Chefs offer ‘Sound’ advice: Lobster for breakfast?

WiltonBulletin.com
Written by Joan Lownds    

Breakfast was lobster crepes. Lunch and dinner were also lobster-based, at an ongoing seminar celebrating New England’s signature seafood at Cogolulu Cafe.

The cooking and tasting seminar was conducted by Chefs Tor Sporre and Regina Shula on Thursday, and will also be offered tonight, from 6:30 to 9, and on Saturday, April 25, at 11:30. All workshops will take place at the Cogolulu Cafe on Danbury Road, which is owned by Ms. Shula.

The event on April 25 will be filmed for Mr. Sporre’s television pilot, “Food and Vine Country.”

The seminars help usher in lobster season, and take advantage of the dip in lobster prices, which hover around $5.99 a pound at local markets. But Mr. Sporre said he eats lobster all year round and spent one year eating them every day.

Participants in the workshop, which included a wine tasting, also said they eat lobster whenever they can, no matter what the season. Ron Johnson, who came from Westport for the event, said he simply “loves lobster and wine, so what else is there to think about on a grim, rainy evening?”

The seminars are designed for both the novice and experienced lobster chef, and offers new and traditional ways to cook them. “We want to ease attendees into the Zen of lobster: treatments, sauces and celebration of this very American sustainable resource,” Mr. Sporre said

After the lobster breakfast last week, the chefs served a lobster lunch of lobster claw salad with a fresh horseradish sauce, vodka and Pernod mayonnaise on mesclun and avocado; and a lobster dinner of lobster tails umido with capers, sun-dried tomatoes, herbs and white in wine on soba noodles; along with a few other lobster dishes.

Wines were provided by Seth Van Beever of Black Bear Wines in Westport, and ranged in price from a Gazela Vinho Verde from Portugal at $9.99 a bottle to a Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand at $18.99 a bottle. Mr. Van Beever said they go well with lobster and are “very affordable.”

Mr. Sporre, a 60-year-old Westport native, moved to Europe at 22, where he worked as one of the first male models for the Wilhemina Agency, and also acted in films. However, he grew “homesick for New England, and used to dream of lobsters.”

When he returned home in 1979, he ate lobsters every day. He also resumed his modeling and TV career, started the Outdoors Inn of Westport and began working as a private chef.

His cuisine is “holistic” and reflects his own active life, he said. “I’m known in the Westport area as the guy with the sea kayak on his roof and the bicycle on the back,” he said. He also carries coolers in his car, packed from his shellfishing and visits to the Farmers’ Market.

Mr. Sporre has also spent time exploring the Mendocino wine country of northern California, and his television pilot “explores my travels through wine country, cooking with winemakers the dishes which best pair with their wines.”

In February, “Food and Vine Country” was rewritten and presented to the Connecticut Commission on Tourism and Culture as ”Connecticut! It’s the Closest New England!” a similar food and wine journey.

Ms. Shula grew up in Cogoleto, Genova, Italy, where she said she learned to “relish the joy of food and experiment with flavors from an early age.” After living in Connecticut, Ms. Shula said, she too, became a lobster aficionado, and has created lobster recipes that include the breakfast crepes. For a lobster breakfast, she also suggests lobster omelets or scrambled eggs with lobster sweetbreads and caviar.

After the first seminar last week, the chefs also received requests for private lobster seminars, they said.

Information: Ms. Shula at: 667-4152.