Year of the...

Apparently, 2011 is the year of the big decisions at Bistro Les Gras.  First, we decided to abandon lunch.  Then we decide to close the cheese market and convert it into The Market, a french tapas bar.  Today, or I should say next month, I have decided to really let our food loose...more my vision of what our food should be.  This is a big step.

My next month's menu will display my food with a no-holds-barred attitude.  I have been a little safe in designing my menus and I am not really sure why.  Maybe it's because I wasn't sure it fit Northampton.  Maybe it was because I listened to the wrong Northampton people talk about our food.  We have always made our customers from the other areas incredibly happy but failed to really wow the locals.  I have actually had a customer from Philadelphia offer to invest in a restaurant if I so decided to move.  Tonight we had a group from San Francisco that claimed Bistro Les Gras could hang with the best of the golden gate city.  New Yorkers always love our place and we actually have regulars that visit from the city.  Maybe I didn't give the Pioneer Valley enough credit, since we opened I have been almost obsessive about being safe with our menu design.  Maybe my problem is my impression of the area.  Maybe I thought that I needed to play it safe because it isn't New York, it isn't Portland, it isn't a big city. 

I am sounding a bit dramatic.  It's not like I am going to release some new way of cooking and I am some sort of culinary god.  I am just going to cook what I would want to eat, at bit different than what we have been cooking.  I feel that I have been too conscious of what I think the Valley people would like to eat, and in doing so I have not been true to myself.  Maybe I was scared that my cuisine is not good enough.  Maybe I am not good enough to cook the food I want to.  Maybe I have a blog (also something new this year) and I am now ok with showing my true self.  Anyway, this is a big decision in my book and I am going to wear my heart on my sleeve in my blog, in my restaurant and in my cuisine.  Only time can tell, well, a lot of things I suppose...