This is what happens when you let the chef behind the bar...

It's really hard to go a summer day with our awesome patio at the Lobby without a drink special.

I had some fresh strawberries and jalapenos on hand, and was already making a batch of sweet and sour for the bar, so I whipped this delicious little guy up, and decided to throw out a little how-to for you all so you can make one of these this summer!

 I present to you: the Strawberry Jalapeno Margarita!

Now, there are a lot of available shortcuts to this drink, you can use one, you can use all, but believe me when I tell you that every shortcut you use, you're only depriving yourself of the freshest, easiest drink you can make this summer! Let's begin!
What you will need:
8 strawberries
2 fresh jalapenos
1.5 qt sugar
(the following are the easiest to cheat on, but will affect your drink the most. Put in the time, it's worth it to juice your own fruit if possible!)
3 c lime juice
3 c lemon juice
1 c orange juice
3 sprigs thyme

For the sweet and sour:
Put all juices, thyme,  and sugar together ver very low heat for about 20 min. DO NOT boil. Just let it steep.
Viola, you've just made sweet and sour!
(pictured left, it also has orange rinds in it)







 After making your sweet and sour syrup, you can half and add the strawberries. Let it steep again without boiling. You can see the color (and flavor) come out of the strawberries!





(Left, begining of syrup, below, notice the color change at end of cooking)

 Cool down your syrup in an ice bath

Put in a rocks glass with a thick slice of jalapeno

Using a muddler (or back of a butterknife if you don't have one at home), squeeze out the deeeelicious jalapeno oils!

Add ice

Don't forget the tequila! Silver is my personal preference. After topping it off, put in a shaker. Rim the small glass with sugar, and pour the shaken drink back into the small glass.

Garnish with a fresh slice of strawberry speared with a thyme sprig, Drink, repeat.

There you have it folks!! This our special tonight so come in and grab one, or enjoy your own at home!

Cheers!

It's not you, Pork, it's me.

In my last post, I jokingly stated that I wouldn't update until April. And here it is... April.  I had every intention of doing a post about my 1 year as chef, about how excited I am for the upcoming summer, posting a little more about past events, and even getting some recipes and videos up. Unfortunately, writing hasn't only taken a back seat to everything, I think it jumped out of the car about 50 miles back. This is a bad thing, because if you knew me before I was professionally cooking, you know that I really love to write and actually planned on building a career around that! Nothing made me happier than slapping on some headphones and sitting on the floor or at a desk or on a picnic table and writing. It's a very anti-social hobby, and currently life doesn't leave me with much alone time to write. Except right now, so on with the show!

Last month I celebrated my first year as an executive chef. On my 25th birthday I celebrated my first executive chef position, and a year later I'm still loving it, though I have plucked a grey hair or 2...

I"m very excited to have finally come into my own. I feel like for my first 4 or 5 months I was just repeating things I had made with or under other chefs, and started to get bored with it.

The downside to earning my position so early is there is a lot more I probably should have learned before taking the helm, however, I feel I've always been good at searching for fun new things to do and just figuring out how to do them myself, and have honestly had a pretty high success rate! Here I am now, with my last menu release being described as "the best menu to be served at the Lobby, and the one to finally push us to exactly where we've wanted to be all along," and I've realized that I just needed to make food that I loved and not worry about making something that was better on a camera than a palate.

While I dabbled with foams and caviars and other simple molecular gastronomy, I figured out that my real niche is making simple food very well.

You can drop 5 different crazy sauces, foams, and caviar balls until the plate is overflowing, and it can be amazing and delicious, but at the same time so can a perfectly cooked pork chop with a perfectly al dente risotto and a basic grilled vegetable ragu.

I use this analogy because my pork dish on my menu has been my worst enemy through all my menu changes. I am a man who LOVES his pork, especially a good tenderloin or chop. I tried to make a real stand-out item with my pork dish on each of my menu changes, but 2 or 3 weeks in I was so unhappy with it I got angry every time one was ordered. I tried making an apple cider caviar with fried cranberry risotto, and the plate looked damn cool, and individually everything tasted great, but with everything being it's own little part none of it blended together.

As of now we have an orange glazed pork belly with BBQ lentils and bleu cheese creamed spinach, my own take on a simple "BBQ pork plate." Pork belly is SOOO good! I love it as a special, but I think it has lost its novelty now that it's on the menu.

I'm not mad that I ran any of these dishes, I think I just veered away from my own standards of keeping it simple and delicious and tried to go over the top with them. People loved them, I got plenty of compliments on the pork chop especially, but I think I can do it better next time with just a simple perfectly marinated and cooked chop with a simple sauce, starch, and some fresh vegetables. That is exactly what you can look forward to at the next menu change. Simple and perfectly delicious.

I look forward to summer, a new menu, offsites, and hopefully more than 1 or 2 posts...