one spoon quenelle: seafood dinner

tonight we did a dinner highlighting our local seafood. monterey is just 1.5 hours south of san francisco and about 4 hours north of santa barbara. abalone, spot prawns, sea urchin, bass, squid, so many local sea creatures. so in honor of these delights we like to do a dinner using only local seafood, it's also great to see our fish purveyors getting all dressed up, usually they just stop by smelling of the ocean as they dock a mere 10 minutes away from the restaurant.
though this is wonderfully fun for the cooks, it leaves a lot to be desired for the pastry chef. so my inspiration comes from a different source. taking a cue from albert adria and his "natura" phase i decided to create a scene of our local coastline. big sur, pebble beach,...amazing cliffs dropping into the crashing waves with amazing sand, seaweed feeding our cherished otters...

aerated praline ice cream to mimic the great cliffs, meyer lemon curd buried under a coconut "sand", meyer lemon "sea foam", chocolate twigs, shaved pistachio for "grass", micro cilantro, and seabeans and candied meyer lemon peel act as the kelp

don't know if the diners got the "picture" but they sure ate the scene. every plate came back clean.