HargieKiri Hargie Mixed Media Art & Design

This past weekend I enlisted the services of my friend Deepak aka The Improv Pot. Mary just came home from a week in the hospital on Thursday, and I wanted a nice meal over the weekend for her without a lot of fuss. I haven’t had time to do serious grocery shopping. She doesn’t have a lot of extra energy to put into helping produce our usual spectacular dinners. And we didn’t really want to go out. What to do, and who to call? The Improv Pot of course.

I’m very familiar with Deepak’s cooking as he has been a primary chef on our trips to the playa with the Black Rock Boutique. There is a good reason his playa name is Gourmet. He has been able to whip up culinary delights on-playa for 20+ people in extreme conditions. I was pretty confident a regular meal would be no problemo for us two pretty stringent foodies.

The Improv Pot is Deepak’s new community supported personal chef service that he’s just getting started. I’m looking forward to seeing how his business progresses.

The Process

The process was easy. Deepak and I had a quick consultation of the kind of dinner we were looking for which is pretty standard for us: meat & veggies – but this one not too spicy as I wasn’t sure what state Mary’s palate was in. He sent me an email a couple days later with a planned menu – I said go for it, and he delivered the meal as promised with plenty for two full meals (awesome!).

The Chicken – roasted chicken breasts with a boysenberry-chipotle glaze

Kiri says:
Yum. I loved the berry glaze. A bit o extra flavor for the moist and perfectly roasted chix. It is rare that we have the same meat two days in a row, but I swear it was even better the 2nd day (as was the rest of the meal!).

Mary says:
The chix was moist and perfectly cooked… not over cooked or undercooked. The glaze was smokey with just a hint of sweetness–perfect blend of sweet and salty. With the berries it could have been too sweet–there was just a hint of berry at the finish, but you could tell the meat had been cooked in fruit from the moistness of it.

The Veggie Mash – root veggie mash

Kiri Says:
Awesome substitution for something more traditional like mashed potatoes. It was a little bland, but to be fair we asked for somewhat bland – and the meal was perfect in that regard. This dish totally inspired me to mix the nips together in a harmonious hash – parsnip + turnip = fantastic combination of flavors!

Mary Says:
Nice texture and not greasy at all, but flavor was lacking. Could have used garlic and a green herb and to bring out da flava.

The Sprouts – brussel sprouts with hazelnuts

Kiri Says:
I’m one of the weirdos that LOVES brussel sprouts so I was pretty excited about this dish, and did it deliver, boy howdy! The orange undertones and the crunch of the nuts mixed perfectly with the sprouts, making what could be a soggy mess into something exciting and flavorful. Something I’d definitely have again.

Mary Says:
Perfectly cooked. I don’t usually like brussel sprouts because they can be bitter. Not these! The texture was not too dry or wet. The seasoning was very subtle and the nuts added crunchiness. The orange was a really good alternative. Lemon would have drowned out all the other flavors.

The final verdict – I think a picture’s worth a thousand words!

We’ll definitely be enlisting the culinary masterstrokes of The Improv Pot again…