And the lima beans laugh and laugh… – Atlas Obscura
I guess pretty self-explanatory, a dinner exploring all the beautiful spring produce that was in the market at the time…
Given the title of the evening, New Jobs & the Search Therefor, I had to think back on this one. With the timing, I was comfortably ensconced working as the wine director at Felidia Ristorante, so it wasn’t me. I think, and it’s only vague remembrance, that two of my core regulars had new jobs – Frank had just moved from the word processing center at one law firm to another, and Bob had a new computer gig with the city or one of their contractors.
Since I probably butchered a good percentage of that French, let’s see what I think the dishes probably were:
Goose foie gras wrapped in savoy cabbage and steamed with a Sauternes sauce
Grilled oyster mushrooms with a warm walnut and mustard vinaigrette
Crayfish tails… now Fougères is a place, as is Fàugeres, so I clearly got the word wrong completely – I’m guessing since tête du violon are fiddlehead ferns (and were unlikely to have been imported from Fougères), that what I probably served was a Feuillete, or puff pastry shell filled with the two items. The sauce would be a blood orange hollandaise.
I honestly don’t even have a guess as to what I meant by “a l’Ensuite”, the latter word simply meaning “then” or “after”, but the tournedos would be essentially a round tenderloin steak, and ramps, the wild leeks, I clearly just didn’t know the French word for them, roasted.
The cheeses were the cheeses. The dessert was a chocolate and cherry souffle with bay leaf syrup.
And these days, I complain about badly translated menus.
A little tour through the Atlantic island countries, each dish representing a different cuisine.
The banana dessert is one that I’ve kept around – I more or less reproduced it at Casa SaltShaker here, but have since gone on to tweak it significantly.
I don’t remember where the idea came from. Probably some online cooking show, or maybe an article in a trade magazine, of putting together an “all chocolate” dinner. It was an idea that I later offered up a new take on at Casa SaltShaker, more than once.
A menu chock-ful of nuts!
I remember that dessert particularly – I made discs of swirled together tempered white and dark chocolate and sandwiched rounds of the cheesecake between them, then rolled the edges in the crushed hazelnuts and served it standing on its side atop the fruit puree.
It was the 45th anniversary of the UN’s declaration of Human Rights Day, how could we not celebrate. There’s clearly a big gap here from the last dinner – a solid 8 months – I simply don’t have several menus in my files. By this point we’d taken to calling the near monthly gathering the Second Sunday Supper Circle, and at the time, three friends, Frank Rocca, Ross Turin, and Bob Karelitz, had become pretty much the core regulars of the group, with space at the table for invites to two additional people each time, more only if one of the regulars begged off. A rarity.
“Men who have blazed new paths for civilization have always been precedent breakers. It is never the man who believes in his own ideas; who can think and act without a crowd to back him; who is not afraid to stand alone; who is bold, original, resourceful; who has the courage to go where others have never been, to do what others have never done, who accomplishes things, who leave a mark on his times. Don’t wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common ones, and make them great.”
– Orison Swett Marden, doctor, writer and hotelier
Thinking about it, the mustard spaetzle were straight out of the Charlie Trotter playbook, the ravioli were a re-creation of a dish I tried at the NYC based Troisgros restaurant CT, and the lemon and garlic potatoes are a personal favorite out of the Deaf Smith Cookbook.
Hey, I only had a menu in my files that had clearly become stained from being on the table during dinner. Such is life. I was playing with some ideas I got from working at American Renaissance, by then closed, from chef Eric Blauberg – who was a big proponent of fruit in savory dishes.
I think these were served in the order starting with the caviar and then going clockwise from there, but who remembers? A couple of details stand out – the Pommery mustard sauce was an inspiration from a meal at Charlie Trotter’s, where I’d gone for an interview to be his head sommelier at his soon to be opening Las Vegas restaurant – I spent a day between the kitchen and dining room, then sat down to a full tasting menu, spent the night at his home, and then flew back to NYC. I didn’t get the job, which turned out to be a blessing as I doubt I’d have liked Las Vegas as a place to live, and the restaurant didn’t last long. The scallops with the sherry bacon vinaigrette was a riff on an amuse bouche we served at Mondrian restaurant when I interned under Tom Colicchio after having gone back to school to hone some skills.
