Orchids: Treats from Two of Cincinnati’s Top Chefs - Todd Kelly and Megan Ketover!

Things often don’t turn out as anticipated. A truism I bump into frequently. I’d made reservations at Orchids for friend Cindie and me during Downtown Restaurant Week, then learned she had to drive to Indianapolis for work that day. Cindie was iffy about whether she would be able to join me Tuesday night, which I knew would likely turn into a no. But I stuck to the same line I used when I first asked her about going with me: “I am going to Orchids. Even. If. I. Have. To. Go. By. Myself.”

The high-ceilinged “Palm Court” where Orchids is located, in Cincinnati’s historic art-deco Netherland Plaza Hotel, is one of the most magnificent rooms in the city. Every time I walk into that space, I feel swept away to another time and can’t help but check my daily concerns at the door. It reminds me of another classic art-deco landmark, Radio City Music Hall, which I saw the inside of for the first time when my grandparents visited me in NYC and took me to the annual “Holiday Show.” As the house lights dimmed, my stern, straight-laced Nebraska grandma laid her hand on mine and uttered the most startling and endearing sentence I ever heard from her lips: “In my next life, I want to come back as a Rockette.”

The hotel, which has gone through more changes in ownership since it was built in 1931 than I can keep track of, is currently run by Hilton. I’ve eaten and had drinks there in a number of its iterations, but hadn’t been there since Chef Todd Kelly came on board, garnering Orchids “Best Restaurant in Cincinnati” designation from Cincinnati Magazine for the last two years and consistently glowing praise from Cincinnati Enquirer restaurant critic Polly Campbell, bloggers, and other media sources. Chef Kelly was also recently named the American Culinary Federation’s Chef of the Year.

When I learned one of the chefs competing on the upcoming season of Bravo’s Top Chef: Just Desserts is Orchids’ pastry chef Megan Ketover, my resolve was unshakeable. I’ve been a fan of the Bravo cooking competition show since the beginning, and last fall was invited to join the blogging team at fan blog AllTopChef.com. (Blogging partner The Minx does our “morning after” posts, rounds up links to the most entertaining recaps of the show from around blogosphere, posts preview videos of each episode, and more. Laura Kluvo, founder of Blogging Project Runway, has been contributing podcast exit interviews with the Top Chef contestants for the last several seasons and will likely continue to do so when Just Desserts Season 2 premieres this Wednesday.) My role is to wrangle the ATC email box and write (almost) weekly posts spotlighting news and info from around the web about the show and its contestants from all the seasons. I gather TC news via various avenues, but one of the most fruitful has proven to be friending/fanning contestants on facebook, where many post links about their appearances, events, and other press coverage.

When the cast of TC:JD2 was announced, I sought out all the contestants I could find on fb, and Orchids’ Megan Ketover was one of them. She was kind enough to reply to a couple of questions I asked, and confirmed the desserts on the Orchids Restaurant Week menu would indeed be her creations. She also recommended making RW reservations early, and I was glad I did. Orchids limits the number of RW reservations it accepts each night, and when I called to see if I might switch mine due to Cindie’s schedule, I was out of luck – they were sold out through the week. No problem. I wanted to taste the food of both Chef Kelly and Chef Ketover, and would stick with my original reservation, where three courses could be had at this premiere Cincinnati restaurant for a budget-friendly $35.

I’m not accustomed to approaching celebrities of any ilk, but I screwed up my nerve and asked Megan on fb if there was any chance I might be able to meet her while I was there. I thought it only fair to disclose my connection with AllTopChef, but assured her I would not ask anything that might violate the strict nondisclosure agreement Bravo contestants must sign, which carries a $1 million penalty. Megan replied that she would pop out into the dining room if she could, and my anticipation level edged up another notch.

Walking a block from my downtown office, I arrived at 6:00. Cindie hadn’t called to say she’d be able to join me after all, so I informed the hostess I would be a party of one. The restaurant wasn’t yet full, but I was pleasantly surprised when I was directed, not to a two-top in the middle of the room, but to a spacious corner booth with a great view of the entire room. I ordered a glass of wine, perused the Restaurant Week menu (which had some additions and changes from the version posted online), and told my server which options I’d like from the first course and entrée selections. I was torn between the two dessert offerings and hoped that if I was lucky enough to meet Megan I could ask her about them – a question that surely wouldn’t be prohibited by that Bravo contract.

Megan makes not only Orchids’ pastries but also their breads. Here are her three selections that evening, a thin, crisp grissini, an airy sesame-seed-topped roll, and her new favorite, she told me later, a wheat roll made with herbs grown on the 17th floor of the hotel. (She and Chef Kelly are also raising bees on the rooftop of the hotel and did their first honey harvest a few days later.)

Megan’s breads were served with this trio of stellar accompaniments: Paquillo pepper pesto made with garlic and almonds; an herb and garlic infused olive oil, and a thick European butter with topped with Maldon salt. Paquillo pepper is one of my favorite things, and this romesco-style dipping sauce was a delight.

Next up: this delightful amuse-bouche – a savory custard served in an egg shell with crème fraiche, chives, truffle oil, and dried local corn. The custard was cooked perfectly, and the other components added to the inviting decadence of this creamy opener.

I’m always tickled to receive an amuse, not just because these pre-appetizer tastes arrive unordered, but because I think chefs have fun with them too. As I saw plates of these perched eggshells being served throughout the restaurant, I appreciated that the kitchen was sharing them with those of us there for Restaurant Week.

My taste buds were piqued and ready for the Tuna Tonnato first course I’d ordered. But as my server set my second plate before me, I was in for a surprise, this stuffed squash blossom!.

I developed serious foodie lust for stuffed squash blossoms last summer, after reading lots of tempting recipes and gawking over squash blossom food porn. I hadn’t been able to find any to try my hand at until I visited my aunt in California last fall and spied some in her garden. That attempt turned out reasonably well for this home cook on my first try (the flowers are very delicate and tricky to work with). But the burrata and anchovy filling in Orchids’ tempura-battered blossoms and the skill with which they were fried showed me what can be done with them in the hands of a pro.

Not just one amuse, but two. I don’t frequent fine-dining restaurants as often as I wish I could, but this was new for me. Meanwhile, time was ticking away, so, basking in stuffed squash-blossom afterglow, I asked one of my servers if she would let Chef Ketover know I was there. My hope was that if I asked early enough, before the dinner and dessert rush, Megan might be able to find time to “pop out” and meet me in the dining room for a few minutes.

Served next was my “first” course, the Tuna Tonnato. Crisp haricot verts and garlic chips contrasted with the moist, succulent sashimi-grade tuna cooked sous vide. Tomato confit, kalamata olives, and the creamy tonnato sauce underneath brightened the dish and pulled it all together.

As I savored this dish, my hopes were answered when Megan stopped by my table. Warm, genuine, and down to earth, she is Top Chef: Just Desserts contender any Cincinnati fan of the show can happily root for. I was cautious about asking too much about the show, but she did give me a baker’s tour of the three selections on my bread plate. When I asked which of the featured desserts she would recommend – “unless that’s like asking you to pick your favorite child” – she described both the “chocolate option” and the “non-chocolate option” in detail, saying she finds two-thirds of customers opt for chocolate, while she herself prefers the non-chocolate side. (You can find more of my conversation with Megan on ATC here.) I didn’t want to keep her too long during service, and thanked her for her time. She completely won me over, and I must have been grinning from ear to ear as I finished my tuna and looked forward to my entrée of pork cheeks.

However, this whimsical plate was set before me instead. “The chef wanted you to taste his new heirloom tomato salad,” explained my server.

This was another of the first course options for Restaurant Week, described on the menu as Heirloom Tomato Salad with House Made Mozzarella, Tomato Gelée, Fennel Lavosh and Mizuna, and I had wrestled with the decision to forgo it in favor of the Tuna Tonnato. The menu didn’t mention that the mozzarella was not only house-made but also inflated into a balloon. I’ve read about this preparation elsewhere (it’s one Thomas Keller has done at the French Laundry), but had never had an opportunity to try it. What fun to pierce that delicate dairy balloon and watch it deflate while the crunchy teetertotter of lavosh, over tiny skinned heirloom tomatoes, remained in place. (It didn’t occur to me until later that the lavosh crisp was likely Megan’s creation as well.)

Among many things I appreciated about the top-notch service I received that evening was the delicate choreography between back of house and front of house. I appreciate a menu written with enough detail to provide a fair idea of what to expect as I decide what to order, without going into volumes about every element (and its source) in a complex dish. On the other hand, I am very interested in those details. The fellow who served the majority of my plates did a superb job of explaining what I was about to eat in a way that enhanced my appreciation of each dish without coming across as condescending or designed to impress.

It was also at this point in the evening that it finally sank in that not only was I dining at a place with the well-deserved reputation of being the best restaurant in town, I was probably receiving extra attention as a blogger interested in supporting Megan. “The chef would like you to taste this” had been used earlier in the evening in connection with my two amuses, but it was clearly more than a standard line used by well-trained front-of-house staff accustomed to delivering gracious service. By now I’d also been served two amuses and two “first” courses, although I’d walked in the door looking forward to just three courses total from the Restaurant Week menu, and the possibility of meeting Megan. For a moment I worried about the blogger ethics of receiving such treatment. But I was so won over by every morsel I’d tasted and every bit of stellar service I’d received that I decided I’d be a fool not to succumb to this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

On to my entrée at last: Pork Cheeks with Chanterelles and Roasted Garlic Gnudi. This wasn’t on Orchids’ online menu for Restaurant Week as I initially contemplated my course choices. But when I saw it on the menu that night, I was excited by the prospect of trying something new to me. The preparation for these savory pork cheeks reminded me of high-end beef short ribs, one of Cindie’s favorite dishes, and I made a mental note to add them to my list of reasons she should be jealous for baling on me that night.

My belly was pretty full by this point, having cleaned every plate set before me, except my bread plate (sorry, Megan). When my server asked if I was done with the bread, I didn’t quite hear what she said. I was sorry to bid those breads good-bye, but I needed to preserve my appetite to taste one of Megan’s desserts. The time had come to make my selection. As tempted as I was by the chocolate option, I elected to go with her preference from the non-chocolate side: Brown Butter Cake with Cinnamon Toast Ice Cream, Bourdon Blackberries, and Crispy Vanilla Tuile.

But I was in for another surprise when this stunning plate of Megan's Malted Chocolate Bavarian with Roasted Bananas, Peanut Streusel, and Dolce de Leche arrived instead.

“Megan wanted you to try both and thought the other would travel better,” said my server.

I was thankful to be able to taste Megan’s Brown Butter Cake at a later time, especially as full as I was. (You can read more about it, and my conversation with Megan, on AllTopChef.) But I couldn’t resist these mignardises that arrived with my check: dark chocolate and pistachio truffles, caramel hazelnut french macarons, and blackberry pate de fruit.

My deepest thanks to everyone at Orchids who gave me an experience that went beyond my wildest imaginings. And in case you can’t tell, I will be shamelessly rooting for Megan Ketover on Top Chef: Just Desserts!

Adam Richman Filming at Tom + Chee Today - and I Was There!!

I've been a big fan of Tom + Chee since they opened as a lunch booth on Fountain Square last summer, then expanded to their first brick-and-mortar on Court Street. So is Adam Richman, who was at Tom + Chee's third location, at Newport on the Levee, where I got to watch this afternoon's filming. Richman has been in town this week shooting a Cincinnati episode of his Travel Channel show Man vs. Food Nation at Findlay Market, Pho Lang Thang, Senate, and Izzy's, and I couldn't be happier for the Tom + Chee gang to get his attention too!

The film crew was already there when I arrived about 12:30, setting up equipment and doing some preliminary filming.

The owners and staff waited with anticipation for Adam Richman himself to arrive.

When word came that Adam was at the Levee, they had to lock the doors of Tom + Chee. Those of us already there could stay, but no one else could come in, and the restaurant could not cook or serve, except for the show.

Adam arrived about 1:45, with security (and his make-up person). That's him in the brown jacket (he also wore a T-shirt that said "Bacon - The Other Chocolate").

They shot several takes of Adam outside speaking to camera, then entering the restaurant.

Here is Adam talking with one of the Jennies - Mrs. Tom rather than Mrs. Chee :)

Once Adam was ready for inside filming, no more photos were permitted, but it was fascinating to observe the shoot. Several people were asked to do "sit-downs" with him. After signing releases, they would sample one of Tom + Chee's sandwiches, then Adam would slide into the booth or chair next to them and talk with them on camera.

I was lucky enough to be sitting adjacent to the tables where four of the five of those "sit-downs" were filmed this afternoon. Two were with members of the extended T+C family and two were with a couple who is bicycling from Boston to Portland, just happened onto Tom + Chee, and were tasting their food for the first time. There is a lot of waiting around during filming while lights are repositioned, next steps planned, etc. Adam was warm and friendly chatting with his "sit-down" partners off-camera, and seemed especially fascinated by the bicycling fellow.

It was also clear Adam Richman is fascinated by goetta and interested in spotlighting this regional specialty on his Cincinnati show. Two of the "sit-downs" I saw had the eaters tasting Tom + Chee's "Armagoetta" grilled cheese special (Goetta+Hot Peppers+Fried Onions+Sweet Hot Mustard+Pepper-Jack+Rye+Sourdough), and when time came to film Adam in the kitchen with co-owner Trew Quackenbush this afternoon, that was one of the two sandwiches Adam focused on. The other was the "Blueberry Bleu," one of T+C's signature grilled cheese donuts, featuring house-made blueberry reduction, a bit of mozzarella, and bleu cheese on an inside-out glazed donut. Adam loved it, and talked at length on camera about the reasons why.

They also spotlighted the vegan soy oil (rather than butter) T+C uses for all their grilled cheese sandwiches and talked a bit about T+C's three standard tomato soup options at Newport on the Levee. The “Classic” and “Chunky Tomato Basil” are vegan. The “Creamy” is not :) I've been missing T+C's fourth tomato-y option, a cold gazpacho, at Fountain Square this summer. Just sayin'.

Tom + Chee's soups however, go well beyond tomato (the "tom" part of Tom + Chee). I was happy to enjoy this bowl of their famous beer cheese soup with my Italian grilled cheese today: Pepperoni+Ham+Mozzarella on sourdough, with Grippo's chips (another of T+C's signature ingredients), in this case, salt+vinegar chips.

After going outside to reshoot that "entry" scene several more times, Adam left for what was thought to be a break about 5:00 p.m. The restaurant was permitted to reopen and serve customers as onlookers gathered, but expected to have to close again once he returned. Latest word is he didn't.

I will be interested to see how much of what I saw filmed today actually makes it into this Man vs. Food Nation episode that Cincinnati Enquirer columnist John Kieswetter reports will air Wednesday, October 12, especially given all the other great Cincy spots where the show has been filming. But I'm confident it will show our city's food in a positive light, and delighted to see it seek out small, new restaurants like Tom+Chee, Pho Lang Thang, and Senate and go beyond the triumvirate of Cincinnati-style chili, Montgomery Inn ribs, and Graeter's ice cream we're traditionally known for.

Hats off to Tom+Chee on this great day. And I hope you do a viewing party October 12!

Edited to add: One of my favorite local bloggers, photographer extraordinaire Thadd Fiala, was at the Izzy's shoot! Check out his post here.

Welcome to the Cincy Food Truck Dance Floor – Taz!

Taz, formerly a brick-and-mortar restaurant serving Greek and Lebanese food in Mason, has gone mobile, and I spotted its orange truck the two days this week I was at 5th and Race (Tuesday and Thursday). Today I gave two of their dishes a try.

The falafel were well-seasoned and crunchy.

My $4 falafel appetizer (they were also available in a $4 sandwich version) came with tahini dipping sauce and four pita halves, piping hot off the grill.

The Taz truck sports two on-board gyro rotisseries, and my second dish was the chicken schawirma (sometimes spelled schawarma or schawerma) sandwich: spit-roasted chicken (some soft white meat, some cracklin' style dark), fresh tomatoes and lettuce, pickled vegetables, and tzatziki wrapped in flatbread, a very substantial sandwich for $5.

My two selections proved to be way more than I could eat for lunch, but I’m looking forward to leftovers for tonight’s dinner. And looking forward to trying more items from the menu.

I think the owner plans to update the business’s website and post info about the truck’s locations, although that hasn’t happened yet. If I learn more about how you can find out where Taz will be when, I’ll let you know.

Taz’s Middle Eastern cuisine – which also includes salad and vegetarian options – is a welcome addition to Cincy’s food truck scene in my book. Keep an eye out for this tasty, bright orange newcomer!

Battle Bacon Reminder

I'm going in too many blogging directions right now. But wanted to remind everyone of the August Culinary Smackdown, which last month's winner, Grumpy Granny, has declared to be "Battle: Bacon." Deadline is August 31 and you can find the details at Granny's place here.

Stop back later to read about my epic dinner at Orchids and meeting local Top Chef: Just Desserts contestant Megan Ketover. I was charmed on all fronts!

Culinary Smackdown Round-Up - and Winner Announcement

If I were judging purely on entertainment value, Boxer, that crafty diorama queen, would have taken it with this hilarious post. She threw herself into the Smackdown with a vengeance, even though she’s allergic to eggplant and didn’t actually cook (let alone cook meat). But I’d still love to try her recipe for lamb-stuffed eggplant!

Another competitor who went all out is Grumpy Granny, with two entries! Her Battle Eggplant Part 1 post was the first I received, and I found her Eggplant and Yogurt Spread with Red Onions and Olives on flatbread a scrumptious appetizer to the festivities that lie ahead.

Alessandra Zecchini, a food blogger friend from New Zealand, contributed this lovely recipe for Turmeric Eggplants and Chickpeas before heading off on holiday to the Polynesian isle of Niue. Whatever your personal predilections about this month’s theme ingredient, I’m sure you’ll find plenty to savor among the breath-taking photos from that trip in recent posts on her blog.

Photo and Recipe © by Alessandra Zecchini

Another Aucklander, Sue of Couscous + Consciousness, joined in the fray, with this tantalizing Roasted Aubergine, Mango + Soba Noodle Salad she adapted from a recipe by Yottam Ottolenghi, who our own La Diva has written about.

I’d like to welcome another newcomer to the Smackdown, Cincinnatian Stephie from Small Girl Adventures! Stephie took a break from working on her sister’s wedding cake to venture to the savory side, with this impressive Eggplant Lasagna. You can tell Stephie has been to culinary school by the precision of her knifework and excellent step-by-step instructions, although what set her entry apart for me was her fabulous herb-cheese filling (yes, I’m a sucker for all things cheese)!

If you’ve been following Buzz’s adventures at his community garden/farm (because, what with his job and his honey-do list and taking his son to Boy Scout camp, yadda yadda, he just needed to commit himself to one more thing, lol), you know that his plot was producing a single eggplant. Fortunately, it ripened in time. And even more fortunately, eggplant is one of the few vegetables The Mrs. actually likes. Buzz took his inspiration from Fishy’s recipe for Grilled Spanish Style Eggplant, which intrigued me for being marinated, with jalapeno, chili powder, soy sauce, and olive oil – a tempting, if not particularly “Spanish” sounding, combination. Quoth Buzzy: “Eggplant is one of those things that never really looks appetizing, no matter how you prepare it. It comes out of the garden, so you eat it.” However, he did a smashing job with the grill marks on these puppies! And paired them with bbq cocktail weenies and rice plus a tomato-cucumber salad with fresh basil. Now that’s a “make it work” dinner!

Buzz wasn’t the only busy blogger. Several bloggy friends and Smackdown supporters had mishaps, travels, and general what-not to contend with.

Aunty Belle had to dart off to Cajun country and rassle with Uncle over the winner of this week's haiku contest, but she shared her recipes for Moussaka and a cooling Mint Vinaigrette!

In addition to providing the inspiration for Buzz’s dish (well, not the cocktail weenies part), Fishy got derailed with a client meeting (in triple-digit heat), then found herself without internet service. But I am captivated by her recipe for Eggplant Fituras, featuring shredded eggplant, scallions, cornmeal, and nutmeg, which I’m happily imagining would blossom as they fried to look something like this gorgeous photo she did manage to post.

La Diva, alas, is sidelined with a serious leg injury suffered at the gym – Caution: exercise can be hazardous to your health :) But I want to thank her for supporting the revival of the Culinary Smackdown with this contribution, and for sharing her own recipe for Eggplant Caponata from her archives for the occasion. I would have been much better off going the caponata route than those disappointing eggplant pickles Cindie and I mangled. Sadly, no caponata photo included in either post, but Diva sure knows how to find some lovely pics on the web.

When I selected eggplant as this month’s ingredient, I failed to realize how many blogger friends (or their spouses) are averse to this veg. Sorry, and be glad this was a virtual dinner party :) Thanks to everyone for supporting the revival of the Culinary Smackdown with your comments and unique contributions – including the awesome Chickory, who, in addition to creating a stupendous painting for submission to a juried art show last week – and sharing the fascinating journey of her creative process on her blog – designed multiple variations of a our new badge!

So who will serve as the host, judge, and “theme picker” of the next Culinary Smackdown?

The winner is – Grumpy Granny! She gets a giant “E” for “[eggplant] effort” for her two delectable dishes. I mentioned her yogurt-y Middle Eastern flatbread spread above, and I fell in love with her second entry, Roasted Eggplant Ratatouille, where she describes her strategy thus: “Eggplants are notorious for soaking up oil like sponges. This dish is great because it slowly releases the other vegetable juices and the eggplant grabs that instead of more grease.”

Granny is training for an epic swim around Alcatraz on September 17, and she’s pretty determined in the kitchen as well. She was one of the people who prodded me to revive the Smackdown, and I’m confident I’m passing it into good hands. So, GG, head on over to Chicky’s place and select whichever version of the new badge you’d like to claim your wall, then let us know what theme you’re throwing down to test our culinary imaginations for the August Smackdown. It need not be a single ingredient – and I sure hope you come up with something more popular than I did :)

Thanks to all for playing, commenting, and all 'round supporting this little contest. And I can’t wait to see what Grumpy Granny comes up with!

xoxo, eggy

Team Eggplant Does Eggplant - Our Entry for the Culinary Smackdown

Team Eggplant finally got 'er done, despite a couple of delays and disappointments. Before heading to the river to join friend Cindie and her husband, Odie, to cook, I made a quick trip to Findlay Market Saturday morning to replace the sausages and tasso that Cindie thawed – and forgot – the previous weekend when our cooking plans got derailed.

And I was glad I did! In a city where German heritage – and love of sausage – runs deep, Kroeger + Sons Meats makes some of the best – and most diverse – sausages you can find. We had tried their Parma (an Italian-style sausage with red pepper) on our last trip, so I picked up a couple more of those, along with a linguiça (Portuguese sausage) and this tasso (a spicy Cajun ham-like cured pork).

Even better, I found two quarts of local blackberries at Madison’s Findlay produce stand, which, despite her dislike of the seeds in blackberries, Cindie had agreed to turn into a pie. She assembled it in no time, then popped it into the oven of her brand new stove, which we would give a good workout before the day was over.

In the veg department, I had plenty of peeling and slicing to do for my two dishes. One would grow up to be Stuffed Eggplant. True to my namesake, I innovated this one as I went. While the pie was in the oven, I roasted these halved eggplants, then removed the softened innards to add to a mixture of linguiça and Parma sausages I’d removed from their casings and cooked with onions and shallots.

“How about adding some tomato sauce?” I asked Cindie. We debated the merits of tomato sauce vs. paste for this use, and settled on sauce. As she pulled a can from her well-stocked cupboard, Cindie suggested we add rice, so that went in as well. I chopped some parsley and tossed in some cheese, then refilled the eggplant shells, and these puppies were ready for a quick trip back into the oven to warm them up and melt the cheese.

The other dish I had my sights set on was a riff on this recipe for Eggplant, Oyster, and Tasso Gratin I found on epicurious.com by New Orleans chef Susan Spicer published in The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook. Cindie and Odie love oysters, and I thought this would be a slam-dunk in the approval department until Cindie pointed out to me that July does not have an “R” in it. Although this adage may be less true than it once was, I knew it was best to come up with an alternate plan and decided to go with shrimp.

For this preparation, I decided to use the variety of smaller eggplants I’d picked up at Hyde Park Farmers Market last weekend.

As vibrant and varied as the colors of their skins may be, when I peeled, sliced, and sautéed them with onion, shallot, and red pepper, the only difference among them I could detect was that some cooked more quickly than others, depending on how firm and ripe they were.

For those of you who’ve asked about these Egyptian/Turkish orange eggplants I posted about earlier, I confess to being a sucker for cute “baby” vegetables and exotic varieties.

They were very hard when I brought them home, so I left them unrefrigerated for a few days, during which their green stripes faded into overall oranginess. I spotted a recipe for stuffing these orange lovelies, but mine were only about the size of a golf ball and would not have been worth the effort to try to stuff. I sliced them thinly, hoping for a little color and assured by reports that their skin would be edible (unlike the bitter skins of many purple eggplant). Leaving the skin on worked just fine in this preparation.

Susan Spicer’s recipe calls for a white sauce that incorporates the liquor/juice from shucked oysters. Since we weren’t going the oyster route, I brought some bottled clam juice (one of my go-to substitutions to add seafood flavors when I don’t have seafood stock on hand) – and put Cindie in charge. Cindie always makes her white sauce in the microwave, and it always turns out perfectly! As with any technique, years of practice help :) Someday I’d love to do a step-by-step post of how she does it, but on this occasion, I was happy to leave it in her capable hands to adapt this recipe to her tried-and-true methods and the ingredients we had on hand.

We didn’t end up with a lot of white sauce for the dish we were making. So it’s just as well I ignored the directions in the original recipe to put some in the bottom of the casserole dish before adding the eggplant. We spread some of the white sauce over the the sautéed eggplant-tasso-onion combo, then before reheating, added shrimp, the rest of the white sauce, and a crumbly mixture of bread crumbs, parmesan, parsley, melted butter, and olive oil.

At this point in the afternoon, we’d done enough prep work and people were starting to get hungry, so I decided to forget about another dish I’d had in mind, and we moved on to Odie’s contribution. As soon as Cindie and I started talking about reviving the Culinary Smackdown and attempting Battle Eggplant, Odie piped up: “Poor Man’s Shrimp.” It’s a floured and deep-fried preparation he and Cindie had eaten at the old F+N Steakhouse in Northern Kentucky before it went out of business. Odie loved it and worked with Cindie to come up with a way to replicate it at home. F+N served theirs with cocktail sauce and tartar sauce to pump up the illusion you’re eating shrimp. Cindie wedged and floured the eggplant ahead and refrigerated them.

Cindie hates the residual smell of deep frying in the house. But we ran into a glitch trying to use the fryer outside. With four air conditioners going, breakers blew. Fortunately we at least managed to get the back refrigerator online again. We won’t talk about the future of the electric golf cart . . . Here’s Odie, aka The Frymaster, at work once we brought the fryer inside.

And here are some of those Poor Man's Shrimp fresh out of the fryer.

I’d found these burgundy okra at Hyde Park Farmers Market the weekend our cooking date was postponed.

So we had Odie fry them up as well.

We also broke out the pickled eggplant Cindie and I had prepped two weeks earlier. I love all things pickled (or so I thought), and was inspired by this Italian recipe. But Cindie and I didn't follow it. Instead of putting the pickles in a glass jar, we used an airtight plastic container, and we were wary of following the instructions that said to dunk the eggplant in the boiling pickling liquid and then just pour off the liquid. So we let them soak in the fridge. Odie got into the action as well, hard-boiling some eggs to pickle with the eggplant. Don't let this photo fool you. Despite Cindie's photo-styling efforts, none of it tasted like much. Although I did learn one of Cindie's secrets: She always boils a pickling mixture before she adds it to veg, even something like that summertime favorite of tomatoes, onions, and green peppers.

The entrees, however, turned out well enough, even though, as usual, we made way too much food. Here's the gratin.

And here are the stuffed eggplants.

But the best thing was probably that blackberry pie.

Thanks to all for playing, for visiting all the fine entries, and for supporting this revival of the Culinary Smackdown. A big thanks to Chickory for our new badge! Hope you all had as much fun as I did. I'll be back later in the week to recap the entries and announce our winner.