This month the Café is focusing on the Loire region of western France. Following the longest river in France, the Loire, some of the area has shifted sovereignty throughout history between the French and the British, with even a bit of linguistic influence from the Celts in nearby Breton. Famous for its illustrious Châteaux, it also brings an incredibly diverse offering of wines and cuisine.

The first course is a Salade Tourangelle, which means a salade made in the style of the city of Tours, located the middle to middle-east part of the Loire region.  Common vegetables in the region are artichokes, asparagus, green beans, and mushrooms, most often the Champignon de Paris, so you’ll find the latter two marinated and then tossed in a creamy mustard vinaigrette for this salad.  We dress some celery with lemon and toss all this together to be finished on the plate with a couple rillons.  These are chunks of pork belly that are marinated with white wine and herbs for twenty four hours, braised and then crisped in fat to make a rich, textured addition to the salad.

The second course is Cuisse de Lapin aux Pruneaux.  Although often a dish made with pork, this rabbit variation is exquisite.  The leg is marinated in red wine, browned then braised in red wine and chicken stock.  The last half hour of the braising, port-soaked prunes are added.

The third course, the traditional Pain d’Épices, which literally translates as “Bread of Spices”, is a dense bread made with cinnamon, clove, cardamom, anise seed and honey.  The bread itself serves as a wonderful bed for a house-made honey ice cream.

We’ll have this available for dinner all month long.  We first started serving it last night and sold out of it by about 8:30! Needless to say, we’ll be happy to prepare more to meet the demand.   The whole meal is $35.00 per person.  Hope to see you soon!

Keep an eye out for another post later this weekend about the wines we’ll be featuring this month too!

Matt Longman