Monday, August 24, 2009

Date Night in Paris




OK, I didn't really go to Paris. But Joe and I did get to have a date night on our 8th anniversary in Franklin, Tenn., at the Viking Cooking School. On the menu with Chef Jamie: Coc au vin, salad with chevre, tomato tartlet and crepes suzzette.
As is often the case in these Viking classes (Joe and I have Thai cooking, Morroccan and Superfoods under our apron strings) I was completely lost for most of it. The recipes in the packets barely coincided with what the instructor was doing. The droplets of oil leaping from the pans stung my hands. And it was sometimes hard to tell the little ramekins of salt from the sugar or the walnut oil from the honey... a mistep that could have be disasterous, or at least a little disgusting!

But when it came to crepe making, I was a pro. :-)

Getting my fill of ethnic eats

For those of you that keep up with the Daily Munchie, this post is going to be old hat. But I had some photos from our trip (beginning of the month) to Chicago and some opinions as well.
Sushi Ya- a newer Japanese restaurant close to the Schaumburg Township District Library, where my mom works.
Chicken bowl for Stephen
He was being a bit of a pill trying to escape his high chair and stuffing too big of pieces of chicken in his mouth when no one was watching, but I think he enjoyed it too.
And we ordered the "Schaumburg Roll" just because I think it's cool to order sushi rolls named after towns. It was good- no cream cheese or anything gross. Just softshell crab, eel, avocado etc.

Saffron - An Indian restaurant in Schaumburg off Wise Road.
Despite the exotic sounding name, Saffron's decor was kind of like a hotdog place or a sub shop. It also seemed to be run by one person (maybe there was someone else hiding in the back) and our food took a long time to arrive. Or maybe it wasn't really that long, but Stephen was again up to his worst restaurant behavior so it seemed like an eternity. Thankfully, there's a great fresh market with an extensive Indian food section a couple doors down from Saffron, and it served as a good diversion for fussy baby and frazzled parents.
The food was a mix of what I can only assume is authentic- like the peppery hot birani rice dish- and east meets west like "Tandoori pizza" which was actually one of my favorite dishes. The samosas were great... but had more black pepper than my tongue could handle. I've got a pretty decent tolerance for chili pepper hot and wasabi hot, but black pepper really does me in. Munchie also turned bright red when we tried to let him sample some chicken from the pizza. Poor kid!