This course, I get to add a new word to my vocabulary - lagniappe - one of those words I have read in books, but always accepted in context without validating in a dictionary. Now, I know. Sometimes, Chef let's you try something very special "on the house." Chef has been very kind with lagniappes on prior visits, as well. What a nice guy!!!
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Menu Listing:
Wild Turbot with Toasted Capers and Meyer Lemon
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Jack's Notes:
A tasting of our "luxury item" TURBOT; Line-caught off the Coast of Brittany, France, Chef simply sauté’s in a Meyer-lemon beurre blanc, garnishing w/house. preserved Meyer lemon, toasted caper &tom. concasse.
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Wine Pairing: Heller Estate Chenin Blanc, Carmel Valley 2007
Turbot is one of my favorite fish. It can be tricky to buy and prepare - at least what is available locally. I've learned - through experience - that the ultra-thin pieces available locally are really only "good" on the day they are flown in - after that, they turn to mush and won't hold up to pan-searing. Imagine my surprise when this sample appeared - I didn't know turbot had some thickness to it.
I studied the presentation, and savored the flavor. The lemon sauce reminded me of a homemade lemon pie (eggs, real lemon juice and zest), with capers to offset. Light, delicious. The ultimate compliment to the saucier (every time I hear that word, I think of Tropic Thunder) - mopping up my disk with a piece of baguette!!
I have in my notes - probably from Jack telling me - that there were lemon notes in the wine that corresponded very nicely with the Meyer lemons in this dish. I have this picture of Chef Scott with the Meyer lemons he preserved himself.
Chef Scott and his preserved Meyer Lemons
Also from my notes:
It's "
nice" to have great ingredients and not harm them. (My aspirations)
It's "
mastery" to make people want to wipe their plate with bread. (This will keep me forever coming back to V&A.)
And now, I have made myself so hungry, that I am taking a break to pan-sear some fresh cod. It will have to do. The cod, that is.
02 Dec 09 - Still finding "notes" scattered about...
This is just one view of why I can’t get enough of VnA.
I make pan seared scallops (cod, haddock, flounder, sea bass, salmon, etc.) – often. They are, in the words of my family, “to die for”. But my scallops don’t have perfectly shaved strips of vegetables (they will next time – that one is easy) or baby spinach draped just so (also noted for the next time I pan sear scallops). Not so sure I can perfectly wilt the greens beneath, prepare a perfect white sauce with capers (most store bought capers are over-powering with oiliness, and the salt packed ones are hard to find in regular grocery stores), with one tiny piece of something red (red pepper?) Once again, I could probably do it, if I had time, and this was the entrée – but HOW LIKELY am I do this - then multiply it by the number of courses here – almost certainly “never.” Ensures that I will be a repeat customer many time over. I never get tired of the range, complexity, and, at the risk of repeating myself, COHERENCE of a VnA dining experience – even when they are subtle variations on a theme.
For the "readers" out there (that is, those who love to read - anything - as long as it is well written), here is an outtake from Wikipedia (caveat, emptor), attributed to Mark Twain:
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Mark Twain writes about the word in a chapter on New Orleans in Life on the Mississippi (1883). He called it "a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get":
We picked up one excellent word — a word worth travelling to New Orleans to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word — "lagniappe." They pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish — so they said. We discovered it at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day; heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a "baker's dozen." It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant buys something in a shop — or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I know — he finishes the operation by saying — "Give me something for lagniappe." The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root, gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the governor — I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely. When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New Orleans — and you say, "What, again? — no, I've had enough;" the other party says, "But just this one time more — this is for lagniappe." When the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too high, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his "I beg pardon — no harm intended," into the briefer form of "Oh, that's for lagniappe."
Twain was born to blog......... he'd fit in here VERY well!!
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Thanks again, I am even more excited if that was even possible!
I can't wait to go.
