dinner

Wow. It's been a while, and not for lack of interesting things to write about. Russell went to a China Mieville reading, we went to the annual night zoo event at the San Francisco Zoo with Beca, we attended and bartended a lovely o-bon party, and we visited the skull exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences, my department re-orged at work and i am now doing two jobs. I even have some pictures to share from some of those events. And yet, that's not what i'm finally breaking silence to discuss today. Today i want to regale you with the tales of a lovely dinner we had with the Dodds last night. Such good food (if i do say so myself), and such a good evening with some of our favorite folks.

Mere arrived around 3:45 from her workshop in Berkeley - we slowly hung out in the kitchen and did all the prepwork for dinner. In between we talked about all manner of things, including the benefit for 826 Valencia that it turns out Meredith is attending this evening.

Around six, all the prepwork was done, and we snacked on some sliced apple, paranno cheese, and a few slices of baguette, with italian sodas for Russell and Mere, and a small gin and tonic with lots and lots of lime for me.

Russell drove out to fetch Mike from the train station, and Mere and i set the table. When they arrived, i poured first glasses of Kaz '98 Squeeze, and served the saffron-garlic soup (From The Secrets of Success Cookbook, Fleur-de-Lys). The soup was a vivid yellow colour, and tasted divine. Mike and i switched to a small glass each of a Wellington '99 Zin; the soup paired better with the spicy red. [Ok, so the soup was tasty, but at least several members experienced some GI distress later in the evening, and we pegged the large amounts of garlic in the soup. Be wary.]

Our main course was great, except that i flambed the fish. And, uh, i wasn't supposed to. Another recipe from the Secrets of Success book (but this time from Masa's), we made "Black bass with pine nut gratinee'. We stayed pretty close to the dish as described, but i added a bit of simple mashed potatoes to give the dish a little binding. I sautee'd baby spinach and pine nuts and golden raisins in browned butter; plated this on top of the mashed potatoes, offset on the plate. The fish was seared off in a pan, and then crusted in a coat of toasted, chopped pine nuts, butter, and breadcrumbs, and broiled. (The broiling step was where i noticed the black smoke, and had to blow out the 6-inch flames that were merrily carbonising my crusts. Luckily, the fish didn't overcook, and i had a little extra crust left over, so that was recoverable.) The fish leaned up against the potatoes, and i surrounded the plate with a circle of bright saffron buerre blanc, and drizzled the fish with a pumpkinseed/olive oil/balsamic vinaigrette. Quite tasty, and i think the potatoes were a good addition. The plating was picture-worthy on the black china, but we were busy being sociable and eating, rather than posing our food for posterity. [My only note on the recipe is that i followed the recipe for buerre blanc, despite it having a fair amount of cream in it to stabalize the sauce. I think it made it prettier, but i like my buerre blancs sans cream, and will probably make it that way in the future.] Mike and i drank the '98 Squeeze, which i think paired perfectly with this course.

We followed with a salad of baby greens with a citrus-balsamic vinaigrette, dried cherries, pistachios, and Point Reyes blue. Mike and i each had a glass of '89 Navarro Cabernet Sauvignon, which was fantastic paired with the cheese.

Finally, we made and devoured an apricot tarte tatin, with ice cream, coffee and water and a rousing round of Give me the Brain!. Everyone should know that Mere makes a great pie crust - this one was exquisite.

We sent the Dodds home, finished cleaning the kitchen, and retired full and happy. A very, very good night.

Posted by meriko at August 07, 2002 12:23 PM