Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Musical Chef Chairs

Chefs around town are shifting their toques faster than the Charleston tides.

While some - like Ryan Herrman (formerly at Fish and is now executive chef at The Boathouse on East Bay), Nico Romo (a Frenchman who totes a hefty resume from impressive digs like The Ritz Carlton in Atlanta and is now executive chef at Fish) and Jeremiah Bacon (a Charleston native with experience at famed kitchens like Le Bernardin and Per Se and now executive chef at Carolina's) - are setting up shop in long-standing restaurants, others have ventured out from under the safety of corporate umbrellas to start their own businesses.

The latter category includes Fred Neuville with a brand new restaurant baby named Fat Hen after a seven year-long stint at 39 Rue de Jean and later the Holy City Hospitality group and Jason Ulak's split from The Boathouse on East Bay to help start up Uno Mas, a Mexican restaurant in Mount Pleasant.

It's all enough to make your head spin and is, in some cases, borderline incestuous. Why so much movement in these lazy, hazy dog days of summer? Fred Neuville decided to make the move when the time was right and after having numerous discussions about it with his wife. "It was the right opportunity at the right time. I've built two restaurant groups for other people, and I felt that I was ready to do it for myself. Besides, I was dying to get over here (Johns Island) because there is so much opportunity," says Neuville, of the restaurant's location - just 9.5 miles from downtown. The restaurant serves "French Lowcountry" dishes like Duck Confit with Butter Beans and Garlic Spinach and makes multiple nods to Charleston's French Hugeunot culinary traditions in the menu Neuville created from scratch.

Since both restaurants are so new (Fat Hen is just 11 days old as of today and Uno Mas is just a few months old), I'll let them settle down before I check them out, but the new chefs at the established restaurants have already staked some impressive culinary strongholds. Most notably is Bacon's trimming the fat from Carolina's once (in places) cluttered and muddled dishes. Where there were once too many ingredients, now there are just enough. Carolina's recent fresh-produce initiative, supplied by owner Richard Stoney's family's plantation gardens, was poppin'-fresh-apparent in everything I sampled. Old school Carolina's fans will be happy to know that Bacon's left the Shrimp and Crabmeat wontons and Perdita's Fruits de Mer untouched. Carolina's has never been finer, indeed.

Meanwhile, over at The Boathouse on East Bay (also owned by Stoney), Ryan Herrman is on a similar path after taking over the helm here two months ago. His goal is to be "for real" local produce/fish and "for real" sustainable seafood and to continue to make subtle changes in the menu. Not surprisingly, with Romo's French roots, the new, streamlined menu at Fish features a good amount of classic technique and Asian twists on multiple dishes such as Shrimp Grits with a Miso Broth and Kona Kapachi with Parsnip Puree, Kumquat and Mustard Miso Sauce.

Featured restaurants:

Fish
442 King Street, downtown
(843) 937-0406
http://www.fishrestaurant.net/

Una Mas
880 Allbrighton Boulevard, Mt. Pleasant
(843) 856-4868

Fat Hen
3140 Maybank Highway, Johns Island
(843) 559-9090

The Boathouse on East Bay
549 East Bay Street, downtown
(843) 577-7171
http://www.boathouserestaurants.com/

Carolina's
10 Exchange Street, downtown
(843) 724-3800
http://www.carolinasrestaurant.com/

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Culinary Cost-Cutting 101

Coupon Crazy

When I was a little girl, I marveled while watching my Great Aunt Frances sitting at her linoleum-topped kitchen table, cutting coupons from the daily newspaper in the tiny Kansas town she lived in until she was nearly 100 years old.

It seemed like such a waste of energy in order to save a few pennies on, what I thought, were probably things she wouldn't normally buy anyway. But, I was naive. She, a thrifty survivor of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, had her coupon system down pat and it's probably one of the reasons she made it through a long life of hard times, many of them spent alone.

The latest bout of monetary unpleasantness, however, has created a market for New Age couponing systems. The internet now has a number of hot coupon sites (I like couponmom.com) which provide free, brand-name coupons and more if you select to register as a member. They're just a click, a printer, and five minutes away. In addition, many grocery stores' websites offer lists of daily specials. And, here's the kicker. Many provide selections from the kind of items you usually purchase, anyway. That was it for me. The last straw supporting my long-standing anti-coupon mindset finally broke its resistant back.

Harris Teeter's online specials shopping list became this list-hater's new best friend. I dipped into it with reckless abandon. With a little practice and increasing knowledge, I'm slowly forming my own semi-profitable coupon system. By combining the free manufacturer's coupons from sites like couponmom.com with a daily special shopping list constructed from Harris Teeter's web site (harristeeter.com) , my handy VIC card, and an extra dose of concentration at the grocery store, I have scored some serious savings.

The best yet happened last week. Granted, it was a big sales day at the downtown Teeter. The store was offering buy one get one, two or even three, all over the place on big ticket items like beef, coffee and wine. Since I'm expecting company in a couple weeks, I decided to stock up on these and other staples. The net result was a whopping $67 total savings. In essence, I bought three weeks-worth of groceries for less than I usually spend in one week!

My heart raced with anticipation as I watched the basket cave with the weight of my cache and the numbers creeping slowly higher on the cash register. Then, as the cashier started calculating in the selected coupons, the numbers amazingly started going down. It was like getting on the scale after a week of gorging Haagen-Dazs only to find you'd lost five pounds. I was beaming. She was beaming and said, "You did good today!"


Admittedly, a follow-up trip to replenish the fresh vegetable drawer just one week later only yielded $10 in savings, but next time I'll do better. I'm on a coupon-crazed mission. Intelligent use of coupons and smart shopping add up to saving a lot more than pennies. And, I'm not in Kansas anymore.

One Plucky Chicken, Four Marvelous Meals

With grocery costs rocketing to the stratosphere, it’s imperative to save wherever you can at the supermarket without eliminating taste. In addition to reaching for reduced daily specials, what you buy and how you put it to use in your kitchen can happily translate to huge savings with bodacious bite.

In this era of grocery gouging, chicken can become your new best friend for just pennies per four ounce serving when paired with practical pantry staples like pasta and veggies. Low in fat, high in protein and exceptionally versatile, chicken marries equally well with the exotic (think truffles or saffron) to the humble (think roasted potatoes and rosemary).

For these reasons, it’s a regular menu guest at my house, where I pride myself on transforming a single, four pound chicken (preferably organic and purchased at a reduced rate) into four fabulous feasts for a group of four. That’s sixteen meals, folks! A four pound chicken runs anywhere from $6-$10 (depending on where and how you shop), throw in a little change for ingredients to flesh it out into a meal (4X), and you’re looking at less than $20. A night out for a family of four at any fast food favorite will set you back the same amount or more faster than you can say “heart attack”.

Gotcha? Let me tell you how it’s done!

Meal #1: This is the launching pad for the meal plan event(s) – a whole roasted chicken. Since it’s going to be transformed several times, keep the seasoning simple – ground pepper, a nice crust of coarse salt and a rub down with olive oil. Roast at 425 until done (about 20 minutes per pound) and top it with a few love pats of butter to sink deeply into the bird. Allow the roasted chicken to rest and re-absorb its juices. Cut the both legs and thighs away from the chicken (reserving warm). Cut the breasts away from the rib cage, cool and store in your refrigerator for later use. Serve both legs and both thighs with steamed vegetables and roasted potatoes for a satisfying, nutritional meal. Go ahead and prepare a pan gravy with a little roux, white wine, chicken stock, Dijon mustard and fresh tarragon to dress things up, but hold on to the carcass!

Meal #2: Start this after the roast chicken dinner to prepare for tomorrow’s old-fashioned and DELICIOUS chicken noodle soup. With a sturdy chef’s knife, cut up the reserved carcass remnants – the rib cage and spine – into four or five coarse chunks and put them in a two quart soup pot with a quartered onion, carrot, celery stalk and a clove or two of garlic to make an impromptu stock. Add a few peppercorns, a bay leaf and fresh thyme for added flavor. Bring it up to a boil, reduce to a slow simmer over low heat and forget about it for three to four hours. Allow to cool and refrigerate, covered, overnight.
About thirty minutes before you’re slotted to serve dinner, skim off any accumulated fat off the top of the stock, strain it, discarding all solids except any bits of chicken flesh. Finely chop an onion, carrot and celery stalk and sauté them in the same pot with a tablespoon of olive oil until softened. Season, return the strained stock to the pan and bring up to a boil. Add reserved chicken and about ¼ pound of dried pasta (flat noodles, spaghetti, linguini – your choice) and cook until tender. Serve with a drizzle of fresh herbs (parsley, tarragon, or thyme will do) and freshly grated Parmesan cheese. A small, fresh salad and warm baguette make this a meal.

Meal #3: Chicken Salad Deluxe! This is where you can really have fun with chicken’s flavor/texture marriage versatility. Cut one of the reserved breasts into chunky, ½” cubes and toss in a bowl with coarsely chopped dried cranberries (or another dried fruit like figs or currants), coarsely chopped roasted almonds, fresh herbs, a dollop of Dijon, a dash of mayo and vinegar, salt and pepper and you’ve got a meal in minutes over a bed of greens. Other flavors that work in tandem with chicken include curry, paprika, cinnamon and almost any fresh herb imaginable. Make this your own!

Meal #4: Chicken Sandwiches Supreme! Again, versatility and imagination set the stage for show-stopping chicken sandwiches prepared with freshly roasted chicken breast. Go for the best quality bread you can find, from baguette to whole grain, and fill it with thinly cut slices of the remaining breast and toppings. One sliced breast will handily complete four sandwiches. Zip up mayo with fresh basil and Dijon mustard for a fresh, personalized sauce, top with a slice of red onion and crisp romaine. Go whole hog and add a few pieces of browned bacon and a slice of avocado if the mood moves.

Chicken never tasted so good for so little.