Menus week of April 20

Below are the menus for the coming week! But first, here are some notes on them from a conversation with chef Elisabeth—

I’m feeling a bit nostalgic as the menus transition towards summer. The peepers are absolutely maddeningly loud right now, and we’ve already had some guests sitting outside to revel in it. On the menu we have the last of the citrus season, the last of the hot cider. We’re transitioning to rhubarb, and we have ramps for a short period, and the first nasturtium leaves are in from Little Red Flower Truck.

We also have staff transitions happening—it’s our amazing pastry baker Emily's last week at Tinder Hearth. She's making a beautiful tres leche cake for dessert, to celebrate the end of her tenure with us. It’ll be with buttermilk, Maine Grain cornmeal, the last of the cara cara oranges, and some burnt Vee Bee’s honey. Kate will also be making melon and lemongrass sorbet. The melon is from our garden, and the lemongrass is from Fountain Farm.

And the pizzas! For the Meat special, we’re doing a parsnip baba ganoush with Shepherd's Ledge lamb sausage, honey, and a chimichurri with new fresh scallions from Triple Chick Farm.

I’m really excited about all the veggies! A case of young ramps are making their yearly pilgrimage here from our friends in Western Massachusetts, via Frank’s truck. They will go on the Veggie special with an arrabiata red sauce, with spicy Calabrian chilis, and we're trying out that buffalo mozzarella that Tim loved from Micucci’s Grocery in Portland.

We’ve been so in love with @atlanticholdfast dulse lately. We put it fried on the scallops last week, and it was really fun, so this week we're going to do a bar snack plate of just the fresh fried dulse. We’ll also have the pickled carrots, which feel absolutely perfect for the season right now, with the turmeric just really popping those colors. The house-made ricotta has been stunning—so creamy! I’m still in love with the spring salad. And this week we have a super fun goat skewer from Quill’s End Farm — I will slow-cook the goat and then skewer it up to get caramelized a bit with an apricot and prune glaze in Svetlana (the oven).

For brunch! The blueberry pop tart was really sweet last week, so that's on again. The maple porridge is so comforting with the pecan crunch, with the last of the summer's peaches from the Trowbridges next door. Tim was hankering for a pancake option, and so I pulled the crepe recipe from Café Mutton from my time in the Hudson Valley, but I of course couldn't help playing with it so I ended up making it about 75% whole spelt and some of the Maine Grains whole wheat pastry flour, and then I added the whey from the homemade ricotta— it's really yummy so I'm going to keep the toppings super simple with a rhubarb glaze and butter. And we have some really nice, light springy savory brunch options— the omelette with the smoked haddock brandande; the latkes are back!—they’re potato and celiac, with with lox. And lastly a Rainbow Farm roast chicken matzo ball soup. <3