7th Annual Holiday Buffet, 2012

We welcomed the holidays and two new members to our Cookbook Club at our 7^th Annual Holiday Buffet.  David and Michelle made friends quickly and easily adapted into the cookbook concept, making us an 11-member group again.

Our holiday buffet is usually held at Annie & George’s beautifully decorated home in Willow Glen and this year was no exception.   The dishes were all prepared from any of our 2012 cookbooks: Thomas Keller’s Ad Hoc cookbook or one of Ina Garten’s cookbooks. (we also cooked from Mourad but no one chose a recipe for this evening's dinner) This is always an informal dinner and served buffet style that is both easier and more difficult to serve.  Easier in that we don't have to go through as many plates, silverware, wine glasses, etc. but more difficult to pair with wines or with each other.  We decided to serve our dishes in three "flights" this year.

And, before I get into the details, I must apologize for the poor quality of photographs.  I not only forgot to take photos until we were halfway into the dinner...and I am no Willie, a past member who is traversing the United Statesin his Air Stream with his wife and cat, but I also forgot my camera so these photos are from my iphone.   Please don't take my photos as an example of how one can take great photos with an iphone; they are not.

 

We started the buffet with Smoked Salmon Deviled Eggs and Caramelized Bacon that Janis prepared for us.  If you haven’t tried combining smoked salmon with traditional deviled eggs, you have to try it!!  The salmon adds umami to the deviled eggs.  The Caramelized Bacon was crispy; a salty sweet treat with very forward flavors.   We also tasted Rosemary Cashews from an Ina Garten recipe from Sharon.  She said it was pretty easy to make and it certainly was delicious.   Bill poured a German sparkling Riesling,  a Gebruder Simon 2010 Sparkling Riesling Brut Sekt Mosel.  It was a very dry Riesling that went well with the deviled egg dish.  This year's vintage was prepared with a dosage of Auslese that adds a hint of fruit and sweetness to the palate.

Our savory dishes for the evening were very filling:   Ina Garten’s version of Croque Monsieur that Annie prepared for us had the traditional sliced ham, Gruyere cheese and Dijon mustard.  As delicious as it was, we didn’t eat a lot of it because we had several other course to try this evening.  David prepared Keller’s Pomegranate Glazed Quail.  The quails were very yummy and even more so, dripping with pomegranate sauce.   I must admit, thought,  I have to not think about how cute they were, running around under the brush and chaparral.   The sauce for the quail had a bit of heat to them to contrast with the sweet pomegranate syrup.  I prepared Keller’s Rubbed and Glazed Pork Ribs because it’s one of my favorite ways to grill ribs.  I used the smaller baby back ribs instead of St Louis cut ribs since this was a buffet and added two more spices to his recipe:  Ancho Chili and celery seeds.  It is so easy and comes out so juicy and tender.  As I've written previously, Kellar's Ad Hoc book is my "go to" book when I want to make a familiar dish more special and make it taste the best it can taste.  Sharon’s Spinach in Puff Pastry was too rich and decadent to be a vegetable dish but between she and Ina Garten, they presented a wonderful  concoction that pleased everyone.  Flakey, light, creamy and rich seem to be adjectives that don't go with each other but in this dish, they do!  Bill poured Merry Edwards 1999 Pinot Noir to complement these dishes.  It was hard to believe that this wine is 13 years old.  We drank it at the optimum time because it was a fabulous wine that had come into it’s own after 13 years.

Before our dessert flight, we took a break and started our conversation regarding cookbooks for next year and decided on the following books:  

Our first dinner in February will be from the The Science of Good Cooking by Guy Crosby, Ph.D. who’s fame is from his work at America’s Test Kitchen and with the magazine "Cook’s Illustrated."  Guy will be at Sandy’s home on Jan. 20 and our Cookbook Club members are all invited.  If you didn’t get the “Save the Date” email, let me know and I’ll forward it to you.  I've peeked at the book and it's one you may want to buy rather than check out from your local library (the Santa Clara County Libraries have it,  but it already has a wait list to get on it ASAP).  It explains why we have to use certain techniques or combine specific ingredients in a certain order.  The recipes aren't very complex so for us, this dinner should be pretty easy but the explanations are detailed and scientific in well-written non-scientific "English."

Charlie Phan's Vietnamese Home Cooking.   Charlie’s book will be our summer dinner book since many of his recipe’s call for summer vegetables and fruit.  If you've eaten at Charlie's famous Slanted Door restaurant in San Francisco, you will love cooking from his book!

The group unanimously decided to revisit Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook for our “retro” book so that will most likely be our late Fall dinner.  The only caveat to this dinner will be that we cannot prepare the same dish that we prepared for our first French Laundry dinner on April 21, 2007.   We didn't want the dinner to be repeat of the original but a new dinner.  We didn't have a blog back then but I have the menu from that memorable dinner:  "Oysters & Pearls," Gazpacho Soup, Parmigiano-Reggiano Custards, Citrus marinated Salmon, Fava Bean Agnolotti, Salad of Haricorts Verts, “Tongue & Cheek” and ended with his "Banana Split."   This year's dinner will be even better since we are all better cooks than we were 5 years ago, right?!

We all decided that our field trip in 2013 will be to Paso Robles.  The group thought that late Fall will be the best time to travel since it worked so well this year.  As I gather more information and details, I will keep you in the loop.  If there is a favorite restaurant or winery you’d like to visit just drop me a line and I'll try to include it into the itinerary.  It was also suggested that I delegate some of the venues...YIPPEE-E-E!  So if you want to manage one of the meals or winery tours or a visit to one of your favorite PR places, let me know.  If we stay at a VRBO home instead of a hotel, we may cook one or two of our meals and I'll set up set-up, meal and clean-up teams.

 Back to our dinner!  We ended the evening with several delicious Chocolatey desserts.  Sandy made Thomas Keller’s Brownies that were decadently rich with dark chocolate.  Michelle prepared two buttery cookie recipes from Keller too:  Chocolate Shortbread and Linzer Tart Cookies.  Since I am the all-time cookie monster, I loved her cookies!

And last, but certainly not least was George’s super  Chocolate Orange Mousse, another Keller recipe..   This evening turned into a chocoholic’s dream!   Bill found an Essencia, 2010  Orange Muscat to pair with the Chocolate Orange Mousse.  His theory is that there is no wine that goes with chocolate so eat your chocolate dessert and then drink your dessert wine. . .  and never the twain should meet!  Of course, I disagree and continue to hunt for that elusive "wine-to-drink-with-chocolate."

We ended the evening and had some great laughs over our annual gift exchange…clearly the winners being Sandy & Jerry who brought the Bill Clinton corkscrew and Hillary Clinton nutcracker.   If you are curious about these two gifts, google it!  LOL!!

So until 2013 and our first dinner in February (The Science of Good Cooking),  Cook on!