Fun Playing with Chef Ellis Cooley at the Culinary Vegetable Institute

As you've read over my last few posts, Bob and I were invited to share in the goodness of a  monthly Earth-to-Table Dinner at the Culinary Vegetable Institute on Saturday night. Adding to the fun, we'd be sharing our table with some friends, including the lucky winners of the ticket contest on this blog. Even more fun - our friend Dave, who blogs as Live to Cook at Home, would be in the kitchen as sous-chef for a day. We couldn't wait!

The Terrible Trio Plot and Plan

Left to right - tonight's featured chef, Ellis Cooley, and his co-horts in all things culinary (including Dinner in the Dark) - Brian Okin and Jeff Jarrett. The gentleman with his back to you is CVI Chef Michael Lyons.

Dave W joins the confab at the left.

When our host, Farmer Lee Jones, rings the dinner bell, he does not fool around:

And so - on to the fabulous food, featuring of course the amazing produce of the Chef's Garden.

Velvet Mushroom Soup - Chives, Truffle Oil, Dehydrated Mushrooms

Regular readers of this blog know that I have a slight issue with mushrooms - mostly with their texture. I am actually growing more and more enamored with their flavor - this amazing soup may have brought me fully over to the mushroom side (so long as I don't have to chew on them). This item periodically appears on the menu at AMP 150 - all I can say is that if it is on the menu when you eat there - ORDER IT!

Assorted Baby Beet Salad - Lake Erie Creamery Goat Cheese Fondue, Candied Spiced Nuts, Baby Herbs

 

A lovely cold counterpoint to the warm soup. Perfectly balanced textures and flavors, with the beets singing through.

Charcuterie Platter - Port Relleitte, Liver Pate, Red Cabbage Kimchi

Again, these are items you might see at AMP 150; Chef Ellis is fond of pairing spreads and jams on toast to delicious effect.

I enjoyed the rillettes.



But I inhaled the pate. Two of them. And I'd do it again.

Dinner Rolls

Served with a lovely sweet butter.

Slow Roasted Duck - Braised Caramelized Endive, Citrus

The duck, from Hickory Acres Meats in Oberlin, was perfectly cooked and succulent. 

Whole Roasted Carrots - Parsnip Puree, Picholine Olives

When I first read the menu, I didn't see how green olives could possibly pair well with sweet carrots. But damn if Chef Ellis didn't make it sing!

Baby Fennel and Figs -Fines Herbs and Fronds

This dish had me channeling an old Fig Newtons TV commercial from my youth. Tender, tasty (but not flaky)  fennel cooked with gooey gooey rich and chewy figs - darn tootin!

It took all of my self control to stop after a taste of each dish - but another round was in the offing and it proved a wise strategy.

Brown Butter Kale - Homemade Smoked Kielbasa

I've tried kale a few times, but never been a huge fan - until now. Ellis and his crew cooked the kale to it's taste and textural sweet spot, and the sausage was truly worthy of a midwestern meal. 

Braised Lamb in - Stew of Dried Beans, Mint, Natural Juices

 

This, my friends, was a beautiful thing. But wait, there's more!


Roasted Cauliflowers - Pine nuts, Lake Erie Creamery Goat Cheese, Beet Vinaigrette

Note the plural on "cauliflower" - there were at least two varieties in this dish. Simply fabulous and it didn't matter a bit that we'd already "had" beets and goat cheese - it all worked to delicious perfection. 

Anson Mills Organic Farro Piccolo - Celery Root & Leaves, Pickles

Regular readers of this blog also know that celery is not a favorite of mine, particularly raw celery. Despite the celery (which I took a bunch of, because I wanted to try it anyway), the farro was so lovely - not a side you see every day, and eating this dish, I wondered, why not? It reminded me a little of barley; slightly chewy, creamy and wonderfully savory.

Dessert was next.

We were first presented with this plate, with a large hole in the middle, between a Fennel Nut Bread and Meringue cookies (Paplova) infused with Sichuan Peppercorn. 

Floating Island

Chef Ellis explained this unusual dessert, which Wikipedia says at its base is "a French dessert consisting of meringue floating on crème anglaise (a vanilla custard)." Chef Ellis kicked his version up with blood orange and shiso. It filled the middle of the dessert plate nicely.

But alas, I was past "uncle" and could barely eat half. A shame, because it was so light and tasty.

A ticket to dinner at CVI will set you back $75, plus beverages and gratuity. But the experience is truly amazing. If you enjoy farm to table dining, this is the dinner ticket for you. April's dinner will spotlight Chef Jeremy Martindale from the Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale, and  May will feature Ellis's partner in Dinner in the Dark, Palate's Jeff Jarrett. CVI's endeavors also raise funds for Veggie U, a most worthwhile cause for anyone who cares about food and how our next generation is learning about it. If you love vegetables, you will have fun playing with the food at the Culinary Vegetable Institute!

A Contest to Win Some Fun Playing from Earth to Table

My husband Bob is an avid vegetable gardener - his last wish is for his remains to be scattered on a garden or farm. I have grown to greatly appreciate the wonders of produce from a real garden since I've been married to him. We have always wanted to go to a dinner at Chef Farmer Jones's Culinary Vegetable Institute - but it has never worked out. We have enjoyed so many wonderful meals including produce from The Chef's Garden; surely, a Chef allowed to go wild among the selections there could create an amazing meal.

The Culinary Vegetable Institute describes itself as follows: 

"The Culinary Vegetable Institute provides the world’s most innovative chefs with a place to share knowledge, experiment and discover techniques for growing and preparing the most flavorful varieties of vegetables in the world. The collaboration between the garden farmer and the chef and between the old and the new is the foundation of the Culinary Vegetable Institute (CVI). The CVI Kitchen Garden™ team searches for the best techniques to produce the most flavorful vegetable varieties in an organic fashion. The CVI is a learning center for the most progressive chefs to pass their vegetable knowledge and techniques to the rising stars of tomorrow."

CVI is also affiliated with Veggie U, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization committed to fostering the synergy between educational, nutritional, and agricultural goals to combat the rising epidemic of childhood obesity. Think "arts in education" but focused on real sustainable food - they bring hands-on food love to the classroom. And compost. Talk about playing with your food!

I was delighted when CVI invited me to attend their upcoming Earth to Table Dinner featuring Chef Ellis Cooley of AMP 150 (warning - web site is musical). Chef Ellis is an amazing individual who gave up the warmth and seafood of Florida to become an urban gardener at the most unlikely of venues, the Airport Marriott. AMP 150 stands for "America's Modern Palate", and we have enjoyed Chef Ellis's food both at his restaurant, and at Dinner in the Dark. Ellis is one-third of  Dinner in the Dark (together with  Cleveland-area chefs Jeff Jarrett and Brian Okin) which brings together Cleveland’s top chefs every month to host a six-course dinner for guests who are “in the dark” about the evening’s menu and the identitiy of the chefs until they arrive; the chefs receive the opportunity to create dishes at their whim and raise money for good causes. To date, the dinner series has raised more than $25,000 from ticket sales for local charities. 

And here is the best part - CVI has graciously extended the opportunity for me to give away two tickets to next Saturday's dinner to a lucky reader of this blog! Hungry yet?  Here is Chef Ellis's menu:

Small Bites

 Assorted Baby Beet Salad
Lake Erie Creamery Goat Cheese Fondue, Candied Spiced Nuts, Baby Herbs

Velvet Mushroom Soup
Chives, Truffle Oil, Dehydrated Mushrooms

Charcuterie Platter
Port Relleitte, Liver Pate, Red Cabbage Kimchi

Large Bites

 Braised Lamb in
Stew of Dried Beans, Mint, Natural Juices

Slow Roasted Duck
Braised Caramelized Endive, Citrus

 Gardens

 Whole Roasted Carrots
Parsnip Puree, Picholine Olives

Brown Butter Kale
Homemade Smoked Kielbasa

Roasted Cauliflowers
Pine nuts, Lake Erie Creamery Goat Cheese, Beet Vinaigrette 

Baby Fennel and Figs
Fines Herbs and Fronds

Anson Mills Organic Farro Piccolo
Celery Root & Leaves, Pickles

Desserts

 Floating Island
Citrus salad, Anglaise, Shiso

Petit Fours and Paplova

The dinner costs $75 and begins at 6:30pm. One lucky reader of this blog will win two tickets to enjoy Chef Cooley's creations, on CVI.  Please note that tax, gratuity and beverages are not included in the free tickets. CVI is located at 12304 State Route 13, Milan OH 44846. If you would like to attend this dinner (and if you don't win the tickets) - please call  419-499-7500 to make your reservation for next Saturday's dinner. If you can't attend March's dinner - May's Earth to Table Dinner will be crafted by Ellis's partner in Dark Dining - Chef Jeff Jarrett.

To enter the contest, please post a comment below telling us what vegetable you would like Chef Ellis or CVI to grow in the garden this year, and why. Please ensure that I can reach you by posting some contact info, or by emailing at minimum your email address to me at playswithfood at yahoo dot com. The winner will be selected by random number generator on Tuesday March 8, and your comment must be posted by 10am that day. Good luck and thank you in advance for your interest and comments! We look forward to having fun playing with Ellis Cooley's food, from earth to table and hope to see you there!

Fun Playing with Food in the Dark

Cleveland's place as a jewel among food towns just got a little higher and a little brighter. And all because we ate in the dark. Well, not exactly - the name of the event was "Dinner in the Dark," and the concept was that a bunch of Cleveland chefs would take over a restaurant and cook what they wanted to cook, for a change. They and their restaurants donated all of the labor, and worked with their purveyors to obtain donated food, and wine (the wine purveyor also donated proceeds on retail wine bottle sales) so that a donation could be made to a worthy charity at the end of the evening. The concept grew from there, and Bob and I were among 60 or so lucky participants in the first event, Monday night. For $50 per person, a full house at Brian Okin's Verve Restaurant got to enjoy a six+ course dinner paired with wines. The evening offered several opportunities to direct additional revenues to the chosen charity, Veggie U. And to top it all off - Mister The Chef's Garden - The Culinary Vegetable Institute  - Veggie U. himself, Farmer Lee Jones, was in the house! And as if that wasn't enough - Farmer Jones provided all of the produce for the dinner. We couldn't wait to taste.

Autumn Snapper - Joe Deluca from Apothecary

This welcoming cocktail consisted of Aperol, Campari, Cinar (Artichoke Liquor), Freshly Pressed Honey Crisp Apples, Heirloom Tomatoes, and Micro Parsley.

Bob was the first in our group to say something to the effect of, "the heck with ceremony - I'm tasting these tomatoes in the bottom of the glass." We who followed his lead were well rewarded by amazing tomato flavor.

Amuse Bouche: Stuffed Micro Bell Pepper

This delectable morsel was prepared by Chef Brian Toomey of Verve. Chef's Garden Micro Bell Pepper was stuffed with a combination of Butternut Squash-Goat Cheese Puree, Pepita (Pumpkin Seed) and Bacon - an auspicious beginning!

Garlic Pudding - Chef Matt Mathlage of Light Bistro

Heirloom garlic pudding, gai lan (Chinese Broccoli) sauteed in duck fat, pesto broth, compressed squash, rye bread puree, pickled black radish. Now, I love garlic, so the notion of Garlic Pudding was just fine with me.  I loved the perfect balance of pungent garlic and creamy pesto, offset by the gentle bitterness of the broccoli.  My dining companions were wowed by the pickled radish (I'm not a huge radish fan myself). The only negative any of us could come up with was the lack of bread to scrape every bit of the goodness off of the bottom of the serving bowls!

Pig Ear - Chef Chris Hodgson of Dim and Den Sum

A certain Cleveland chef  appears on a Food Network show called "The Best Thing I Ever Ate." If I was on that show (or picking a dish for it), these pig ears, confited in duck fat and served with roasted delicata squash, dandelion greens and frisee, sour polenta, pepper & lemon vinaigrette, would have a starring role. The texture of Chef Hodgson's pig ear was like no other pig's ear I've ever sampled before, bringing together intense creaminess with crispy porkiness. Some of it actually stuck to my teeth - and I liked it, I liked it!!

Deconstructed Caesar Salad: Lettuce, Flash Fried Egg Yolk, Egg White Meringue, White Anchovy, Crouton, Olive Oil - Chef Adam Bostwick of Melange

Another amazing dish. Though my flash-fried egg yolk was not runny as the Chef intended, it was the exception among our group, and still tasted delicious. The deconstructed dressing worked nicely, in part, because the white anchovy popped with flavor without overpowering the other ingredients.

Intermezzo

This Lemon Verbana Sorbet was the second contribution from Chef Brian Toomey of Verve. It was exquisite, and the perfect way to clean said popping white anchovy off of the palate.

Dry Pack Scallops with Coconut Curry Sauce, Heirloom Cauliflower, Moroccan Oil - Chef Brandt Evans of Blue Canyon Restaurant

IMHO, Brandt Evans is the undisputed sea scallop king of Cleveland - no one makes them better.  The curry sauce added to the flavor parade, and the radish garnish was sliced so thinly that even I could enjoy it. That heirloom cauliflower burst with so much good flavor that Bob actually tracked Farmer Jones down in the Men's Room to learn where he might get seeds for next year's garden. Ok, I lied - it was happenstance that they met and discussed the cauliflower in that location. But yes, it was that tasty.

Short Rib with Chocolate Sauce, Polenta, Root Vegetables, Sorrel - Chef Jeff Jarrett, North End Hudson

We should have been too full to do justice to this plate. Still - the aroma, as the servers began to distribute them, got us all salivating. While the concept of beef and chocolate is hardly novel, Chef Jeff Jarrett really nailed this one and made it his own. Was it the chocolate-infused sauce? The melt-in-your-mouth beef?  The creamy, yet toothy polenta? The amazing vegetables, featuring turnips that had us oohing and ahhing (and who oohs and aahs over turnips, after all?)? I have no idea - but I think that I could happily eat a plate of this dish for dinner every day during the winter and never tire of it.

Beet Cake with Creme Fraiche Ice Cream and Chocolate Ganosh - Chef Ellis Cooley, AMP 150

Yes, you read that correctly - Beet Cake. A flour and sugar dessert, starring beets. Another brilliant use of the garden from Chef Ellis Cooley. Though the ice cream melted swiftly, the taste was worth the hurry to eat it (and the cake loved being immersed in the creamy puddle that remained). Chocolate provided the counterpoint, as did the "tire track" of candied garden flavor across the top of the plate.

The first Dinner in the Dark embodied the very concept of Fun Playing With Food, and both the Chefs and the diners had way too much fun! We also learned a little bit more about Veggie U, which takes the gardening experience into public school classrooms around the country by setting them up with the start of a fully functional garden (including composting materials). Veggie U. thus tries to bridge the knowledge and experience gap for school children who are otherwise part of the national disconnect between human beings and the food we eat.  I cannot imagine a more worthy cause for people passionate about food.

The next Dinner in the Dark is scheduled for November 15, 2010 at Verve. I do not know the chef lineup or the charity to benefit yet - but reservations are highly recommended.