Nestling lamb chops into pearls of cous cous

After a winter of roasting root vegetables a beautiful spring week lies ahead with promises of balmy nights and sun filled days. A few weeks ago Anthony, our talented chef on the grill, started asking to get some lamb chops back on the menu. We tossed around ideas, some lent themselves to the passing season and we were both craving a light preparation with a cool sauce. Several days went by as we starting to plan where it would fit into the menu, the upcoming weather and the search for a new and interesting ingredient.
When the lamb racks arrived we carefully trimmed and digitally dissected ( i.e. used our fingers, an old phrase I learned from a chef early in my career, thanks Josh) the excess fat away and cleaned the bones also known as “frenching the bone.” Great meat, seasoned simply with salt and pepper then grilled / roasted to a well rested, ruby red medium rare simply speaks for itself. We pulled an old favorite sauce out of our quiver, the traditional Greek tzatziki sauce. No, not the glompy white cucumber flecked creme on your gyro but the bright, cucumber and herb perfumed yogurt meant to cut the richness of the unique flavor of lamb. Finally, we found an ingredient that had yet to make it onto our plates here at Niche the Lebanese cous-cous. Not to be confused with its delicate and much finer cousin, this texture is that of pasta and it’s size is just a bit smaller than a Kix or Cocoa Pebble. I toasted it in olive oil with a good dose of Spanish paprika and cooked it in a roasted red pepper broth until tender and then spread it out onto a sheet pan to cool. As the lamb is resting, asparagus tips are sauteed in olive oil along with the cous-cous before nesting onto the plate to be topped with lamb chops just waiting to be devoured.
After all that, what finally distilled itself onto the menu is the collaboration of a few cooks craving some lamb chops but you’ll just have to taste for yourself! Mouth watering yet? Until next time . . .Chef Jeremy

Reflections and thoughts about the coming year in wine

Reflections and thoughts on the wine world. . .
It has been an exciting and truly memorable year for me here at the restaurant. Standing behind my bar, I have seen a lot of familiar faces and have noticed quite a few new ones as well. Your continued support for what we are passionate about here at niche is appreciated I want to thank you personally.
The past year has been quite exciting for wine and continues to change and evolve with the restaurant. One good thing to come from our economy is that several wines we love but could never imagine being able to pour by the glass, have lowered their market prices. This allows us to pass along unique opportunities to try some really special pours on our “Wines by the Glass” list. Whether the winemakers realize it or not this is a good thing for the industry. In my personal opinion there were too many wineries (mmmhm Napa Valley) out there taking advantage of people. I think we are getting to a point where there are so many great wines at an affordable price that many of the big houses are going to have to lower there prices to stay competitive.
It’s exciting for me to see the growth of wine knowledge among the general public is getting more sophisticated every day. As I search out and pour our wines, I see that our guests are learning constantly and have begun to order more highly allocated boutique wines instead of the namesakes that have been taking advantage of people for the past decade (mmmhm Silver Oak). Here are my favorite wines for the year:

1. 2006 Charles Smith “Royal City” Syrah, Washington State
2. 2004 Palmaz Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley
3. 2004 Turley Charbono, Tofanelli Vineyard
4. Williams Selyem Late Harvest Gewurtztraminer, Vista Verde Vineyard
5. 2006 Charles Smith “Motor City Kitty” Syrah, Walla Walla Washington

Based on recent events in the wine world I feel confident in saying that Washington state wine is here to stay. As the Washington wineries continue to get better at what they do for more reasonable prices, California will be forced to compete with their neighbors to the north.
The industry has seen so many great Washington wine houses popularity emerge this year like Charles Smith, Cayuse, and Betz. Charles Smith, my personal favorite, was named winemaker of the year and his Royal City Syrah received 100pts by the Wine Enthusiast Magazine and was ranked the number two for Wine of the Year. Compare that to the once omnipotent Silver Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon as their wines have taken a beating with numbers in the 80 pts. It is clear that the old guard won’t be able to rely on high prices and name recognition any longer. Great wines are crafted to be drunk not just talked about. The American wine drinking public are finally beginning to understand that you don’t have to rely on name recognition to find great wines.
As we close out the year I sat down and jotted a few predictions for the coming year:

1. Washington wines will continue to develop and put pressure on the other wine producing states.
2. More people will venture away from drinking big fat cab’s all the time and start drinking more Syrah.
3. Wine prices in both market and retail will continue to decline.
4. Brad Pitt and Angelina will break up.
5. The economy will slowly crawl out of the gutter.

Thank you again for an exciting year and I look forward to see you in my bar soon. . .Vince

Organic vs Sustainable Farming

One of the questions that I often hear at farmer’s markets and am frequently asked is if we serve “organic” produce. To respond simply I say that I seek out and serve as many sustainable goods that I can. The terms “organic and sustainable” are both commonly used by food producers and consumers, but is there an advantage to one or even a difference? While both are advantageous, I find that “organic” is a broad term while “sustainable” simply tastes better.

The term organic refers to global food products that are heavily regulated and can be quite costly for the farmer. It often begins with a waiting period to enssure that the land to be farmed is free from chemicals and synthetic materials, often taking up to 3 years. The farmer must then pay to have soila dn water samples taken and studied, complete documentation on farm history, design a plan for future production and be interviewed at an official farm visit. After all of this, the farmer is required to pay an annual fee anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. With these demands many of the smaller farms that I work with either don’t have or don’t desire to the label of “organic” for their produce, but would rather be known as sustainable.

In the past couple decades a grass roots movement of sustainability has made its way into homes throughout the country. A bill was passed defining sustainability as a system of farming process that enhances the environment, uses little non-renewable resources, produces food that is healthy to eat, financially sustains the farm and most importantly, enhances the quality of life for farmers and society. Most of the farmers that you will see at your local market tend to use these practices and the cost is much lower. They will use age-old farming techniques like integrated pest management and crop rotation to accomplish what technilogy has put into a powder for industrial farms.

All definitions, sociological and political views on the matter aside, to me, sustainable food simply tastes better. Organic farms can be found throughout the world and are often large in scale with extensive shipping. While the transport of foods has come a long way over the past couple decades, the organic carrot you bought at the grocery store was probably grown out west or even on the other side of the equator and harvested some weeks before you are it. Most sustainable farmers at the markets were digging in the dirt just the day before and probably that morning to harvest the carrots. nothing beats the flavor of a carrot just pulled from the earth, still warm from the sun, washed off and eaten raw. Not only does it taste good but its packed with nutrients that lessen with time and most importantly, it makes me feel like I am making a difference for my guests and farmers alike. To me, that is the essence of sustainability.

Rooting around with wild boars continues with their back door arrival

…Just days earlier, the boar that arrived at Niche were foraging wild in the hill country near Ingram, Texas. Without time on the feed lot, their diet mainly consists of nuts, berries, grasses and tubers as they roam in groups called sounders. Always on the move, their meat is lean and leads to dark meat throughout most of the cuts. The population of wild boar in Texas hovers around 2 million and is regularly thinned out to control populations by licensed trappers. North of San Antonio in the central part of the state, Broken Arrow Ranch prides itself in high quality meats handled and butchered by professionals. A bit to my dismay, due to strict state regulations, I wasn’t allowed many of the parts of the animal that are enjoyed as delicacies by many.

When the usual delivery truck arrived last Friday morning, I carefully lifted the wild boar out of their shipper and watched my regular delivery guys’ eyebrows raise either in sheer curiosity or utter shock. No matter how much research or experience comes flushing back, chefs tend to be most creative when they are able to look at and feel a product much like any other artist and their mediums. Its light rose-colored meat lightly laced in cotton-white fat along with other more graphic in nature yet bright colors showing its freshness, spurned ideas of how we would carefully prepare it. Within moments, ideas of flavors and textures began to run rampant and riddle my brain, but more of that to come later. . .