My last home cooked tasting menu before The French Laundry ruined me...

There's no individual recipe on this page. Just a few photos and a basic description.

More importantly, I checked off a bucket list item in June; I went to The French Laundry and finally completed my pilgrimage.

I absolutely loved the food there. And it taught me a lot about execution and preparation. I devoured every single bite. But I also tried to learn something from every single bite.

One of the couples with us, John and Kate, were our guests for Bourbon and Bacon 5-Ways. But over the first weekend of May, 2024, SALSA and Crystal - friends of not only ours, but John and Kate as well - came to our house for the weekend and we tried our hands at a seven course tasting menu on Saturday (see below), and a taco menu on Sunday, May 5th (Cinco de Mayo). The sheer over-confidence of Laura and I to serve a taco menu to two Mexican-Americans from Texas. (Well, to be fair, they totally helped us, making the flour tortillas and the avocado crema for the fish tacos).

This took literally days of prep, days I didn't have. I flew into DC from a TDY in California on late Thursday night. Luckily, Laura had already taken the tri-tip that I had prepped the previous weekend, and she got it out of the freezer into the sous vide at the right temperature at the right time.

So that first night home, I prepped for my fruit caviar reverse spherification process, and prepped some of the other ingredients I could the day before. It wasn't until the morning of our meal, on Saturday, that work could really get done.

The one thing I had in common with The French Laundry was taking time for people to enjoy things. And also, to keep the mouth entertained and moving, preventing diminishing returns. Seven courses was okay, but some were too big. Laura and I have big plans at the new house (we're moving next month) to do a 12-course menu that tours around the world with culinary stops in Northern Italy, Southern Italy, Northern India, Thailand, South Korea, Southern France, Central England, California, Southeast Germany, and more, each of them a different protein or starring vegetable, and alternating from rich and savory to bright and fresh, with all of them being small, elevated, intricate, and thoroughly planned.

So hopefully this was our last hack at truly amateurish work...

Course 1. Soft boiled egg illusion.

Laura made white chocolate egg shells, and we made a jalapeno lime flavored whipped cream (using the NO2 canister) and I made giant liquid mango caviar bubbles using the reverse spherification method. The mango was freshly juiced by Benjamin (at age six. Perfectly, I might add). Served with blood orange mimosas from fresh squeezed blood orange juice and prosecco.

Course 2. Caprese salad canapés. Single cherry tomato hollowed out, a couple drops of balsamic then a fresh mozzarella pearl inserted, then four tiny balsamic pearls added strategically, then topped with a basil foam I made using basil extract and soy lecithin. Served with bloody Marys for SALSA and Laura - featuring homemade smoked bacon - and Aperol spritz's for Crystal and I. Both of the Italian items in this 7 course meal will be retained, verbatim, for our 12 course menu.

Course 3. Sesame crusted tuna seared on crazy hot cast iron, then served with a garnish of shaved radishes and cape gooseberries. Served with a 2022 V. Sattui Sauvignon Blanc.

Course 4. Pear, ricotta and homemade pancetta stuffed ravioli (using homemade semolina and egg pasta ran through the Kitchen Aid), topped with a homemade cheese sauce of Romano, Asiago, Mozzarella, Provolone and Fontina with heavy cream and Pinot Grigio, then topped with some freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano. Served with a 2019 V. Sattui Rosato di Pinot Noir. Like the Caprese canapés, this will survive the 12-course cut, albeit maybe scaled down to a single ravioli.

Course 5. General Tso's cauliflower made with homemade sauce and served complete with lightsaber chopsticks because MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU, ALWAYS (this was served on 4-May-2024). Served with a pineapple sake.

Course 6. "California Brisket." I keep calling it that when I serve it to Texans. Tri-tip smoked for almost an hour in low heat on mesquite to impart the smokiness without cooking the meat, then packed in minced garlic, homemade beef tallow, duck fat, and bacon grease from homemade mesquite smoked bacon, vacuum sealed, frozen for five days, then sous vide'd @ 133.5° F for two days, rested for around three hours, washed with a blend of butter, agave syrup and baking powder and flash fried on screaming hot cast iron in avocado oil at it's smoke point until a good bark on the outside. Then rested again, sliced and served with a topping of Rocquefort sauce. Dressed with fig infused balsamic glaze. Served with a 2016 V. Sattui Cabernet Sauvignon. This will continue to be a starring member of "bourbon and bacon 5-ways" but will not make the 12-course cut.

Course 7. Laura made brown sugar bourbon ice cream and she also made the unholy salted caramel sauce, as well as the Irish coffee (she even made the whipped cream for it). This too will continue to be the ice cream in bourbon and bacon five ways (albeit with candied bacon!), but also won't make the 12-course cut.

After dinner, SALSA - an MQ-9 pilot - and I - a JTAC - watched "Land of Bad" and wished we'd had more than seven drinks to prepare ourselves.

As a reference to what real perfection looks like, here's some French Laundry pictures...

Their menu was cooler than mine too...

For what it's worth, the six of us are going to try to hit up Alinea next, sometime in 2025...