Opening Night

The guests have arrived(even if all but two are friends of the owner) and the kitchen is in production mode. After placing a huge order on Friday, the boat came in today. Good thing I was up till 2:30 last night cooking because otherwise I would have been up the creek. With Christmas coming up and the fact I am in the Bahamas I wasn't really expecting another delivery until next week, so lets just say I had a few things to put away. Oh and that extra fridge that had been sitting outside that got moved into my room and is now full with herbs and lettuce. Not to mention the cases of milk, oil, salt, and sugar. That is the only redeeming quality of that UHT milk is that its not taking up my precious refrigerator space. Being a "chef" made me so much more prepared than the rest of the staff today and as terrible as it sound the CIA has the slogan right when they say "Preparation is everything" The problem is now I have to do this everyday and not drink too much rum while doing it. I was pretty happy with the menu tonight and the owners were super stoked and were bringing me beers at the end of the night.
1st Course: Smoked Paprika Marinated Shrimp, Chorizo, Orange and Parsley. Cooked the Chorizo with the shrimp and the orange was a puree of Sous Vide Orange bell peppers cooked in OJ, Honey and Sriacha. Made a salad with diced bell pepper cooked the same way, pickled shallots and parsley.
Salad(which they want me to do every night but this one had this amazing french blue cheese I got from Chefs Warehouse called Bleu Avergne.)

2nd Course: Grilled Local Grouper, White Romesco, Grapes, and Mint(Everything that was in the romesco, I made a salad with that and grapes marinated in Verjus)
Roasted Rack of Lamb, Goat Cheese, Candied Fennel, Olive, and Jus. I took half cream and half milk and steeped Ras el Hanout in it and then pureed the goat cheese in with gellan and made a fluid gel. The candied fennel was pretty banging with a nice pop from Champagne Vinegar.

Dessert: Melting Valrhona Chocolate Cake,(Thank you Josh Ball for the recipe and many others you will be seeing) Ginger, Cocoa, Cinnamon Ice Cram. Made this dessert the other night for the GM's b-day and the owner said to me he felt like eating a orange afterward and it got me thinking. I had made a candied ginger chocolate puree and so I added a little salad with orange powder and more candied ginger.

So now I sit at the bar drinking some rum and lime debating whether or not to go back in the kitchen or get a little sleep before I wake up at 7 tomorrow and make sure my boy Reuben can take care of breakfast on his own.