10th Annual Holiday Buffet

The 10^th Annual Crowing Coq Holiday Buffet last night at Annie & George's was another fun and relaxing evening!  We ate well as usual - with samplings from past book selections: My Paris Kitchen, Big Small Plates, Jerusalem, and Bill's Open Kitchen.  Many thanks to Annie and George for again hosting this holiday event.  As always your home, decorations and warm welcome are much appreciated.

While waiting for everyone to arrive, we noshed on Annie’s warmed mixed nuts and drank a Roederer NV Champagne that I continued to drink with our entrés as well because I like how it cleans my palate after eating spicy food.  Of course, what’s not to like about Roederer?  Of course, I could always drink their Cristal instead!!!  ;-)

George prepared Celery Root Soup w Horseradish Cream & Ham Chips from  My Paris Kitchen cookbook.  The celery flavors were mild and the horseradish cream and crispy prosciutto chip were great counterbalances to the soup.   It makes a very pretty presentation as well.  It’s a soup that I will definitely make during our cold, rainy winter months.

We ate the rest of our entrés buffet style in two flights.  Our savory flight of dishes was in sync spice-wise.  We once again enjoyed the Merguez Meatballs with Siracha Aoli & Yogurt sauce.  Sandi W had prepared this dish for our My Paris Kitchen dinner in June.  Sharon made both beef and lamb meatballs for our buffet and we had no complaints!  Bill brought a delicious 2013 New Zealand Matua Sauvignon Blanc that went really well with the spicy dishes this evening.  

David made Burekas from the Jerusalem cookbook.  In addition to the feta and ricotta cheese in this dish, he added some herbs that really made a big difference.  Willie had tried an Armenian pasta version of this dish (it was called Sou-Boreg) for our Zov dinner many years ago and was so disappointed in the flat flavor of the result that he didn’t make it for the dinner.  The Zov version added no additional herbs other than parsley to her Boreg.  She also used Monterey Jack cheese.  David added his own special twist to his Burekas and made them into little purses that burst open when baked . . . yum!  

Michelle made Ka’ach Bilmalch, savory biscuits shaped into small wreaths, from the Jerusalem book.  She served them with a parsley sauce that everyone raved over.   She said that making the dough was very difficult and she wasn’t happy with the dry results.  We all want the recipe for the sauce though!   

I prepared Papas Bravas from the Big Small Bites cookbook.  My potatoes were not crispy, probably from not heating the oil hot enough. . .hard to cook in other people’s kitchens is my excuse. The sauce is to die for though and very easy to make, from tomatoes, chile powders, smoked paprika, Spanish sherry vinegar, herbs and olive oil.  

2007 Rochioli Pinot Noir, Estate was the red wine that Bill chose to serve this evening.   He basically let people pour their own wine so people chose different wines to accompany their plate.  When we combine various tastes in a buffet-style dinner, it usually ends up being what ever variety of wine a person likes.

We then took a break and chose our cookbooks for 2016.  We had many to choose from but narrowed them down to 5 books from which the 2016 hosts (Sharon, David & Michelle and David S.) can choose.  Check your local libraries for the books.  The link for each book will take you to the Amazon page, to give you an idea of price.

#1.  Pintxos, Small Plates in the Basque Tradition by Gerald Hirigoyen of San Francisco.  
He has two restaurants if we want to combine this dinner with a field trip.  Piperade (http://www.piperade.com/) and Bocadillos (http://www.bocasf.com/).  Bill & I have 
eaten and enjoyed Piperade but not yet tried his tapas restaurant Bocadillos.  

#2.  Another Ottolenghi book, Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's 
Ottolenghi  by Yotam Ottolenghi & Jonathan Lovekin, which will be our vegetarian 
dinner for the year. The book comes in a kindle version too!

#3. Asian Flavors of Jean-Georges  by Jean-Georges Vongerichten.  We’ve cooked 
from Vongerichten before and love his blending of flavors and cultures.

#4.  The Silver Palate Cookbook  Sheila Lukins & Julee Rosso.  Everyone has 
this cookbook staple on their bookshelf!  And, by now, I am sure that most of their 
recipes are online!

#5.  Alan Wong's New Wave Luau: Recipes from Honolulu's Award-Winning Chef 
by Alan Wong & John Harrison OR any of Alan Wong’s cookbooks (many of his recipes 
are online)

We then moved on to our traditional kitchen items gift exchange.  Our White Elephant gift exchanges are always fun.  George is now the guardian of the Crowing Coq Chicken mascot - the Arthur Court Rooster Timer.  Sharon is already planning her re-gifting opportunities for next year sans Victorinox knife.  One gift will be making the rounds and passed on at each of our dinners.  The book Provencal, 1970 is a book about the one year that the culinary giants were all in one place and cooking for each other:  Julia Child, James Beard, Richard Olney, MFK Fisher, Simone Beck and food editor Judith Jones. 

With our gifts in hand, we moved onto dessert.  Janice made a lovely Lemon Lime Tart with Strawberries from Bill Granger’s cookbook Bill’s Kitchen.  Bill is a well-known chef in Australia and his book provides wonderful recipes to try!   The lemons and limes were from her own trees. 

Annie tried her first Buche de Noel with great success.  As you can see from the photo, a very pretty presentation of a rolled cake.  The cake was moist and light and produced a comment from Sharon, “I don’t normally like cakes but this is delicious!”  Her meringue mushrooms added the perfect finale!   Bill provided a 1998 Chateau Rieussec to go with these two desserts.  His cellar never fails to provide us with wonderful wines.  

I decided to also make Toasted Coconut Ice Cream from David Lebovitz to go with the tart and cake.  It was a creamy, rich custard ice cream that was sprinkled with toasted coconut flakes to bring out the coconut taste.  

We finally gathered up our cooking paraphernalia and white elephant booty and made our way out into the very Christmas-y Willow Glen neighborhood with good will towards all!

Mark your 2016 calendars!!! First Saturday of every third month: March, June, Sept. and Dec.

Looking forward to our March dinner.    Sharon let us know what book she chose and will start bugging you after the holidays.

Happy Holidays!

(Sandi & Janice wrote this post)

  

Barcelona treat

Ferran Adría may not be a familiar name to you unless you are an international foodie but if you google “elbullí lab” you will see what Ferran Adría and his brother, Albert, are all about today.   Ferran is the originator of “foam” that now shows up on many haute cuisine tables.  Some of you may remember Ferran’s 3-Michelin star restaurant, El Bullí  restaurant.  After several years with 3 stars, he closed his place, saying that it’s too stressful to continually try to outdo himself creatively.   After two years of a sabbatical, he started his creative elbullí lab and Albert opened new restaurants in Barcelona.   Bodega 1900 is the only one we could get into when we were there.  It is a Catalan tapas restaurant and hasn’t been “discovered” yet so we were able to get a reservation.  Albert’s other restaurants need 1-2 months lead time for a reservation.   One is a Mexican restaurant, Hoja Santa, another with Peruvian-Japanese cuisine is his Michelin 1-star Pakta and then there is another Michelin 1-star Tickets Bar with 17 tables with a 41-course prix fix ($275pp) and 41º Experience ….soo many restaurants, so little time.  We were only in Barcelona  for 3 days….and now have to return!  There are 22 restaurants with one or two Michelin stars...let's see, that a 3-week food fest! 

One of the Adria’s signature dishes is a “liquid olive” that is like a magical transportational experience…it looks like a yellow green quail egg (see photo) and then you take your bite or I should say slide it into your mouth and it burst into a liquid olive.   This photo shows our liquid olives being served with house made potato chips and these wonderful fried seaweed and sesame curls.  If you want to see how the liquid olives are made, click HERE.   What they did at Bodega 1900, at least for us since we don’t read Catalan, is continuously bring out tapas that they select for you until you say stop.  The secret is to go there with 4 or more people (like dim sum) so you don’t fill up on the initial tapas.  Alas with just the two of us, we did our best but didn’t get too far.  

They serve a bread that is so crispy that it shatters but is soaked in tomato juice and Spanish olive oil, onto which you choose to place a paper thin slice of beef or Serrano ham.  Simply deeee-vine!   I’ve played around with replicating the bread and the tomato juice and am getting close but I am sure they make their own bread to their specifications that creates this simple yet divine dish.

They brought out a playful shrimp hotdog that I didn’t care for as much as his other dishes.

I really like the fried eggplant fries and could have eaten another plate of them..which they are happy to do, BTW, but we wanted to see what else was coming out of the kitchen so we moved on. 

One of Bill’s favorite dishes was a clam stew filled with beans and tomatoes….the photo says it all…homey, filling and so very fresh and savory.  

We asked for their uni dish and was brought the entire sea urchin.  The uni was dark purple, almost black, instead of the bright orange uni that we get at Japanese markets.   We were told that this is the male sea urchin and were given tiny spoons to scoop out the small veins of uni.  The flavors were stronger and had a harder consistency than the female uni.  They were truly small veins of uni and didn’t even fill our tiny spoons.  I think I like the female uni better!

They cure their own meats so to replicate their beef or ham slices would be impossible but you can get pretty close using commercially made cured meats..if you can find any.  The Serrano ham is easy but I have no clue where to find the cured beef.

We also had their version of shrimp cocktails and a cheese plate (Manchego and Vacherín) with little bread sticks.

Our desserts were very different.  I opted to try a typical Catalan dessert that uses sweet potato with an orange sorbet and Bill selected a lemon sorbet that was served in a frozen lemon rind.  His was definitely the better dessert and even looks prettier.  Mine was like a sweet potato creme brûlée but I didn’t like the sweet potato flavor as much as I thought I would.  I was imagining a sweet potato pie kind of pudding but it didn’t taste like that.  It was much earthier and had a strange consistency that wasn’t really a pudding nor was it a custard.  

The Lemon Sorbet was refreshing and we thought it combined Eureka and a Meyer lemons.  What intrigued us was their ice chips upon which the lemon sat.  They were like flakes of ice and when we inquired about that, our server said that it’s how ice is made in Spain....oh well.

We ate at another tapas restaurant (Serviseria Catalana) that was also a delightful treat but the attention to detail that the Adría brothers put into their food was missing.   I got to try their version of Papas Bravas and Catalan Shrimp, two of my favorite tapas dishes!

We also ate paella on another night but split an order because after 10 days of cruising, we were trying not to “roll” out of Spain.  It was good but not memorable…it was one of those “shot in the dark” restaurants that you choose because you’re tired and it was close by.   

We are now back home and I’m back in the kitchen, playing around with that crispy baguette thing.  If I get it figured out, I’ll bring it to our Holiday Buffet!

Cook on!

A Yeoman’s Effort!

We cooked from the Bar Tartine cookbook for this dinner.    Or I should say we “efforted” from this cookbook that made Everything from scratch…including the yogurt, the sour cream, the spices, the whatever!  It contained recipes where each ingredient refers you to another page so you can dehydrate it, ferment it, jam it, etc. yourselves.   TBH, not many of the recipes even appealed to me but there were some surprises in this dinner.

We started with Janis’ Pistachio Dip with Flax Crackers; my first surprise.  It was delicious and I’m not a big fan of the pistachio flavor so that’s Delicioius with a capital “D”!  If you click on the recipe name above, you’ll be able to find it on Google books.   Janis tried the Flax Cracker recipe several weeks ago and was very disappointed in the results.  The crackers crumbled and did NOT taste good.  For our dinner, she found some flaxseed crackers at Whole Foods and they did the trick.   The dip was very interesting and had ingredients that are not often combined together:  green onions, a lot of garlic, shelled raw pistachios, pumpkin seeds, chiles, lime juice, cilantro, nori (seaweed), radishes, cilantro all binded together with grapeseed oil.   She also brought some other types of crackers to see which one went better with the dip and the flaxseed crackers were the best.  The recipe also calls for the dip to be served on a plate or platter but she wisely opted for a small bowl for the dip and artfully arranged the radish slices around the edge.  Bill chose a Franck Bonville nv Champagne Brut Rose to complement the dip and the Brut Rose was the best choice.  It had enough body to hold up to the forward flavors of the dip.   YUM!

We then sat down and started with our first salad that Annie prepared.  Smoked Trout with Summer Bean Salad.  And, no, she did not smoke the trout herself.   As you can see from the photo, it’s more of a main course dinner salad.  It’s a very hearty salad with chunks of smoked trout, with scattered cannellini beans, green beans, sunflower seeds (and no, she did not toast these herself either!) marjoram, dill, oil cured black olives, cucumbers, garlic, lemon juice and curly parsley all softened with Greek yogurt.  There is no “salad dressing” per se, but it’s definitely a salad!    Bill chose a hearty 2011 Private Reserve Chardonnay from Beringer that was unctuous and worked well with the smoky flavors of the trout and herbs.

 

Sandi W prepared one of the more ambitious dishes of the evening.  Grilled Eggplant with Tomato Jam and Spiced Hazelnuts.  This dish required ingredients that take 6 weeks to make, such as the preserved limes and tomato jam.  It too had yogurt, used as a bed for the eggplant slice.   The tomato jam was more like dried tomato jam and had very concentrated tomato flavors that added a blast of flavor to the mild eggplant.  The other side to this dish that is not picked up in the title of it, was the preserved lime compote.  It was very spicy (i.e. not wine friendly) and did little to highlight the eggplant.   The Spiced Hazelnuts were scattered about the dish as accent notes to the paprika flavor.   We all (including Sandi) felt that the lime compote could be deleted from the dish in the future.  The grilled eggplant, tomato jam, yogurt and spiced nuts were very enjoyable.   Bill wisely selected a very hearty 1990 Topolo Zinfandel from their Rosso Ranch in Sonoma to go with this dish.  The zinfandel actually held up against the heat in the dish and because of its earthiness,  went well with the eggplant and tomato.

 

Michelle took us to Japan with her Tuna with Black Beer Ponzu and Radish.  She even purchased the tuna from a Japanese market!  She chose a non-hoppy stout to make the ponzu sauce and used daikon ( pronounced “die cone” BTW) instead of the watermelon radish called for (none were to be found anywhere!).  The tuna was seared perfectly and the whole dish was very Japanese-y, especially with the daikon substitution.  Bill served a Rochioli 2010 Chardonnay from the River Block vineyard in the Russian River Valley in Sonoma.  It was delicious, definitely.  What’s not to like about a Rochioli Chard?  But the tuna dish stomped all over it, and I was wishing we had some sake for this entré. 

 

For our main course, our host, Jeffrey, made Beef Gulyas with MarrowToast, that he said was basically a Hungarian goulash: meat, potatoes, onions, paprika, green bell peppers, lots of garlic, marjoram, Serrano chiles and some bacon.  The Gulya was pretty unremarkable but the marrow toasts were divine!   Totally not good for us but oh so rich, flavorful and decadent!  Jeffrey has a private purveyor who raises cattle from whom we was able to get very large marrow bones.  He toasted some slices of ciabatta bread from Acme Bakery and we all slathered all the marrow we could dig out of the bones on our slice.   Bill chose a Rhone wine to go with this hearty stew and marrow toast.  Chateau Cabrieres 1998 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape.   As Rhones tend to be earthy, this was the perfect choice to complement the goulash stew.

We are now moving towards the sixth course of the evening and needed something lighter to cleanse our palate and get us ready for dessert.   Sharon brought a refreshing Chicory Salad with Anchovy Dressing.    It was just what we needed at this point in the dinner.  She couldn’t find any chicory lettuce so she substituted frisee, and other salad greens (radicchio, escarole, etc.).  It was also very herby with dill, green onions and parsley and again, earthy by using daikon, radishes, fresh horseradish and fennel.   The cookbook authors and chefs of Bar Tartine, seem to move towards these ingredients:  lots of garlic, dill, & marjoram.   It all came together with the Anchovy dressing that used fish sauce, as well as oil packed anchovy filets.  What surprised me was that the anchovy flavor was not very pronounced.  I detected the 1 tsp of fish sauce more than the anchovy taste in the dressing.   This dressing, as well as many of their recipes, had heat in it.  This one in the form of hatch chile powder or spicy red paprika powder.  Most of their recipes called for some kind of chile.   Some of the heat was pronounced and some of it was just a note of heat but it was present even in their desserts.  Bill brought a 2013 Pine Ridge, Chenin Blanc Viognier blend from Napa.  It was a bright , clean wine that was, once again, the perfect pairing for this salad.  Thanks Bill for contributing all the wines for our dinner and thanks to Jeffrey for pulling a chardonnay from his cellar as a backup to Bill’s wines.  I also contributed a baguette from Manresa Bread shop as well as some European Butter to have with the salad.  It's hard to resist spending some money in this shop, everything is so good!  And, now they are open 7 days a week! Bad news for the calorie conscious.

We all commented that the Bar Tartine book was not a “go to” cookbook that we will neither buy nor use much, if already bought.  The amount of work put into each dish was not evidenced in the outcome.  BUT, as Willie stated, we are all such good gourmet cooks that we had a wonderful meal in spite of the book. . .a yeoman's effort on everyone's part.

Michelle also made the Strawberry Hazelnut cookies.  And remember when I mentioned heat in all of their recipes.  These cookies had black pepper in them AND no flour.  It was very difficult of make the hazelnut butter.  After toasting the hazelnuts, which makes them drier, it took a lot of effort and two food processors to make enough of the hazelnut butter to create the cookies.  Michellle stated that the dough was very sticky and hard to manage.   The strawberry filling was made from dehydrated strawberries (and yes, she dehydrated them for days!) and very dense.  The cookies were very big and could be meal unto themselves.  Because they are very rich, most of us opted to eat a third of our cookie last night and eat the remainder the next day.  They were pretty good though.  I enjoyed my cookie even more today than I did last night.  Thanks Michelle for bringing two dishes for the evening! 

Bill chose a 2001 Chateau Lafleurie-Peraguey Sauternes for the desserts this evening.   I’m not sure it went well with either dessert but it sure was delicious on its own!

I opted to make a Strawberry Tart with Flakey Pastry.  The flakey pastry takes 3 hours to make: rolling, folding, refrigerating repeatedly and then baking with a weight over the dough so that it doesn’t rise in the center.   This is a recipe out of the Tartine Bakery cookbook so I confess, I cheated!   I just felt we needed a lighter dessert to end the evening on and really liked this recipe.  The great thing about this recipe is that once the dough was put together, I only needed half of it so I have the other half sitting in my freezer, waiting to be baked.   The whipping cream had Grand Marnier in it but it wasn’t very evident.  I think I’ll increase the amount next time.   The strawberries were from Kika’s Farms in Watsonville who sells their strawberries at the Saratoga Farmer's Market on Saturdays and the Mountain View Farmer's Market on Sundays.   They are picked very ripe and are sweeter than other varieties.  Eat them quickly because they are so ripe they spoil within a day.  The BEST strawberry jam strawberries, bar none!

And, so we end another evening enjoying the company and the great view from the top of the Saratoga hills.  The evening was so pleasant that we dined outside, no wind, no bugs and no night chill.  Perfect!

Our Annual Holiday Buffet will be on Saturday Dec. 12.  You may bring any dish from any of our cookbooks to date.   We tend to do appetizers and desserts but if you want to make a main course, just remember that we have small plates so make them bite-sized!   Bring suggestions for our next cookbooks.  Benu has already been suggested by Jeffrey and a retro to Greens by Sharon.  Bring ideas too (like a coffee tasting event by Reid)!   AND, of course, your kitchen-oriented White Elephant or $15 or less kitchen gift.  Don’t forget our crowing coq mascot!

Time of buffet TBA so stay tuned!

Cook on!

My Paris Kitchen

Cooking from David Lebovitz’s  delightful cookbook, My Paris Kitchen, was only one of the joys;  it was well-written and the stories of his Parisian culinary adventures were nostalgic for several of our members who lived in Paris.  Lebovitz recalled experiences and adventures in the kitchen that we’ve all had, albeit, not always in Paris!

We opted for a brunch this time for our Parisian meal because of the drive to Brentwood.  It was actually closer that we had anticipated and for most of us a 1 hour, 15 minute drive.   Brentwood is home to many farms, most notably corn.  Brentwood corn is one of the best, often available in grocery stores as well as Farmer’s Markets.   It is easy to see why because of the sun and high heat that this part of our state enjoys.

We entered Sandi & Willie’s home on the notes of a beautiful grand piano, created by a re-engineered, computerized piano that will play music as if performed by a specific artist…all controlled by their computer!  Listen to Gershwin playing Gershwin.  How cool is that!

We started with two appetizers that David S. prepared that he said was extremely simple to make (I’m going to test that theory!).   The first was a Sardine Paté that was created using canned sardines, cream cheese, butter and some heat (maybe cayenne?).  Annie thought the canned sardines brought a more intense flavor that fresh sardines would but David’s going to try it with fresh sardines, which is what Lebovitz recommends.   I’m glad he prepared it for us because it was one of the recipes I had flagged to try.  It was delicious and not at all “fishy” like one would have thought.   The cream cheese softened the flavors.   

His second appetizer was a Green Olive, Basil and Almond Tapenade.  I would not have chosen to try this recipe thinking that green olives are so salty but after tasting it, this dish is one that I will have to try. Gebruder Simon 2010 Riesling Brut Sekt, Mosel, Germany.   I don’t think we’ve had a German sparkling wine before.  I liked it and thought it brought nice fruit to the two savory appetizers.  It was a bright, light and rich tapenade that had a crunch from the almonds but a lovely combination of tastes from the green olives, basil, capers with a hint of garlic and lemon.  I kept going back to it each time I passed by the bowl.   Bill selected an interesting sparkling wine to go with the two appetizers;

Our next appetizer was plated after we sat down for our Sunday feast.  Sandi W. made the Merguez Meatballs with Sriracha Mayonnaise.   These lamb meatballs used harissa for the heat and, obviously, sriracha for the heat in the mayo.  Sandi mentioned that she ground fresh spices herself for the meatballs and there were a lot of them:  fennel, coriander, cumin, garlic, cinnamon, allspice, and sumac.  She was worried that they had been overcooked but we all thought it was wonderful.  She also served a yogurt sauce with it to cool the heat from the meatballs and mayo.  It was perfectly paired with a wine from our own cookbook club cellar that Bill selected for us to enjoy.  We had a field trip several years ago and visited Quivera who boasts a biodynamic garden and several vineyards.  We had dinner in their wine cellar surrounded by huge barrels, emiting that wonderful aroma of aging wine.  As part of our agreement with the winery, we purchased a case of wine, some of which we had with our dinner there but the rest, has been carefully aging in our cellar.  This afternoon we enjoyed a 2000 Quivera Zinfandel, from the Anderson Valley, Dry Creek Valley area in Sonoma.  The zinfandel was fruity and perfectly balanced after aging for 15 years.  It also stood up to the spiciness of the meatballs and sriracha mayonnaise.  Well done, Bill!

I prepared the next dish that I chose because it seemed so very “French” to me.  The Leeks with Mustard-Bacon Vinaigrette was a very simple recipe that combines steamed and cooled leeks with a vinaigrette that was punctuated with Dijon mustard, bacon and parsley while softened with chopped hardboiled eggs.  The hardest part of this recipe was finding small leeks and getting them to cook to right “doneness.”   I noticed that some of the larger leeks were soft and sweet while the smaller ones were tougher.  I now think that larger leeks might be the better choice.  We all noted that Lebovitz’s recipes were simple, easy and produce results that successful.  This afternoon meal confirmed it!   Simple and delicious…what more can a cook ask for?!   While not many wines work well with vinaigrettes or mustard, I think that Bill’s choice for this dish worked.  The Sutter Home, nv, Gewürtztraminer was recommended by a friend of ours who is a wine judge for several events who told us it won a gold medal.  The fruitiness of the wine actually turned out to be a palate cleanser and did not clash with the mustard or the vinegar.  As a Gewürtraminer, however, it fell short of a gold medal, IMHO; no flaws but lacked depth.   Bill brought a back up wine for this dish and it was a better pairing:  Prinz, 2012, Riesling Troken Praditatswein, from the Rhiengau, Germany.

On to our main course and sides prepared by Annie and George.  Chicken with Mustard is the dish pictured on the cover of Lebovitz's cookbook: chicken thighs sauteed in onions and bacon fat, then treated to a creamy mustard sauce. It's all but irresistible to the carnivores among us.   I had made his Chicken Lady’s Chicken and loved that one but now here’s yet another recipe for me to try.  I love chicken thighs, finding them so much more flavorful than chicken breasts!  Annie prepared them at the house, using those so very French ingredients:  bacon, Dijon mustard, thyme, parsley, white wine and heavy cream.  This was totally divine and the perfectly simple and delicious way to prepare chicken….sigh, so many recipes, so little time!   

George complemented the chicken with Pureed Celery Root and Sugar Pea Pods.  The puree had potatoes in it to give it texture and creaminess and was a silken transportation to that elusively light flavor of celery that gives one pause to think, “What is this?”  Because it is not celery root season (Late Fall), it was difficult to find large tender celery roots so George had to puree them in a food processor and then push it through a sieve to get the creamy consistency.  Well worth the effort, George!  The pea pods added a bright green color to the plate and a sweet foil to the savory chicken.   This was complemented by the addition of a wine from Jeffrey’s vineyards,  2014 Mount Eden Vineyard, Grenache Rosé, Santa Cruz Mountains.  The rosé is a great summer quaffing wine and we recommend it for the months ahead  however, it wasn’t a great a pairing as we had expected so Bill produced yet another bottle from our cellar for us to try.  A 2005 Merry Edwards Pinot Noir, Tobias Glen Vineyard, Russian River, Sonoma.   Ahh, a much better choice! 

Because we all had a drive ahead, we did not bring a dessert wine and Bill is of the opinion that no wine goes well with chocolate and there was definitely chocolate in one of our desserts!!  Janice made the Chocolate Dulce de Leche Tart with bittersweet chocolate and canned dulce de leche.  It had a wonderful chocolate crust with the dulce de leche covered with a layer of bittersweet chocolate.  Several people had seconds, it was so yummy!

We all lamented that David K. wasn’t here to join us since he’s the King of Duck Fat!  Sandi W. baked Duck Fat Cookies for us.  The recipe calls for butter as well duck fat and was accented with tiny currants.  This time she used Muscovy duck fat in the recipe. The first time she made it with Peking duck fat and the duck flavor was more pronounced and the cookies flatter and crispier.   I ate two, as did many others!  Shortbread cookie extraordinaire!

And, this ended our brunch in Brentwood!  (I found recipes for most of the dishes online so if you want to replicate this dinner, just click on the recipe titles)

Our next dinner will be on Saturday, September 5^th.   Jeffrey has graciously offered his home on top of the Santa Cruz mountains for that dinner.  The good news is that over half of the road up to his home is now paved!!  Jeffrey has yet to select a cookbook for this dinner so when he does, I will let everyone know what feast to cook next!  In the meantime, please mark your calendars to save this date.

Cook on!