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Waterbury Republican-American
Dining at Good News Cafe comes with international flair For Carole Peck, food is culture. For the executive chef and owner of the renowned Good News Cafe in Woodbury, it is food that helps to define a country's culture, just as much as its music, its dress and its language. "I think that how you get to know a country is by eating its food," Peck said, while sitting at a table in her cafe's Radio Room, so named for the numerous antique radios that line its walls on three sides. "You really start to know people through their cuisines. I think that's how you get your ideas, too, incorporate them into your own style and techniques." Noted for her creativity in the kitchen, Peck is heavily influenced by international cuisines. "Fortunately, I'm able to travel and in our travels, we're big eaters," Peck said, referring to her husband and business partner, Bernard Jarrier. "So you get to see what other people are doing in other countries. I eat in a lot of ethnic restaurants because they still cook. American restaurants use mostly frozen, microwaved foods." A world traveler, Peck has cooked and eaten in such diverse places as France, Morocco, Manhattan, Miami, South Carolina and Texas. She has gained inspiration from each in the 35 years she has cooked professionally, opening her first restaurant in Fort Meyers, Fla., at the age of 23. The eclectic flavor of the cafe's cuisine carries over into its design in the '50s-era, eye-popping turquoise chairs that sit behind a line of tables, in the tall red Naugahyde-cushioned stools that stand precisely alongside the lunch counter, in the sculptures that perch on various shelves, and in the canary yellow main dining room with an exhibit of original artwork by a local artist. Peck's artistry is also apparent in her cookbook publishing company, Ici La Press, which publishes translated European cookbooks, and in the culinary tours she and her husband offer to Provence, France. She likes to roast Jerusalem artichokes or make an artichoke soup with them. She desicribes them as having an artichoke taste and being starchy like a potato, which thickens itself in a soup of garlic, herbs and water. Another recipe, which this Culinary Institute of America graduate is now using, is baked sweet potato with feta cheese, calamata olives and mint, the combination of which is serendipitously tasty ($17), she said. She'll often mast rutabagas with mashed potatoes and top them with a mixture of rye crumbs and nuts. She offers two vegetarian dishes daily, as well as one vegan or non-meat, non-dairy dish, as well as various specials such as roast partridge with cabbage. Another popular special now is a fish cake made with ground halibut, blue-nosed bass, salmon and tuna rolled in panko, a Japanese bread crumb which is spiced with dried anise powder and soaked in heavy cream. Her customers love the lobster baked macaroni, which is made with heavy cream and imported provolone ($24), and they won't let her take her lobster soup off the menu. The lobster soup is made with fresh lobster stock, tomatoes, brandy, carrots, onions, celery and rice as a thickening agent. It is then finished with heavy cream ($6.50, $7.50). From the menu, patrons may select any of six salads ($6 to $10), appetizers such as a crispy onion bundle with homemade ketsup ($7), and poblano pepper stuffed with two cheeses, corn, scallions and spiced pumpkin seeds with a red chili sauce ($9.50). There are also such entrees as halibut filet with horseradish crust on spinach and beet slices, topped with matchstick potatoes ($25); and free-range rotisserie chicken with buttermilk mashed potatoes and wok-seared vegetables (half-chicken, $16). Desserts, whipped up by Becky Vermilyea, pastry chef of eight years, include fresh fruit tart a la mode with caramel sauce ($7), coconut layer cake with mango and raspberry sauce ($6.50), and gingerbread cake with amarene cherries, roasted pineapple and vanilla custard sauce ($7). Available, too, are a variety of chocolates, as well as the cafe's own jams. |
