We’ve (mostly) finished painting the kitchen and service areas. A bit of touch up to do plus we have to paint the kitchen ceiling. The only major painting now is the prep room. We are having Leprechaun Construction come back to fix the leaking wall in the prep room. Mike says it should only take a day or two, so it looks like we should be finished with painting early next week.

Keiser Equipment will be delivering the sinks, reach-in fridge and holding unit this week. We’re planning a Friday trip to Kingston to order the fridges and freezers plus pick up shelving from Lowe’s. Also on order – replacement tiles for the scratched and broken ones in the dining room.

It’s all coming together nicely…

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Here is a look at our menu. We will be working on this right up until opening day – so if you have any thoughts or comments please feel free to send them along.

We smoked Bambi!

Or at least Bambi’s ribs.

With the first real winter snow fall coating the valley, we fired up the smoker to take a run at 11lbs. of venison ribs. I had done a smoked venison roast and had grilled moose strip steaks, but smoking venison ribs was a new one for me. Not much online about doing this – other than most hunters choose to not take the ribs. So, I decided to treat them like grass fed beef and work from there.

When raw, the ribs are a dark dark red with basically no fat. That should have been a bit of a warning sign, but I missed it. I decided to go with the Cha Cha Hut BBQ rub – created for pork and chicken – but probably should have opted for the Brisket rub (a bit less spicy and suited to beef). With ribs prepped and the smoker up to 260 degrees, in went Bambi for the next three hours.

While the ribs cooking, we headed off to an open house at Hudsonpress Print Studio (777 Carroll Hinkley Rd. Roxbury NY 12474). The studio is owned by artists Gerda van Leeuwen and Peter Yamaoka. Absolutely wonderful pantings and pottery plus great food and conversation made for a nice way to spend time while Bambi smoked.

Returning home, we found the ribs done and ready for resting. Out of the smoker, into foil and into the cooler to rest for a bit. (Yep – coolers also keep things warm…) Cherie’s experiment for the evening was the latest in Cha Cha Hut baked items: a sweet potato biscuit. Like a denser buttermilk biscuit, one of the tasters for the evening called them “moist scones”. They went so fast we forgot to take a photo though the blurry pic at the right shows Sean eating one. (The photo is perfectly clear – it’s Sean that is actually blurry.)

All in all not a bad first run at both venison ribs and sweet potato biscuits. I’d give the ribs 6/10 and the biscuit 8/10. A bit more moisture in the rib cooking, less spice in the rub and a shorter cook time should do the trick with Bambi. Slightly smaller biscuits will make for biscuit perfection.

Good thing we have more venison ribs coming soon…

We started that oh so wonderful process of painting last weekend. First up – the bright mustard yellow in the dining and bathrom areas.

Just in time for the first real snow of the winter, Mike George and the crew from Leprechaun Construction finished the cookhouse. We couldn’t be happier with the job they did. Looking forward to getting to work cooking in it.