The Moment you've All been waiting for

I woke up this morning with a MAJOR food hangover. This past week I did a little too much eating and drinking and not enough exercise. Today starts a new week for me, and a new beginning. It is time for me to start my GET BACK ON TRACK WEEK. I woke up early this morning with the sunrise and pounded out 4.5 miles. Here are my stats:

• Distance: 4.51 miles
• Time: 40:49
• Average Pace: 9:03/mile
• Mile 1: 9:02
• Mile 2: 9:07
• Mile 3: 9:13
• Mile 4: 9:00
• Last .51 mile: 4:28

As you can tell my run was a bit slow for me, but after my dinner last night (which you will find at the end of this post) it was hard to run fast. When I got back I was craving a green smoothie, but there just was not enough time. I had 2 TBS of liquid chlorophyll in 16oz of water, packed my breakfast and lunch, got ready for work, and hit the road.

I had read in a magazine a while back to put 1-2 TBS of liquid chlorophyll in your water each morning to help revitalize your skin. It acts as an anti-inflammatory so it helps to make your complexion brighter. I had bought this a while ago, but haven’t been drinking it lately, and after all this food and wine this week my skin NEEDED it.

I also found THIS great website, that explains in depth all the health benefits of liquid chlorophyll.

Some other benefits from chlorophyll are:

• It helps to rebuild and replenish red blood cells and boosts our energy
• It helps to cleanse the body, fight infection, heal wounds, and promote the health of the circulatory, digestive, immune, and detoxification systems

You can find so many other benefits on the website as well. It is pretty awesome stuff if you ask me.

Now lets recap this week in food. It was quite a week if you ask me.

BEFORE YOU KEEP READING PLEASE READ THIS! First I should preface by saying that I want to remind you that I am in the wine and food industry. That means you must have an adventurous palate and be prepared to try things you would not normally eat.

I am about to share with you some meals that are not even CLOSE to healthy, but it is about the experience and tasting everything, and enjoying the pairings. The two dinners I attended this week required me to step out of my element and try foods I would have never tasted before. I don’t want anyone to take offense to any of these meals because that is not my intention of posting them. I am posting them because they were exquisite meals prepared by exquisite chefs, and it is important to showcase my experience in this industry.

With that being said my food week started off on Tuesday at the Pascal Maillard Dinner at Michel Richard’s Citronelle. Lots of food, LOTS of wine, and an overall great time. It was very dark in the restaurant so I apologize about the pictures. Also-I didn’t know what some of the foods were so I’ll do my best explaining.

We started out with a wine tasting of some of Pascal’s wines in the ballroom of the hotel.

The wines were so complex and full of layers. I couldn’t wait to try them with food. Even though we tried different wines with our meal, I had an idea of what his wines tasted like, and I couldn’t wait to try them with food. We proceeded upstairs to the private dining area at Citronelle where we were treated like Kings and Queens.

We started out with passed appetizers. Smoked salmon, cheese puffs, gourmet chicken nuggets with honey mustard sauce, fried mushroom sandwiches, and a few other things. Here are a few pics of the appetizers, but I tried to save room for the meal.

Then dinner was served. First course: Escargot Tart. This reminded me of a small pizza. I’ve never had snails so this was my first experience, and to be honest-they were not that bad. The crust was crispy, and I loved the flavor of the tomato sauce and greens. The snails almost reminded me of mushrooms. Is that weird?

Second course: Foie Gras Roulade with Sweet Autumn spices. This was probably my most memorable course. I loved the Foie Gras with the harvest vegetables and the sweetness of the jelly around it. Very nice.

My favorite white of the evening was the Maillard Corton Blanc Grand Cru 2006. Such a rich and beautiful wine. MMM MMM.

Third course: Fresh Rockfish with stuffed cabbage in essence of Corton. The fish was caught that very day in Maryland. The sauce was brilliant and bright and just gave the dish the slightest sweet taste, but complimented it well.

Fourth course: Duck with Beaune Sauce, truffle macaroni cube, and seasonal vegetables. The duck was very good, but I loved the cube of macaroni and cheese encrusted in truffles. I mean come on..IT’s TRUFFLES!

Fifth Course: Dessert: La Belle Helene. I have no idea what exactly this was but it had a puree of pear and a small chocolate ganache in the middle with vanilla ice cream on top. It was awesome.

The night ended with some fun pictures. I was even able to get one with Michel Richard himself.

Winemaker Pascal Maillard and Me

Pascal Maillard, Chef Michel Richard, and Me

I also met Bruno Goussault who teaches famous chefs, such and Michel Richard and Daniel Boulud at Daniel, to cook with a technique called sous vide (French for ”under vacuum”).

If you are interested you can read an entire article about him here. Very interesting.

So that concludes my Tuesday Night at Citronelle. The rest of the week was very low keyed until last night, Sunday. We had a staff dinner at Belga Cafe in Washington, DC, and it was NOTHING like I expected. I thought we were going to have a small little staff dinner at some restaurant, and I was completely blown away. First of all my boss picked out certain wines he wanted to have, and he worked with the chef, Bart Vandaele, on preparing the meals around these wines. Let me just tell you Bart pulled out all the stops for this one. This was a SEVEN course meal with absolutely outstanding, expensive, wine list.

We arrived at the restaurant, and I loved how cute and quaint it was. Very cozy, and upscale at the same time. Our table was set nicely with personalized menus and wine glasses. I knew right away this was going to be something special.

We started out with traditional Belgian Frites and of course champagne, Eric Rodez Empreinte de Terroir Pinot Noir 1998. I told you this was a special night. This champagne just became #1 on my champagne list. Already the night was starting to look good.

First Course: Frisee Salad with Croquette of Pig’s Feet.

This was paired with a VERY special bottle of Lamy Pillot Le Montrachet 2000. This bottle retails around $500…just sayin. It was GOOOD.

Second Course: Risotto with red beets, mussels in yellow safron, and velvet black squid sauce.

This dish was paired with the 375th Anniversary Cuvee bottle of Trimbach Riesling. The best Riesling out there in my opinion.

Third Course-Pan Seared Scallop with a Bon Bon of snails. I have to say this was probably one of my favorite dishes of the evening. I loved the sweetness of the red wine reduction with the pan seared scallop. SO good. Again my second encounter with snails this week, and again I really enjoyed them. This Bon Bon of snails was surprisingly outstanding.

Fourth Course:not on menu: Chef Bart’s famous cold smoked Foie Gras. This literally melted in your mouth, and my colleague Carrie said it best “This is the best thing that has ever touched my lips” The sweetness from the cherry jelly on the sides was amazing with the smokiness of the foie gras. A PERFECT pairing with Coteaux du Layon. Absolutely Spectacular!

This is where we switched to red wines, and I can’t remember everything we were drinking because I never got to see the bottles, but I know we had a Casanova di Neri Brunello, a 1983 Bordeaux, a 1984 Caymus Special Select Cabernet, and a Barolo. I was so excited about the 1984 Caymus because that is my birth year. I definitely kept the bottle!

Fifth Course: Slow cooked rabbit roulade, young veggies in a prune compote with a crispy bacon Rodenbach ale sauce. This was good, but I’m not a huge fan of rabbit.

Sixth Course: Venison Fillet with pumpkin, baked salsify, blood sausage croquette, pomegranate sauce, and corn waffle speculoos. This was by far my favorite dish of the night. The venison was so incredibly tender, and I loved the touch of pumpkin and pomegranate. The best was getting a piece of the waffle, a piece of the venison, and dipping it in the pomegranate sauce. UNBELIEVABLE! This was a perfect pairing with the Brunello and Caymus Cabernet. Such an outstanding dish. One I will never forget. The salsify was a new root vegetable that I have never tried, and I must find this in the grocery store. It was really good!

Seventh Course: Belgian Cheese Plate with a twist. This was 4 outstanding cheeses with a little fig and fig sauce. My favorite was the one in the middle and the Chevre. I had a little of the Trimbach Riesling with the Chevre..MAGNIFIQUE! I wasn’t able to finish all of this..obviously… but each cheese was different and had a very unique taste. A great way to finish the night!

The whole crew (minus 1 because he was sick) with the chef.

You can tell we had our fair share of food and wine. Now you know exactly why I feel like it is time to get back on track. A great week of food and wine, but a little too much for me to handle. I was happy to get a run in before work today. The week is already starting off on the right track. That concludes my post, and I hope you all have lovely days!

Tagged as: Bart Vandaele, Belga Cafe, Casanova Di Neri, Caymus, cheese, chevre, Citronelle, Corton Blanc Grand Cru 2006, duck, Foie Gras, Lamy Pillot, Michel Richard, mussels, Pascal Maillard, rabbit, Risotto, rockfish, scallops, snails, Trimbach Riesling, venison