Tag Archives: Dinner party

Dec28

A fancy dinner evening

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Wednesday, 08-Dec-2021

It’s been a while since I’ve had occasion to really throw down and make a big, multi-course, fancy and fun dinner. Daniel and Erin’s visit had given me some change, but for some reason those hadn’t quite scratched the itch that I was feeling…

My poor neighbors. Subjected to such cruelty. Having to come over and get fed.

I don’t think they minded, so much.




The plan for the evening was a four-course meal. I’d say “nothing fancy”, but that wouldn’t quite be true… I was taking this as a chance to practice, to experiment, and to try a few recipes that I’d been wanting to try out. For quite a while, in one case!

Adding to the challenge was a new dietary restriction – I’ve cooked for vegetarians and for vegans, but never for someone dairy-free… That gave me some interesting leeway, but still put a block on many of my standard cooking practices.

I was aiming to follow the framework of a fancy Italian meal – small courses, planned and timed to flow into each other as best as possible.

Without further Ado – The meal!


Course 1 – A pasta course.

This one was a light starter, but with enough heft that we wouldn’t be distracted by hunger for the rest of the meal. Simple, clean, and pleasant:

Bucatini, tossed in a non-dairy butter sauce mixed with a tiny bit of truffle oil, with soppressata sausage, salt, and pepper added. Garnished with parsley, of course, since I’m not a savage.




Course 2 – A veggie course.

I’ve been wanting to cook this for years, even since trying it while visiting Rome back in 2018. Judaean Artichokes! Trimmed, spread out, and oiled with truffle oil, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

My neighbors were kind enough to bring over an air fryer, so I didn’t have to deep-fry them like the recipe calls for – and I’ll say, they turned out beautiful! There’s far less meat on an artichoke than I remembered, so this one was a good “rest” course, where peeling the artichoke was as much an event as eating it was. It gave us a good chance to chat and relax before the main course.




Course 3 – The main event

This was going to be a challenge.

See, I love cooking steak, and I love making fancy steak. One of my favorite “show off” dishes is a variant of Steak Au Poivre, where I flambe fillet mignon in a brandy sauce. But you see… that works because the brandy flames work with the butter and steak juice, making a glorious base for the heavy cream.

None of which are dairy-free. As a variant, I grabbed non-dairy butter along with oat heavy cream, but this was definitely going to be a challenge.

In the end… the steaks came out well, but the sauce was a bust. I tried my best, I really did, but the non-dairy butter that I got just… didn’t quite work. Somehow it opened the grains in my skillet and caused the brandy to… seep through? Or something? Which meant that, when I lit it up, it didn’t really mix or caramelize at all, and instead just set the whole pan on fire. Literally the whole pan. All sides.

I was able to get the sauce together by using a ton of fake-butter and oil, but when it did come out… It was somehow a chocolate sauce? I don’t know what I did, but I think the sweetness and nuttyness of the oat milk combined in some arcane dark ritual.

End the end, the steak was excellent on its own – especially when paired with the solid full-bodied red wine that I’d picked out.




Course 4 – Dessert

For dessert, we had chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream!

“But Ben, those aren’t dairy-free!”

“You’re right, other Ben! But I MADE THEM DAIRY-FREE!”

The ice cream was easy. I bought non-dairy ice cream. Boom, done.

The cake? Vegan chocolate cake, one-mug, in the microwave. Boom, done and delicious.


The wine pairing? Loganberry aperitif – sweet, sparkling, and a glorious pairing… especially with the tiny bit of cherry juice that I added to the cake batter 😀




I’m quite proud with how everything came out. Definitely a fun evening!





Bibliography: Recipes!

– Bucatini = Don’t need a recipe, just… cook it up?
– Judaean Artichokes = https://www.thespruceeats.com/carciofi-alla-giudia-roman-jewish-artichoke-recipe-2017775
– Steak Au Poivre (WARNING: Graphic language. Sorry. It is what it is.) = https://imgur.com/gallery/rrqSi
– Single-Mug vegan chocolate cake = https://www.noracooks.com/vegan-mug-cake/

Aug31

My birthday weekend! The fourth weekend that I’m in Hood River, Oregon, and the West Coast! — Saturday: Ribs and climbing

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My birthday weekend! The fourth weekend that I’m in Hood River, Oregon, and the West Coast! — Saturday: Ribs and climbing

Saturday, 11-July-2015

Waking up happens! Then heading for Breakfast!

Yes, it was a capital “B” for Breakfast, since it was pretty large and definitely excellent. We hit up a not-so-small place right by my house that I’d been eyeing since I first started moving… it labeled itself as a pancake house, and I was curious exactly what that meant, in regards to delicious breakfasts…

Turns out – it means that they have excellent pancakes. I know, I know… I should have known. But I don’t like assuming things until I have empirical evidence. And that evidence took the form of three monstrous pancakes covered in bacon and strawberry jam.

That’s right. Bacon pancakes with strawberry jam. And that’s not even counting Brian’s omlette-with-three-pancakes meal.

The car’s already packed, so we roll out to Horsethief Butte, the climbing spot that I’ve been scouting out earlier in the week. And since Brian is around, we don’t need to stick to the short climbs anymore – my trad rack is on my harness and Brian is giving me a belay almost as soon as we get there, and we’re exploring the routes…

ROCK CLIMBING!

  • What I’m calling “the entrance arrete” – 5.9/5.10, trad, Ben leads… partially. I finished up the first section, but after that it got a little too committing for me – so I lowered off, and we walked around to build an anchor. Then proceeded to crush it on top rope.
  • Middle Canyon routes – 5.easy, maybe as high as 5.6? All on trad, with Ben leading. These are fun routes, though no real technical difficulty. A few spicy moves make it fun, and the gear placements are definitely enjoyable. It sort of reminds me of Hammond Pond, back in Boston. The climbs are clean and solid, and there’s a ton of variants that can be done.

We climb ’till a little after noon hits, and then head back toward Hood to start the ribs cooking. We stick to my old-school recipe, and sauce them up before tossing them into the oven.

And now… we wait. But waiting is boring, so we head into town and explore a bit. Checking out the wind surfers and kite boarders, jumping in the water… you know, the usual. Because everywhere has huge populations of kite boarders, right?

The goal of the evening is hosting a dinner party – not a big one, but a small one for myself, Brian, and the folks who’d hosted me at the Airbnb rental when I first came to Hood River. We’d gotten along quite well, and so they’d made me promise to keep in touch as I got settled into town. I figured that a birthday dinner party would be ideal, and an especially good chance to show off my cooking skills!

So… I show off my cooking skillz. Everyone shows up around 7:00, and we relax and eat and chat and have a good time. The drink of the night is a Moscow Mule, which somehow goes super well with Ribs and cornbread and veggies. And Alexandra brings along raspberry tart, which is completely amazing and disappears quite quickly.

The rest of the night is chilling – chatting some more ’till they head out, then Brian and I light a fire out in the pit out back, and sip beers and poke fires ’till we get bored.

Apr15

Ben makes an Easter Ham for the first time – Easter Sunday, 2015

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Sunday, 05-April-2015

 

The family’s Passover Seder was finished, the leftovers sitting in my fridge just waiting to be warmed up and snarfed down.

But unlike most Jewish households during Passover, I had bread on my shelves.  I even had a ham sitting in the fridge!  Was I the worst Jew ever?  Nope!  I was the best, since I was being a good host!

“But Ben!” you may ask, “How does any of that have anything to do with being a host?”

“Well, unnamed person who’s asking me questions in my own head,” I’d reply, “I’m being a good host by throwing an Easter Sunday dinner for my friends who’re far from home!”

“Ohh wow, you’re such an awesome person Ben!  I wish I was like you!”

“Ohh stop flattering me, voice-inside-my-head, you’re too kind!”

 

Baseline, we made dinner.  Daniel and I did some climbing early in the day, hitting up the usual Yoga class with Emma, and then roping up for a few lead climbs.  I even finished my project cleanly!  Not just once, but twice in a row!  But we had to cut it a bit short, since the Ham was slated to take a while in the oven, and there was other prep work that needed doing before dinner could be served.

So Emma and I biked back to the house while Daniel hit up Whole Foods for the last few bits that were missing – including some Oysters for us prep people… simply to keep us fed and able to cook well, of course.

 

The rest of the night was finishing the food, hanging out with people as they trickled in, and generally having an extremely lovely Easter Dinner.  We had everything – ham, sweet potatoes, normal potatoes, bread, drinks, ginger beer, all the fun stuff that one expects from Easter when a Jew is cooking it.  We even had Mandelbread for me, so that I could rock some kind of bread-shaped-food!