Category: Chefs

Summer Dish Review – Peas and Carrots at CARSON KITCHEN

 Chefs are always trying to think of ways to sex vegetables up.

Probably because “eat your vegetables” may be the least sexy phrase in the English language.

Vegetarian and vegan chefs (generally) fail miserably at these endeavors (despite their protestations about “loving” vegetables) because most of them are motivated more by a fear of food than an appreciation for it. (Think about it: How sexy can anything be if you’re afraid of it?)

But put some well-chosen produce in the hands of an accomplished cook and wonderful things happen.

Exhibit One: The Peas & Carrots at Carson Kitchen.

Cooked in stock, swathed in butter, and accented with micro-greens and softened onions, they are best-tasting version of this old “Swanson’s TV Dinners” staple ever concocted.

Remember those peeled back aluminum trays?

Image result for swanson's tv dinners

Yeah, we’d like to forget about them forever, too. But somehow the metal-flecked, alum-scented, steamed-beyond-belief everything is seared into our brain.

It ruined us for peas and carrots for forty years, until Chef John Courtney took us by the hand one hot summer day in July and showed us the light.

Can vegetables get any tastier? Or prettier? Or sexier?

We don’t think so.

They’re so good, they’ll make you forget the Fifties.

CARSON KITCHEN

http://carsonkitchen.com/

Au Revoir ANDRE’S

imageEd. note: After eighteen years at the Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino, the last Andre’s will close its doors in early October — management having made the decision to close before the lease is up to make room for a gigantic Eataly to span the Strip side of the hotel. The good news is that Andre’s will soon resurface in a new location in the southwest part of town (in the space of a well-regarded local joint that has already relocated downtown), and that negotiations are underway to bring a casual bistro back downtown, only a stone’s throw from the original Andre’s location on Sixth Street. Below, I share some thoughts on my long and tortured relationship with the chef-owner of this culinary pioneer.

When I got the news last night that Andre’s would be serving its last Dover sole on October 5, it suddenly dawned on me that Andre Rochat and I have had a decades long, movie-of-the-week relationship straight out of a bad rom-com.

You know the kind: where a couple who each has been starved for affection meet cute, have a torrid affair, drift apart for years, miss each other terribly but won’t admit it, rediscover the flame, re-connect for what looks to be a long, steady relationship right up until they both disappoint then infuriate each other causing both to swear undying loathsome contempt for the other until one is found to have a disease that brings them back together even thought willful pride won’t let either one admit they made a mistake and  even though everyone is rooting for them to get back together and it’s only when one of them is leaving for good that both realize what they’ve been missing all along.

Yeah, that one.

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