Viking Cooking School Outdoors presents their new chef: ME!!

I am extremely excited to announce that I will get the opportunity to serve as the Viking Chef at the new Viking Cooking School Outdoors on the third floor pool deck of the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center!!  The school itself is currently under construction, but classes are slated to begin on Thursday, September 22, 2011. The fully equipped outdoor kitchen featuring grills, smokers, and outdoor burners from the Viking Range Corporation overlooks downtown Baton Rouge and the Mississippi River.  I'll be up there teaching and demoing great recipes in leisure-style cooking classes for anybody interested in learning more about outdoor cooking or changing up their idea of going out to eat.  The hands-on classes will be small groups of no more than 16 people while the demo classes can hold up to 36, or can be expanded for private events and larger parties. 

From the Hilton: "Chef Instructors for the first ever Viking Cooking School Outdoors have also been selected. Local food blogger, radio show host, LSU tailgating expert and MasterChef participant Jay Ducote will lead the way with his passion for competitive barbecue and outdoor cooking. His experience on the grill and in the kitchen, as well as teaching, public speaking, and entertaining will be an asset to the school and will spice up all the classes. Chef Matt Brewton will also join the team. Matt brings experience as an executive chef in New Orleans as well as with the Viking Cooking School in Nashville, TN. His knowledge of the culinary arts and the Viking line of products will make the hands-on cooking classes and demos can’t-miss events!"

I hope to see you around the grill!!  Let me know if you have any questions or comments.  I sure am excited to share this experience with everyone!

Wine Dinner at Niche Bar and Grill

Niche Bar and Grill on Siegen Lane recently hosted an "Around the World" Wine Dinner.  The seating area had been transformed into a white table cloth dining room and I immediately became excited about the efforts of Ause, the owner, and his staff.  I knew this dinner would be an improvement over the previous wine dinner I attended at Niche, but I didn't know how much better.

The wonderful Lauren Michaud joined me for the evening of food and wine.  Appetizer number one featured what Niche called "Tapas de Brie."  Pretty much a version of bruschetta, the slices of toasted bread were topped with tomato slices and melted Brie then drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette and rosemary.  The dish had great flavors that worked very well together.  For a small plate or an hors d'oeuvres it did the trick.  I didn't quite get the pairing with the Argentina Malbec as the Tapas de Brie seemed more Italian than Argentinean or even Spanish, but, what the heck, its all Latin, right?

Tapas de Brie

Graffingna Malbec

Appetizer two included Oysters Portofino paired with a glass of Bottega Vanaia Pinot Grigio.  The oysters were breaded and covered with a spicy basil red sauce and melted mozzarella cheese.  The wine pairing on this course was right on target.  The oysters themselves were decent, but the sweetness and acidity of the wine that matched the tomato sauce is what really made the dish work.

Oysters Portofino

Bottega Vanaia Pinot Grigio

The first entree course emerged as by far my favorite dish of the day.  A blackened redfish filet sat on top of a deliciously fried eggplant slice.  Both the redfish and eggplant were smothered in Niche's signature spicy crawfish cream sauce.  The Hess Chardonnay matched extremely well with the trio of fish, eggplant and cream sauce.  The textures and flavors of every aspect of this plate struck my taste buds in a harmonious symphony.  This is the best dish that I've had at Niche, which made me really happy!

Redfish Feliciana

Hess Chardonnay

The lamb dish, our fourth course, is the one that I most eagerly anticipated.  The frenched lamb chops were covered in a mustard-mint demi-glace and served with rosemary red potatoes.  In another very appropriate wine pairing, the lamb came served with a glass of French Pinot Noir.  While I really liked the lamb, it didn't quite match the previous redfish plate.  The mustard-mint demi-glace fell short of being a stunning sauce with the lamb.  I enjoyed it, but it didn't quite work perfectly for me.

Lamb Chops

Louis Jadot Pinot Noir

The meal wrapped up with tiramisu and a glass of Port.  I again found it odd to pair an Italian dessert with a Portuguese wine, though they did work fairly well together.  I think a glass of Prosecco or another Italian dessert wine may have been more appropriate.  Still, the dessert tasted pretty good and the I'm a big fan of Port, so I left the dinner very happy!

Tiramisu

Fonseca Porto

Thanks to Niche for continuing to put on these dinners of assorted beverages.  I very much applaud the efforts to bring a dinner like this to a more casual dining atmosphere.  This wine dinner proved to be worth every penny.  I found some of the international pairings a little odd, but in the end they worked well enough to ensure that everyone had good food, good wine, and a great time!  And I think that Redfish Feliciana might be on the menu now or at least run fairly often as a special.  Do yourself a favor and go try that!

Wall of Fame!

A week before Memorial Day in 2010 I became the fifth person ever to complete the Kodiak Arrest Challenge in Anchorage, Alaska. The challenge was made famous by Adam Richman of Man vs Food on the Travel Channel. Michael El Koubi recently visited Humpy's Great Alaskan Alehouse where he found my picture enshrined on the Wall of Fame. Thanks Koubi! Good to see that the six pounds of Alaskan King Crab, seven salmon cakes, and foot-and-a-half long link of reindeer sausage was all worth it!!

National IPA Day

Yesterday was National IPA Day and my brother Eric, author of BRBeerScene.com and my cohost on the Raise a Glass Show (96.9 WHYR-LP Fridays at 6), had a bunch of people over to enjoy a smorgasbord of India Pale Ales. I brought over some Saint Arnold Devine Reserve 11 (Double IPA) that had been gifted to me by Shannon McNair and Kevin Black, and then tasted a whole lot more. Good times for sure!

Cafe JoJo's in Morgan City

On a recent trip to the Louisiana Coast I had the pleasure of getting treated to a fantastic dinner at Cafe JoJo's in Morgan City.  The restaurant, which opened its doors in 2003, sits in downtown on the banks of the Atchafalaya River.  Fortunately the levee system saved them from most of the flooding after the Morganza Spillway opened this past summer.  Still reeling from the oil spill over a year ago, the Louisiana seafood industry is currently on a long path to recovery.  Morgan City was at the center of the storm, so to speak, during the whole fiasco.  With an ironically named "Shrimp and Petroleum Festival" as the city's largest annual event, it is easy to understand the strong ties of seafood and oil that bond the community.  I made commentary on the connection between Louisiana and Alaska in an earlier post based on seafood and oil, and thanks to Exxon and BP, the coastal communities became even more connected in a tragic way.

Dinner at Cafe JoJo's began with a fried crab cake in an artichoke and corn sauce.  The cake itself came packed with fresh Louisiana crab.  The artichoke and corn sauce impressed me as it had both an intriguing uniqueness  and an excellent taste to go along with the crab.

Course two saw an Oyster Rockefellar bisque.  While I admire the idea of turning a classic dish into a soup, this happened to be the only course that didn't overly satisfy me.  The fried oysters in the creamy bisque felt out of place and left an odd texture.  However, the flavor of the soup still had me eating the entire cup.  Maybe I'm just a fat ass.

The Cafe JoJo's staff brought out the third course.  A delicious seafood crepe came out loaded with shrimp and crab and smothered in an amazing buttery, creamy herb sauce.  I gobbled the crepes up in record time.  They had a great savoriness to match the sweetness of the seafood.  

By the time the fourth course came out almost everybody at the table had already gotten full.  Not me.  I knew what I had in store and I got my second stomach ready.  The main entree featured a grilled Louisiana redfish filet with green beans topped with an intoxicating pesto-chardonnay sauce.  The dish is one that I'd love to recreate at some point.  While the meal as a whole just continued to get heavier and heavier with butters and creams, this dish and this sauce stood out on their own.  I loved every bite of it and needed extra bread to soak up the sauce that remained abandoned on my plate.

And naturally, no meal is complete without dessert.  I tasted the turtle cheesecake (front and center), the bread pudding (far left), and my favorite, the homemade Chantilly cream (top right).  The cream had a light fluffiness that ideal rounded out the heavy meal.  I managed to have a few bites before bringing the rest back to the hotel with me.  All in all, Cafe JoJo's served up an outstanding and memorable meal, and I'd be happy to return any time I dine in Morgan City.