Flying Right At Swan’S

Summer life in a resort town can be the perfect recipe for relaxation — unless you’re a chef.

Just ask Marshall Blanchard of Swan’s Landing in Sandpoint (41 Lakeshore Drive, 208-265-2000). Trying to get away for a weekend camping trip, Blanchard made enough desserts one recent Thursday to last for a few days — or so he thought. They all sold that night.

So Blanchard was back in Friday morning, putting the finishing touches on chocolate tortes and passion fruit yogurt mousse cakes.

“I always say I’m going to take a break, but it never happens,” he says of his workday. “I say I’m going to work from 7 to 2 and take a swim, but it always ends up being 7 until 9 or 10.”

Actually, Blanchard is more of a winter person anyway. A self-described “ski bum,” the 35-year-old Colorado native kicked around college trying to find himself. That finally happened, not in the classroom, but in the restaurants where he worked on the side.

“I moved up the ladder, and found myself liking it,” Blanchard says.

He attended the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and got a job as sous chef at a country club in Connecticut, where his family had moved when he was in high school.

Blanchard hit it off with the Dutch head chef, and had a wide range of ingredients to work with at the well-heeled club. “It nurtured my creativity,” he says. “I had room to experiment.”

After three years, he returned to Colorado and worked at fine-dining Southwestern restaurants in Silverthorne and later in his old hometown, Golden. The lesson there: customer satisfaction.

“I learned to make sure the customer walked out of the restaurant happy, at all costs,” Blanchard says. “If you overcook their steak, you don’t want them to leave disgruntled. You do something to make amends.”

But Blanchard was growing increasingly unhappy with Golden as it got overcrowded and too expensive, and started looking elsewhere.

“I needed a town with a good ski mountain and potential to grow,” he says. Out of five places he considered, from Whitefish to Bend, Sandpoint was the winner.

Blanchard arrived in May 1995 along with girlfriend Beverly Boronkay, a co-worker in Colorado who’s the general manager at Swan’s Landing. Despite a pay cut, they could comfortably afford a nice house on eight acres near Sagle.

He’s just starting to get used to some things about Sandpoint, Blanchard says, such as frequent staff turnover and the prohibitive cost of ordering East Coast seafood.

There are advantages as well, such as the fresh organic produce from local grower Diane Green. “Her stuff is awesome,” he says.

Blanchard’s menu centers around relatively simple yet still stylish dishes, from pine-nut-crusted chicken breast on a bed of fresh tomatoes and basil with a Kalamata olive tapenade, to grilled halibut with fresh mango salsa, to grilled pork loin with apple-pecan stuffing and a huckleberry-port reduction.

“We do beautiful food, but nothing too crazy,” he says. “The menu is pretty basic, but if it’s executed properly, I’m happy.”

Pastas are made daily in-house, and Blanchard bakes all the breads and desserts. Baking has become a passion, spurred by classes he took over the winter in Napa Valley from members of the United States’ world championship baking team.

Precision is the key, he says, such as taking the temperature of his flour so he’ll know how hot the water should be for his bread dough.

“I get so caught up in it, I find myself home at midnight with a calculator, adjusting my formulas,” Blanchard says.

Happily, he doesn’t have to spend as much time with a calculator worrying about details like food costs since the restaurant hired a kitchen manager.

“He watches the cost so I can concentrate on getting the food to where it should be,” Blanchard says.

As the lakeside restaurant’s food has become more consistent, he says, word has spread. “Business has doubled since last year,” says Blanchard. “We’re finally getting a reputation for ourselves.”

In a few months, though, the summer crowds will be gone and life will return to a more manageable pace.

“I’ll be able to go out and go snowboarding all day,” Blanchard says. “I give up my whole summer so I can have a whole winter of fun.”

Seared Salmon in Orange-Pickled Ginger Sauce

Pickled ginger, which you probably know as those thin pink slices served with sushi, adds a refreshing flavor to this summery sauce; look for it in Asian markets and gourmet stores.

2 cups orange juice (preferably fresh-squeezed)

1/4 cup honey

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1/2 cup pickled ginger

1/4 cup sesame oil

6 (6- to 8-ounce) salmon fillets

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon cornstarch, in 2 tablespoons water

2 ounces (1/2 stick) butter

In a small saucepan, combine orange juice, honey, soy sauce and pickled ginger. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat sesame oil in a hot skillet. Season salmon fillets with salt and pepper and carefully place in skillet, flesh side down; cook until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Turn and cook an additional 4 minutes, or until done. (Salmon also can be brushed with oil and grilled.)

Slowly stir cornstarch/water mixture into orange sauce and again bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in butter; strain out ginger. Spoon sauce over salmon.

Yield: 6 servings.

Nutrition information per serving: 545 calories, 35 grams fat (58 percent fat calories), 35 grams protein, 22 grams carbohydrate, 121 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 577 milligrams sodium.