​This is the final installment of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice profile of Robin Murphy of Baileys' Chocolate Bar, Rooster and the Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar. Part one is available here; part two, a Q&A, is posted here.

Robin Wheeler

​Robin Murphy had already proven herself at Baileys' Chocolate Bar and Rooster when owner Dave Bailey asked her to create a menu for the Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar.

"All right, let's pair our food with what goes with beer," she said.

Her brainstorming led to a menu filled with easy noshables: cheese plates, nuts and homemade pretzels, along with a selection of comfort foods.

A fan of grazing, Murphy's loves these simple spiced pistachios. You can buy pre-seasoned nuts, but they don't pack the wallop of her handcrafted version.

"That's the key to my food - just very simple things, very approachable, but when you eat it, there's something different. That's just attention to detail and using good-quality ingredients."

They start with a peppery bite, tempered with the cool acidity of fresh lime juice and olive oil and the pistachios' butteriness. They can be made in large batches and they'll keep for several days -- if they last that long.

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This is the second installment of Robin Wheeler's Chef Choice profile of Beckie Jacobs of Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream. Part one is a profile of Beckie Jacobs. Part three, a Q&A, will follow.

Robin Wheeler

​Browse the commercial ice cream freezers at the grocery store, and you'll find no lack of frozen concoctions, bound and stabilized. Beckie Jacobs of Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream suggests ditching the pre-made treats and taking a few minutes to make your own Dipstik Sundae. Does it look and sound familiar? Perhaps. But it tastes a nothing like the stuff sold out of the ice cream truck.

With a fondness for fresh, wholesome ice cream ingredients, Jacobs also shares a recipe for homemade peach ice cream that takes advantage of August's bumper fruit crop.

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​This is the final installment of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice profile of Amy Zupanci, chef/owner of Fond and Township Grocer. Part one is available here, and part two, a Q&A, is posted here.

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​Few dishes espouse the fresh, sustainable and local ethos of Amy Zupanci as well as panzanella. This simple salad consists of the best vegetables available right now and makes great use of stale bread that might otherwise go to waste. Zupanci gives her own twist with firm, buttery Castelvetrano olives.

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​This is the final installment of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice profile of Freddie Holland of Match Foods, Inc., maker of Match Meats. Part one is available here, and part two, a Q&A, is posted here.

Robin Wheeler

​Match Food, Inc.'s executive chef Freddie Holland has spent the past six years developing recipes for the company's Match Meat vegan meat alternatives that aren't just vegetarian-friendly, but a tasty option for omnivores.

He has done such a good job that he even managed to fool himself on one occasion.

"I went to Pi and got the Italian sausage pizza, and I had to bring the waiter over. Our product fooled me. I was like, are you sure? I really couldn't tell. I told my partner to try it and he said, 'I don't think that's Match.' And the waiter's like, goddammit, it's Match!"

When properly prepared, Match mimics the texture of real meat, lacking the gritty sponginess of many meat substitutes. "It gives me the texture, and that's what it's all about," Holland says.

His Vegan "Chicken" Quesadillas can fool even the heartiest carnivore. The chicken, crisp on the outside and toothsome within, provides a hearty base for fresh pico de gallo. Pair with Holland's pineapple-based Rosemary Punch for a refreshing summer lunch that doesn't lack in substance.

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This is part two of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice profile of Jennifer Pensoneau of JFires' Market Bistro. Part one can be accessed here. Part three, a Q&A with Pensoneau, is here.

Robin Wheeler

This little piggy looks delicious!

​The cochon de lait at J.Fires' Market Bistro reflects the Louisiana education of both Jennifer Pensoneau and her executive chef, John Sewell. Pensoneau was introduced to wonders of fire-roasted suckling pig through a Cajun friend while in culinary school.

"My friend invited me to her house, and I just remember gnawing on the backbone. It was some of the best pork I'd ever eaten," she says. "I designed our oven so that instead of just pizzas I could fit whole sheets in there and do roasting and baking."

Served as a small brick of pork atop an olive-studded pile of creamy whipped potatoes, the meat of the young pig is sandwiched between a piece of bacon and its own crisp skin. It's topped with mushroom-laced gravy and surrounded with oyster mushrooms, battered and fried. With a gentle twist of the fork, the square of pork shreds. The flavor's delicate and buttery.

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This is part three of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice interview with chef Marilyn Scull of Ann & Allen Baking Company and Park Avenue Coffee. Part one is available here; part two is here.

Robin Wheeler

Gooey butter batter!

​Marilyn Scull's culinary education came in the most fundamental form - her mother's kitchen. "I'm sure most people say this, but my mom is one of the best people in my life," Scull says. "She's my hero. She's always been my hero. She's taught me everything I know about baking, and she puts up with my dad. She taught me everything I know, which is why I tend to not understand why people have to go to school to learn this."

Scull says Evelyn Schotte is just as surprised as she is at the success her old recipe has found. "My mom and I are a lot alike. She'll come in here and she's amazed at how many cakes we make in a day," she says. "To me it seems like nothing. Today we had 70 cakes to make. I haven't touched one of them. Those guys are done. All they're doing is bagging powdered sugar to get some boxed cake mixes done. This place could run without me, but I like being here. Dale likes me being here."

Scull's basic recipe has gone through some changes. But Mom's recipe remains the classic known throughout St. Louis kitchens.

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This is part three of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice interview with chef Christopher Lee of Cafe Ventana, Sanctuaria, and Chuy Arzola's. Part one is available here; part two is here.

Robin Wheeler

One of Christopher Lee's beignets for you...one, two, three, four for us....

​Christopher Lee's career has taken him from fast-food to four-star, giving him the ability, after 24 years in the business, to choose his ventures. With Cafe Ventana, Sanctuaria, and Chuy Arzola's, he's able to focus on high-quality food that's accessible.

"It doesn't need to be over the top. That separatism was definitely noticeable coming up through the ranks," says Lee. "My parents couldn't come eat at many of the restaurants I worked at. My grandparents were like, 'You paid how much for this? You're out 30 bucks on something you're gonna eat?'"

With Cafe Ventana's relaxed New Orleans vibe, Lee can make down-to-earth fare like muffulettas and fresh beignets that's just as tasty as higher-end eats.

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This is part three of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice interview with chef David Molina of BARcelona Tapas. Part one is available here; part two is here.

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​Paella Valencia
Serves 6

4 1/2 cups chicken stock

Robin Wheeler

​1 cup olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 1/4 pound Calasparra rice
1 pinch saffron
12 mussels
12 shrimp
1/2 pound salmon cut into bite size pieces
4 chicken thighs cut in half
1/2 cup peas
1 tomato chopped
2 links cooking chorizo sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Garnish
1 roasted red pepper cut into strips
2 lemons cut into 6 wedges each
chopped parsley

In a large shallow pan, heat olive oil. Fry the chicken skin side down until golden brown. Remove chicken. Add garlic and tomato stir until tomato starts to break down. Next add shrimp, mussels and salmon. Cook until mussels start to open. Remove shrimp and mussels so they don't overcook.

Add the rice, distributing it evenly over the pan and fry for a few minutes. Return chicken and fish to pan. Add the chicken stock and cook for about 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and add saffron. Once this is done do not stir paella. Add stock as needed until rice is cooked.

For the last minute, increase heat until bottom layer of rice starts to caramelize, creating the socarrat. Remove from heat and loosely cover with foil for 5-10 minutes.

Arrange mussels, roasted red peppers and lemon wedges around paella and sprinkle with parsley.

This is part three of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice interview with chef Eliott Harris of Miso on Meramec. Part one is available here; part two is here.

Robin Wheeler

​"People have this misconception about the Midwest that if you're landlocked, tough," sushi chef Eliott Harris says of sashimi availability in St. Louis. "But at the end of the day, there's nothing local coming in from where you live. Even on the west coast, you might get a few things in season from your own coast, but in Miami there's nothing local; about 80 percent of what's coming in is coming from Japan. It has to get on an airplane anyway, so whether it stops in Miami or St. Louis first, it's all the same."

Harris sources Miso on Meramec's seafood from the same importer he used in Miami and San Francisco, so there's little to no difference between the quality of his fish in St. Louis compared to what he used on both coasts. It's not quite that simple for home cooks wanting to venture into sashimi, of course. Harris emphasizes the importance of buying sashimi-grade fish from a good source, such as Bob's Seafood.

His recipe for tuna and salmon tartare highlights the quality of the sashimi. With fresh fish, the flavors and aroma are sweet and clean. The sashimi and avocados create a richness that's light enough for a summer day. Cassava chips add extra spice.

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This is part three of Robin Wheeler's Chef's Choice interview with chef Jarvis Putnam of Bossanova Restarant & Martini Lounge. Part one is available here; part two is here.

Robin Wheeler

Tequila lime mussels by Jarvis Putnam of Bossanova Restaurant & Martini Lounge

​For a born-and-raised Midwesterner, Jarvis Putnam sure loves seafood. "My favorite meals growing up, my mom made Italian fish soup called cioppino. Chris McD's [my first restaurant job] did a lot of spicy seafood."

His trans-continental cuisine at Bossanova Restaurant & Martini Lounge has given him the opportunity to create dishes like Tequila Lime Mussels, which satisfy his taste for richly flavored seafood with a bit of kick. His take on traditional steamed mussels adds the bite of tequila to the usual white wine, while a heaping dose of sweet and hot puréed peppers give the dish a piquant finish, all balanced with a squeeze of lime.

Putnam uses frozen mussels because of the lack of consistency in fresh mussels shipped to the Midwest. Use the best-quality mussels you can find.

While the salty bites of tender mussels are the star of the dish, it's really about the richly concentrated broth they're cooked in. "When we first started serving these we gave people two pieces of bread. Now we're up to six because people kept ordering extra. I'm sure we'll be up to eight soon. It's all about the broth."

Or skip the bread and slurp the buttery, complex broth directly from the mussel's shells.

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