Lucky Duck Walking Tour

In an effort to promote the classes, we've started preparing little treats for customers of the foodie walking tour.  Today's treat is one of my favorite amuse bouche presentations, it's fairly straight forward and always beautiful.  The spring roll...today's filling has nappa cabbage, red onion, whole basil and coriander leaves, pickled shiitakes, and of course...lobster!!!  The translucent nature of the spring roll wrapper really adds an elegant nature to an asian inspired lobster salad making for a refreshing treat on a hot day.

A simple recipe, that looks complicated.  Most certainly one of my favorite tricks!

Uh Oh! It's A Pantry Raid!

Have you ever found yourself staring into the abyss that is your cupboards, or pantry?  Your boyfriend walks in and you're just staring, he asks "are you memorizing what we have?" you reply, "I'm making dinner", he responds "making dinner looks a lot like "reading dinner"", you storm off, only to come back and stare in the pantry, you're grocery shopping tomorrow, but what do you make today?!






I'd like to add a new interactive feature to the blog...let me know what's in your pantry, on those nights when your brain is tired from work, friends, family and you're at a total loss as to how to answer that age old question "what's for dinner?"  I'll send you some ideas, I promise to keep the recipes simple, and I'll give you a couple options, so you can pick and choose.

Sure I know there's an App for this, but sometimes human interaction is nice...

Herbs and Cheese and Friends OH MY!

I've spent all day working on promote my dear friends and colleagues in the expansive world of food.  Decadent Maine is proud to welcome Jess Perrie to present her favorites in the local Maine Cheese scene!  From Jasper Hill to Hahn's End to Seal Cove...a workshop discussing perfect pairings with cheese, from wines to nuts to compotes!  It's sure to be educational, and entertaining, Jess brings such a wonderful dedicated and enthusiastic spirit to everything she does from skiing to all things cheese!
Follow along on her cheese journey at http://jess-thecheeseplate.blogspot.com/

Soon after Jess joins us, we are lucky enough to get the beautiful Herbologist Sarah Bromby from Montreal.  Growing up in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, she fell in love with our natural world.  Having traveled all over the world, she began studying the variety of healing plants.  She has continued her studies of Flora Medicina in Montreal, as well as working with a correspondence course with the School of Natural Healing in Utah.  She now enjoys making her own herbal remedies, tinctures, teas, oils, salves, syrups and natural cosmetics.  Personally I'm dying to find out how she makes her own cosmetics, but in our workshop we'll be working on healing teas and oils.  A true study in the simplest and most natural of ingredients we can use to heal.

Jess Perrie will be presenting Monday August 8, 2011 from 5h30-7h00pm

Sarah will be presenting Sunday August 14, 12h00-2h00pm

To sign up for either (or both) classes purchase your tickets at https://vervacious.com/Vervacious.html

Simple and Elegant Chilled Summer Seafood

Sunday's class enjoyed a four course tasting menu featuring chilled local seafood from oyster champagne shooters to chilled lobster salad with pickled shiitakes.

The dog days of summer have a way of ruining appetites, few things sound as good as sticking your head in the freezer for a popsicle, and maybe you linger in the freezer for a moment, or two or three...or the rest of the day.  I may or may not have threatened to crawl into my friend's ice box.  Can you blame me?

Sunday's class featured simple preparations for the hottest of summer nights!

Oyster Champagne Shooters made for an elegant starter.

Scallop Ceviche in a horseradish and lobster vinaigrette was the perfect follow up, allowing the acids in the lemon juice to cook the scallops without using any heat source at all!

Next we had a beautiful Lobster Salad with pickled shiitakes, spicy mustard greens, mint and basil leaves and a simple honey ginger vinaigrette.  Not a stove turned on, not an oven in site!

We ended our meal with a lovely white chocolate mascarpone and raspberry parfait, garnished with pistachios and chocolate balsamic.

That's how we kept cool...what was your trick?!