Chef Mark Mattern, MBA, CEC

Echo food  Salmon with minted pea cream fraiche and pickled beets and watermelon radish salad     Prime beef tenderloin asparagus and horseradish whipped potatoes 

Cheese course with date almond bead- yum Pork tenderloin and belly      

The next dish was prepared by Disney's own Mark Mattern, chef at Cinderella's Royal Table in the Magic Kingdom, a restaurant not known (at least by me) for its exotic culinary accomplishments. The ling cod with herb spaetzel that Chef Mattern prepared, however, dispelled any doubts I may have felt when I saw the menu. The white, lightly seasoned fish had a hint of lemon, which blended perfectly with the mildly herbed little pillows of German dough. This dish was paired with a drier white wine, J.L. Wolf Deidesheimer Leinhöhle Riesling Spätlese Trocken 2001, much more to my liking than the sweet vintages we'd sampled so far. As Chef Mattern spoke about the preparation involved with the dish, I noticed his name badge cited Pittsburgh as his hometown. Like the other chefs, he was extremely approachable, so I told him we shared the same roots and we chatted for a few moments about oucr hometown.

http://allears.net/tp/ep/fw03_15.jpg Ling cod with lemon verbena and German pasta. Do not miss this dish!

Why track 40th days? Well it has mathematical significance. More over for me, a rebirth and a death. It is most remarkable that each passing solar year can very effectively (even perfectly!) be measured and metered out by keeping track of every 40th day. Essentially, the annual transit which completes every 365.24219 days can just about EXACTLY be cross-referenced to a tally of those days that make up a 40-day cycle! This respective axiom is easy to prove in the regard that 1 day in a cycle of 40 days (the 40th day) inherently comprises 2.5 percent of the time stream. This rate is also inherently equal to 9.131055 days per year (on average). 2.5 percent of all days = 9.131055 days per year For the purposes of presenting a clear analysis, the rate of a unique day in each and every cycle of 40 days (the 40th day) will be typed or classed to be a rate of those days that are accounted for apart from other days comprising the annual cycle. Through this interpretation, those days cla

I was a proud owner of a great pony. Strong powerful with grace and a real kick. A  Mustang  is a free-roaming  horse  of the North American  west that first descended from horses brought to the  Americas  by the Spanish . Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses , but there is debate over terminology. Because they are descended from once-domesticated horses, they can be classified as  feral horses . In 1971, the  United States Congress recognized Mustangs as "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West, which continue to contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people." [ 1 ] Today, Mustang herds vary in the degree to which they can be traced to original  Iberian horses . Some contain a greater genetic mixture of ranch stock and more recent breed releases, while others are relatively unchanged from the original Iberian stock, most strongly represented in the most isolated populations.  

Goji berries -- pronounced "go-gee" -- are a recent hot commodity in the increasingly trendy high-end health food industry. These delicate red berries, traditionally grown in the Himalayan valleys of China, Mongolia and Tibet, as well as in the Xingjiang and Ningxia provinces of China, have been featured on Oprah, and celebrities like Madonna, Mischa Barton and Elizabeth Hurley are swearing by them. Numerous goji berry products have appeared on the market, promising youth, good health, cancer-fighting abilities and an increased sex drive.    A Google search for "goji berry" yields 378,000 results, many of them for various products containing goji berries or goji berry "extract" (juice). So are goji berries a miracle "superfood," just another product of the hype machine or something in between? Let's find out. Goji berries, also called  wolfberries , have been grown in the Himalayan valley for hundreds of years. Traditional Chinese folk medici

Nantucket’s Beginnings The island’s beginnings in western history can be traced to its reported sighting by Norsemen in the 11th century. But it was not until 1602 that Captain Bartholomew Gosnold of Falmouth, England sailed his bark Concord past the bluffs of Siasconset and really put Nantucket on the map. The island’s original inhabitants, the Wampanoag Indians, lived undisturbed until 1641 when the island was deeded by the English (the authorities in control of all land from the coast of Maine to New York) to Thomas Mayhew and his son, merchants of Watertown and Martha’s Vineyard.

  Whaling Authors Note: wright whales travel from Jacksonville Florida to this island as I have for this story. Long before the white man came to the island, the Indians salvaged dead whales that drifted ashore, recognizing the value of the oil and meat that could be extracted. It is thought that island inhabitants began to whale “alongshore” in 1690, pursuing the right whale from the south shore in 20-foot whaleboats manned by six person crews. The Indians and the white settlers were not rivals for the prize, but manned the boats together and shared the spoils that were valuable enough for a small  industry  to build up around them. It was not until a small sloop was blown out to sea by a gale in 1712 that the sperm whale was discovered to be the source of the finest quality oil, with quantities of it stored in its great head. Soon islanders were pursuing sperm whales along the Gulf Stream edges between Bermuda and the Carolinas and as far north as the Arctic Circle. So the age of Nan