Fried Green tomatoes, Grilled Shark, and Blueberry Bread Pudding


Here are some specials I made this week. First Fried Green Tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes have to be on my menu all summer. I know some tomato purists will say you should leave the first tomatoes to ripen in order to have ripe tomatoes sooner, but I'm not going to wait when I can have a juicy fried green one. Also I don't like the standard cornmeal crust-too gritty-I dust them with flour and dip them in beer batter and serve them with some chipotle aioli. Next week I'm experimenting with a lighter tempura batter made with rice flour.

We grilled shark steaks at least three different ways this week. This is the only one I photographed. It had a marinade William-my extremely talented sous chef-gave me. Then I added some extra ingredients to the marinade to turned it into a hawaiian kind of barbeque sauce, and served it with a pineapple and shrimp fried rice. The flavors were marvelous, but one of the other cooks-who shall remain nameless-overcooked the rice in the middle of the dinner service and ruined it.

And lastly some dessrt. Last week one of my cooks, who did a lot of the baking, left in a little temper tantrum. I asked him to leave until he got it under control and hoped he would talk to me the next day-I gave him that option-but no deal. Kitchens are not democracies, and my kitchen is my space and it's my way or the highway. Soooo-I was baking alot this week-Panna Cotta, Chocolate Creme Brulee, Pastel des Tres Leches with pinapple-here is a photograph of my bread pudding with blueberries and white chocolate.