From the category archives:

Casa SaltShaker

Cinco de Oh Mayo!

2012.May.07 Monday

We’ve had just three Cinco de Mayo dinner weekends since we opened Casa SaltShaker. The first was actually our official opening night, in 2006 (we had some trial run dinners beforehand with invited guests, this was the first open to the public one). Now that first one, we actually did nothing related to the Mexican [...]

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Seriously? Another One?

2012.May.02 Wednesday

Okay, I promise, last dinner until this weekend’s (only one menu coming up) come up next week (by which time I’ll be posting missives from New York for a short while). I’ll keep this short. Private party, only limitation was no shellfish…. I thought I’d try a different approach again to the ratatouille tarts – [...]

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I Can’t Believe It’s More Dinners

2012.May.01 Tuesday

I know, I know, it seems that the last week or so all I’m posting about is our Casa S dinners. I almost feel the need to apologize for it, but no – it’s just the way things are going for the last couple of weeks before I head to New York and Boston for [...]

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Party of 6

2012.Apr.28 Saturday

A group of half a dozen for one of our private evenings this week – “more turf than surf” and not too spicy were my only instructions… and an interest in “different whites and unusual reds, particularly Bonarda”. We started off with one I’ve been playing with, a ratatouille tartlet – par-baked polenta and parmesan [...]

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We Do Like Our Empanadas…

2012.Apr.26 Thursday

While Argentine food is not my first choice when it comes to teaching (I figure there are lots of folk teaching it here, I’m trying to offer something different), I do have fun introducing visitors to it in a way that makes it easy to access, and also giving it a bit of a perk-up [...]

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The Crucifer Crucible

2012.Apr.25 Wednesday

I hadn’t set out to design an evening around the cruciferous vegetable family, it just sort of started to happen, and so while I didn’t make a point of it, our guests this last weekend had their fill from the family Brassicacaea, or Cruciferae. It’s a grouping of vegetables that’s probably more widespread than you’d [...]

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Family Dinner

2012.Apr.24 Tuesday

When I get a request for a bigger group to join one of our dinners, I have to give it some thought. We only have ten seats, so a group of five, six, seven, or more people, pretty much means that they’re going to dominate the conversation at the table. They may have full intent [...]

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Dinner, No Icebergs

2012.Apr.19 Thursday

It was hard to be anywhere in the western world and not be aware that the last week was the centennial of the ill-fated Titanic voyage. In the restaurant sphere, re-creations of the last “first class” dinner abounded, interpreted by one or another chef, and offered up with prices ranging from around $100 per person [...]

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Basic Ingredients

2012.Apr.14 Saturday

By request, another couple of classes from our Color Palate of Italy series. A couple of young women from South Africa taking a quick break here before heading on to their first jobs as cooks – one on a small yacht in the Caribbean, cooking for half a dozen people on week-long cruises, the other [...]

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