Tenacity revisited

Last year, Randy Rucker did a series of Tenacity dinners at his home. The food was pretty far out. So now that he's head chef at Rainbow Lodge, has he gone conservative, lost his chops, sold out?

Of course not. These are a few highlights of the Tenacity dinner at the Rainbow Lodge, last Thursday:

uni custard, salsify bacon, creamy miso

"Uni isn't for everyone," Randy announced when he brought out this:

I adore good uni because it captures the essence of the sea. Some people don't like sea essence. (Like my mother told me yesterday, "I don't want my fish to taste like fish.") So Rucker wisely toned down the sea-foam quality of uni by pairing it with a light miso cream.

The most unusual part of this dish was the dried, smokey strips of salsify. Salsify is a root that, when cooked, usually tastes like an oyster. In this dish, it tasted more like bacon. It made a good contrast.

salad of shark ham, running squirrels wild greens

Few chefs get their hands on Running Squirrel's hand-foraged greens. Running Squirel is a 75-year-old Native American who gathers wild greens near Fort Hood, Oregon. The flavors of these herbs, greens, and flowers range from floral to bitter. Every bite is intensely interesting.

Randy made it even more interesting with foam and bits of shark ham cured in toasted kombu. The bits of cured shark tasted salty and smokey, like a good smoked trout, but better.

fricassee of burgundy snail & snapper roe

Rucker has been playing with snails. A week earlier, his steak special was a filet mignon with a Bordelaise sauce and snails. He has a good snail supplier. These snails are firm, meaty, delicious. Here he paired them with smoked toast and an orange sack of smoked snapper roe.

I am a new fan of smoked roe sacks. (The first I tried was a few months ago at Feast). The flavor combines a salted fish flavor, like anchovies, with a bacon flavor. I hope to see more of this ingredient.

bison liver, barbecued morels, sour ketchup

Although liver may be my least favorite organ meat, this one was light and airy. The bison liver tasted a bit sour, perhaps from the sour ketchup.

Yet I enjoyed this dish because of an over-the-top barbecued morel mushroom. Morels have a complex, pourous texture that allows them to soak up flavors. Here, the giant morel soaked up quite a lot of barbecue sauce. The flavor was sweet, sour, and decadent.

These 4 dishes are just a sample. Rucker served 12 courses over the space of several hours. The dinner was consistently interesting.

Has Tenacity changed?

At Rainbow Lodge, Tenacity is a little more expensive. The crowd is a bit older. And the wine and service are better. But Rucker's dishes remain just as avant garde.

I hoped Rainbow Lodge would bring him to a larger audience. It has. I worried it might dull his edge. It hasn't. Yes, he does a great job with a mainstream beef filet. But he has kept in touch with his more radical roots -- even salsify.