After the halibut farm, we also visited a small organic farmer tucked nicely into a wind sheltered valley. It was a pretty nice operation, very freedom to let things grow kinda thing. Massive amounts of squash, eggplant, herbs, particularly basil in quantities that could put a pesto manufacturer on his knees. It was really nice. We wandered the garden, picked some stuff for the nights dinner, and headed back to the house to have it weighed up and costed. An awesome part about the whole thing is this guy's house. It's totally octagonal, and rocks my socks. He bitched about it being impossible to renovate, which I totally believe, because everything has to be custom made to fit inside. Still, a striking building. Sadly we didn't take any shots of the farm itself, we were too busy picking tasty business for dinner. Speaking of dinner, after the farm we went to the liquor store to stock up before going back to John's for a mad amount of food.
When I say a mad amount of food. I mean it. John had slotted some pork belly scraps in the oven to just braise to soft gooey-ness before leaving the house this morning, and we had a whole halibut, on top of a bunch of mussels and bar clams that he had kicking in the fridge. We basically got madly out of control, but before I describe anything that happened, let me tell you about John's house and the kitchen that lies thereunder. This is no wimpy home kitchen, he's got one of those upstairs. What John did, and all real cooks would give an arm and a leg to do, was outfit his back cellar as a professional kitchen. For him, it makes perfect sense, he works from home. For all of us, it was an absolute playground of delicacies. We haven't worked in a professional kitchen for almost four months. It felt like returning home after an epic saga into the wilderness, like nothing had ever been so civilized as this kitchen. In all seriousness, he has a spotless kitchen with a six burner range, two deck ovens, two massive tall boy fridges, stainless steel everywhere, a dishpit, massive spice rack and dry storage, and all the space you'll ever need. It was stellar. And we used it fully. As soon as he had introduced us to the kitchen, it was time for us to get to work. I'd decided to make flatbread pizzas with the mussels, whilst Fabian got his hands dirty cleaning to bar clams, I made dough.
John pulled the pork belly, shredded it, and spiced it up into a terrine. I let my dough rest and butchered the fish, ze german made sauce and a quick heirloom tomato and salami salad and we had first course: Bar clams with white wine sauce. We had already finished all the beer and started our first bottle of wine, there would be many more to come.
Next I rolled out the dough and pre baked it for a stretch, it was going to be thin crust and sogginess was not an option. When the edges started to colour, I pulled it out and laid the toppings down. John had meanwhile baked some croustini to eat the terrine with, so we baked off the pizzas and had second course together.
His terrine, and one flatbread with mussels, chanterelles, ricotta and a slew of different herbs from the farm including basil, nasturtium, arugula, dill and some edible flowers. The other flatbread had sungold tomatoes, sopressata, and more mussels. The terrine was mental good, and the flatbreads came out pretty well also. We had already gotten two bottles of wine down and finished another of champagne. And the beer.
Fabian also made a white eggplant caponata, very sweet and sour goodness. John made up a sauce to hit the top, and I seared off two fillets of halibut to cap off the meal. A little bit of chopped basil and the dish was complete.
It was a hit, and needed another bottle and a half of wine. After that we sat and chatted, digested a bit, and then spoke of dessert. We were getting out of hand, and reined it in for the moment, then John got a wacky idea. What about searing chocolate cake in nice olive oil? I don't know where it came from, but it came strong, so he did it. It was actually nice, though it was all I could do to take a bite and concentrate on tasting in my stuffed and drunken state. It was good, but I could stomach no more, so after a wee drahm of whisky, we called it a night. I was buzzing like a celebrity cell phone on vibrate at this point. It was an excellent end to an excellent day full of excellent food. Who could ask for more?
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