still life

something for the summer...a little refreshing.
compressed melons, melon broth, olive oil, yogurt spheres, yogurt snow, herbs, tapioca pearls

i find that so many people love to eat melon, but given a choice between and chocolate dessert, a strawberry dessert, and melon...melon is the least favorite.
oh well...it's a very clean finish to the meal

tears on fresh fruit (sparklehorse)

i really wish the diner would appreciate a dish like this as much as i do.  aside from the olive oil sherbet, there are no pastry techniques, merely a compressed stone fruit salad (peach, plum, nectarine; compressed, some pickled).  small pearl tapioca infused with vanilla, various herbs, santa chiara olive oil.
not shown is the peach consomme (gelatin filtration) that is poured tableside. 

tough winter

it's not that the weather is extremely harsh, but i feel as if i am being pulled to bits.  so many things going on at once.  i just got back from yountville in the napa valley where i spent seven days opening up a new hotel and restaurant.  my days began at 5am working with the bread/breakfast pastry production team and ended about midnight with the dinner service team.  only to start again at 5 the next morning.  seven days in a row.  i did escape twice to have some amazing dinners at ubuntu restaurant.  back here in carmel we've been having a lot of private parties, i have a dinner at a house in pebble beach this week, and christmas and new years are creeping up...don't have any ideas for menus.
with all these things happening i would really love to still create some new dishes but time is against me...
this dish has been on the menu for a few weeks now, in celebration of winter.  always playing off themes from the savory kitchen i wanted to mimic a pumpkin soup of sorts.
 steamed kabocha squash turns into a vibrant yellow puree which egg whites are added and placed into a siphon to make a warm foam.  olive oil ice cream, microwave brown butter cake, candied buddha fruit, meyer lemon curd buried underneath, and graham cracker crumbs.

revised

sometimes you get something in your head and it doesn't leave. you make a dish not because it's the one you wanted but because it becomes a type of catharsis. i feel like these damn raspberries have been running around with chocolate and olive oil in my head for too long. maybe this is the 3rd or 4th incarnation. soft chocolate ganache, raspberry sorbet, "toast" ice cream, olive oil powder, raspberry gel, raspberry croquan, mint.