Eating on Jitneys

November 11, 2007 will forever have a special place in my heart. On November 12 I felt sadder than I have felt in at least a year, because November 11th was over. Last Sunday, Ellen and I completed the semi-impossible: a hitch-free elaborate dinner party for 12 people. Despite the fact that there was serious drama the day before (involving a hit-and-run) and a late start, literally nothing went wrong.

While I have had dinner parties before, they have been more centered around the party rather than the dinner. This one required…ok maybe not required but at least took a month of planning. The planning was so fun! Luckily we agree on just about everything (like having lavender and chocolate for dessert, ditching the idea of making terrines at the last minute, infusing vodka for some signature cocktails, etc) which made the process stress-free. We even got together and made some invitations using some polaroid transfers, paper, a printer, and a sewing machine. I know, right??

I have been hestitating to write about the dinner party because, well, it has become so special to me. So perfect. I’m not joking. I’m already looking up pretty matching cloth napkins on etsy that I might want to purchase for the next dinner party (with the theme of “Gourmet Mexican”).

This dinner party did not have a Mexican theme. This was a fancy French dinner. Here was the basic menu (picture me crying while I type this, because I might as well be):

to start
-French Cocktail with two kinds of personally infused vodkas (vanilla and raspberry)

-Amuse-bouche de mer: Scallop seared in butter, atop cucumber spread with beet horseradish
-Amuse-bouche de courgettes: Zucchini fritters with oil, lemon, and egg sauce
-Olives

upon seating

1. cream of cauliflower and brie soup
2. salad of green apples and arugala with parmesan-thyme crisp and toasted pumpkin seeds.

main course

1. a variety of miniature quiche
2. potato tower
3. brussel sprouts and bacon

cheese course


(only a taste of the 6 types of delicious cheeses, paired with Chicago Co-op honey and Conchord grapes)

dessert

1. lavender cookies

2. 2 kinds of truffles, dipped in cocoa and almond

coffee

We both agreed this was the most fun we had had in a long time. Unfortunately we couldn’t invite everyone we wanted, because this wasn’t a rager. It was a serious dinner party because we are serious about food.

If you are feeling the effects of a long un-wholesome Summer ‘07 (I’m not making judgments, I’m just saying it’s possible), here is the perfect cure. This is the most wholesome fall or winter drink that I can possibly think of. Drink this while making puzzles, crocheting, or watching the Cosby Show on MeTV. It could also be made less wholesome by adding whiskey, but don’t tell my grandma.

Even though I drink a lot of coffee, I was not aware of the Cold-Brewed dreams-come-true in store for me until Ellen mentioned an article she read in the New York Times. I did a quick search online and realized that Cold-Brewed coffee is one of the easiest beverages to make ever. One article explained that the bitter taste in coffee is a result of heating it. That taste doesn’t exist if you don’t heat it. So here’s what you do to make the most delicious cold coffee of your sweet little life. It helps to start with good coffee:

-grind some coffee. however much you want to use. i have a tablespoon scoop and i think i used about 8 scoops for 1 mason jar of brew.
-put it in a mason jar. add water to the top.
-leave it out at room temperature for 24 hours.
-if you have a french press this will be so easy. just pour the coffee and water into the press and press it down.
-otherwise you’ll have to strain out the grounds. you could use coffee filters or cheese cloth.

That’s all. It’s SO GOOD! And only takes about 24 hours and 5 seconds.

SWEET POTATO PIE:
What else to make on a hot summer day? I love sweet potatoes so figured it most appropriate if I make sweet potato pie with whatever I have available in the kitchen. Oddly enough, I had just about all of the ingredients.

ALMOST PRIMARY COLOR PANCAKES:
I usually add lots of fruit to pancakes so that they don’t taste like the breakfast equivalent of white bread. Since I was in Texas with my brother, and not in my own kitchen full of fruit, we decided to make them more awesome with food coloring. So that they weren’t too plain, I also added a lot of sesame seeds. MMM.

PICNIC:
Featured here are the fruit of my Saturday night labor: curried potato salad with green beans, spiced nuts, and homemade butter (I went crazy) with dill and lemon.

BBQ PINEAPPLE+BANANA FLOWER SUMMER DRINK:
This little number was created very late into the night of a BBQ that was eventually stopped by Lindsay’s landlord (human pyramids in the backyard aren’t as quiet as you might think). If memory serves me, it includes vodka, juice, bbq’d pineapple, strawberries, bananas crushed into flower shapes, and a certain amount of bravery.

Since I don’t want to live too far in the past, I felt I needed to add these little summer treats into one scrunched entry so that I could get them out of my system and move on. Not pictures are lots and lots of BBQ creations. This summer is the summer of BBQ’d potato packets: Add potatoes (all kinds), dill, garlic, oil, fennel, onion, and anything else you want (spices? yes.). Wrap them up in tin foil and wait wait wait while they cook slowly on the BBQ. You will never be disappointed.

I think it is very appropriate that my first blog entry, for this blog that aims at saving pennies and being thrifty, be about my recent trip to Chez Panisse - one of the top restaurants in the world. Ah yes, you know…the usual. I think it is not that cool that the pictures kind of suck, but I was much more interested in the eating and the chatting that were about to ensue than the picture taking. In fact, this isn’t even what I ordered (wild salmon with beans, beats, and other tasty treats). This was the morel ravioli with parsley sauce.

The meal started off with with the carbonated tap water that has become the restaurant’s answer to (unsustainable and kind of stupid) bottled water. They also provide a little bowl of mixed olives which was very exciting for me. Pretty awesome.

My friend Asi works there (thus our ability to get reservations) and was able to secure two bottles of wine ahead of time. She helps write the wine list so they worked perfectly with the meal. The kitchen sent us up a plate of octopus which is something I may never be able to say ever again in my life. They also sent us up two desserts (boms) as the pastry chefs are also friends with Asi. Thanks, Asi.

There isn’t too much that I want to say about the food other than it is so delicious and fresh. There aren’t many added sauces. It seems as though they let the ingredients flavor each other in plates that you absolutely have to scrap clean (which is easily done with the delicious bread).

After the meal (and before the dessert wine), the server brought us this glass teapot full of lemon verbena with mint leaves. Me and Asi totally chugged it! So great and fresh. A friend of mine who had recently been to Morocco said it was also very Moroccan, so cheers to that!

It is easy to understand why this place is rated so highly on their food alone. I mean, Tom Waits eats there! And Bill Clinton ate there! But the restaurant, and its founder, Alice Walker, were very huge players in the organic movement and the slow food movement and basically every other sustainable living food related movement that is spreading fairly widely right now. Read more about it here.