busy busy

I finally figured out how to link my phone to the computer, yes I know how dumb that sounds.  But the picture shortage is no longer a problem.  Here are some shots from the past few weeks.

 
As a general rule... we don't make desserts (except for brownies, cobblers, bread pudding, and cookies).  But we donated dessert for an auction, and Lori (Brian our cook's wife) loves to make cupcakes.  So she made these Spring/Easter inspired fondant covered cupcakes.  They were awesome.

Who says there is no good seafood in Walla Walla?  These Penn Cove Mussels were harvested on the 18th and served on the 20th.  We blanched them, topped them with some garlicky bread crumbs, broiled them and served them with a saffron aioli. 

A phad thai noodle inspired salad.  Too many ingredients to list. 

We call these "shrimp scallop lollipops".  Seared on a flat top and then brushed with lemon garlic butter before going to the guests.  They never ever last more than a few moments.

Sliders made with Lostine Cattle Company ground beef.  Super clean tasting.  Caramelized onions, fresh thyme, goat cheese, mayo.  We served 800 on Saturday at Leonetti (from 10am to 2:45pm... that is like 170 and hour?) and another 200 on Sunday.

A fruit platter for a nurses appetizer reception.  Tangerine syrup is the dipping sauce. 

Blanched asparagus with tarragon mayo and Tim's Chips, and a Japanese noodle salad (its the cousin to the phad thai noodle salad).

And this is what the sandwich shop looked like all week... the graduating Whitties getting their last fill of Graze - a place to eat.

Cheers

boom boom

Since we last checked in... dinner for a church, dinner at Dunham Cellars, lunch for a Republican Congress member and supporters, lunch for Earth Day Volunteers, lunch for Veterans Administration Volunteers, dinner at Dunham Cellars (again), dinner at Dunham Cellars (and again), appetizers for Whitman Alumni at Dunham Cellars (again... again), wine lunch at Reynvaan Vineyards, dinner at Dunham Cellars (and seriously again), apps Friday Night for spring release weekend at Mannina Cellars, L' Ecole Winery, Reininger Winery, and a two day event at Leonetti for over 1,000 guests.

Its been busy here.  Wedding season kicks off this week with our first wedding of the season, May 14th at Areus.... and then it gets busier.  (Lord help us.)

Pictures to come once my phone decides to start communicating with the computer again.

Cheers

terra blanca weekend

Three years ago we had the pleasure to cook for Dawn and John's wedding reception in Benton City.  It was the first time we had been outside of the Walla Walla-Dayton-Milton Freewater 'metropolitan' area.  Last year, Terra Blanca contacted us (the winery Dawn works for), and we did a wine dinner and a cooking class for their Chef Seminar Series.  This year we came back for an appetizer party in February and then the big Spring Release Weekend.

Here is what the schedule looked like at Terra Blanca Winery:
Thursday - Brian did a Chef Seminar class.
Friday - I did a tv spot for KVEW Tri-Cities Morning Show (woke up at 3am to get ready and there on time!!!)
Friday Night - Myself and a cook friend did appetizers for 75-100 guests
Saturday - something like 1200 tasters descend on the winery, and we sold small plates to go with their wine.
Saturday Night - we created a buffet for all the winery staff and their guests.
Sunday Morning - left in a fog after packing the vehicle for two hours.

It was a busy and long weekend.  Add to it, Brian and Tracy did an appetizer drop off Friday, a buffet dinner for 85 guests Friday, and Saturday served a lovely family style meal at Dunham Cellars for 33 ladies celebrating their "many many years in business" party... and the sandwich shop kept humming along quite nicely.

Here are a few shots.

In the wood fired oven we crisped up some polenta cakes, caramelized some roasted red peppers, and roasted portabella mushrooms with olive oil... here is the finished dish with balsamic reduction, extra virgin olive oil, and shaved parmesan.  Is there anything more soul satisfying than cooking with cast iron.

A really terrible photo of our meatballs, with roasted garlic marinara, grilled walla walla bread company baguettes, smeared with roasted garlic... big enough to eat with a fork, but more fun to eat with skewers.

Shrimp, spanish chorizo, and corn fritters with saffron aioli.  Addictively yummy.

Cheers

the feast at reininger winery... and downtown

It was Cayuse Weekend, Feast of Walla Walla Weekend, and Breakfast Week.  For some strange reason we delivered breakfast Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  (We aren't as fun and cheery rolling into the catering kitchen at 5:00 am.)

Last Fall Release we did a small plates dinner paired with Reininger Winery library vintages and current releases.  It was fun, the guests had a great time, and we were invited back.  Saturday we did five courses paired with their Viogneer, Chardonnay, Desiderata, Anomoly, and Semillon.  I gave one server the job of reminding me to snap a photo before the first plates went out.  The shots were a bit rushed on the phone camera...

Here is the chilled pea soup, bright and vibrant green, topped with some creme fraiche soft like just whipped cream, we served fresh cracked pepper with it for guests to self moderate the pepper levels.  [It was so good we served the last bits at the sandwich shop the next day, the first customer of the day bought one small soup, then bought two large ones to take home.  Paired with the Voignier.]

What says Spring more than grilled asparagus and garlic rubbed bread, and egg salad (farmer alice's eggs, capers, shallots, tarragon, softened with a good deal of olive oil and a touch of water) so soft it falls partly into the sauce category, with a few prosciutto bits?  I can't think of anything more Springy.  Paired with the Chardonnay.  Simple, rustic, just how we like to eat.

Our version of chicken ballentine (or is it a gallentine?), three pounded thin chicken breasts laid out on cheesecloth to form a sheet of chicken, stuffed with a forcemeat of chicken thigh meat, sweated onions, thyme, parsley, minced tenderloin and cream, rolled into a compact cylinder and then poached to just barely done in a chicken stock.  Sliced and set in a rich and reinforced roast chicken stock we call a brodo, blanched carrots, sugar snap peas, and peas.  Paired with the Desiderata.

Grilled rosemary and garlic Fehrenbacher Farm rack of lamb, on top of the almost best beans in the world, calypso beans from Welcome Table Farm, roasted sweet onion, extra virgin olive oil.  Paired with the 2004 Anomaly. (so yummy)

For dessert... which we don't make... we made.  Brian our outstanding cook, made a a bread puddding, creme anglaise, roasted pear wedges, candied tangerine peel, and tangerine syrup, which looked lovely, and tasted fantastic.    

Cheers

television the drug of the nation

I found Hulu a few weeks back.  Sad how far behind the times the wife and I are.  We haven't had television for something like five years.  Netflix was our entertainment choice for quite a while until we found Hulu.  First we devoured Kitchen Nightmares (which really is a crash course in how to run a restaurant properly, good food and attention to food,customers, and employees, work hard, try, care, try some more, work harder, keep working, work some more, and if you are good and lucky... things may just go your way.  (Gordon Ramsey is a god, he is one of my personal heros, that silly show has taught us so much), then we tackled as many Chopped episodes available, and finally we are stuck waiting for new episodes of America's Next Great Restaurant.  (For which my answer to their question is... Hello... successful and reproduceable fast casual restaurant business model patiently waiting for you right here in Walla Walla.)) 

This was our last week of relative calm for the catering business. Starting this weekend, the next 15 weeks are busy. Like crazy busy. But we are ready and willing. So we spent the little downtime we had wisely, Brian went on vacation, Tracy and I went to meetings, and I messed around in the home kitchen with the kids.

Braciole test cook version number one for Entwine Dinner.
                                                

Mirepoix, garlic, pancetta for red wine marinara to braise the braciole.

The extra red wine that could not be allowed to go to waste.

 A homestyle roast chicken headed to our ancient oven.

Two big parties coming up we are super excited to be responsible for.  The Entwine Grand Dinner and Auction which will be a four course plated dinner for 300 to 400 guests.  And the opening gala dinner for the preview of the new Shakespeare Theatre being retrofitted in the old power building, it will be family style multi course for 200+ guests.  Those along with lots of dinners, weddings, luncheons, and appetizer events. 

We look forward to serving you soon.  Cheers.

two new sandwiches

We added two new sandwiches to the menu.  The Spring Asparagus Panini makes its return, replacing the Butternut Squash Panini.  It is lovely, blanched aspargus, two year old aged Tillamook Cheddar, provolone, and bechamel made from Pure Erie Dairy here in Walla Walla.  Get them from now until the second week in June when aspargus will no longer be local.

Our version of a Vietnamese Banh Mi is brand new and super yummy.  Lightly toasted Italian white bread, with a little mayo, sliced cucumber, medium flank steak, black pepper, fresh cilantro, thinly sliced raw jalepeno, and pickled daikon and carrot make up this super fresh sandwich.  We love it, and hope you do as well.

Wanted to share this snack the wife and I had last night, garbanzos tossed with garbanzo flour and paprika, cumin, tumeric,, salt, and cayenne, shallow fried in olive oil.  Such an awesome little appetizer/condiment/topping for so many different dishes.  One of our favorite things at the moment.

Cheers

Palmares

Palmares is a cycling term which means "a list of great accomplishments".  Here is our version of palmares.

Three emails sent to me regarding the Pheasants Forever Dinner last week, 340 guests (of which 40 were added in the last 24 hours) and we served prime rib and whole slow roast salmon filets with aioli.

Dear Graze,

I wanted to let you know that I heard nothing but absolutely wonderful compliments in regards to the food at the banquet. It was just delicious! I had the salmon and it was the best cooked salmon I have ever had (and that’s impressive when you are cooking it for 340 people!). My husband was absolutely obsessed with the whole meal and could not stop talking about how delicious it was. And, I have had many, many people come up to me out of the blue and tell me how much they enjoyed their meal. Your catering was an absolute success and I want to thank you so much. I had 100% confidence in you guys going in, but it always makes me very nervous to have been “the person that picked the new caterer”…as I knew any negative feedback would fall directly on me. BUT, it was the exact opposite!


Thank you so much for all your hard work, for being flexible on the ever-changing head count, and for the beautiful presentation. We were all SO happy with the final result.

Thank you again. It was great working with you.  
Alison Brugeman
 
The food was the best anyone ever had at one of these kinds of events.
-Randy Snyder (pheasants board member)

... and we got this email from a guest at the dinner, and she shared a great sounding recipe with us too...

Hello John,

I was in your restaurant about a week ago... LOVED IT!!!
Then, I went to the Fundraiser, Pheasants Forever
Oh My Gosh, Divine. Everything was !!
Gloria

Cheers

Boom Boom

Saturday we served 340 hungry pheasant lovers, 15 hungry beef tenderloin eaters, 40 wedding celebrants, and 17 hungry college students, and another 100 sandwich munchers.  It was a busy day.  Here are few shots from the appetizer party.  It was a pretty cool evening of food.  10 different appetizers, a few at stations, a few passed. 

We call these shrimp firecrackers (why I really don't know), the shrimp are skewered to stay straight, topped with a tiny bit of ground japanese red pepper, fresh cilantro, and then wrapped in lumpia wrappers and deep fried.  Served with sweet chili sauce.  They are incredible... really.

Grilled Lostine Beef skirt steak bahn mi.  A bahn mi is a Vietnamese sandwich, our version is on a hoagie roll with fresh cilantro, thinly sliced raw jalepeno, fresh cucumber, mayo, and pickled daikon and carrot.  We run a sandwich shop... this would definitely be one of our best three.  Coming to the menu soon.  And the grilled Lostine Beef skirt steak may be my favorite grilled meat ever.  Unlike any skirt steak you have ever tasted.

Coconut curry marinated chicken skeweres, with our traditional coconut thai peanut sauce.

House cured gravalax, with creme fraiche, caper, red onion, on a wafer thin crostini.

 And this is what you get to deal with in the morning when you serve 400 people.

Cheers

Best of the Best 2010 (and 2009)

So this is the second year in a row we have been voted Best of the Best by the readers of the Union Bulletin (our WW daily newspaper).  Which is pretty cool for a number of reasons.  One, at least we aren't the only business in the category being voted upon (drycleaner, dogwash, gourmet grocery, community college).  Two, we received zero votes from anybody that works for Graze, or owns Graze, or is a relative of a Graze employee/owner.  Three, we solicited zero votes from friends, acquaintances, customers, or mailing list members.  We feel we won the silly thing with a clean conscious.

It is really nice to be thought of as the Best... but then again three years ago when Graze Catering was barely know (and we were also the best caterer in town, thank you very much) the Whitman College catering service, which does very very little catering off campus won Best of the Best.  So we aren't about to let a little vote in the UB go to our heads.  Seriously now, how many people even vote for the category of Caterer?

I believe we are the best catering business in Walla Walla, not because people voted for us, but because we do a very nice job, for a fair price, with real food (as much as we can get from our local farmers)... that we make with love and care and attention.  We are proud of what we do everyday, and we are always trying to get better.  If you voted for us... thank you very much, and if you have been to one of our events and enjoyed the food enough to tell someone else about it... thank you very much, and if you have hired us (and hopefully would like to hire us again)... thank you very much.  And if you have read this far... thank you very much (don't you have anything better to do?).

[True story: In Sacramento the free weekly SN&R, ran the Best of the Best Issue every year... this was way before online voting, mobile check ins, smart phone banking, and facebook, so the vote was entirely paper and pencil balloting that readers actually had to fold and place into an envelope and put in their mailbox.  This complete train wreck of a restaurant stuffed the ballot box with their name for the category of 'best crabcake', even though they were some kind of Italian Fusion meets Neighborhood Bar mom and pop joint that maybe served ten dinners a night and probably served frozen pre-made crabcakes.  They win, then proceed to make one of those vinyl signs that read "BEST CRABCAKES IN SACRAMENTO!  Turn Right Here!" at the freeway exit.  I laughed at the absurdity of it all every time I exited the freeway.  The next year the free weekly changed the rules and made every ballot have at least 25% of the categories filled out to be valid, while mentioning nameless certain winners in years past had probably been ballot box stuffing.  At least the restaurant owners had the good sense to ballot stuff a lame category and not "best Italian" or "best fine dining"]
 
Cheers

Cattlemen's Association

What do you do to get your mind distracted from extreme anxiety?  I like to play games. 

Lets roll play.  Say you are going to serve 315 people, and you have done this bunches of times, and the math always works out, but there is always, and I mean always, this nagging question in the back of your mind that says "what if we run out?".  What if the guys in the cowboy hats just decide to eat more than they have in the past tonight?  What if a platter of food is dropped?  What if, what if, what if?

In the mad rush to get everything there, and on time, and fresh, and perfect; some wiggle room is always built in if dissaster strikes.  Which means almost always we have fifteen to twenty minutes to kill while waiting to serve our guests. 

So I like play games.  One of my favorites is the over/under game.  Ask any question regarding the event that is quantifiable, and then have everyone guess over or under the number.  Something like "how many bridesmaids/groomsmen will there be in the ceremony?" Or, "How much salad/prime rib/chicken breasts/spanikopita will be left over?".  But my favorite game is "guess the closest".  Every employee guesses how many or much of something is at the event.  I always put up the money, ten or twenty bucks seems to do the trick.  The servers and cooks guess a number and the closest wins.  It causes a lot of anxiety and wrinkled brows, and a healthy distraction from the pressure packed environment.

Our last big question was "guess how many cowboy hats are in the room?"  for the Cattlemen's Association Dinner hosted at the Walla Walla Fairgrounds.  Ten dollars went to the winner. 

Judging from the picture above what is your guess?

Dinner was a huge offering of buffet choices: prime rib and its accompaniments, spinach salad with mandarin oranges avocado red onion and toasted almonds, broccoli salad with sun dried tomatoes golden garlic provolone and balsamic dressing, pea salad with ham and cheddar, buttermilk dressing coleslaw, red potatoes and onions in brown sauce, brians wicked awesome potato salad, cauliflower broccoli and carrots with butter sauce.... whew it was big.  And tasty too, kind of a super fresh down home country cooking with a dash more culinary flair than mama provides. 

For the record, 15 prime rib at 14 lb averages serves right about 340 guests.  And there were 63 cowboy hats.

Cheers