happy Holidays,

MS

Food fabulous food

First off...I would like to thank all of you for your suggestions about the blog. It will really help me set up the blog to be enjoyable for me and a great place for all you to get recipes, some advice and a couple stories.
I am currently out west for a couple of days doing my yearly holiday tour for Calphalon. I have been their chef spokesman for the past 10 years and typically spend a couple days around holiday time traveling and doing some demos and tv for them.
The trip started in LA and as luck would have it my good pal J Waxman was in town doing a book tour so we had a great lunch together at Pizzaria Mozza. Mozza is a great new restaurant courtesy of Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali. This is truly my kind of joint, casual and deliscious without a bit of pretense. We were lucky enough to be joined by Ruth Reichel and Nancy and just had an outstanding meal. We started with a bunch of antipasta including white beans al forno, meatballs with crostini, chicken livers bruchette with guanciale and brussels sprouts with foccaccia bread crumbs. We then moved into some outstanding pizzas incliding one with egg, guanciale and radicchio, a fennel sausage number and a wonderful anchovie pie with rosemary. Great meal with great people, nothing is better!! I also had a great meeting with some people with Jay Leno and it looks like I may be doing a segment after the writer strike is over, which is very exciting.
That evening I headed to San Fran where I was joined by Liz and continued the eating frenzy. In two days we have eaten at Hog Island Oyster bar, Chez Panise, Incanto, Bar Jules, Slanted Door, Jardineire and Zuni. All the food has been amazing and I am insanely full. Here are some of the highlights. Chris just killed us at Incanto with tuna meatballs, cod sperm crostini, linguini with grated cured tuna heart, seared duck liver with braised duck tongues, a pork liver and kidney pie, roasted pig head wrapped in bacon, roasted lamb neck with salsa verde, and fried tuna "ribs" with chile and mint. Boy I'll tell you Chris can really cook and his food is just loaded with soul and flavor. At Slanted Door we also ran the gamet with some raw yellowtail, oysters, cellophane noodles, whole roasted branzino and some killer wilted pea shoots. Zuni and Chez were just classic wonderful California cuisine. Perfect preperation of beautiful ingredients. Simple and deliscious..what more can u ask for. Bar Jules is a new little place that i highly recomend with a tiny chalkboard menu that changes daily and is super fresh and spot on. We are heading to Jardineire in a couple minutes which I am very excited about. Traci is one of the greatest chefs in the country and I dont know what I love more...her or her food.
The bonus of traveling is getting to see so many different chefs in action and try all their great food. It is a great way to learn and to stay inspired and I highly recommend it to any young cooks and chefs. You should never stop learning and travel is a great way to do that. Its not always easy to do and certainly isnt cheap but I feel it is a absolute must and an important part of growing as a chef.

Live to cook....how bout dem Browns, MS

What would you like to see?

Hi everyone,

It's been a little since my last blog...but it's been a crazy couple of weeks.  To make this site as user friendly as possible I'd like to hear what you would like to see most on it...stories, recipes, life in the biz etc.  Here are a couple of the things I am thinking about including, please tell me what you think.  A recipe request box, some links to my favorite places and things, some running stories about lola, lolita and iron chef and a general question box.

I read over some of the comments and questions about the thanksgiving recipes...so from here on in i will suggest pans, reheating methods etc.  Here are some answers to some of the questions. As far as cast iron goes i love it but mainly for cooking proteins and never for sauce work or anything that contains acid..i would recomend a stainless pan for those preperations.  Also all of the recipes were intended to be served immediately which I should have mentioned earlier and will in the future.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and Go  Browns!!!!   

Live to cook,

MS