Dear Friends,

I wanted to send out a final email with a few more details and a teaser or two about our New Year's Eve service. We're filling up quickly, but we've still got a table for you, so jump on our website here and book a table while we can still get you in.

Ok - first of all, we're going to be pouring some complimentary bubbly - probably the Franc Peillot Montagnieu, which is some wildly good methode traditionelle. Chef has also hinted to me that our planned amuse bouche for guests involves Idaho river sturgeon caviar - I've tried it and it's pretty awesome.

The first course is a choice between:

a) Boggy Creek Farm greens with our house ricotta (made from MillKing milk) or

b) a smoked trout mousse with crème fraiche, mustard, lemon zest and, yes, the pain de campagne that I will be personally baking off mid-day Thursday.

Proposed wine pairing - j. lassale champagne (both dishes)

Second course offers:

a) Chef's highly lauded broccoli soup topped with black truffles, or

b) a sous vide "poached" egg from Kris Olsen's Milagro, served with Boggy Creek kale, wild mushrooms and some more of those black truffles (did I mention that we've bought a bunch of truffles? I like truffles).

Proposed wine pairings - peter veyder gruner veltliner (broccoli soup), ludwig bindernagel pinot noir (poached egg)

For our third course we're offering:

a) seared scallops brought up from the gulf coast by K&S Seafood late Wednesday with lots of boggy radishes and a gremolata of lemon zest and lots of fresh parsley, or

b) backstrap (that's the filet for y'all that aren't from Texas) of wild West Texas antelope from Broken Arrow Ranch, rubbed with espresso and spices alongside farm carrots that will be marinated, grilled and served with a velvety chestnut puree.

Proposed wine pairings - domaine du closel, chenin blanc (scallops), and donkey & goat carignan (game)

Dessert is going to be amazing. Chocolate Pain Perdu (that's a souped-up French toast made with our TFB brioche) served with whipped creme fraiche and a marcona almond garnish. Our other option is a buttermilk grapefruit panna cotta w/ a thyme crumble, and grapefruit brulee. Perhaps best to have one of each at the table to share.

Pairings TBD. Note - at press time, Hall and I were still working out pairings for this course, but we've got some terrific choices in our "cellar". (Ok, so we use the term "cellar" loosely. Ours might happen to be a Eurocave we bought off Craigs-list. Most of the wall space in the managers' office is stacked wine, with overflow piled up in mine, but it works. Hey, don't judge us.)

In regards to the pairings, I would certainly encourage any of you so inclined to jump on it this year. It's not lost on our staff that I like to use wine pairings as an excuse to open up higher end bottles from our inventory that I want to try (I like wine). Each of this year's picks is a particularly lovely example of the kinds of wines we support at Texas French Bread - relatively young and fresh, made by individual artisan winemakers, and generally tending toward higher acidity and lower alcohol to match our foods. The main thing is, the pairing format allows you to taste several of our higher end wines rather than committing to a single bottle.

We think this New Year's is shaping up to be a pretty special night at Texas French Bread and we hope you'll join us. Make a reservation here.

bon appetit,

murph