The last of our grandes projets involves the erection of a deer fence to defend our newly landscaped spaces from said deer. David wanted it to be not visible from the house, so it has wound up being a rather long fence, to say the least. The fence has four gates, three of which are standard issue farm type gates, but the fourth is the main gate onto our property, and required something a little special. It is going to be slightly Japanese in style, although made out of steel tubes. The guy (John) who is constructing and fabricating it for us has turned out to be reliable and thoughtful, two traits that are valued highly around here. He came up with the design for the gate, and we went over to look at it in his shop on Sunday.


Gate Sketch - the arch will actually be made up of two different arcs with different radii.


The gate - way bigger than I thought!


John and the gate

As the deer fence is 7’ high, the gate is also quite tall, and spans 14 feet (with two swinging segments) to allow for trucks to get in and out.   It gets hung temporarily this week too get the hinges set, then it's off to the shop to be powder-coated.  The arch is due to be set over Thanksgiving weekend - woo-hoo!

I think the money flow has finally trickled down to almost nothing....

ursine1 posted about these traditional Catalan All Saints' Day sweets called Panellets.  They looked yummy, so I asked him about the recipe.  gorkabear  responded with one for the version made with sweet potatoes, or boniatos.  I tried my hand at making them this week up in Willits. 

Here is how they came out.

Needless to say, they were delicious! Made with sweet potatoes (I used not too sweet yellow fleshed ones), ground almonds, and sugar, after being baked they wind up with a chewy consistency somewhat like marzipan. Although there are a couple of variations for finishing them, I coated mine with pine nuts before baking. Like gorkabear , I would probably make them a bit smaller the next time.

Last night, I treated David to a birthday meal at Chez Panisse. If you haven’t been, Chez Panisse is Alice Waters’ famed restaurant. It is said that the local foods movement started with her and this place. We’ve been many times over the years, and have experienced the ups and downs of new chefs and style adaptations/clashes. We dined “downstairs,” in the fix prix dining room, which, I think is the best way to experience the place (even though you don’t get to have any of the pizzas, which are only served “upstairs” in the Café). 

We hadn’t been in a while, so it was a little startling to see that all the staff had changed over. However, their professionalism and knowledge won us over, especially the sommelier, a woman in her 30’s, maybe?

Here’s the menu:

When it came time to select something to drink, we realized that we really didn’t feel like drinking a whole bottle, so the sommelier suggested that we split glasses, and we went with her recommendations. They were all pretty amazing, and paired perfectly with the food.

With the leeks we had a 2007 Sancerre, Les Monts Damnés Chavignol, Thomas Labaille

With the sea bass it was a 2008 Morgon, Marcel Lapierre

And with the duck we had a 2007 Côtes du Rhône, Brézème, Emil Texier. It turned out that this was composed of only Grénâche grapes, but was amazingly complex and deep.

We passed on the dessert wine, unfortunately.

It turns out that we spent the hours before our appointment at home watching “chopped,” so we decided to be the “Chopped” critics at Chez Panisse. 

An appetizer of house-cured picholine olives came first, lightly brined, with garlic, rosemary, a hint of nutmeg and a coating of local olive oil – yummy!

First course: NOT chopped. The fine mince of cornichon pickles and capers brought out the best of the vinaigrette dressing, and the perfectly hard-boiled egg and proscuitto were a good foil for the braised leeks.  Does that woman EVER use mediocre ingredients?

Second course: Chopped. The sea bass, although perfectly pan sautéed with a crispy skin, seemed to lose the essence of being tea smoked, although the sautéed spinach and mushrooms were delectable.

Third course: NOT chopped. Slices of perfectly grilled duck breast, slight rare, were paired with a piece of duck confit, and a “deconstructed” cassoulet with at least a dozen types of beans, lardoons, and of course the cracklings and bread crumb gratin. Tied together with a yummy pan reduction sauce and that Côtes du Rhône made for a reason to use every last piece of bread to sop up the juices.

Dessert: NOT chopped. The quince apple tart was more like a strudel, but with this very rich pastry dough instead of filo dough. Add a wonderfully honey-tinged caramel sauce and the vanilla/calvados ice cream, well, we ate it all!
 

Although we passed on the Blue Bottle coffee (special Chez Panisse blend, of course) we didn’t pass up the candied orange rind dipped in chocolate and miniature macaroons.  We also passed on the cheese course - just too stuffed!

All in all, it was a very good meal.

Happy BIrthday to my not on LJ husband, David!  It's officially on the 20th, but I couldn't wait!

xoxoxo