Cheese bubbles in the dockyards: My first Michelin star restaurant

While visiting Copenhagen with my foodie sister and chef brother-in-law, I visited my very first Michelin star restaurant. Since we knew there would be no possibility of dining at Noma on this trip, Sis did some research to find another excellent and accessible Michelin star restaurant. (Copenhagen has 12 Michelin starred restaurant; Noma is the only one with two stars.) Something about being named the best restaurant in the world makes it hard for plebeians, especially American ones, like us, to get a reservation. Go fig?! However, my sister had no problem making (and then pushing back) our lunch reservation at Paustian v. Bo Bech.

With my sister at the helm of the mission, we (three adults, one spunky, garlic-loving 6 year-old) hopped on a regional train, walked into the dock yards, through some fresh tar, and proceeded to get lost and debate (affectionately, of course) about the right way to get there. We had my sister's hand-drawn map from her earlier internet research and the occasional crude sign in the most inexplicable European language I've ever seen (and I studied Danish for 4 months!). We made it there--there being a very white, very Danish looking building, a high-end furniture store with a restaurant--sweaty, dusty, and hungry.

The servers wore hammer pants and bolero jackets and ours reminded me of Régine Chassagne of the Arcade Fire.

First off were some "cheese bubbles," which tasted exactly as their name would have you imagine.
Then, shrimp with chive blossoms:

And frozen grapefruit:

A beautiful slice of "ox heart" tomato with a vanilla-infused oil.

Throughout the meal we were offered three different kinds of bread: sourdough, licorice-glazed bun, and Swedish knäckebröd (crispbread), which tastes like an oyster cracker, communion wafer, and also nothing.

Between the four of us we ate every course offered at lunch that day. There was the smoked eel with spinach:
White asparagus slathered in...some kind of cream sauce, and served on a slate. Probably the most appetizing way to serve something incredibly unappetizing and dull.

And a braised leek atop lamp:


For dessert, vanilla ice cream with bitter wispy chocolate wafer and caramels:


Obviously my palette is not as sophisticated as the Michelin guide writers, but I enjoyed the first half of the meal far more than the last. The amuse-bouche were unique and tasty, the tomato was the stuff my (non-chocolate) dreams are made of, and the smoked eel might have made me an eel convert.

I think the restaurant closed the week after we visited, but will be reopening in a more central location, which seems like a wise idea. Thank you to my sister and brother for this culinary first! "Tak for Mad!"

Dinner in the Mountains

While I can't take the credit for finding this awesome Lion's Mane mushroom, I did help make it into some delicious mushroom cakes. The cakes were made with an egg, vegenaise (we just didn't have mayo), bread crumbs, dijon mustard, tamari, and fresh chives and thyme.


Here are the ingredients before the "wilted" mushrooms were added. They had the consistency and taste of really good crab cakes. Of course it helped that they were fried to perfection by my sister (who also gets credit for finding the 'shroom at our parents' farmers' market). We gobbled up the crab cakes...along with some jalapeno elk bratwursts, corn and swiss chard. It's pretty cool to be vacationing in a foodshed that includes elk meat!

Here was the beautiful setting for dinner: my family's deck, cool mountain air, and the gentle noise of the Roaring Fork River behind us.

Variety is the spice of life

Yahoo!

After a busy Thursday evening, I thought I might have missed out on my CSA box delivery, but it has arrived! So excited to see a lot of new things this week.

Parsley: Can't wait to make some tabouleh!
To my petite tomatoes: In the tabouleh you go!
Lettuce: I've missed your superior-to-the-grocery-store-bag taste!
Potatoes: A welcome staple.
Scallions: I have already forgotten what life was like with big white onions.
Cucumbers: Tabouleh!
Yellow squash & Zucchini: Here comes the flood...zucchini chocolate chip cookies in a few weeks?!
Green beans: Fat and happy...might be seeing the last of you.
Peppers: Hope this week marked my last grocery store pepper for awhile.
White eggplant: Maybe I'll try some fried eggplant strips and a fresh dipping sauce.

and...what is this?

New Zealand Spinach: Going to have to do some research on this one.

Also got some raspberry sorbet made from wild raspberries, sweetened with hickory bark syrup, grass-fed ground beef from Gryffon's Aerie Heritage Beef, and delicious Piedmont cheese from Everona Dairy. I decided to splurge on these extra a la carte items this week since my lovely foodie sister and niece are coming to town.