Politics and Peppercorns: The Best Meal I've Ever Cooked: Part 1 or "Screw you, NBC, I didn't want to be on your show anyway"

Three loads in the dishwasher and I'm STILL not done cleaning from Sunday night. Such is the result of Restaurant Weekend, a three-day cooking extravaganza that started with a stock and finished with a blow torch at the dinner table.

How does life get any better than this?

6 different dish options plus an amuse bouche--not to mention the fact that each of these were among the most complicated dishes I've ever attempted. 6 guests, plus me and the indispensable Alyse.

Twice. Welcome to Restaurant Weekend.

Alyse beat me to the punch on the full recap of the process behind each of the dishes, so I'll refer you to her most thorough of descriptions for the nitty gritty. She My post will focus instead on the inspiration behind each dish. Because for me, Restaurant Weekend started long before I actually got to work on each dish. The menu was the result of literally weeks of brainstorming, influence from existing recipes, experimentation, and a search for balance. And so we come to the menu.

First up was the amuse bouche. Alyse hit this nail on the head--my idea for the whole meal was a meal of contrasts in texture, flavor, nature. And the amuse bouche was to be that idea condensed into a couple of bites. I have to admit, I had never prepared nor eaten foie gras, so this recipe was a bit blind going in. I knew only that it was supposed to have the richness of the bone marrow I tried a few months ago. So I wanted a thick, crispy bread...almost like an oversized crouton...to balance the creaminess of the foie gras. To balance the richness, a fresh grape chutney of quartered white and red grapes, mustard seed, veal stock, port, and red onion. And to bring out the full flavor of the amuse, some orange and lemon zest and alderwood smoked sea salt.

Next up, the first two courses. I was particularly excited about the saffron scented parsnip soup with the butternut squash coulis. Since we ended up with no vegetarians, I decided the parsnip soup should get a chicken stock base. And I knew I was making a risotto later--I'd need lots of chicken stock for two days of meals. Only one good option.

I was going to make my own chicken stock.

We kept this one simple. I brought and quartered a whole chicken, used my trusty cleaver to split the bones into 2 inch long pieces, and simmered the bones away for a few hours while reserving the chicken meat for my own devious dinner purposes (nothing special, just some nuggets and and pan-roasted chicken breast). Later I added a white mirepoix of onion, celery, and parsnip along with some black peppercorns, salt, and bay leaves. An hour later, I strained the whole mixture and voila...enough chicken stock for the whole weekend.

The stock made its appearance in the parsnip soup after I had sauteed some shallots, carrots, and celery until they were soft. With this soup I thought a contrast in colors between the white, creamy parsnip and the rich, dark orange butternut squash would be both visually delightful and interesting the palette. And while the carrots and saffron made the parsnip soup a bit more orange than I had hoped, decreasing my color contrast, the taste was fantastic. Well balanced and velvet-smooth (the result of pushing the soup through my chinois), I wouldn't have changed much of anything about this satisfying, hearty soup.

The rest of the table got a composed salad of duck confit, escarole, butter lettuce, poached pear, dried cranberries, and toasted sunflower seeds. This salad was designed to be the very pinnacle of balance. The bitter escarole was balanced with the fresh, crispy butter lettuce. The poached pear balanced the rich, fatty duck confit. And the crunch sunflower seeds balanced the fruity explosion of the dried cranberries on the tongue. And they were all brought together by this genius honey-champagne vinaigrette that Alyse made that I'd like to take a bath in.