It's not gross tasting, is it?

One aspect of my job I love is walking through the dining room, hearing comments about the food and answering questions regarding origin, cooking techniques and such. Beaujolais Nouveau last night was especially interesting, because we get to treat our customers with dishes they might not normally see in our home town. Here’s a rundown of what we served

Oxtail Soup

We seasoned and seared the tail pieces before we braised them all night at around 220 degrees. There is no substitute for the transformative effect long, slow heat. Remove the meat, de-fat and clarify the stock and reassemble for the final soup.

Country Style Pork Pate

We only have one cookbook we refer to on a regular basis, well, OK, two cookbooks, both of them by, as we refer to him, Ruhlman. His work on Charcuterie is hands down the most useful reference book I have ever worked with. Seldom do I follow a recipe, but this pate was as written. Pork, pork liver and duck confit wrapped together in a free form loaf and cooked in a water bath. Served with crostini and cranberry gastrique.

Charcuterie Plate

Again, the spirit of Ruhlman guides us through making Duck Prosciutto, Tasso Ham, Merguez sausage. And since our smoker broke, we had to fashion a ghetto model out of a couple of old hotel pans and tin foil. Not quite the same level of control, but when something goes wrong in the kitchen, the rally cry is “Improvise!”

Grilled Marinated Beef Heart

Here we applied another Rube Goldberg method that would make my dad proud. I sealed the heart with a red wine marinade in ziplock bag, mashed as much air out as possible, sealed it up and dropped in a steam table filed with exactly 140 degree water, give or take a degree or two as monitored by my probe thermometer. This takes the place of a $900 dollar immersion circulator, which is not quite as sexy, but it effectively took the otherwise tough piece of meat and made it lusciously tender after about 5 hours. We then sliced it thin, skewered it, quick grilled it and plated it with blue cheese and honey glaze. This was probably the surprise of the night for people who were skeptical at first. Maybe when my ship comes in I’ll buy the $900 piece of equipment, but you have to admit, this makes a better story.

Cassoulet

A classic French dish with white beans, pancetta, duck confit. Not really much to say about this one. Not a flashy presentation, but incredible flavor, again due to the slow cooking process. Damn the microwave.

Paw Paw Custard

A month or so ago, a guy stopped by my restaurant with a bag full of paw paws. Known as the Indiana Banana, this fruit is the largest edible fruit native to America. It has an outer skin like a mango, with a banana like aroma and texture similar to avocado. One of my kitchen staff said, “Smells like Laffy Taffy.” Not sure of the respectability of comparing something I serve to a 10 cent candy, but he was right it that it has such an unusually sweet aroma, that the first thing you might reach for is Laffy Taffy.

I'm off for the night. Time for the Beer Pastor to bring the message.

A friend of mine raves about this place...

Saturday night. I still have a noisy dining room, but it has settled down enough to let my staff take it from here. And now is the time of week I cherish. My finish line is crossed. I’ve taken my apron off, which is the signal to the Beer Pastor to preach me her sermon, except she’s sick tonight, so I’ll have to settle for the interim.

Here is where I get to review the day and ultimately, the week, and relish the fruit of our labors. A gentleman stopped by the kitchen to tell us that the Smoked Meatloaf was better than his grandmother’s, and another told us that was the best stuffing she had ever eaten. I do not take these lightly, because customers don’t usually make that kind of effort to make a flippant comment. No, I take them very, very seriously.

I would not have this kind of restaurant if I didn’t.

There is an old saying that goes like this: A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold. This is why I tell my staff from time to time to remember where they work. I remind them they work at bread&cup, because the name has become synonymous with good food and good pleasure. We are earning our sales, but in doing so, we are also earning our name, which has superior worth.

I am not arrogant to agree that our stuffing was the best the woman had ever eaten, because she is going to come back soon and bring more friends with her and come expecting to find the same level of quality. If I don’t take her seriously, I fail to recognize what I possess. My work suffers, and so does her experience.

I know I can’t bat 1.000. I’m sure I had my share of disgruntled customers tonight, when I shamefully had to admit we were out of apple butter, but I will have to figure out why that happened and work just as hard to see that it doesn’t happen again. A good name understands this. A fool does not.

Thanks, Lincoln, for a great week of bid-nez. We got a pretty cool town with a lot of potential. Let’s make our name stand for something.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner...

Restaurants open. Restaurants close. And last month brought its share of both. And since I regularly get asked what I think about the new places, or the ones that went under, here's what I think, free of charge.

I gain no satisfaction watching any business go under, because I am a businessman. I started with a dream, a little idea that got nurtured into reality. I know the feeling of excitement and anticipation. I know how much work is involved in hashing out all the details, in coming up with list after list to check over twice in making certain you have everything you need to open and operate efficiently and effectively. I know that regardless of how much you plan, there is still something you overlooked and have to catch it on the fly.

I’ve lain awake in bed through the wee hours of the morning wondering if my idea is good enough to succeed. I know what it feels like to be rejected by a bank for a loan, and fearful no one will believe in you enough to front you the advance. I’ve experienced the insecurity while waiting on delayed construction, putting a strain on the cash reserves you started with and not knowing if it will be enough.

I’ve felt the pressure of making payroll every two weeks, and of wondering how I’m going to pay all the bills by all the right due dates. I am familiar with the side effects of all this stress, physically manifesting itself in high blood pressure, bone aching fatigue, and the inability to get adequate sleep.

So I know a little bit about starting a business. Watching all that come to a premature, final end is not in the original picture.

No, I don’t need to gloat that I’ve made it and someone else didn’t, because I also have a firm grasp on how fragile life can be. I’m one crisis away from extinction, one lawsuit away from oblivion, one accident away from watching my dream vaporize. Anything could happen. No business is bulletproof. You may have a bigger bank account than me, but neither of us has any guarantees. The rain falls on the just and the unjust.

And when I see a new place come along, just as I wrote about Panera Bread opening downtown, I invite them in the game openly. One thing I love about being an entrepreneur here is that Lincoln has that one thing that every entrepreneur looks for; opportunity. If you haven’t noticed, Lincoln is not oversaturated with good, independent and locally owned places to eat, and if the Arena Project is approved, that opportunity is only going to get better for me and every other gambler ready to put the chips down on the felt.

My role is not to ascertain why so many food places are closing, or whether or not a particular place will succeed or not. I was always told that un-asked-for advice is never really advice, but instead, criticism. Unless you hire me as a consultant, you don't need me to be your critic.

You have 12 Mac n cheese all day...

I acknowledge that it certainly is frustrating show up at our restaurant expecting to enjoy a particular dish, only to find that we are sold out or that it is not longer on the menu. Let me explain why this happens occasionally.

Estimations

In a small place like ours, we have to make estimations on how many items we believe we will sell on a given night. We get this number from two different sources. One, from past performance and receptivity and two, out of thin air. In October, Mac & 3 Cheese was a hit, so we prepared to sell more. Then comes a random Wednesday night when most of Lincoln got the memo about this dish and showed up all at once to enjoy it and within 45 min, almost every order was for Mac & 3 Cheese. We sold out completely.

Since we rely on our own preparation and not a Sysco product, we can’t just step back into the walk-in and grab another bag and push 4 on the microwave and meet the demand. Others can get away with this and the customer never knows the difference. I know we run the risk of disappointing you in this way, but in our business there is never a sure fire way to estimate demand.

Supply

This happens with specialty items, like our Camembert cheese that is hand crafted on a small farm northwest of town. Replenishing our supply is not akin to running to the store to grab a gallon of milk. When we run out, we run out, and have to wait for the next batch to be ready.

We have a different problem with our beer supply. We have access to purchasing extra beer, but where do we put it? If you’ve noticed, there is no back entrance to bread&cup. We don’t have a storeroom, or a basement, or a walk-in cooler or the luxury of storage space to contain extra kegs or bottles. When a keg runs dry, there is no back up, because there is no place for us to put one. This is one of those limitation we’ve had to learn to live with.

Variety

I’ve been to eat at places where I would describe the food as tired. It just didn’t look alive on the plate. This could be due to an off night in the kitchen, or it could likely be due to the number of times that dish has been plated. If the line gets bored with what they are creating, it will show up on the plate looking flaccid and uninteresting. To avoid this, we update our Early Week menu every month, serving the same entrees on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday for four weeks. We feature handcrafted pizzas on Thursday, and add a new combination as well. Friday and Saturday menus are different every week. Why is this?

It all comes down to this; I don’t want anyone bored in my restaurant. I don’t want cooks on autopilot and disinterested, and I don’t want customers who grow tired of eating our food. It requires more attention and more work to do it this way, but I didn’t go into this business for the easy hours. I do it to make people happy, the kind of happiness that makes my kitchen staff feel good about the quality of their work, and the kind that makes you, the customer utter those descriptive noises instead of actual words when I come out of the kitchen and visit the table. I know what you mean.

In other news, we will soon be creating dishes from the Berkshire hog purchased from Bluff Valley Farm in Rulo, NE, raised by a 9 year old boy named Jacob. Berkshire are not a new breed, but are getting attention in the food world for their excellent flavor. High end restaurants on the east coast are buying these out of Iowa and shipping them back for use in their kitchens. How fortunate for me to find Jacob, from a Nebraska farm, who takes good care of the animal himself and is learning the value of farm work. You will get an excellent product this way without paying the high price tag.

Fifty Five Degrees and Counting

Like a good hedonist, I am gaining pleasure at autumn’s expense this afternoon, watching the oaks and maples change into their more colorful garments before dispensing of them entirely. Similarly, I am also basking in the afterglow of an incredible week of restaurant life, much in part to the review in the Lincoln Journal Star on a week ago Friday.

Reviews can make or break a place, and we certainly saw the former at work all week. It allowed folks to know that we now serve a dinner menu every night of the week, and attendance proved that fact. Around 6pm on Wednesday night, a usual night off for me, Karen called and said to get down here because they were already in the weeds. My bother quickly changed to adrenaline when I got in the kitchen and reminded myself that this is why we do what we do; we make people happy, and doing so better make me happy as well, or I’m in the wrong business.

Success breeds success, because if good news is really good news, it spreads virally on its own. If I can talk about my restaurant, I’ll take every chance I’m given. But if I can get you to talk about it for me, that’s even better. Customers make better advertisements than ads in any publication.

The conversation about success usually leads to questions like this; “When are you going to expand?” or “You could franchise this, you know?” And while I appreciate the reasoning behind it, it’s the opposite rationale that has made our concept work.

A franchise is a formula built on the lowest common denominator: What’s the lowest level of skill needed to reproduce the product? The reason our food stands out above the crowd is it made with increasing skill. We are constantly reading, studying new ideas, trying new techniques so we can present better plates in front of you. We are currently tearing through Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie, a book on curing, smoking and preserving meats. The Tasso ham we made convinced us we need to keep moving in that direction. Eventually all our meats on the Meat Plate and Ploughman will be created in house. It made us happy when we took the first taste, so we assumed it would do the same for you.

I am a thankful man this afternoon, and now I know what my dad meant when I would hear him say countless times, “my cup runneth over.” To be a part of this little hub of activity on the corner of 8 & S streets in Lincoln, Nebraska, I dreamed it would be good, and now I know what good feels like.

Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue..

{photo of Ellis Island}

The bad thing about time off is that it eventually comes to an end, but I'm not complaining, mind you. We had a great weekend away, and I have a great job to which I can return.

This photo shows Ellis Island playing the Hall Stage in the underground pub at the Weston Brewing Co in Weston, MO. It is two stories underground and originally was used to lager beer at a cool, natural temperature. It has now become a unique venue for music, certainly the most distinct place I've ever witnessed. I love finding places like this one; literally hidden away, off the beaten path, unknown to the masses, which is how it keeps its charm.

We found a table at the edge of the balcony and decided to stay put for the duration. This gave us a great vantage point to see the acts all day. It was about as good a day as I could ask for.

{photo of Screamin' Orphans}

Irish Music in a German dug cave

{photo of k&k}

Enjoying the first real time off since March with Karen this weekend. Ironic that Ireland was our last destination, and now an Irish Fest is our choice. Held in Weston, MO, this little underground pub was one of three stages from which to enjoy some outstanding Celtic themed music, including a long time favorite of mine, Seven Nations. {photo of 7N}

A surprise act was Flannigan's Right Hook, a KC based act that did more covers than original tunes, which I thought was surprising, but effective. How they found their way into a version of Time, by Pink Floyd, with electric fiddle substituting for Roger Waters soaring geetar, then into a traditional Irish jig, was beyond me, but they did it. I asked the fiddler after the show how they came up with the idea to blend those two songs, he said, "I don't know, but that is my favorite part of the show." I think it was mine, too.

{photo Flannigan's Right Hook}