Category Archives: Main Course

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

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.

Chicken Marbella

The Rosemary Bush

Grill/Roasting a chicken on a bed of rosemary is one of our favorite dishes. Finding a sufficient supply of rosemary can be a problem. If you have to buy rosemary at the supermarket it can be expensive. If you know where to find an old bush of rosemary you are all set.

Grill Roasted Chicken Video

Here is the recipe

I wandered by my old office the other day and the rosemary that had once been part of a small herb garden is now a huge rosemary bush. The copious amount of rosemary is enough to roast a flock of chickens or skewer a truck load of appetizers.

The empty parking lot brought back a funny memory. One morning I pulled into the lot  early and found a crane operator setting up his crane to lift a very large HVAC unit onto to the roof of the facility. Very close to the crane was the BMW Roadster that belonged to Andreas Schauffler our chief financial officer. Andreas was a native of Germany and not known for his sense of humor. Actually, he once admitted to me that his wife had accused him of not having one. Being a former finance guy, I always had sympathy for Andreas. I remember once walking into the office back in my early days at Maxwell House where I was a financial analyst with my boss Vince Summa the controller and him telling me: “You have to remember that we are the fiduciaries of the company and Fiduche to our friends”.

As I walked into KFI that morning with the crane and the BMW there I couldn’t help myself. I went to the crane operator and laughingly asked what it would cost me to have the BMW put on the roof as a joke. To which he replied with a smile: “A lot less than you might think”. As luck would have it, just as I was having this conversation, Nancy Webb, who worked for Herr Schauffler, pulled into the parking lot, and I asked her if she wanted to kick in $50 to have Andreas’s prized Roadster put on the roof. She explained to me, with a frightened look on her face, that it wasn’t a great idea and she wanted no part of it. Of course, I chickened out.

Fast forward to today and the good news is that I cut off a branch of rosemary to roast a chicken with tonight and If you are ever in Memphis and need rosemary, I can tell you where to go.

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.