Villa St. Benedict's Taste: New Year's Resolutions

The theme of this month's Taste was "New Year's Resolutions". I wanted to sort of make fun of those of us that make resolutions, don't keep them and tell it through a story. So each dish represents four weeks in January. The first one was attacking a more healthier appealing version of the Bloody Mary. We used the agar agar (red algae) extract to congeal the drink and let it set in some celery sticks. For the Popeye's Pasta, I used the agar agar again to make a gelled spaghetti of spinach. It contained just spinach, water, salt and pepper, topped with pan seared salmon with walnuts, lemom-dill whipped cream and salmon caviar. The third was a jerk seasoned duck breast with roasted plantain mash and jicama slaw. The temptation was homemade chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream.