If you were one of the lucky residents of Wake Robin, you were seated for an amazing tasting menu of seafood dishes and complementary dessert. This was the second in a series of special meals our kitchen staff has created to flex their culinary muscles and have some fun.
Interested parties signed up and a randomizing program selected 40 diners for this experience. The lead chef for the evening was Josh Krechel who designed the tapas-style menu working closely with our seafood supplier out of Boston Harbor. They had a lead time of two and a half months to work out the theme partly based on fish migration and what is at peak season in early June. Josh explained there is much more to consider than simply what to cook. This involved the geography of food, in this case, ocean locations and seasons, where the fish are, and what would make a good combination for a sequence of courses.
Josh favors the New York City style of plating that arranges food by vertical design…pile it up! He was also designing by color and chose bright accents such as a strawberry gazpacho, beet root gravlax, and yellow romesco sauce. The featured seafood included lobster, scallops, gravlax (cured salmon), octopus, and sea bass.
After the bounty of the sea came a stunning dessert created by Deborah Stearns, Wake Robin’s pastry chef. She has been part of the Wake Robin kitchen team for 20 years and says these tasting menus are a chance “to do the fun stuff!” Coordinating with Josh on the visual aspect of each course, she was free to come up with something that would be the conclusion of this feast. Deborah chose to work with the classic flavor combination of goat cheese, pear and wine to build her Chevre Panna Cotta with Wine Poached Pear. But she needed one more component to finish it off. She quickly learned how to do “spherification” and turned raspberry jelly into “caviar.” Deborah loves the art of baking, but food science really interests her. “I’m a science geek” she said as she explained how she made food into spheres for the final accent on her dessert.
The tasting menus come up every couple of months with a lot of anticipation from our residents. For the Dining Services team, food is more than cooking to provide sustenance. Food is a science and a joy for the chefs of Wake Robin.
