it's been a while

to catch up a bit i just finished moving ..Back to my hometown of Fairhaven ,MA .. I love it here ...the restaurant is doing awesome .my fall Ala Cart menu is getting rave reviews,and like i always do when i release a menu have started looking at the winter menu my dinner menu now features 29 dishes from raw bar to entree a choice of 8 tapas selections at the bar ,7 dessert choices, and sun-Thur an additional 8 entree selections for the dinner for two .....that may be a little to much the prep work load is exhausting at the least . and having to trim staff hours and food cost..and ordering has me beckoning for an easy menu instead of focusing on the quantity of choices ....I'm gonna focus on making a smaller menu all that much more tasty..winter ideas as of this morning...Poisson stuffed with roasted mushroom .pearl barley risotto .Bordeaux redux ...simple yet freaking delicious ..I'm contemplating the veg..and maybe a bacony element to lift the umami in the mushroom. or what about the old cocoa nib and cauliflower trick..hm mm. I'm also in deep thought of tweaking iconic American cuisine i.e .. tomato soup ..A-1 steak sauce..i found a supplier that sells pop top aluminum cans ,and steak sauce bottles .. i could find the fonts that are used and create my own restaurant inspired labels. crane classic in the Campbell's soup font. D-2 steak sauce ...and present both to the diner as an interactive element of a dish..imagine if your waiter or waitress comes to your table places a bowl in front of you with a honey ricotta cannolli nestled at the bottom and pops the top on a can of gourmet soup canned 1 minute before in the kitchen . this could spark some child hood memory of mom fixing up some soup with snow gathering on the windowsill....aha nostalgic...i could also sell the bottled steak sauce at our gift shop..I've been flirting with these ideas for a while and i think its time to start.. curds,jams,jellies,we can do it all i just got to work out the kinks...I'm also thinking about doing a cookbook with each menu to give away the recipes .or accumulate the year in review and start releasing crane brook volumes 08' 09 ' etc....I'm a busy man and a very happy man. i will start posting gain daily ..so check back to see things unfold