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Newsletter for May 2004 Your source for what’s cooking at OBW
25 South Indian Alley Winchester VA, 22601 540-662-1455 |
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Fresh Paint, Fresh Flowers, and Fresh Ideas May Wine Dinner, “A Night in Tuscany” |
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Fresh Paint, Fresh Flowers, and Fresh Ideas
After nearly a year of hard work, on Friday April the 16th, we launched the new One Block West brand at a cocktail party for both old and new friends. I was happy to see many of you there. For those of you who could not make it and who have not been to the restaurant in some time, you can see our new logo just above. It’s quite a departure from the old and makes a great statement about freshness, seasonality, and quality, all those things that One Block West represents.
If you have not been to the restaurant in a few weeks, I invite you to come see what we have done. We have new awnings, signs, lights, paint, fabrics, cushions, menus, menu covers, and artwork. It looks like a whole new restaurant—come see!
May Wine Dinner: “A Night in Tuscany”
On Wednesday May 12th at 7pm, Bill McKenney from Michael Downey Selections will be at One Block West to discuss Italian wines. Besides being a really entertaining guy, Bill is one of the most knowledgeable people in Italian wine that I know. Bill will present a Vernaccia, a Chianti, a Chianti Classico, a Super Tuscan Sangiovese, and a Vin Santo, and I will be providing a spectacular menu to match. We will offer these wines for sale with special one-time pricing. If you love Italian wines, the Poppiano Sangiovese is currently my favorite red of our entire list.
I don’t want to give away the menu in advance, but I promise that it will be a fabulous evening. The price is $75 per person, all inclusive (all food, wine, taxes, and gratuity included). We have just a few seats left, so if you want to attend, you must call us immediately at 540-662-1455.
Up next in June, Jim Law of Linden Vineyards.
For the second year in a row, I’m happy to be cooking at Kitchen Kapers, a fund raiser for Quota Club on Saturday May 15th. Kitchen Kapers is like a house tour, in that five houses are on the tour, except that it focuses on kitchens. This is a great way to spend a Saturday, especially if you’re thinking of building a house or remodeling your kitchen. And a bonus this year: I’m cooking in my own kitchen. You can see a chef’s home kitchen and also pick his brain about kitchen design. Advance discounted tickets are on sale at the restaurant. Day of the event tickets are available at any of the five houses on the tour. Call me if you have any questions. Come on out and support Quota Club and all that they do for our community.
Our deck—the nicest venue for outdoor dining in Winchester – opened on April 15th. And more good news: Friday Happy Hours on the deck are just about to start. The bar is here! The grill is here! The fences are mended and painted. We’re still scrambling to install lights and speakers. Boo Snider will be available to play starting May 21. We’re still working on the grill menu—oysters on the half shell, grilled shrimp, lamb sausages, etc. I’m really looking forward to this!
We launched the new spring lunch menu on April 15th. Come taste the new dishes, including Warm Confit of Duck on Baby Greens with Oranges and Almonds, as well as Caramelized Scallops on Spinach Salad with Soy-Sesame Dressing.
We try to serve vegetables that are different from what you might find at other restaurants. Two favorites that we have served in recent weeks are members of the cabbage family: baby bok choy and rapini.
Bok Choy. Brassica rapa var. chinensis. Known by dozens of names the world around (including pak choi and bai cai), this green leafy vegetable is prized for its sweet crunchy stems and leafy greens. Bok choy plants resemble Swiss chard in that all the leaves branch off the main stem just above the root. Bok choy tastes like no other vegetable that you are used to. There are many, many forms of bok choy, but the one that we use most is called baby bok choy or Shanghai bok choy, a petite form that grows about 6 inches high with light green stems. There are other, larger forms with white stems, but these are not as sweet or delicate. Bok choy is best simply steamed, perhaps with a drizzle of oyster sauce and sesame oil. For a photo, see Evergreen Seeds.
Rapini. Brassica rapa. Also known by dozens of names including broccoli raab, Italian broccoli, and rape, this relative of the turnip is widely available in grocery stores and is one of my favorite vegetables. Although not closely related to broccoli, rapini has a pleasant broccoli-like texture with a sharper, more piquant flavor reminiscent of mustard greens. The prototypical way to cook it is to blanch it and then sauté briefly in garlic and olive oil. I love it with balsamic vinegar and also in the traditional Pugliese dish of orecchiette pasta with rapini. Hint, if you’re shopping in the grocery store and you see the Andy Boy label (from D’Arrigo Brothers), you can be assured of excellent quality. We are always pleased when we order vegetables and they show up with the Andy Boy label. I mention this because rapini seems to be the flagship vegetable from D’Arrigo Brothers.
If you are a gardener and want to try some exotic herbs and vegetables, I have never seen a catalog as good as that from Evergreen Seeds. They have by far the best and most dazzling selection of eggplants I have ever seen. I would kill to cook with any of them!
My diet is mostly carbs and fresh vegetables, so this dish is most appealing to me. This is a very traditional Pugliese (from Puglia, the boot-heel of Italy) dish, a beautiful, healthful, low-cost meal. Orecchiette, meaning “ears” in Italian, is a disk-shaped, thick pasta about the size of a quarter. When I cook for my kids, they often say, “Cook some ears, Daddy!”
Orecchiette with Rapini
1 lb or 500g of orecchiette pasta 1 lb rapini 3 T extra virgin olive oil 2 anchovy filets or equivalent paste 2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced 1 pinch of red pepper flakes
Bring your salted pasta water to a boil and cook the pasta a little short of being done. Factory orecchiette takes a good while to cook, because it is so thick. Trim any tough ends from the rapini. When you judge the pasta to be a minute or too shy of being done, add the rapini to the water. When the pasta is cooked, reserve 1/2c of the salted water and drain the rest away.
In a sauté pan, heat the olive oil and add the anchovy. Stir it with a spoon until it disintegrates. Add the garlic and red pepper and cook until the garlic starts to brown. Add the rapini and re-warm. Add a bit of the reserved pasta water as needed if the dish is too dry.
I must confess that when I am making this for myself, I would start with 4 anchovy filets! We only use salted whole anchovies at the restaurant. We filet them as needed.
Wow! We’ve been selling a lot of port, which means you have been buying a lot of port. Most popular has been our pairing of a glass of port with Stilton cheese, toasted walnuts, and guava paste. The response has been so gratifying that I have added several new Ports and Madeiras to our dessert drink roster.
We now have two rubies, a tawny, two 10-year old tawnies, a 20-year old tawny, and a late bottled vintage port for a total of seven ports. If you’d like to do a sampler of ports, we have the glasses and are ready to pour—just let us know! We’ve added a colheita Madeira and a verdehlo too, just to round things out. These are fantastic dessert wines and I hope that you will try them.
Our Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens) is in full bloom right now and will be spectacular for another week or so. It is a toxic plant so make sure your children leave it alone. The next chance to see it bloom will be in the fall when the native clematis on the trellis will also be blooming and wafting its heady perfume about the deck.
And our roses are in full bud. The first bud will break any time now with the big show coming in the next 2-3 weeks. We have some hybrid teas, old roses, and climbers. Come see them! They are gorgeous!
Our hostas are up too and the chives are just going into full bloom. Sage and mint are just sending up bloom spikes. Come visit the deck. Who knows what beautiful plants are lurking out there?
Just in is a stunning 1996 Barolo from Umberto Fracassi at $55. You just cannot find Barolo for this price in any restaurant that I know. Moreover, I like this wine so much that if you come in this week and tell your server that you read about it in this newsletter, you can have it for $48. I want you to try it.
Finally, I haven’t seen any morels yet, but peelers will be in this weekend. For those of you not born around the Bay, a peeler is a soft-shell crab. Call me for availability at 540-662-1455.
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Copyright © 2004 Shenandoah Food and Beverage Holdings, LLC |
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