Southern-themed family dinner party

Last night, in honor of my sister being in town, we hosted a dinner party for family and pseudo-family. Fortunately, the deliciousness of our meal distracted from the mismatched chairs, plates, and silverware. [Upfront...sorry all the pictures are of partially-eaten food...I was so excited about the meal I kept forgetting to photo-document it!]


We started with a cold cucumber soup; thank goodness I decided to actually read the recipe that morning, because I realized some portions of the soup had to marinate for *at least 8 hours.* I also 1.5x the recipe to ensure we all had enough to eat--after all, there were boys at the table! I may have fudged a little on the marinating (I think it ended up being more like 6 hours), and was way too lazy to use a cheesecloth (as directed), and, for lack of proper tools, used a blender instead of a food processor. All that being said, the soup was absolutely delicious and surprisingly smooth. The dill added a real brightness to the soup without making it taste too chicken-soupy. A great beginning to a summer dinner party. We paired this course with an Avaleda Fonte 2009 Vinho Verde, which I had actually read about in Cooking Light and found at World Market.

Our next course was creole shrimp and grits, paired with roasted asparagus (400 degree oven for ~15 min, tossed with olive oil, S&P, finished with a touch of lemon juice). I subbed halved grape tomatoes for the celery and green bell pepper, but other than that cooked the recipe as written, also 1.5x. The sauce started out much too thick, so I think I used significantly more of the shrimp broth than the recipe calls for. The shrimp also took about twice as long to cook. But the results were SO good. I have had a few cravings for shrimp and grits in the past and been disappointed with what I've been served--looks like I'll just have to whip up some up myself next time, because these were second only to the s&g at a little stand at the Charleston, SC farmers market (which obviously, is a bit inconvenient to get to when a craving strikes!). We paired this with a local 2008 cab from Quattro Goombas, which was a little earthy and spicy and a wonderful accompaniment (thanks Pat!), and a Red Diamond 2007 cab, which is pretty delicious with just about anything (thanks D&D!).

We finished with an oatmeal cookie-peach cobbler, which thankfully my sister made! She used not-very-ripe peaches, which actually turned out to be a very good thing...the slight tartness balanced out what might have otherwise been a pretty sinfully sweet dessert. It also took about 10-15 min longer to cook than directed. I think about half the table went for seconds, so obviously this recipe was a resounding success as well! We paired this with a 2009 Ricossa Muscato d'Asti, also from World Market.

Thank you to our family and family-ish guests! Three recipes tried, three recipes successful! And seven full and happy people. :)

Artisa Kitchen

Last night, we dined with 22 new friends at the Artisa Kitchen supper club. What a fun experience! I imagine (because I've never actually been to one of these) it was much like a larger, more boisterous version of dining at the chef's table. Chef Bryon Brown, who works at Jaleo, is very affable; he, along with his sommelier, who hails from Poste, gave us a memorable *5 hour* dining experience.

Sadly, there are no pictures and I can't go into the details of the dishes, because Chef Bryon asked that we "preserve the mystique." But I can tell you that we had 12 courses, from bread through dessert, that featured a variety of proteins, cuisines, and techniques. There were emphases on Italian and comfort food, as well as a few homages to summer. Portions were generous, and overall the execution was about what we would expect from a professional chef experimenting, having fun, and finally in charge of his own kitchen. Although a few dishes could have used a little tweaking, my only real complaint was the bit-too-liberal application of salt. This might be a me thing, though, because I don't think the others at the table had the same issue. Flavors were good, though not particularly complex. The dessert stole my heart, but I *do* have the world's biggest sweet tooth...

We came away satiated, a bit tipsy, and best of all, with a few more friends than we came in with. Probably not something I will be a part of every month, but definitely worth the experience! It's really cool, particularly as a lover of food and cooking, to see a chef having fun and coming into his own.