Walking into Seasons for the first time, it’s easy to mistake the place for a simple neighborhood deli. It’s got a stylish enough veneer (this is Eagle after all), but it just doesn’t have the look of a full-blown restaurant. There’s the white-enamel, supermarket-size beverage case humming along the wall; there’s the purchasable culinary knickknacks stacked around a mere handful of tables; and there’s the flier-like menu, a seemingly unsurprising assortment of wraps, sandwiches and salads.
Joe Jaszewski / Idaho Statesman
But look a little closer. You’ll see that this year-old business tucked into a back lot near the now-shuttered Sixonesix is a whole bunch more than a standard-issue deli.
First, the beverage case is filled with a far higher number of good wines and beers than Diet Cokes and Sprites. Around the corner from that cooler hides a rather handsome wine bar. A bit farther still, there’s a single-tabled hideaway surrounded by floor-to-ceiling cabernets, pinot noirs and chardonnays. Then there’s that menu: The tip-off for me came with the muffulettas and crawfish po-boys that lurk quietly among the BLTs and Reubens.
Owner Rachel Hurn, her chef brother Eric Peterson and parents Barbara and Dan Peterson are all from Baton Rouge, in the heart of arguably the most food-obsessed state in the Union. Think gumbo, crawfish boils, pralines, Paul Prudhomme and the vast Emeril Lagasse empire. Still, the family doesn’t make a big fuss over their Louisiana heritage in either the menu or decor. It’s like Seasons itself: a pleasant surprise.
Take, for instance, the sophisticated nightly specials not printed on menu; they’re decidedly more bistro than delicatessen. The duck in hazelnut crust ($18.99) is Eric Peterson’s invention (he’s a formally trained chef who’s worked from Baton Rouge to Disneyland). Pink-centered slices of duck breast coated in a toasted hazelnut, shallot and breadcrumb crust arrived irresistibly un-deli-like. They sat over rice with mushrooms and just-tender haricot verts. Eric’s mother Barbara makes the cherry sauce that (pardon my Emeril-speak) kicks the dish up a notch. She simmers dried cherries with wine, orange juice and honey until they spark a little alchemy: a sauce that’s slightly sweet, but rich with dark, subterranean notes. (The confident complexity of that cherry sauce isn’t surprising when you learn that Barbara Peterson ran a Louisiana catering company and cooking school for 38 years.)
She also cooks the Asian rib appetizer special ($8.99), her take on Chinese pork, marinated in soy and hoisin sauce, honey and garlic, then roasted to a golden sheen and served with a tangy Thai dipping sauce. I had to fight my dinner mate for those ribs.
Son Eric put together the other specials that night. The aroma of the bruschetta with pesto, roasted tomato and asiago ($6.99) preceded that excellent dish and the shrimp buerre blanc over penne pasta ($13.99) was light-years more delectable than the roadhouse versions served at lesser establishments.
But where, you might ask, was the gumbo on the menu? Well, they’d run out. Owner Rachel Hurn says they regularly make cajun and creole dishes but quickly adds they don’t limit themselves to a single cuisine. “We’ve got a lot of things going on in this crazy circle (of a family),” she laughs. That family reflects the true nature of Louisiana cooking: a gumbo mashup of cajun, creole, Spanish, French, German, Italian and who knows what else.
One example is the menu’s huge muffuletta sandwich ($9.50 half/$18 whole). Invented by Sicilian immigrants in 1906 at the still-open Central Grocery in New Orleans’s French Quarter, it’s a hub-cap-shaped loaf layered with provolone, ham, salami – and the magic ingredient – olive salad. While traveling a couple of weeks ago, I was eating through New Orleans, re-tasted the Central Grocery original, and I’ve gotta say it’s got nothing on the Seasons version. OK, my favorite was a messy, four-napkin wonder I found at a funky French Quarter market called Verti Marte. That sandwich was so fat with olives, marinated carrots and celery, its oregano-scented olive oil was dripping off my elbows.
Rachel Hurn says her Eagle customers tend to prefer their muffulettas a tad more tidy. But she’s happy to “dirty ‘em up” with as much olive salad as customers (and their wardrobes) can handle.
That’s just one more thing I like about Seasons.
For full story go to: http://www.idahostatesman.com/204/story/681040.html
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Guy Hand is a writer, public radio producer and photographer specializing in food and agriculture.
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