I have been putting this off for awhile now. Between getting the coffee shop ready to open back in September and the daily grind of it (HAHA) I have not had much time for blogging,let alone putting together a video. With today being Veterans Day,the Air Force was off for the day and therefore 90% of my sales were on vacation so I had the day off as well. This video shows pretty much the whole evening of the ArtSpace dinner and should give you a pretty good idea of how the night went. This was such a great experience and I was fortunate that they gave me a shot at doing it. The night went pretty well but as always there was room for improvement.
Some of the things I would have done differently/changed/or added:
- Printed menus with my logo to hand out to the guests to take home
- Have an additional cheese to add to the cheese course
- A “surprise” course not on the menu – just did not have enough time for this
- The dessert : because of the heat and humidity it did not set up and became almost impossible to plate. Everyone said they enjoyed it though.
- Goodie bags for the guests to take home – I had some really good ideas just messed up the timing therefore they were shelved.
- Logo’ed t-shirts for myself and my crew.
All in all it was really fun and went by extremely fast. I had originally signed up to do one of these dinners again in early 2011 but ArtSpace has gone through some changes and is in the process of revamping this program. I let the director know my continued interest in this as well as any other culinary programs they might do in the future so I will keep you updated when I find out anything.
I have to give thanks to everyone who made this night possible : ArtSpace, Michael Chisum, my lovely wife Ann, Connor “mini-me” O’Boyle, Liz Beattie,Robin Rice and Jaimee “Pony Thief” Rice and of course all my guests who dined with us that night…….it truly was special.
The audio in the beginning when the Culinary Director (Michael Chisum at the time) is speaking is kind of low so you may have to turn your speakers up but after that watch the volume because the rest is okay.
ArtSpace – Someone’s in the Kitchen Dinner 8-10-2010 from Michael O'Boyle on Vimeo.
For the cheese course I had originally wanted to have an assortment of cheeses and preparations but as usual with the scope of the whole dinner and what all I was trying to accomplish I had to trim down the “wants” of each of my courses. When we went shopping for the meal in addition to the Brie I purchased some Gran Padano a Parmesan like cheese. I meant for this crumbly type cheese to be served alongside the brie with a few sprinkles of freshly ground black pepper. If I were on Bravo’s Top Chef the camera would have shown this cheese sitting on the shelf of my fridge while I walked out of the house 
For the Brie,I just let it soften then tossed it in a standmixer and whipped it till it was the consistency of a soft butter. The popcorn cracker was made by placing popcorn in a food processor and finely chopping it,picked out the hard shell pieces and added to a basic cracker recipe. The balsamic was just balsamic vinegar reduced down to a syrup like consistency.
As for the fig, you would think “hey,we are in Louisiana,it’s August – we have to have figs” well yes and no,try finding a fresh black mission fig around North Louisiana and it is near impossible. This little beauty was bought in Dallas,TX.
In addition to adding more cheese with different preparations for the next time I do a dinner I will also attempt to make my own Slate Cheese Boards. Awhile back my FBF ( food blog friend) David of Eat Foo did a post on how to make these at home,check it out HERE when you get a chance
This course halfway turned out like I originally envisioned it. The pork belly turned out perfect, the bbq sauce I can make in my sleep nowadays,onion sprouts – well not much to screw up there. The corn and ricotta gnocchi is where things veered off course a bit.
My original idea was to have an all ricotta gnocchi, no eggs, no flour. I had read on Ideas in Food that they used a binding agent called Activa YG which is specifically for dairy applications. I contacted the supplier and they graciously supplied me with a few samples. I made a test batch a few weeks before the dinner using 1% Activa YG and 99% drained whole milk ricotta. These worked out pretty good so I felt fairly confident about the ones I would make for the dinner. Well about an hour before the dinner was supposed to start I decided to test a few of the gnocchi. As soon as I put them in the water they basically just fell apart and I was left with a pot of ricotta water. They just would not hold their shape, they were super delicate. Not that I wanted to, but Iended up adding some flour and egg yolks to bind them together. I cooked these then tossed them in a saute pan to lightly brown on one side. They were tasty just not what I had originally envisioned.
The rest of the course consisted of my Ancho Bacon BBQ sauce, Beer Braised Pork Belly, a Corn sauce to top the gnocchi and finally some onion sprouts. I had brought along some corn nuts that I ground up to add texture to the dish but in the haste of plating for the crowd they were forgotten about.
If I could have done anything different I would have liked to change the gnocchi to be smaller and more uniform in size as well as lighten up the corn sauce and clean up/tighten the plating. Also we had a whole tray of pieces of Pork Belly that I had trimmed off the ones we served. My whole crew used this as snacks throughout the dinner, some more than others 
This was one of those courses that I knew I wanted to do but was not sure of the execution let alone find all the ingredients. It is meant to clear the palate after the strong tastes of the previous course and prepare it for the next course without leaving any lingering flavors.
In the past two years I was able to find passion fruit nectar at a local store that usually sells “hard to find” ingredients in this area and in this area most stuff is “hard to find”, but lately it is nowhere to be found. We traveled to Dallas the weekend before the dinner to source some of the “hard to find” and “better quality” ingredients for the meal. I was pretty confident I would find everything I needed with the selection of all the gourmet and ethnic stores in the area. Dallas is about a 3 hour trip from here and we probably spend at least three hours driving around Dallas and the surrounding cities visiting the different stores. To say the Dallas area is spread out is an understatement.
The inspiration for this dessert came from past recipes in working with passionfruit and how it can act as a palate cleanser. The idea for the “dry” ice cream came from a book called Coco. They used different ingredients but the concept was similar.
I was hoping I would be able to find Passion Fruit Nectar in Dallas at one of the ethnic markets, Whole Foods or Central Market (which kicks Whole Foods butt) but the only thing I was able to find was a passionfruit/mango nectar at an Asian Supermarket called Super H. Super H is like an Asian Wal Mart, I forget how I heard about it but I am pretty sure it was on the E-Gullet Forums. It is located in Denton which is north of Dallas right off one of the major freeways that circle the area. They always have a nice selection of fresh seafood and prepared foods as well as an interesting selection of produce. The nectar was in 12 oz cans so I bought like 15 of them.
The preparation was just making a basic gelee, letting it set, then cutting with a small cookie cutter to about the size of a scallop. The “dry Ice Cream” was an equal mixture of Coconut Cream Powder, Powdered Sugar and Tapioca Maltodextrin.
I was hesitant about this dish working out but luckily it worked exactly how I thought it would.
The next course in my ArtSpace Dinner was a Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup with Lemongrass Smoked Crab. Originally I wanted to split King Crab Legs and grill them with a lemongrass butter but this method and product was cost prohibitive. I ended up using a mixture of mainly Lump Crabmeat and supplemented with Claw meat from the Crab as well. To get the lemongrass flavor I split fresh lemongrass down the middle and dehydrated it. I used the dehydrated lemongrass to cold smoke the crab meat since I did not want it to cook.
Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup,Cucumber, Pickled Yellow Tomatoes, Lemongrass Smoked Crab & Micro Cilantro
The soup is something I have done in the past just not the technique I was attempting to pull off this time. I basically made a gazpacho type dish but I minimized the amount of cucumber I used. The soup was fairly chunky even after passing thru the food processor. I took about a 1/3 of the soup and finely strained it and added to an ISI whip canister. I charged the ISI with two N2O charges and chilled it.
For plating, I had this idea in my head to use a “rocks” glass but one that tapered as it went up. Luckily here in Shreveport we have a Libbey Glass Manufacturing facility as well as a store on site. I found the glasses I needed and bought as many as I could.
At the bottom of the glass we placed a generous portion of the crab mixture, topped with finely diced cucumber and pickled yellow tomatoes. On top of this mixture was ladled the non-strained chilled yellow tomato soup about 1/3 of the way up the glass. After that it was topped with the “foamed” Yellow Tomato soup from the ISI canister. The soup was then garnished with a few sprigs of micro-cilantro. This is a dish that I have done time and time again and feel pretty confident about the flavors. It is bold yet refreshing and has a lightness about it without taking away from the basic flavors.
This past Tuesday, August 10th, I did for my first of hopefully more dinner events at ArtSpace here in Shreveport. ArtSpace is located in downtown Shreveport and is housed in one of the many old buildings that make up the downtown area. I want to call it an art museum but it is so much more than that. There are about 4 levels that make up the whole space with the mezzanine holding a small kitchen and eating space. The ArtSpace Cafe is open for lunch and they just starting this Sunday to have a Jazz Brunch.
Once a month they hold a “Someone’s in the Kitchen” event where a guest chef comes in and prepares a fixed menu that is paired with wine for $65 a person. Back in early spring I received an email inviting me to one of these events and i thought to myself ”I could do one of these” . I emailed the culinary director stating who I was, what I wanted to do, that I do not have a restaurant nor any formal training but to look at my website and give me a shot. It took awhile to get a response but once I did the ball started rolling on being able to host one.
I wanted to do a menu that people would understand and find approachable but when delivered on a plate,it would be something a little different and unexpected (in a good way )
You can download the full menu HERE : Artspace Menu
I started off with an Amuse Bouche of a pork rind topped with Tuna Tartare, Pickled White Peach & Chives. I made the pork rind from the skin of the Pork Bellies I was preparing as an entree. This was the second time I have made Pork Rinds and it can still be a tricky process. I fried them the day of the event and I think I lost 10lbs just by standing over the fryer in this lovely 110 degrees Louisiana heat. I had originally wanted to place a thin slice of Lardo (from Cochon Butcher – Thanks Blake) between the fried pork skin and the tuna but the pork skin still had a pretty meaty fatty quality to it. The tuna itself was just finely chopped and left unseasoned.
I got the idea to make pickled peaches from Shola of Studio Kitchen and his upcoming Restaurant SPECK. I deviated from his recipe on the spices and instead used Togarashi, a japanese spice. The peaches I picked up were White Peaches since the usual yellow were too soft and would not hold up to the pickling process. I topped everything off with chopped chives.
Up Next : Chilled Yellow Tomato Soup with Lemongrass smoked Crab