Mega Dinner
It’s late at night (early in the morning?) but I’m still winding down from dinner last night.
A couple of weeks ago, Seppo randomly asked me if I wouldn’t mind having a couple of people over for dinner. It seemed like a decent idea, so I agreed.
[Continued after lunch the following day.]
Seppo put a bunch of people who know each other down for an evite for last weekend. We figured about half will have prior plans, so we’ll get maybe 4-5 people over. That’s doable. Turned out only like 1 person could make it, so we changed the evite for this weekend.
Well, turned out almost everyone could make it and were were gonna have 9 people over, in addition to us! Whoa!
Seppo has recently gone on a food science kick, so suddenly he wanted do a fancy-pants dinner. I randomly decided I wanted to make the French Laundry’s Salmon Cornets, so, not thinking it through, I agreed.
We cooked all day (perhaps we’ll cover the details of the dishes on the foodblog) and had a great time. We had Kevin, Uyen, Klay, Alan, Becky, Hoa, Sean, Holly, and Mack over, and served the salmon cornets, Seppo’s homemade curry-stuffed ravioli (one oversized rav) atop mashed potatoes, mixed greens with slices of smoked duck breast drizzled with reduced balsamic and extra virgin olive oil, short ribs with root vegetables and chive oil, and Seppo’s molten chocolate cake with creme anglaise and blobs of raspberry sauce. Oh yes, I can’t forget the piles of cheese, olive bread, and drinks people showed up with. 🙂 In particular, I enjoyed the triple cream brie Seppo found and a Scottish semi-hard cheese of some sort that Hoa brought.
The party wound down around 1am, after Seppo conked out on the couch. I stayed up until like 4:30am websurfing and programming the new TiVo. Heh.
It was definitely a fun time, and wouldn’t mind doing a big dinner again. Seating was problematic, which sucked, but we managed to get everyone into one room. We need to improve out time estimates. We even had a schedule and a priority list for the day, but still managed to run long. D’oh! 😀
Hopefully, Seppo will post pics soon.
Dinner last night was so amazing and fun! I’m thinking we’d be up for hosting at some point (maybe in March?), but our food wouldn’t be nearly so haute. Since you guys covered the high-end pretty food spectrum, maybe I could take on the comfort food category. I’ve been looking for a reason to make my 4 cheese & prosciutto mac & cheese.
Too modest, as usual. The food was all amazing, the seating was at all problematic: everyone had a seat and a place for their plate, and I think most of us were grateful for the breaks between dishes to chat and digest a bit. It was the perfect amount of food, and great company. I did feel bad that you guys were stuck in the kitchen so much, so if I were to change anything it would be to have you out in the living room more between courses. 🙂
Mack and I are also up for something similar, though with us seating really will be a problem. 🙂
Thanks, guys!
It was so much fun cooking and having you guys over. 🙂
Next time, I’ll just wear a hairnet and polop food on people’s plates as they shuffle along in line. 😀 Hee hee. “Cafeteria” — the ultimate theme dinner. 😀
I’m continually amazed at how much your guys’ cooking seems to improve. It’s always been very good, but you guys have seriously taken it to another level in the last year or two. Amazing dinner.
I feel like the big change in the last year is that I’ve mentally gotten to the point where I welcome constructive criticism on what I cook. It used to be that I’d be incredibly insecure about the food output and just wanted a “Thanks, it was tasty,” but now I want to know if it could be made a little brighter, a little richer, a little firmer, whatever. Actually, those are the criticisms I have for the short ribs. I didn’t use any of the “brightening” techniques I used on the pressure cooker ribs, because I did this batch in the oven and it threw off my timing. The veggies were waaaaay overdone, so next time, I’ll have to remember to put them in much later in the process. I put the potatoes in for about 1.5 hours, and they turned out perfectly, but the carrots and turnips need only about 25-30 min.
The alternative is to pull out some of the braising liquid and simmer the root veggies on the stovetop, separate from the ribs. Hmm.
1. When talking with someone who has a discernable accent, I tend to adopt that accent during the conversation. It’s not a conscious thing; I just find myself mimicking accents.
2. I listen to the radio to fall asleep, but only if I am alone. I think it’s the bumps in the night that creeps me out.
3. I like to sing in the car while trying to sound EXACTLY like the singer. I only do this when I am driving alone.
4. I replay conversations I’ve had with other people in my mind and analyze my reactions and responses to figure out how I can be more understanding/less judgmental the next time around.
5. When I am in a situation that I know I’ll want relay to someone(s), I try to remember everything precisely so that I can give the most accurate version of that story.
6. Peoples’ first impressions of me seem to fall into 2 categories: extreme like or extreme dislike. I think this is because I tend to be either too friendly or too standoffish when I meet someone for the first time.
7. To fall asleep after a nightmare, I say a Buddhist chant that’s supposed to help ward off bad thoughts/spirits. I always say this chant before hanging out with Ei-Nyung 🙂
8. When I find an interesting sentence or phrase from a novel, I put it on my corkboard to remind myself how great writing can be.
9. I tend to look at people in power and try to figure out whom they resemble. My former research director looked like Gonzo, the business director was the Lucky Charms leprechaun and my supervisor’s mannerisms remind me of Beaker. I think this is how I deal with people who may intimidate me.
10. To keep me from falling asleep in our weekly project meeting, I try to list the 50 states from memory.
-Hoa
Sorry I posted on the wrong post. Stupid!
BTW, dinner was great Saturday night, even the overcooked root veggies 🙂 Thanks again for the dinner and forced socialization time.
-Hoa
Nice cone. Those are, I thought, the toughest things to make with that recipe.
A_B