Rendezvous is delighted to welcome back the work of award-winning photographer and inveterate world traveler, Don Gurewitz.

This month, we are featuring Don’s photos from the Tibetan Kingdom of Bhutan.

Nestled in the Himalayas, sandwiched between India and China, Bhutan is one the least-known and least-visited countries in the world.  It is a Tibetan kingdom which is just opening to the outside, at the same time committed to preserving its ancient culture.

Stretching from the towering, snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas along the Tibetan border in the north, to the semitropical forests and grasslands along the border with India to the south, it is one of the most beautiful, and still largely pristine, natural environments in the world, filled with exotic flora and fauna.

Don’s images present a look at this breath-taking environment and the people who live there.  They bring to life the unique and striking villages and monasteries; the colorful masked dances and religious ceremonies; and the monks, lamas, merchants, farmers, herdsmen, and townspeople who make up the population of this fascinating kingdom.

Please stop on by for a chance to see these rarely seen people and landscapes.

Mark your calendar!  Artists Reception and Open House to be held on Saturday, March 24th from 1-3pm.  All are welcome!

Time to toast 2012!

It’s time to ring in 2012!  We’ll be serving dinner 5pm-11pm on New Year’s Eve and from 5pm-9pm on New Year’s Day.

Chef/owner  Steve Johnson will be offering an á la carte menu on New Year’s Eve which will include several special dishes created for the Big Celebration!  Feel free to call us for details.

New Year’s Day will feature our traditional Sunday Prix Fixe for just $38 for 3 courses.  As usual, the entire menu is also available á la carte, for those who prefer.

For reservations, click here, call 617.576.1900, or just stop on by!  We’d love to be a part of your New Year’s resolution.

Portuguese sardines 

These little fish have ALL the qualities!  First of all, and most important, they’re REALLY TASTY!  One of the most abundant species in the ocean and the current darling of the sustainability experts, health-wise sardines are an oily fish (like mackerel, bluefish, etc) and by that full of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamins.  Also, being low on the food chain, they are happily devoid of heavy metals and parasites that much larger, older species acquire with age.  But lets get back to the flavor part of it . . . .

I buy fresh Portuguese sardines from my friends at Courthouse Seafood Market in East Cambridge.  Joe and Eddie run a busy little fish market, the displays are sparkling, the shop is spotless, and they are passionate about quality, freshness and flavor.  October is the height of the season, and the fully-mature fish (3-7 years old) are about 6 inches long and getting fattened up before their winter down time.  I purchase about 10 pounds every week during this time of year and pick them up at the store on Saturday mornings.  The sight of these fish takes my breath away; they are so sensationally fresh and beautiful.  If you check the encyclopedia on this, you will find that several different species are actually allowed to be called sardines in the marketplace — and most of them are good to eat, used for canning, etc. — but there is only one true Portuguese sardine (sardina pilchardus), and these are the real deal.

Here at the restaurant, I have three favorite ways of preparing sardines: the first is a salad, the second is a pasta dish, and the third is grilled.  I can never decide which one I prefer over the others, and come to think of it they would go together nicely as a 3-course sardine tasting menu!  These days we are serving the sardine salad and grilled sardines on our Sunday Menu and our Monday Night Tapas Menu.

Salad: First, we roast the sardines in the oven drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled lightly with salt and pepper (about 10 minutes).  Then we clean the meat off bones and cool it down.  The next step is to cook some hard-boiled eggs and peel them.  The salad also includes some well-cooked Yukon gold potatoes cut into thick rounds, a mixture of bitter greens (frisée lettuce, arugula, etc), our anchovy vinaigrette, and a sprinkling of toasted breadcrumbs.

Pasta: Prepare the sardines in the same manner as above (top-quality canned sardines will also work well, such as Cole’s).  While cooking some bucatini in salted water, quickly sauté in olive oil a bit of shaved fennel, some sliced garlic and onion, seasoning very lightly with salt and pepper.  Toss in some chopped black olive and capers and stir.  Add the crumbled sardine meat and stir again, adding another drizzle of olive oil if necessary.  Allow the mixture to cool in the pan.  Add some tender dandelion greens and/or chopped flat parsley.  Drain the pasta and mix well with the rest of the ingredients.  Top with toasted breadcrumbs.  This pasta dish needs no cheese!

Grilled: Here at Rendezvous we grill meats and fish over a live hardwood and charcoal fire.  The sardines cook quickly — only 3-4 minutes per side — but in that short time they pick up a lovely smoky aroma.  We usually serve grilled sardines with a chunky vegetable + herb vinaigrette.  My longtime favorite is made with shaved fennel, shallots, capers, lemon juice and olive oil.  We often sprinkle a little maras pepper over the top and the last minute.

My dear friend Ihsan Gurdal (of Formaggio Kitchen fame) has taught me a lot about Turkish food.  Dining out together, cooking for each other on weekends, and traveling abroad have given us countless occasions to discuss good food.  On a trip to Turkey with him several years ago, I got a wonderful introduction to authentic Turkish foods and ingredients, as well as into the culinary mindset of that part of the world.  Here at the restaurant, I often keep these lessons in mind when creating dishes for our menu.  One really good example of this is our Turkish Pizza.

What makes it a Turkish Pizza?

As is the custom in that part of the world, we grill our own version of homemade flatbread, actually a yeasted pizza dough infused with olive oil, fresh herbs (primarily rosemary and thyme) from our rooftop garden, cracked fennel seeds and black pepper.  We roll the doughs out into thin 10″ circles and grill them over the wood fire.  Then it’s about a delicious combination of late summer vegetables and herbs that are representative of Turkish cuisine: eggplant, tomatoes, marjoram, etc.  We slather some roasted eggplant purée on top of the flatbread, add some sliced tomatoes, crumbled goat’s milk feta, a few chopped black olives, a sprinkling of maras pepper, a drizzle of olive oil, and then some fresh marjoram — the sweeter, more perfumed cousin to oregano — over the top of everything at the end.  You get a little bit of all of that in every bite, and it all works so well together!

How do we make the eggplant purée?

We roast whole purple eggplants until the flesh inside is thoroughly cooked.  After we scoop it out, we put it into the food processor with some minced garlic, a bit of ground coriander and cumin, chopped mint and parsley, some olive oil, red vinegar, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and give it a spin.  One important key is to be patient when cooking the eggplant, waiting for it to become really sweet, soft and mellow.

Why goat’s milk feta?

Goat’s milk cheeses are favored in Turkey, and the feta cheese made from the milk of these animals tends to be a little more tangy and less salty than it’s sheep’s milk equivalent.  I just plain love the stuff!

What’s maras pepper?

Maras pepper is a paprika-style spice made in the region of the vast pepper fields of eastern Turkey.  It has a moderate amount of heat, and the version that I use is coarsely-milled without being completely dried out so that it retains a bit of texture and freshness (as opposed to a completely dried-out and pulverized spice powder).  If you’ve read this blog before, I’ve spoken about it on several occasions already; it’s one of my favorite ingredients and contributes to the personality of the cooking here at Rendezvous.

Cole's Portuguese Sardines

Canned Portuguese Sardines

The evening of July 4th, the end of a long holiday weekend full of beach picnics, cook-outs and fireworks displays.  Starting to wind down now after all the fun with friends, in anticipation of the upcoming work week.  Time for a quiet, simple, early dinner on the houseboat, but I’ve gone through most of my fresh ingredients and my supply of provisions is getting seriously lean.

A peek in the wooden wine crate full of dry goods offers the basic ingredients for delicious pasta dinner:  canned sardines and salted capers.  In the cooler, I’ve still got half an onion, a head of garlic and a small chunk of pecorino romano.  So far, so good . . .

Before packing up to leave for the weekend, I made a last-minute decision that it was the right time to harvest those dandelion greens that were growing wild around my rooftop herb garden at the restaurant.  At that time, I wasn’t too sure if/how they would fit into the holiday weekend menus.  Carefully plucked, then wrapped in a damp paper towel inside of aluminum foil, they kept perfectly in the cooler the entire weekend patiently waiting their call into action.  That moment finally came, and it turned out to be a perfect combination of flavors, yet simple — a little rich and fatty, briny, slightly bitter — possibly the best pasta dish I’ve prepared all year.

Bucatini for two with dandelion greens and canned sardines

This is classic houseboat galley cooking over two burners, using a small saucepan to boil the pasta and a sauté pan to prepare the greens.  Add a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan and cook onion slices and garlic slivers over medium heat until translucent and slightly caramelized, seasoning lightly with salt and pepper.  Add the carefully cleaned dandelion greens — stems removed as how you clean spinach, and rinsed well — and cook another 3 minutes until they start to wilt (careful not to overcook!), seasoning very lightly with salt.  Toss in a few rinsed and chopped capers.  Crumble in the drained canned sardines, sprinkle the whole with a pinch of maras pepper.  And the drained pasta and stir around briefly to mix, lightly drizzling with a little more olive oil.  Serve immediately in the same skillet, bringing the romano and a grater to the table along with a couple hunks of good bread and a bottle of chianti classico riserva.

A note about these sardines

There are dozens of canned sardines available, most containing “brislings” or similar quality.  I recently found this brand — Cole’s — and noticed that they used real Portuguese sardines (Atlantic sardine, or sardina pilchardus). It makes a huge difference; I really recommend that you try them!  They can be found at Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge or South End Formaggio in Boston.

The purpose of the event is to raise awareness about marine environmental issues and to raise money to support the Coalition’s programs.  In both regards, the event was a wonderful success.  I can’t compliment the staff of the Coalition enough for their fantastic level of organization (information, website, assistance, etc.).  It was a complete pleasure for me to participate in this event from the very first email right on through to the swim itself.  And I’m proud to say that I ended up being the number one individual fund raiser for the event this year!

To learn more about my swim, please click on the following link.  It will also lead you to the website for the Buzzards Bay Coalition where you can learn more about the important work that they do:  http://www.savebuzzardsbay.org/page.aspx?pid=787&tab=0&frsid=576

Memorial Day has come and gone, and all of the sudden summer is here.  After a prolonged stretch of gray, cool-ish weather during the month of May, Somebody-in-Charge flipped the big switch.  It began to seem like it would never happen, and people in general were really starting to complain about it, but actually for us gardeners this “spring” was really fantastic for doing early season work and getting those cool weather plants going.  Several of my herbs are ahead of schedule for this time of year.

If it wasn’t for those pesky birds!  The sparrows and grackles that live in my neighborhood have gotten “wise” to my big plastic owls, which used to scare them away.  Over the last couple of years, during nesting season, those little guys have become more and more fearless about swooping down onto my roof and foraging through my tasty herbs for materials.  The spicier, the better, apparently; they seem to prefer the lovage, sage and wild marjoram and clearly have a fondness for lavender.  I admire their tastes, I must say, and to be sure the leaves from these plants will make a pleasantly aromatic bedding for the happy couple and their future chicks. They may also be looking for bugs and worms and other food items they might find in my compost bin.  In any case from the vantage points of the gutters and roof lines of the neighboring buildings, they seem to have figured out that those fake owls aren’t ever moving!

Fortunately, this activity only goes on for a few weeks in the spring time.  As with any garden pest, it can be a little disheartening to go up there in the morning to find certain plants have been vandalized.  But I must admit that another part of it intrigues me, too.  It makes me realize that their behavior is part of a big process, and that all of us are sharing this earth and using its resources for our own particular needs.

Baby fennel

Late April Update -

What a great month of April it’s been!  Up on the roof, we’ve already been harvesting chives, chervil and lovage, and several other perennials are already several weeks ahead of normal schedule.  Yesterday, in particular, was one of those “perfect days” for gardening:  I spent an absolutely delightful hour upstairs in the light, warm mist transplanting seedlings from their starter pots into their permanent homes for the season.  Just as I was finishing up, the rain picked up and another beautiful spring shower lasted for about an hour.

The horseradish that Bob gave me 3 years ago has sprouted up again.  We mince the tender young leaves for garnishing fresh oysters on the half shell.  In the last week I’ve noticed lovage leftover from last year sprouting out between the side slats in the compost bin — I love it when that happens!  My current favorite is the new baby fennel that I’m growing in order to use the wispy tops as a finishing touch on a new fish dish over the next couple of months.

I’ll start my new rotation of French breakfast radish plantings this week.  And soon it will be time to reorganize the root systems of that crazy mint that is starting to bust out all over.

After a winter of brutally cold weather and tons of snow, the weather lately has improved incrementally, warming up bit by bit over the last couple of weeks.  Up on the roof the rosemary bushes have survived fairly well in the greenhouse, although I lost one to a combination of cold and dryness.  Even if I only lose one plant out of 14 in two years, it’s still a little traumatic for me — these plants are my darling babies!  It’s a surprising downside of lengthy stretches of sub-freezing temperatures; all the water is frozen and therefore the plants can’t drink!  But outside of that, everything else on the rooftop came through okay — lavender, thyme, sage, mint and chives. 

Thanks to the arrival of this springtime weather, these perennials are starting to show some new life.  The chives are already 3 inches tall.  It’s been great greenhouse weather lately, plenty of good sunshine streaming in for the plants.  Since the worst of it is behind us now (we think) I’ve taken the windows off the little greenhouse to let the warm rain in on the rosemary plants.  Tomorrow, they will be coming outside for good, and I’ll be replacing them inside the greenhouse with some new seedlings that I bought recently.  Little bay trees, sage, mint and chives will spend the next 4-6 weeks in there getting some early season encouragement!

The compost heap has completely thawed, and there’s lots of earthworm activity in there already.  The next couple of weeks I’ll be able re-mix dirt from last year with fresh compost in order to prepare crates for planting.  New seedling purchases will be arriving soon, seeds going into the earth, and away we go again!

A few months ago, a restaurant chef/owner in California posted on his blog a criticism of Open Table’s business practices while questioning its real value to restaurants, causing quite a stir in the food media.  You can read it for yourself: http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/blog/2010/10/18/is-opentable-worth-it/

In great detail and with well-constructed arguments, the author concludes that restaurants like his (small/independent) don’t really need an outside company to handle their online reservations, and so why pay so much extra for that service . . . ?  He makes a lot of good points, many of which I have shared at one point in time or another (or currently still do), and by the end of the article most readers sympathize with him and swear never to use Open Table ever again to book a reservation in their favorite restaurants.

However, this blog post only focuses on Open Table as an online reservation system, and that only tells half the story.  Here at Rendezvous, we have come to view Open Table as a valuable part of our total marketing strategy.  While it is true that subscribing to Open Table represents yet another way for a small business like mine to spend even more money each month just to keep pace in the modern world, here we justify the cost not only in operations but also as marketing.  We are willing to pay a small user fee to gain access to their customer base (which is really big!), and then we use that opportunity to try to make a good impression on these guests and turn them into our own regular customers.

Helpful to the customer:

Over time, to its credit, Open Table has evolved into much more than just an online reservation service.  A couple of years ago, some smart people working for them developed more tools and features for their customers to use — one of which is Open Table Diner Feedback, in essence a message board for customer reviews (minus the chat and running commentaries).  Unlike some other popular online sites, the opinions expressed on OT Diner Feedback are generally more consistent across the board, possibly based on greater breadth of experience by its users — something to do with their demographics, maybe?  In any case, it appears to us that the members of this “club” tend to trust each others’ evaluations and view OT Diner Feedback as a credible and reliable source of information.  It is something of a hybrid between Zagat and Yelp/Chowhound: users can simply rate their experiences, select applicable categories (or not), add comments (or not), send a private, direct message to the restaurant (or not), and provide the restaurant with an email address (or not).  All this adds up to the fact that Open Table Diner Feedback is NOT the place to go if you want to spend a lot of free time praising or ranting; rather it provides an economical site for bare-bones feedback with some occasional seasoning.

Helpful to the restaurant:

From the restaurant operator’s perspective, this offers a great opportunity to view useful customer feedback that is often track-able to the specific guests, with occasional opportunities for direct communication with the guests post-visit.  Since we have a computerized record of any given night’s customer flow, when we do get comments we are more able to constructively connect the dots on our hospitality, points of service, diner’s preferences (seating arrangements, wine selections, diet, food choices, etc), general impressions and overall experience.  We have been able to use this information to improve customer relations, make physical changes in layout and decor, closely monitor our cooking and service — and countless other little details that help us to continue in our effort to make our restaurant a more comfortable and enjoyable place for our guests.  This is restaurant marketing the old-fashioned way: building your business one customer at a time.