As long as I'm eating watermelon, it's still summer
Events are conspiring to make it feel like the end of summer, with the kids back in school and everyone getting all serious again, but here in Colorado we've just started to get summer produce. We picked our first tomatoes from the Generous Servings hell strip a few weeks ago, so we're featuring these "ultra-local" tomatoes in our salads and several dishes in Après.
Gardener friends of ours have repeatedly snuck in to "give" us squash that we didn't ask for, so we decided to embrace this generosity and we're collecting squash for the next three weeks that we will cook and freeze for this winter's Cook for a Cause (so if you've got extra summer squash--zucchini, yellow squash, etc.--bring it by!).
I just developed a new dish for Après, called Watermelon Carpaccio with Basil Ice Cream. Want to see it?
I got the idea for this dish when I taught a Farmers' Market Cooking class a couple of weeks ago, and I bought a yellow watermelon for a salad. Several of the students had never seen a yellow watermelon before and had difficultly believing that it was real, which made me look at it with new eyes and realize that it is very striking. I don't know if it's annoying to call these watermelon slices "carpaccio"--it was a fad on the coasts about 10 years ago to call all kinds of thinly-sliced non-meat items "carpaccio", which by my calculations indicates that the trend should just be reaching Denver about now. The other components on this plate are the basil ice cream, black pepper, and balsamic vinegar reduction. It's all very light and cool. Basil ice cream, by the way, is very good. It's not too basil-y but not too sweet either.
I finally remembered that one of my friends asked to see a picture of our "idea board", where we hang pictures and recipes that we think might provide inspiration for our desserts. Here's what the board looks like:
posted by The Cooking Doctor at
12:11 PM
3 Comments:
The idea board doesn't fit my idea of either of you ladies. You may be taking after your mother here.
I had beet carpaccio at Avenue Grill (I think) about 10-11 years ago. We may be a cow town, but we do have regular railroad service to the coasts, and the telegram occasionally relays the latest food news. :)
Wow, that's some memory you have, Scott! I was just reading an article with Andrew Lubatty, the chef at the Avenue Grill, and he said that in 1998 he went on a trip to San Francisco that spurred him to rethink the Avenue's concept and bring San Francisco food to Denver. So the timing of your beet carpaccio works perfectly--he was just back from California, where vegetable carpaccio was all the rage :). If only I could go back to San Francisco every few months and get new ideas, I'd be the coolest chef in Denver :).
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home