Learning As We Go

After a dozen or so Oyster Fritter Classes, I think we’ve got that one down pat!  I have two pictures submitted by students to share:

This one is from Libby – titled: BreakFast Fritter.  Looks pretty good, what with the scrapple and all.

Next we have Mallory’s proud shot of her successful attempt at the Lemon Butter Sauce:

Not bad!  Now I want to see it with a fritter!

I hope some of the other Fritter Students met with success at their attempts to produce that iconic delicacy.  I know that I certainly have benefited from weeks of repetitive classes, since I got a fritter sample just about every time!  Certainly worth all the dishes I’ve been doing!

As April draws to a close, the challenge to continue to attract students looms large.  We’ve got some great classes scheduled for May, including a two part session that will involve a whole hog, if we get people to sign up, of course!  If not, it may simply morph into a sausage-making class.  Word of mouth is slow to travel when you have only 6 or 8 customers at a time, so pretty soon our advertising budget will kick in, but until then we are making do with email and FaceBook.

One of the outgrowths from our most recent set of classes was the birth of our new slogan.  As our students begin to leave the kitchen with their recently acquired fritter knowledge, more than a few had expressed a bit of concern about being alone with their new skill and needing a coach to look over their shoulders.  “Never fear”, we assured them, “if you have a phone, you have a Chef!   Your instructor is just a phone call away, if you need him”.  And Kevin really would be genuinely happy to walk someone through any tricky part, over the phone, if it was requested.  He’s just that sort of teacher.  Immediately we decided that this would be our K-B Kitchen School slogan.

“If you have a Phone, you have a Chef!”  Ha!

Kevin manages to keep busy, no matter what is on the class schedule.  Last week  it was making MeatBalls for Colchester.  This involved St. Brigid’s Farm beef, which Kevin ground and made into little spheres of meatball joy for Colchester Farm’s Spring Open House:

They were pretty tasty, although not as tasty as the spare ounces of meat he absconded with and made into a couple of burgers for us. There is no better burger than one made with SBF fresh ground beef, as many of you could attest after years of Burger Mania at Brooks Tavern, and we just couldn’t resist its call. It has been suggested to us that we should have a reenactment of those Thursday Spectaculars here at the K-B Market, and we are seriously considering it.  We’re thinking when the weather warms up, a Saturday cook-out right in our own back-yard, with burgers and their associated buns ready for immediate consumption or to take home for a later grilling.  Stay tuned as we figure out the logistics of this event!

The first local asparagus of the season made it to the Chestertown Farmer’s Market on Saturday, via Bill Kelly’s truck from Redman Farms, and some of it went right into Kevin’s hands, where it was later shared with that Saturday’s students.  Ours is not even poking a tip out of its bed yet, but luckily we don’t have to wait for it to appear to enjoy this seasonal treat!  In years past, Cathy has made Kevin’s week when she would bring that first Spring flat of her asparagus through the back door of whatever kitchen Kevin happened to be in.  It is the first real sign of Spring on the local vegetable scene, and that’s probably why there seems to be nothing better.  Plus, all of you KBKS students can now make Lemon Butter Sauce to serve with it!

This Thursday night’s class features the other harbinger of Spring in these parts:  Shad and Its Roe.  Kevin finally was able to procure the fish from Captain’s Ketch in Easton.  Ben Dize will be co-teaching with Kevin: Ben will be doing the fileting and Kevin will be doing the cooking.  It should be an interesting session, especially to have a Crisfield native demonstrating the art of fileting this boney fish.  (There are still two seats left for this class, BTW.)

We have a couple new wines available at K-B Market this week – a Bonarda and a Torrontes, both from the same Argentinean winery, Nieto Senetiner.  (I was really after their Malbec “Camilla”, but that is still awaiting delivery to the distributor, so we’ll look for that in May.)  Meanwhile, the Bonarda is a big friendly red, ready for the summer grilling season, and the Torrontes is going to give Chardonnay drinkers something to think about.  You can read a bit more about these two wines on our WebPage, plus other updates regarding wines available for purchase at the K-B Market, as they become available.

In other Food News, we headed to Rock Hall the other night for a meal at Four Sirens, the tiny little spot on Main Street recently taken over by one of our favorite Chefs, Jay Reed.  Jay worked with us at the Brooks Tavern as sous-chef for a few years,  rapidly becoming one of the best cooks we’ve ever had the pleasure to engage.  He is spending seven days a week now at his new venture – we are not jealous – and despite the fact that he has probably lost about 20 pounds, seems quite pleased with the operation.  It was the first time we’ve been in the space since it was the Bay Leaf Deli, so I don’t know how different or the same it looks when Steve Quigg operated his Kitchen in Rock Hall from that address, but it is clean and unfussy, with five or six tables in the dining room, and the kitchen part being a long galley that runs most of the length of the building.  From the pinot grigio to the rockfish, it was spot on.  As Kevin noticed, “He cooks with butter”.  The quality of the fish, the preparation of the vegetables, the tasty hot rolls – it was all good.  After a couple glasses of the aforementioned wine, our only criticism was of the deli case that is front and center in the wee dining room – get rid of those sodas and put something interesting in there!  The Four Sirens has only just opened, but I am pretty certain that Jay is onto something good.   Rock Hall is definitely going to be home to another dining destination, lucky for us all.   I only wish I’d taken a Selfie with the proud owner-operator in his new digs!

Next on Kevin’s schedule – besides his massive work load here at KBMKS – is his stab at cooking under pressure at “Taste of the Town” this coming Sunday.  He will be one of three Chefs participating in the “Diced!” segment of the event, preparing an appetizer from the Mystery Basket before a crowd of onlookers.  Taste of the Town was always one of our favorite fund-raisers in Chestertown,  where we would spend the afternoon not only meeting and greeting past, present and future customers  but high-fiving and hugging our peers within the local restaurant community.  This time our participation will be limited to the Diced segment, but we really look forward to seeing what those hard working restaurateurs are doing for their representative taste this year, and to getting our sampling in from the other side of the table.

Meanwhile,

Keep on Cooking!

And, don’t forget our Slogan:

“If you have a Phone, you have a Chef”!