On Saturday night I had the privilege of working at a new station, on the opposite end of the line from where I usually work. This meant that I got to learn three new dishes. The first was the shrimp box, which is one of the few dishes that remains from our old menu. Served in a Chinese food-style box, the dish starts with honey mustard, followed by stir-fried shrimp with Thai basil and scallions, followed by a salad of Napa cabbage, red peppers, broccoli, radish, Daikon radish, and carrot, which is then topped with an asian barbecue style braised beef- after working with it on my station I think it is one of my favorite things in the entire restaurant- and the box is finished off with organic brown rice.

The second main course on the station was our vegetarian option- a deep-fried sweet potato croquette. The croquette is served on a base of red chili gravy, and is topped with creamed corn and a salad of fresh pea greens, pickled peppers (which we pickle ourselves), cherry tomatoes, shaved red onion, and lemon vinaigrette.

The starter on the corner station is our clam dish. Steamed clams are served in a bowl of broth with lima beans, smoked tomato, blanched onions, and lemon balm.

Aside from learning the new dishes on the station, working in the corner allowed me to work next to the sauté station, which I am usually far removed from. Ryan, one of our cooks who is usually on the corner station, was working sauté on Saturday. Even though that was a new station for him, it made it easier for me to learn my station since he knows it better than anyone and was readily available to help me learn the dishes. He was in charge of the chowder, the mushroom starter, and the salmon main course. The chowder is a butternut squash and corn chowder topped with squash, potatoes, corn, and onion all smothered in homemade ancho butter.

The mushroom starter is one that I found especially enticing, which is odd because I am not usually a fan of mushrooms. The dish includes a variety of mushrooms, spaghetti squash, stracciatella cheese, and a poached egg. I think that anyone who has ever poached an egg can appreciate the concentration and patience it takes to run that station, as it can be incredibly difficult to get an egg perfectly poached and on the plate in the midst of many other tasks.

Although the experience was slightly chaotic, it was nice to learn what goes on on the other half of the line, and I gained a new respect for my co-workers after seeing what they do on the other stations.

I will have more menu updates as the week continues, and we got a few lambs in this week, so expect to see at least one lamb dish on the menu. We are also continuing to play with the dessert menu- we are no longer making the sweet potato pound cake, but we do have a flour-less chocolate cake (served with raspberry sauce, fresh raspberries, and whipped cream), and the crisp has changed to a pear-cranberry crisp. I will continue to update as we come up with new dishes.

As we transition out of summer and into fall, nights are getting colder, and local produce is shifting. As a result, our menu is changing to reflect the new season.
I think root vegetables are closely associated with fall, and so we have a parsnip cake on the dessert menu. It’s similar to a carrot cake, and we serve it with a warm coffee-toffee sauce and a homemade hazelnut-mocha ice cream.

Donnie, our lunch sous-chef, has been having a lot of fun coming up with new desserts for us in the past couple of weeks. His shifts are primarily lunchtime shifts which aren’t huge dessert times, but I think he started with one new dish and just ran with it. Every day I come in for my dinner shift he’s excited to tell me about some new thing he came up with, whether it’s an entirely new dessert or a different accompaniment for an existing dessert. He has been tweaking each recipe tirelessly to get the perfect end result, and I think it has paid off.

Along the same “root vegetable” theme as the parsnip cake, he made a sweet-potato pound cake. It has the desserty richness associated with pound cake, and a flavor profile along the lines of a pumpkin cake or zucchini cake. Of all of the new desserts this is my personal favorite to plate, and I think it’s a lot of fun. We serve it with two homemade marshmallows on skewers that we toast (with a blow torch! what could be more fun?) and put with a chunk of walnut brittle-another of my favorites. Smeared on top of the cake is maple butter. When I was little my favorite part of trips to Vermont was maple candy- a treat I hope no New Englander has missed out on- and this maple butter tastes almost exactly like it.

Donnie also came up with a new apple cake for the menu- I can’t think of what to compare it to because I can’t remember tasting anything quite like it, but I can tell you that the smell of it is something surreal. It’s, well, a cake, in simple terms, baked with apples, raisins, and spices, and served with a whiskey creme-anglaise. I honestly can’t think of anything more comforting on a cold fall night than whiskey, except maybe pairing it with warm apple cake. The dish is topped with a baked apple chip, and if there’s any hint of a chill in your bones I recommend this dessert to you hands down.

The last of Donnie’s new desserts (I told you he’s been having fun) is a cheddar cheesecake. Another thing I had never had, and never heard of before. The cake has a very interesting texture, and a citrus-y freshness (orange zest) that cuts the strong cheddar taste, and it’s not nearly as savory as you would think a cheddar cheesecake would be. I think it tastes more or less like a regular cheesecake, but less rich and less dense. Once again going with the theme of alcohol being comforting in the chilly weather, the cake is served with beer-braised apples and homemade whipped cream.

As the dessert station is the station I work at most often, these changes are particularly exciting for me. I think it’s important to be excited about the food you’re serving, and to be able to have fun making it and serving it. As always, the attitude of everyone at EVOO makes that easy.

I will update again soon with pictures of these desserts, and given Donnie’s attitude lately I’m sure I’ll update again with more new desserts, or with changes to these.

As promised, we have several new pork dishes using various bits of that lovely pig we got. The pig belly is being served as an entree- grilled and served with roasted fingerling potatoes, brussels sprouts, a smoked apple ring, spiced pig jus, and our homemade apple butter which I mentioned in our first post.

We are also serving a “poblano relleno de puerco”- a poblano chili stuffed with adobo braised pig which we then batter fry and serve with corn custard, cilantro, tomatoes, and homemade popcorn.

The pig’s feet are being used in a succotash with local dragon-tongue beans, green beans, and corn. The succotash accompanies a seared Alaskan King Salmon fillet entree, and is topped with deep fried pickled onions. Compared with regular onion rings, the pickled onion rings have a delicious bite to them- they don’t really taste “pickle-y”, but they have a depth of flavor that surprised me and that I enjoyed more than I thought I would- now I find myself craving them.

In my earlier post about the pig I promised a head cheese starter, which is now on the menu as a “Pig’s head terrine”. It is served with our apple butter, homemade honey mustard, and a salad of shaved cabbage and homemade pickles. The dish is garnished with fried sage, and is certainly eye-catching:

Our pig's head terrine

We made a kielbasa as well, which we are serving as a starter. The kielbasa is grilled and served with a fingerling potato salad, homemade sweet pickles, and caramelized onion mustard. I consider myself something of a potato salad aficionado, and this potato salad actually comes quite close to my grandmother’s. It has a perfect, smooth creaminess, just enough crunch, and just enough bite to make it well-rounded. I think it provides a cool compliment to the kielbasa, and makes the whole dish reminiscent of an elevated and sophisticated sort of cookout.