4th ANNUAL HOLIDAY BUFFET Saturday, Dec. 5, 2009

Wow! I cannot believe our Crowing Coq Cookbook Club has been in existence for 4 years! It started out as just a great idea for me to explore cookbooks with friends and colleagues who love to cook and are willing to be adventurous and learn new skills, techniques and cuisines.

Our annual buffets keep getting better and better as we hone our culinary skills. I must say, I am willing to prepare dishes that have a long list of ingredients now and have several “parts” to them. I’m NOT saying I do it successfully but I now have the confidence to give them a try. Most of the time, I’m pretty successful, but even the mistakes teach me something and I find that I CAN prepare anything.

We served the appetizers first and then the desserts. I must admit, I had my favorites but everything was DE-lish’! I’m going to describe the dishes by cookbooks. The assignment was to prepare an appetizer or dessert from any of the cookbooks that we used this year.

Bay Wolf Restaurant Cookbook by Michael Wild was a popular choice for our buffet. Lisa prepared the Mushroom Tarts(p. 182) that were a big hit with everyone, me included! She said, however, that the pastry was difficult and for any other group, she would have used Trader Joes ready-made pastry! I personally think it was worth the effort because the pastry was tender and flakey. . .perfect! Tina made Crab Cakes (p. 26) that had a lot of crab in them. She learned that she could ask her fish monger to clean the crabs FOR her which sped up the prep process for her by 50%. The first time she tried the recipe she cleaned the crab herself to save money since the cracked crab meat is over $20 a pound! She said that her husband, Bob, called her first attempt “crab crumbs” because they fell apart. THIS time, she pre-prepared the cakes and refrigerated them overnight. Aha! That helped to solidify the cakes. And then, she only turned the crab cakes ONCE in the frying pan and we all got to enjoy her fabulous crab "cakes". . .and as you can see in the photo, they are cakes! Sharon also used this cookbook to prepare Black Olive Tapenade Croutons (p.24) that were simple but complex at the same time. She stated that they were easy to prepare and she’d make them again. Good, because we’d eat them again!

Willie prepared the Coquilles Saint-Jacques á la Provencale from Richard Olney’s Provence the Beautiful Cookbook. Most of the time Coquilles Saint-Jacques is a very rich, creamy dish. This dish, while rich because of the butter, is not creamy. It ended up being a very light version of the scallop dish that everyone raved about. I liked the fact that it wasn’t a heavy creamy dish and prefer this version. A small note about the scallop shells in which this dish is traditionally served: They are hard to find! Willie tried Williams-Sonoma, Pier One Imports, Cost Plus, and the Pantry where he finally found a few. I went online to see where else they are sold and found a website but they are not cheap! The conchking.com had some and another site was out of stock. There were several sites that sell porcelain shells so maybe that’s the answer to the quest. Janis prepared a dish from Olney’s book: Tapenade Stuffed Eggs (p. 34), a great interpretation of the traditional “stuffed eggs.” NO mayo!! The yolks are mixed with black olives, parsley, spices, and a teeny bit of softened cream cheese to bind it all together. Much better than the mayo loaded stuffed eggs our mothers prepared for pot lucks! Each egg is topped with one small leaf of cilantro and a half a cherry tomato that really made it spectacular.

Mary used one of Deborah Madison’s books, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and made a Leek and Goat Cheese Tart (p. 498). Another great dish for me to prepare for an appetizer in the future. Mary said that she tried it the first time with a savory pie crust and her family liked it. But since this recipe calls for a yeast dough crust, she made one for the buffet….and didn’t like it. The dough was difficult to work with. If you’ve ever made pizza dough from scratch you know how hard it is to roll one of these suckers out…they keep shrinking the minute you lift your rolling pin! It’s enough to make me send out for Round Table! And, she said it was very hard to slice into wedges once the tart was baked. Maybe she needed a pizza wheel! The savory pate brisée was much easier to slice and eat and she thinks it tastes better. As hard as it was to prepare, everyone liked the tart, just as is!

I used the Made In Spain cookbook by José Andrés to prepare the Valdéon Blue Cheese with Apples and Olive Oil salad. I tried this recipe when we were cooking from this cookbook a few months ago and loved the contrasting flavors and textures of the crisp Granny Smith apples, creamy pieces of blue cheese and crunch of the Marcona almonds, touched by the bite of chopped chives. It was the perfect foil for the other rich dishes, giving us fresh light flavors. I used Valdéon cheese although the recipe calls for Calabres blue cheese. I couldn’t find Calabres and decided that at least the Valdéon is a Spanish blue cheese. I also used Spanish olive oil, mainly to see if I could taste the difference between Spanish and Italian or Californian. Unless I taste them side by side, I’m not sure I can tell the difference or if it's worth the money. The dressing is very, very simple: Spanish EVO, apple cider vinegar and S&P. Easy peasy! The only thing about this recipe is that you MUST have a mandolin to slice the apples thin enough. Sigh…another gadget that I have to find storage space for.

Bill pulled Roederer Estate, nv Sparkling Wine Brut, Anderson Valley, L’Ermitage, 1999 Sparkling Wine Brut, Roederer Estate Anderson Valley and a still wine, Ferrari-Carano, 2007 Chardonnay Reserve, Carneros Napa Valley to go with the appetizers. Everyone must have liked them because we had empty bottles by the end of the dinner! The 12 year old Roederer Estate lost some of it’s bubbles but still retained it’s yeasty champagne flavors. The 1999 was, of course, more youthful and better balanced. It was good to compare the years and to see how champagnes age. The Ferrari-Carano Chard was, as expected, oaky and buttery, and went well with all of the appetizers.

We took a break between the appetizers and desserts to have our annual white elephant kitchen item gift exchange. People were not so polite this year and there was a lot of stealing going on but without going into detail, our “crowing coq” timer has a new home with Janis. It’s starting to croak so we are all hoping that Janis’s husband Bill will be able to utilize his engineering expertise and get the coq crowing again! We’ve been searching the web to replace it but it is nowhere to be found. If you know of a timer that looks like this and “cockadoodle doo’s” when it sounds off, let me know! We can’t have a mascot that can’t crow!

The desserts were all from the Bay Wolf Restaurant Cookbook. They were decadent (why else call them dessert?) and rich and oooooh soooo goooood! Annie made the Chocolate Mousse Filled Almond Cake with Créme Anglaise (p. 15). The cake was both light and moist while the chocolate mousse was rich. We were talking about this dish and thought that the crème anglaise was too much and simple whipped cream/Chantilly would have sufficed. Sandi made the Cherry-Cheese Tart (p. 97). She hated the yellow color that the egg yolks gave the tart. She thought about not bringing the dessert because of the icky yellow but decided to bring it to demonstrate that not all dishes turn out how we envision them. She used Morello jarred cherries for the dish…I was wondering where she found cherries this time of year…! Regardless of the yellow, the tart was very yummy! The tart cherries were a nice contrast to the rich, yellow pudding-like custard. It just goes to show what happens when you cook from a recipe that has no photo!! And, last but not least, Marianne prepared Pots de Créme, Meyer Lemon (p. 75) in individual small ramekins with Chantilly cream on the side. If you love Meyer Lemons, this is a wonderful way to use them! This dish also got rave reviews and even though we were getting full, everyone practically licked the ramekins to get every last bite!

Bill found three wines that he thought would go well with the chocolate or creamy desserts: Chateau De Fesles, 1995 Chenin Blanc, Les Deux Allees Bonnezeaux, France that was on the dry side and went well with the Cherry Cheese tart. The Maury, 1928 Solera Grenache, Vin Deux Naturel, Maury, France was a unique wine in that it is a solera of wines from 1928. It went well with the Chocolate Mousse. And the last wine of the evening: Royal Tokaji, 2005 Aszu 5 Puttonyes, Tokaji, Hungary was my favorite and went really well with the Pots de Créme as well as the Cherry-cheese Tart. The Maury was the hit of the evening having a tawny port like quality to it and not many people get to drink a 1928 wine!

We wish a Happy Holiday to those of you who read this blog and hope you'll enjoy our culinary adventures for 2010!

Stay tuned to see which cookbooks were chosen for 2010!!