Quinoa Caprese

The Folk Singer goes gaga over the combination of tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, and balsamic vinegar. So much so that she was forced to improvise beyond the traditional caprese salad to avoid the impending mutiny that I had been threatening after the sixth consecutive week of red, white, and green.

Folk lore has it that South Louisiana natives eat more rice than any other regional people save for those in the Far East. At the CBD branch of Blackened Out, we do our part by utitilizing the rice cooker we purchased from Hong Kong market a year ago. (More on this incredible appliance at a later date; let's just say that it was the best $20 we ever spent.) But man cannot live on rice alone, so we were glad to discover that the rice cooker does a bang up job with quinoa, an often overlooked grain which adds a nice diversity to our limited culinary repertoire.

Quinoa Caprese

• Ingredients
• Quinoa (1 cup)
• Fresh Mozzarella (1/2 lb)
• Grape or Cherry Tomatoes (1 pint)
• Basil (1 bunch)
• Balsamic Vinegar (1/2 cup)
• Directions
• Rinse quinoa in a strainer for 15 minutes.
• Place quinoa in rice cooker with a shade less than 2 cups of water.
• If using stovetop, bring water to a boil, add quinoa, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes.
• Remove quinoa from cooking vessel and fluff with a fork, then set aside to cool.
• Place balsamic vinegar in a saucepan on medium and reduce by half. Cool after reducing.
• Cut tomatoes in half (or quarter if tomatoes are larger) and cut mozzarella in a similar size.
• Chop basil.
• After all ingredients have cooled, throw them in a bowl and stir to combine.

Grill steak and serve quinoa salad on the side.

Happy Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day is here. Can you believe it? Seems like just yesterday we were complaining about the August heat. Labor Day, as you well know, was begun in 1932 to honor and celebrate moms who give birth. Because it traditionally marks the end of Summer, Labor Day is a wonderful time to fire up the grill, burn stuff, and shoot pyrotechnics into the air. Also, if you have been dating a gal you met at The Sands Beach Club who goes to college back East, it is time to break up.

To get you excited for Labor Day festivities, here is a photo of what happens when you park a 4 pound brisket on a Big Green Egg for 6 hours at 250 degrees.

Happy Labor Day to you and the woman who gave birth to you.

Banana Blossom

Thai usually runs a distant 4th behind Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese as the most popular Far East cuisine in the New Orleans area. But in our September review for OffBeat, we profile a restaurant which has the potential to propel Bourbon Noodles to the prominence that it deserves.

The surprisingly short journey down Belle Chasse Hwy leads to a non-descript strip mall with a sign that only announces "THAI". You will not find the stars of "Most Eligible Dallas" hanging out in Banana Blossom. The location and ambience do not provide a conducive setting for your standard Friday dinner date with three women. (Then again, your faithful bloggers are not the formative authority on that subject.)

But the food is excellent and affordable. Start with the roti, a griddled flatbread served with a thin red curry sauce for dippping, and the fried baby back ribs dunked in the accompanying vinegary chili sauce. You can rationalize your previous courses by finishing with the mixed veggie and tofu Bourbon Noodle, the texture of which is so light and delicate that it reminds me of the stracci pasta at Domenica. Vegetarianism never tasted so good.

Banana Blossom - Birdie
2112 Belle Chasse Hwy, Suite 10
(504) 392-7530
Lunch & Dinner: Mon-Sat

Cooking with Wine

It is too damn hot to cook. The heat index is currently hovering around temperatures usually reserved for spacecraft reentry and foundries where a young Irish kid looking to walk on to the football team at Notre Dame works while going to community college.  In short, I don't want to cook. I don't want to turn on the oven or the stove. If I could subsist solely on snowballs and cold beer I would.

But this article beckons, which is why this week the title should read Not Cooking with Wine. This week, Mad Max sent over a 2009 Highway 12 Carneros Chardonnay made by Michael Sebastiani. The accompanying notes say, "This '09 Nueva is every bit what you've come to love about the modern style lush Chardonnay, with a touch more minerality. The balanced acidity makes it fresh and crisp, while letting the buttery finish shine complete with a new Stelvin closure."

What I took out of that description was acidity, crisp, fresh, and butter and that Stelvin sounds like the last name/nickname of your roommate in college. That triggered a craving for a version of the Wedge salad made with heirloom tomatoes, romaine, and homemade blue cheese dressing. Bacon would have made the salad complete, but that would have required cooking. Still, it was one of the best things I've never cooked in my kitchen.

Blue Cheese, Tomatoes, and Romaine

Hold stalks of romaine horizontal in front of you. Cut it across the rib in one inch sections. Wash, dry, and pop in the freezer for a spell.

For the tomatoes, this time of year places like Whole Foods and the like start stocking this multi-colored orbs of tomato goodness. They have exotic names like Brandywine, Green Zebra, and Bob Marley Spliff. Ok, I made that last one up, Caddyshack fans. Pick out a few, that are soft and ready to burst. Take them home, core them, then slice into fat rounds (along lines of latitude, not longitude). Season with salt and pepper.

Dressing couldn't be simpler. Your silver ware set has two sizes of spoons, right? You know the larger one? Use that as measuring stick. Take one heaping spoon of sour cream and blend it with three heaps of mayo. To this add about 12 cranks of black pepper, a tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce, and a pinch of salt. Stir to combine. Now break in a wedge of blue cheese roughly equivalent in size to the door stopper at your elementary school. I like the dressing to be chunky. Stir and let the flavors come together for about an hour.

Place slices of tomato on a plate, top with blue cheese. Toss romaine in a touch of olive oil, then stack on plate and top with more blue cheese. More cracked black pepper is always welcome.

Say It Ain't So, Picolo

Yesterday, Peter pondered what had we lost and gained post-Katrina. Unfortunately today's post is not as uplifting. On Sunday twitterumors leaked that The Bistro at the Maison de Ville had closed for good. The restaurant's website and voicemail says the restaurant is "closed for vacation and renovation." Chef/Owner Greg Picolo responded to a request for a comment with, "We are closed 4 vacation til mid sept. When we will asses reopening possibilities.  will keep u posted. thx.' (sic)

Reopening possibilities? That doesn't sound good. Should the Bistro not reopen this is a sad loss for a variety of reasons. First, the Bistro had been for most of its history a wonderful training camp for some of New Orleans best known chefs. People like Susan Spicer, Daniel Bonnot and more had cooked and earned their chops from that tiny kitchen. There is a sense that dining there is like dining nowhere else in the world.

For years, Greg Picolo has operated the restaurant with his unique take on French Bistro classics. One could spend a mighty fine afternoon hiding in the red leathered banquettes surrounded by mirrors and dark woods, drinking ice cold martinis, and spreading pate over hot, crusty loaves of French bread. Throw in some wines and well, the place had a way of making New Orleans seem like the greatest kept secret in the world. The Bistro, as everyone called it, was a remarkable spot because it combined the devoted patronage of a tony club with the "everyone is welcome" recruitment drive of a cult.

The Bistro also gave birth to the Krewe of Cork. Back when Patrick van Hoorebeck spent his time as the maitre' d of the restaurant, a group of regulars got the itch after a hearty wine soaked meal to parade around the quarter. Eleven years later the Krewe of Cork is a thriving Mardi Gras tradition and just another example of the influence of restaurants on this city.

Here's to hoping it comes back right soon. But if not, if The Bistro has indeed closed, it is time to find a new spot for Friday lunches.

PS The photo above is the only remaining evidence, besides a credit card, receipt of a lunch on the Friday before Christmas in 2010. If you look really closely you can see Bloggle yelling at someone, anyone, everyone.

Six Years Later

A few weeks ago we shared a few pints with Todd Price in preparation for the food panel at Rising Tide. Our discussion mostly focused on post-Katrina life - which restaurants came back first, why food was instrumental in the recovery, what new restaurants and food purveyors were birthed after the storm, etc. But then someone stopped and asked, "Well, we know what is here now that wasn't here before Katrina. What about the places that were lost and never came back?"

To be honest, we had a tough time remembering.

There was Barrow's, home of the best fried catfish in Orleans parish. Gerard Crozier abandoned his relatively new Chateaubriand, which was the best steakhouse in the city. Christian's probably was the best overall and is the most missed restaurant to be lost because of Katrina. La Cuisine was off our radar because neither of us had begun to collect social security before August 29, 2005. You probably already know about the well documented plight of Gabrielle. Mandich and La Riviera never returned. Neither did Cobalt. There were certainly others that we are forgetting to mention.

Last year during the lead up to the 5 year anniversary of the levee failure, we counted down the Top 20 Post-Katrina additions to the New Orleans food and drink scene. In light of our retrospective review of what was lost, the next question is obvious:

Is the New Orleans culinary scene better now than it was before August 29, 2005?

In our opinion, yes. Katrina brought both devastation and opportunity to the New Orleans dining community. Looking back six years later, our recovery shows that the chefs and restaurateurs endured through the former, which allowed them to seize the latter. Granted, several of the city's top restaurants - Stella, August, Gautreau's - were there before and are still here after the storm. But think about the young chefs who have made their mark at places like Patois, Coquette, Domenica, and Rue 127. And then there are the more established chefs who expanded their reach - Adolfo Garcia, Susan Spicer, and Donald Link to name a few.

We will never forget our favorite restaurants of the past. But six years of perspective shows us that the state of the New Orleans restaurant scene is strong and perhaps better than ever.

Rising Tide

Tomorrow will be the last football free Saturday until January. (It's about damn time.) Beginning in one week, your Saturday will likely be overtaken by listening to Kirk Herbstreit talk about Ohio State winning the BCS, consuming massive quantities of bourbon from a plastic flask, and deciphering how Les Miles used "want" as both a verb and a noun in the same sentence during his halftime interview with Erin Andrews.

So how do you spend your final Saturday devoid of the pigskin? Why, by attending an intellectually stimulating conference on post-Katrina New Orleans, of course.

Or you could just listen to Todd Price, Chris DeBarr, Adolfo Garcia, Alex Del Castillo, and Rene rant and ramble on for an hour about the current food culture of New Orleans.

You can catch this cast of characters live and in living color at Rising Tide VI, "an annual gathering for all who wish to learn more and do more to assist New Orleans' recovery. It's for everyone who loves New Orleans and is working to bring a better future to all its residents." Blackened Out is honored that we were asked to participate in and contribute to such a noble cause.* For more on the history of Rising Tide, click here.

The event kicks off tonight with a party at Tracey's and then continues tomorrow with a day long of speakers and panel discussions at Xavier's University Center. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased online.

Have a great weekend.

*I will be unable to attend due to an Outlook calendar malfunction.

New Kids on the Bagel

We all have routines. One of my favorite routines occurs on Saturday and Sunday morning. The hounds, Penelope pictured above, are walked around parks - City on Saturdays, Audubon on Sundays. Afterwards, there is coffee and paper reading time blocked out. I am told by people all the time, "This is what happens when you don't have kids." Guilty as charged.

Well, last weekend the routine got a new wrinkle in the form of the bright, cheery, and delicious Artz Bagelz. The location of which requires a bit of explanation. You know the Design Within Reach Store on Magazine, where the prices are mainly Out of Reach? Ok if you are looking at the front of the building, go to your left, walk up Ninth Street about half a block and you will run into Artz.

Inside you will find a decor that is filled with childlike evocations of the bagel with frosted lamp shades and colorful circles on the wall. You place your order at the counter and wait for name to be called. First time we went, it was an Uptown for Lindsay which came with lox, cream cheese, tomato and capers on a regular bagel. I got the Asiago with a garlic herb schmear. Next day, Lindsay got a salt with veggie while I remained true to my first bagel love.

Admittedly my exposure to the bagel community is fairly limited to Lenders and the always cold, dry wheels served at CLEs and other hotel functions. These bagels have a hard crust which gives way easily to pressure and a soft, chewy interior. They are pretty amazing from where I sit. One thing, Artz could do better is improve their coffee service and add some papers. They do that, and I'll be looking for a new park near Artz to walk the hounds in no time.

Artz Bagels - Birdie
3138 Magazine St.
309-7557

Winesday

Rene: Pale gold in color. Get some crisp apple flavors at first glance. Don't get the bread aromas that mark a blanc de blancs, could be a blanc de noirs, which is not my preference in Champagnes. Very fine bubbles, but a little too sweet for me. Although I generally like a touch of sweetness in white wines, I like champagnes to be very bone dry. The sweetness needs something brassy to play against. Which brings to mind the lamb sliders from Three Muses with tomato chutney and herbed goat cheese. The feta fries from there also would do just fine as well.

Peter: Yeasty bouquet. Flavor profile is very dry. I would not call this a refreshing Champagne. I know that I have played this card before, but this would make for a great kir royale, the creme de cassis adding a welcome sweetener. A simple cold appetizer would do well - the crabmeat maison at Galatoire's or the the Plateau de Fruits de Mer at Luke.

Joe the Wine Guy: Most Champagnes are house blends, meaning different vintages are blended to create a house's signature style. Every now and then, when there is an exceptional year, the Champagne houses declare a vintage year - and bottle a champagne with grapes specifically from that vintage. Such is the case with this 2002 Veuve Clicquot which is made up of 60% Pinot Noir, 7% Pinot Meunier, and 33% Chardonnay. The nose is open, pure, and complex, with a mineral flavor and flowery notes of Acacia, yellow fleshed fruit and pastries (brioche, marzipan). These give way to delicately spiced aromas, followed by elegant notes of licorice and high-bred teas. On the palate, the wine has fruity and floral notes, mineral and spice tones, and menthol and toast flavors. Try it with bass tartare, poached turbot served on fresh pasta, or cappuccino of Bresse chicken with candied fruits. Keen devotees will enjoy it as an aperitif for very special occasions. You can find it at Ralph's on the Park and Martin Wine Cellar, where it retails for $79.99.

Stoltzfus

Michael Stoltzfus came to New Orleans from Maryland to work at John Besh's August. Not long after,  he and then girlfriend now fiancee, Lillian Hubbard opened Coquette on the corner of Washington and Magazine in December of 2008. Within a few months they had Four Beans from the Times Pic and the restaurant was well on its way to joining the roster of restaurants one has to eat at in New Orleans. In December, Stoltzfus will open his second eatery, Sweet Olive in The Saint Hotel. Let's put twentyish questions on the clock and get to know Michael Stoltzfus.

I was about to go to college and my mom opened a bakery. She said, "why don't you work here for a few weeks before school starts?" I never left for college. Started cooking breakfast and lunch in the back of the bakery. Got an Alain Ducasse book and just taught myself from there.

While I was working at my mom's in the morning, I was spending nights working at a fine dining restaurant in Chestertown, Maryland. Then I went to work at Julia's, probably the best restaurant at that time in Maryland. At Julia's I worked every position in restaurant- waiter, cook, manager- save bartender. After that, I went to work at August. Stayed there for a year and a half before this opportunity fell in our laps.

Losing all my money (laughs). Actually the thing I was most afraid of was not being able to cook. When you work for someone else, there is always a way to do things. Their vision, their recipe are what you use. I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to cook food that was any good. When we opened, we had no idea what was going on with national economy. Luckily, Louisiana was pretty recession proof at that time. We were steady for the first five months, and then Brett Anderson reviewed us, and we took off from there. We had no idea he had been in, no idea we were on anyone's radar, and then the Times Picayune called to do a photo shoot for a review. We were shocked.

My approach to food has changed a lot. When we first opened, I was trying to emulate the cooking of the people I had learned from and so there was a heavy Besh presence to my food. In a way this was detrimental to my growth as a chef. A few years ago, something switched and my cooks and I started focusing our menu on what we would like to eat. How would we like to eat this ingredient. My cooks create more than I do now and in the last year we really started to focus on local products and purveyors. I'd say right now we get 80% of our produce locally and hopefully with Sweet Olive we will get that number to 100%.

I've become much more laid back recently. My biggest kitchen pet peeve is probably watching a cook turn a burner on high and try to cook something. The only time a burner should ever be on high in a kitchen is when you are trying to boil water. One of the most important aspects to cooking is controlling your heat and you can't do that on high. Also, I need a really clean kitchen. But all chefs are like that.

I love making bread. Making bread everyday for the restaurant can be monotonous, but there is nothing more rewarding than baking bread. What is funny is that at my mom's bakery, I never baked anything. Now I bake 60-70 loaves a day. Pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven is super rewarding. It is just flour, water, and yeast, but what comes out is so much more.

Hardest part of opening the restaurant was that neither Lillian nor I had any business background whatsoever. We had no idea of what we were getting ourselves into. I learned I was halfway decent at business things.

The French Laundry Cookbook- It is sort of the template of most cooks for the last 10 years or so, but I really love that book. Bread Baker's Apprentice. The Gift of Southern Cooking by Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock's. And I really like the NOMA cookbook, because it is so different and revolutionary. His emphasis on foraging and cooking ingredients I've never heard of is so different, it is really cool.

These days my favorite kitchen tool is my Sharpie. But always the knife. I use an 8 inch Misono chef's knife for just about everything.

Had a cook on maybe his third day. Right before service on a busy Friday night there was a huge stock pot on a table by the dishwasher's station. The leg of the table gave out and the cook rushed over to save the stock. 15 gallons of near boiling hot stock went everywhere including all over him. That was a pretty gruesome thing to see.

The food at Sweet Olive is going to be updated versions of New Orleans and Southern food classics. We are going to take a similar approach there that we do at Coquette and have a good time with the food. I've been obsessed with collard greens lately. One idea has us cooking whole leaf collards sous vide, then treating it like a grape leaf and wrapping it around boudin. We are also going to do bar food for the bar, a really great Continental breakfast, and maybe a tiki bar themed rooftop bar. We've got 3-4 months to put together the menu; when we opened Coquette we did not have that luxury.

I get really nervous cooking for people, especially chefs. Cooks all have different approaches to foods, so I am always nervous when I serve a chef he is thinking, "This is not what I would have done." I'd probably just want to cook for friends and family mostly. I love when people come in and I can cook on the fly, just make new things with the ingredients we have in our kitchen. If I spend weeks on a new menu, it is invariably crap. But if I just throw something together it is always great. Desperation plays a critical role in this kitchen.

When not in my restaurant, I like to eat. I eat out a lot. When we first opened, we ate out whenever we could, in order to scope out the competition. But now we do it because we love to eat.

Most memorable meal was at Babbo. We had gone to New York to eat. One night we ate at Corton, Paul Liebrandt's restaurant. While the food was good, it was nothing special. You could tell that a lot of time had been put into each dish, but it was just lacking. Plus it was a very expensive meal. The next night we went to Babbo and did the pasta tasting for like $60. Everything was so simple, but so well done. The sommelier waited on us and halfway through switched pairings to grappa, there was rock music in the background, just a great meal.

Mike Gulotta of August, probably. He taught me how to make food taste good and how to run a kitchen.

Truffle oil, but thankfully that is going away anyway. I can't stand the stuff and will never use it here. That is disgusting stuff. And of course, I wish restaurants would get away from commodity meats and the like. I am not preachy about it, don't plaster farms all over the menu, but that is really important to me. As cooks we have a duty to our customers to give them healthy food- not just for their bodies but for the environment also.

Right now, I am really being influenced by Spanish and Vietnamese flavors and cooking. One of my cook's is from Miami and so he has a huge love of Spanish cooking. Another one of my cooks is absolutely obsessed with all things Vietnamese. Eventually I'd like to have a really casual spot that just serves awesome food without worrying about plating or dining rooms. I cook to make people happy and casual food does that better than anything else.

Usually the last thing I want to do when I get home is cook. Lillian is an excellent cook, so usually she has something ready. If not, I like to grill. The other day picked up some boudin stuffed quail from Butcher and threw those on the grill. If nothing to grill, Lillian hasn't cooked anything, and nothing in fridge, I just eat almonds.

La Boca is my favorite restaurant in the city. There is absolutely no pretension there. I love that they can serve me an appetizer that is just a piece of sausage and an entree that is just a piece of meat. Lillian is an occasional vegan, but even she loves La Boca. Adolfo thinks I am stalking him because I go to a lot of his restaurants and he is always there. Nine Roses, we go here pretty much every Sunday night in the winter. Horinoya is the only good sushi I've found in the city and their service is incredible. And Butcher, that place is an anomaly. Every time I go in there, it gets better and better. I love Butcher.

On a deserted island, I would need sparkling water. I go through 3 liters of the stuff a day. Something to dip ranch into, along with ranch dressing. Marconna almonds and crispy pig ear. We fry it up to order at the restaurant, and there is always a few bits for me to snack on. I figure I eat pig ear all night. Probably not healthy but hey it is good.

Dueling Bloggers: The Past, Present, & Future of Fine Dining

Photo courtesy of Listverse.

Peter - I think fine dining is slowly losing ground and will never catch back up. Gone are the days when people were willing to pay higher prices for "luxuries" like white table cloths and a dedicated bus boy to refill your water glass after every sip. No one wants to pay $160 for a bottle of California cabernet to pair with a ribeye when they can find the same bottle for $50 on Vinfolio, pickup the same cut of beef from Rare Cuts and throw it on the Big Green Egg at home. Granted, diners will always be willing to pay for food which they lack the tools and culinary skills to cook for themselves. But as every chef authors a cookbook and hosts his or her own TV show, Joe Q. Foodie learns a little bit more about cooking and loses a little more interest in dining out.

Rene - This is one of those paradoxes that are really enigmas wrapped in puzzles. As people get more knowledgeable about food, their desire to eat out and experience more types of foods increases. They pick up the New York Times and read about a chef in Brooklyn or a restaurant in Salinas, California and say, "Man I want to check that out." As far as I know the French Laundry or Daniel still have full reservation sheets night in, night out. While the proof is certainly out there that casual dining has supplanted fine dining in terms of sheer numbers of restaurants, if the economy picks back up, I think we will see a return of special event/fine dining. It is like that commercial for New York Life; "There will always be weddings, always be births..." When people want to celebrate milestones, a casual place with linoleum on the floors and the chef's meatloaf will not fit the mood.

Peter - I agree that things are cyclical and things will pickup as soon as the Dow does. But I also think that there is going to be a polarization of the dining scene. Consider that a high number of food fanatics are young people who make decent money but their incomes are not high enough to afford a regular meal at Stella! or Gautreau's, so instead they gravitate toward spots like Boucherie and Green Goddess and Cowbell where you can enjoy higher level cuisine in a lower level environment. Now, common wisdom will tell you that eventually these young people will grow up, have children, and hopefully make more money. But they will also have less time. So what I foresee is that large group of people then shifting away from spreading there minimal amount of dollars across a greater number of meals, to a higher amount of dollars across a lower number of meals.

Rene - According to Scott Boswell the more he makes Stella! a fine dining destination (by removing seats to serve less people, increasing cooks, upping the crystal budgets, etc...) the more revenue it brings in to the restaurant. Everyone right now is zigging towards casual, so those who are zagging stand out. People still will occasionally crave an indulgent or at least attentive evening out. About your young people, the question is when people do have the time to go out to eat what is the occasion. For instance, if you are taking a client or business contact out to dinner. Are you going to go to a Cowbell or an Herbsaint? Get a babysitter one night a month, are you going to waste that on pizza or spend that time on a pampering meal? Look I think it is great that I can go to a chef run, casual restaurant and have solid food. But a few weeks ago, Lindsay and I went to Domenica, had a great meal, some apps, a bottle of wine, a dessert. Bill with tax and tip came to $200. That is a little steep for "casual."

Peter - Special occasions will always mandate stepping up your game, but how many of those occasions occur every year? As for the proliferation of casual, chef-run restaurants, I think those are economic considerations rather than a signal of a shifting dynamic. Butcher and Tru Burger and Ancora are just a piece of the respective empires of Link, Burgau, and Garcia.  Those chefs did not need to open those restaurants to survive. But they certainly enjoy the supplemental income that those restaurants provide, and expansion allows for new opportunities for young chefs without a waterfall of responsibility. Plus, I think people will always enjoy and be able to afford a burger, pizza, or pulled pork sandwich.

Rene - Of course, economically it makes sense to downshift for those chefs in this economy. First of all, it is a way to reward members of their companies by installing them as chef-partners or managers. Second of all, they help support the motherships, which as a general rule lose money. It is a well-unkept secret that el Bulli lost money. If we ever get out of this malaise, the non-restaurant group affiliated casual restaurants may find it hard to get by as people look for dining to be special again. I have nothing with casual spots, but I find that I want something more from dining than the majority of new restaurants are opening can give me. I want a tablecoth every now and then. I want a waitstaff whose wardrobe isnt't designed by American Apparel. I want a plate of food that I can't make at home. I want more from restaurants. I want fine dining to start trending again. 

Champagne Brunch

That is a blackberry and ricotta pancake with powdered sugar and honey. And below is a bottle of Champagne.

And that is all. Have a good weekend.