We Eat With Our Eyes

What is old SNL line? It is better to look good than to feel good. Great chefs and great hosts know that people eat with their eyes and it is very important to make an attractive presentation.

SNL Better to look good than to feel good

What gets both fine dining restaurants their Michelin stars and wine group gathering a success? It is the small things. To get a Michelin star (or 3) has become the holy grail for chefs. As a host of a wine group gathering, you certainly don’t need to obsess over details the way chefs at a 3 star restaurant would, but you can certainly learn a lesson or two.

One of the major revelations after touring wonderful restaurants in Europe is how well they do the small things. Plating can be a work of art. The minute details are designed and arranged to please the eye. It is a fact that we all eat with our eyes. The better chefs know how to leverage this fact.

The tricks developed to dress a plate at a restaurant with stars in the Michelin Guide were impressive. The chef used micro-planed tender young zucchini to dress the plate. He/She seared cheese into lace like heart shapes. Sauces were painted on the plate to add flavor and presentation impact. Pictures do not do justice to the beauty of the presentation. One can almost feel guilty eating.

(Note the Micro – planed zucchini, truffle shavings and lemon zest)

(Note the seared cheese in heart shapes)

The level of service is also impeccable. Chances are that you won’t have just one waiter, but rather a team of highly trained professionals making your meal most enjoyable. Their will be a maître d’, a waiter, a sommelier, a water/silverware guy and a server. All of them are very knowledgeable and well trained. The attention to detail is amazing.

We ate at Alain Ducasse’s La Bastide de Moustiers. Ducasse has restaurants around the globe and has amassed an amazing 21 Michelin stars. He has stated that his goal at La Bastide de Moustiers is not Michelin stars, but rather to serve the food he likes in a relaxed atmosphere. We were served imaginative food, by friendly people in a relaxed atmosphere. What more could one ask for?

(How could you not enjoy a meal in this type of setting)

Inevitably, one thing that is not small at restaurants with Michelin stars is the bill. Here is where supper clubs kick in. Learn the small things that made your meal at the restaurant with Michelin stars special and apply them to your next wine group gathering.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

The Secret Sauce

This is a do-over from a blog from February 2020. Boy did our world change over the following year. As the world starts to get vaccinated let’s hope it isn’t too long before we can get the Secret Sauce working again.

For me, the Secret Sauce is getting together with good friends with good food and good wine. When you can get those three together, you are sure to have a great time.

We had a great sauce (see recipe below) and the Secret Sauce working in February 2020. Lucien and Ela Vendome visited Memphis from Poland and we took advantage of the opportunity to reconnect with a few old friends from Kraft Food Ingredients. Lucien Vendome, Mike Taylor, Jody Driver, Pam Gray and I got together along with our significant others. It was a perfect forum to tell a few of our favorite stories:

Mike Taylor, Lucien and I were driving from Frankfort Germany to Reims France several years ago. I am driving and struggling to stay awake. To keep a conversation going, I asked my car-mates to describe what their mothers cooked for meals on a daily basis.

Lucien growing up in the south of France, started with: The day would begin with a baguette and confiture…

Mike growing up in east Texas, started with: We had beans and then we had beans and if times were really good we had beans and tamales…

As the French would say “Viva La Difference!”

Jody Driver and I were at the IFT trade show quite awhile back. Jody did a masterful job of managing and enormous enterprise-wide effort. One year I can remember her being 9 months pregnant with her son Gregory (Now 25) and sneaking off to a quiet corner of the booth to sing Happy Birthday to her then 3-year-old daughter Lindsey.

Pam Gray was always our style guru. Back in the day when Manolo Blahnik shoes were all the rage, Mike Strauch and I would have an annual over/under bet on how many pairs of shoes Pam would bring to the week-long IFT event.

The over/under was 12 and the safe bet was the over

The KFI Team back in the day

The meal we had Thursday night was a lot of fun. The old joke is: How do you cook for a world renown French Chef…You let them cook. Lucien and I have been cooking together for years. When it comes to sauces, he is the master and our meal this week was All About The Sauce!

Le Menu

Entrée

Citrus Melon Napoléon

Le Plat Principal

Rack of Lamb Provençal
Pommes Frites
Haricot Verts

La Sauce

Roasted Garlic a la Vendome

Dessert

Peach Cobbler A La Mode with Raspberries

(Note: Citrus, Melon Napoleon)

Le Plat Principal – Rack of Lamb, Pommes Frites and Haricot Verts

Lucien and I doing the “Culinary Shuffle”

The KFI Alumnus…Pam, Jody Lucien, Mike & Paul

Click here to watch the Culinary Master At Work

Roasted Garlic Sauce A La Vendome

Lucien called it a simple sauce. I counted over 15 ingredients and close to 7 processes. Of course, for Lucien it was simple, but the flavor was amazingly complex. By layering in flavor with:

Sautéing the mirepoix with herbs
Reducing the stock, wine and base with tomato paste
Roasting the garlic
Sautéing the shallots
Adding the roux
Condensing with immersion blender
Top noting with mustard and butter

The lesson is that with repetition, even the most complex task becomes simple. The sauce was magical and the evening, with its Special Sauce was memorable

Bread! Bread! They Cried And The Curtain Came Down With A Roll!

Apologies for the old joke. It was one of my father’s lines. I just couldn’t help myself. When I would go work with dad as a kid, many would comment how much I looked like my father and he would say: “We all have a cross to bear”. If he only knew…

With the pandemic, it is really easy to get frustrated on what we CAN NOT DO. The truth is that there is quite a bit that we can do to socialize with a group of friends over a glass of wine and a bite to eat. After we had a trial Virtual Wine Group session, someone asked about a Virtual Baguette class for an expanded Wine Group via zoom.

We had a great time making and breaking bread. Zoom is a wonderful technology and we are all getting better at using it. It can be a bit chaotic, but the baking class did seem to work out well. I even had my dad who passed away in 1995, talking to me. Dad taught a college speach class for years. One piece of advice from dad really payed off. MAKE SURE YOUR AUDIO VISUAL TOOLS WORK BEFORE YOU START. I don’t think that dad would have been real good with Zoom, but a little dry run certainly helped me to work out the kinks. I had planned to have two devices connected to Zoom with my MacBook connected with a slideshow and my iPhone being used to be the primary video tool. My dry-run before going live taught me that the 2 devices would create audio feedback. Hence, I went with one device and it is safe to say, I was the only one aware of the shortfall. The participants got quick glimpse of the slides and a link to this blog for the real detail. Susan did a great job of capturing the pictures used in the following.

Remember when people told jokes? My dad was a great joke teller, but he ruined lots of great jokes by cleaning them up. Some times a good “F” bomb makes a joke. I did have a really good clean joke to share, but the politically correct police pulled it because it mentioned a piece of anatomy. While I won’t share it here, I will share it with anyone who asks. PLEASE ASK down below in the comments and I will share it with you.

ENJOY THE SLIDE PRESENTATION

Click here for the Baguette Recipe

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/wine group/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

A special thanks goes out to the Berrys for providing the featured photo and the McMahons for providing the group with a Charcuterie plate. We started the session with all 7 participants making a pesto, olive oil and balsamic dip together. After the class we all enjoyed the fruits of our labor and a fun virtual conversation.