Among the others on the list of restaurants I must experience before I die, The French Laundry resides very close to the top and with good reason. Located in Napa Valley and long regarded as one of the best restaurants in the world, Thomas Keller creates a new 9-course tasting menu each day, in which no single ingredient is repeated throughout the meal.
I've never even been to California, which is a problem in itself, but when I do get there, I'm taking my ass to Napa and eating at this restaurant. So maybe eating here before I die isn't quite the best description. I need to go to California soon, which means I'll probably eat here within the next 5 years. And if I can't get anyone to go with me, I'll have a lovely evening with myself and my credit card.
Since I can't hop on a plane to Napa this weekend, I decided that buying the French Laundry Cookbook and imitating these often intimidating recepies was my best and only option. This is the best kind of cooking, as a lot of these recepies will take you all day to complete, which represents one of my favorite anti-social weekend activites. At the end of the day, my results were pretty good, but clearly no where close to the real deal.
Whipped brie with home made croutons, balsamic reduction and watercress. Success.
I had more halibut, so I used it again for this recepie, served over parsley oil and this creamy orzo with mascarpone cheese and a parmesan crisp. Rock and roll.
Leftover parsely oil and balsamic reduction went into this roasted beet salad with pistachio crusted goat cheese.
The hours I put in to all this stuff resulted in a very rewarding payoff, but I really need to go to California already. I mean I can play rock-star-chef all day long in my little Fat Kid fantasy world, but in the end this was more Rolling-Stone-cover-bandish. Easily satisfying, but not quite right, leaving me wanting the real thing more than ever.
I'm booking plane tickets now.
- Fat Kid
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