From the category archives:

Casa SaltShaker

Pasta and Ribs

2013.May.12 Sunday

Maybe I should just end with the title, because, who doesn’t like pasta and ribs? Just a quick wrap-up to dinners here at Casa S before heading to the airport this afternoon and winging my way to NYC and WDC for a week and a half. I’d actually planned to go earlier, in mid-April as [...]

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Our Own Peruvian Fusion

2013.May.07 Tuesday

After all these recent visits to various Peruvian fusion spots like La Rosa Nautica, Mullu, Astrid & Gastón, Bardot and probably at least one more I’ve forgotten, we thought we’d turn our sights that direction. We’ve had fun with it in the past, and although Henry tends to not like me to mess with his [...]

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Green. Eggs. And Ham.

2013.Apr.29 Monday

‘Tis that time of year when suddenly, precipitously, business falls off for about 6-8 weeks. It’s like clockwork, well, calendarwork I suppose, as a clock has little to do with dates. Mid-April until the end of May is the slow time of year for restaurants around here – and talking with friends in the biz, [...]

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A Piemontese Week

2013.Apr.21 Sunday

I was looking over and rewriting notes for our Italian regional cooking class series and started thinking that the regional cuisines might make for some interesting nights at Casa S. The classes tend to be really traditional in the recipes, so I want to do something a little more creative, at least for some of [...]

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The Third Ñoqui

2013.Apr.15 Monday

I love it when a menu just completely turns out the way I want it to and I don’t find myself needing to make any adjustments over the course of the week. It doesn’t happen often, usually there’s a little tweak here and another one there, be it in seasoning, an ingredient, or, just presentation. [...]

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And Now, That Fish is Hammin’ it Up

2013.Apr.09 Tuesday

So when I posted last week that I’d be playing around with the bacon wrapped boga for this weekend’s dinners, I really meant it. Starting from the same idea, I took it a fairly different direction that worked out, thankfully, as a great dish. But we’ll get to that… first you have to sit through [...]

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Time Marches On

2013.Apr.08 Monday

March has marched away and there’s little to say about it in hindsight. Spent a Sunday wandering the Botanical Gardens and snapping photos, trying out different manual settings on the camera, the only interesting shots of which were a couple of a stand of bamboo. Oh my, such excitement! Business continues to boom, we’re still [...]

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Eyes First

2013.Apr.02 Tuesday

There’s an old adage in cooking that one eats with their eyes first, i.e., that the visual presentation of something has an impact that influences the perception of a plate of food. For some folk that’s more pronounced than others. I’ve sat at meals with absolutely wretched food listening to others at the table carry [...]

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The Vienna Cod, Part 2

2013.Apr.01 Monday

As I promised in the last post, a more in-depth look at the cod viennoise, semi-MPW style. I have no doubt his standards would be far more exacting and everything would be trimmed and lined up and all that, but then, he’s got a kitchen brigade working on the dishes with each person responsible for [...]

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