Hosting a Dinner... Check!

A wonderful night of satisfying tastes, light-hearted conversation, laughter, and joy.

I woke up this morning at 7:15 riding the elation still spilling over from the night before. My dream-lined dinner was an outstanding success! I could not be more pleased or proud.   And I have not felt such overwhelming joy since Ryan and I were married almost three years ago.

Yes, I will unashamedly compare a four course meal I served to five lovely and willing guests to my wedding day because in many ways it is the same. Like my wedding day, I waited for the day to come in anticipation, I planned (in fact, in both cases I waited to a few weeks before to plan most of it)  and on the day I felt too anxious to eat real food thinking that it might turn my mind away from the tasks at hand, but nervously snacked all day on gold fish crackers.  I ruminated over the evening-- the experience I hoped people would have and what kind of candle sticks I wanted to burn.   And like my wedding, the evening was the fulfillment of a commitment and a dream that I made to myself and my lovely and willing guests.

The whole dinner might have been a disaster had I not heeded Ryan's explicit advice to follow the recipe. Some days I fantasize that I am an experienced chef working out my creativity in the kitchen and I think that it won't affect the integrity of a loaf of bread if I omit a teaspoon of salt to save my heart, but of course, it always does. The miracle of bread is that it satisfies the palate and the appetite and it is made of only three ingredients. Salt being the third is vital to the bread's integrity.

I tested his advice the night before on our pizza dough. I wish I had a before picture, because when I made pizza dough a couple months ago, it was slimy and gooey. Though I left the pizza in the oven longer than recommended the dough did not rise or cook. Ryan and I literally scraped the toppings of the goopy-gloppy dough and shoveled them onto the crispy-burned parts trying to rectify what was too far gone. We ate dissatisfaction and disappointment that night. 

That night Ryan promised to make dough the next time, and he did.  Much  like everything Ryan tries, he is sickeningly good at it the first time. I bowed down and swore never to make the dough again, but we were in a crisis this week and it was either I made the dough or no Friday night pizza.  The Greens can't go without their pizza I suppose.

As I made the dough, I hoped for the best, because if it didn't go well, it would be an ominous foreshadowing for my dinner party the next night. Thankfully for my self-esteem, it did go well and in fact I made the best looking pizza I have ever seen.  When Ryan took it out of the oven, he exclaimed, "Now this is why they call it a pizza pie!"

If preparing an outstanding four course meal is comparable to my wedding day then the pride that comes from baking a perfect pizza pie must compare to the feelings a mother has for her first born.   

With the success of the pizza, I added homemade Italian rustic bread to the menu. The bread became one of the four courses to keep my guests mouths watering as I finished off the main course. I am glad I included the bread in the menu because it also ended up providing the rhythm for my cooking schedule on Saturday.

My Saturday morning started off like many others.  A trip to the farmer's market.  I love the farmer's market, especially in Spring.  Fruits and flowers are coming out, which are a welcome distraction from the usual root vegetables.  I love the bustle of the market, tasting the farmer's produce, talking to the vendor, and listening to both he and my taste buds before I buy.

Though I entertained my taste buds, as I walked from stall to stall, unlike other Saturday's, today, I was on a mission.  For the last several weeks,  I had been scouting out the fresh fare and knew which farmer I wanted to buy my asparagus from and who would sell me their potatoes.  I also planned to spend more than my allowance on beautiful flowers.  The week before lilacs made their grand appearance, and it took all my restraint to wait for my dinner to buy them.  I could hardly sleep with anticipation of having a bunch of my own.  When I finally walked away from the market, weighed down with flowers and produce, I sunk my face in the vibrant purple bundle of lilacs on my arm and giggled with joy that usually only comes from a child's heart.

My plan for Saturday was simple: clean the house, set the table, cook dinner for six.  Though simple enough, I actually planned almost every minute of the day from the time I woke up to moving the chicken from the bottom rack to the top rack at 6:45 pm.  On the menu :

Homemade bread takes attention and care if you want it to turn out right, and I wanted it to be perfect. I kneaded it, pounded it, then fluffed and folded it every hour for three hours. Shaped it and finally baked it, all combined for a total of seven hours of preparation before service. When it was served, oh, chewy, crusty, crunchy, airy, yeasty heaven on earth. It was delicious and I will toot my own horn. I think the secret is in following the recipe and baking with bread flour. I will never go back to all- purpose again.

I spent about as much time preparing and cooking the thyme & wild mushroom bisque.  While the bread rose for the first hour I prepared the wild mushroom broth.  And continued to cook the bisque throughout the day until guests arrived.  I was most excited about the wild mushrooms.  I love the mushroom stall at all farmer's markets, because it looks like they are peddling food for gnomes or creatures who inhabit a mythical planet.  I felt very French buying a few pounds of wild mushrooms from chanterelles to weird antenna-like shrooms that look like they had been severed from a burnt-orange race of space alien.

The wild mushroom bisque was all and more than I could have hoped for: completely vegan, delicious, satisfying, stand alone taste of the good earth.

The bread  and thyme & wild mushroom bisque were crowd pleasers (even those who afterwords admitted to a distaste for mushrooms),  but the succulent, moist, lemon herb chicken held its own too. I almost strayed away from meat entirely to avoid the common cooking blunder of over (or in the case of chicken under cooking) the meat. I decided I could not, not cook meat for this experimental feast, every chef has to at least know they can cook meat, even if they choose not to.

Thankfully, I experienced no meat cooking catastrophes last night. Instead, myself and my guests were pleasantly surprised.

I was so nervous about the main course meat that I read over the recipe ten to fifteen times during the day and consulted my mother about a step that was up for interpretation. She shared her years of cooking experience with me and we came up with a reasonable revision to the recipe. And it worked!

Becca repeatedly commented that it tasted like ham, which is weird, but a compliment none the less, because people usually say that anything bland tastes like chicken. I guess the fact that it tasted like ham to her means it was well-flavored. I am glad the chicken came out, because I tossed and turned several nights in angst about the chicken and how I wanted to prepare it.

The entire evening was a delight.  The only thing I would change is my timing. Everything was ready on time except for the main course. The rosemary herb potatoes and steamed asparagus finished cooking before the chicken, so I would time things out differently, and perhaps just bake the chicken and potatoes together next time like a roast.

After the bread and the chicken, my dinner guests so fully believed in my magic abilities in the kitchen, that they thought I hand-made the wonderful fresh mint and carob chip ice cream we enjoyed for dessert. I wish, and maybe next time, but I bought it from Caramello at the South Pasadena farmer's market. Did I mention that ninety-nine percent of the food came from our farmer's market, and most of it I picked that day. It is no wonder the meal was fresh and satisfying.

Bon Appetit!

And there will be a next time. I am high on dinner parties. When I woke up this morning, I was coming up with ideas for possible themed dinners...

Listlessness...

A list of what I am reading right now:

Eat More Dirt by the fabulous Ellen Sandbeck
French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano
The Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferris
Never Work Harder Than Your Students by Robyn Jackson
Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
True Faced by John Lynch

Yes, I know I have 7 books off the shelf at once, and I keep looking for more to ingest. I feel a little out of control right now in a lot of ways. I am full of ideas, full of information, and full on food. I am having difficulty zoning in on one thing and taking it to completion, except for 20 minute workouts and house work. I find myself eating all the time. Probably partly because I am working out a lot, but also because I am listless. I feel myself drawn in many directions and it frustrates/depresses me that I do not know where to focus my energy, my free time, and my brain power. God, what am I doing? What are you doing in me?

I discovered the other day that I stress eat and I usually go for the chocolate or gooey sugar rush stuff. When this became clear to me, I made a declaration to myself to relieve my stress through prayer, worship, meditation, or exercise. This commitment has been unsuccessful. Probably because it is so much easier and instantly gratifying to grab a rich chocolate bar or make a bowl of yogurt with strawberries and agave nectar than to sit down and face myself and God after a long day of facing off with students.

Two reasons why I believe my commitment has failed are lack of discipline and motivation. I am blessed with a healthy figure, so constant indulgence (at this point in my life) does not wreck much havoc on my physique and the sugar high offers almost immediate stress relief.

Aaaaahhhh! But I want balance, strength, flexibility. I want to be toxic free on the inside and outside. I want my bodily systems to work just as hard as they need to and recover quickly from life's many stresses. The stress foods I eat, actually end up putting more stress on my body and I am caught in a vicious cycle of eat to relief stress, work out, eat to relief stress, work out... I am always on the losing end.

I want to eat for nourishment and pleasure not to self-medicate. I want to find discipline, self-control, and balance. Any suggestions?

Food is Divine and Left-overs are a Godsend.

The meal I made for date night was amazing! Well, that is what Ryan told me anyway (I had difficulty tasting any of it, because of nasal congestion). I can say first hand that there is nothing like homemade bread. As my olfactory glands have revived in the last 24 hours, I have enjoyed its flavorful richness.

I had second thoughts about even attempting to make bread, as I traveled to three stores before finding active yeast, and then spent fifteen minutes strenuously mixing the dough and kneading it. I almost hoped the bread would come out flat and tasteless so I would be less compelled to attempt this process again.

I am glad the hard work paid off and that we have two loaves of whole grain herb bread to show for it! YUM! I did not have whole wheat flour (it was whole wheat pastry flour), so instead I used a mixture of unbleached all purpose flour, wheat germ, and flaxseed, then I added fresh chopped parsley and dill along with dried thyme and marjoram (a spice I have never used before). The results were heavenly.

The bread came out crisp on the outside, hollow sounding on the inside, but soft and dense to taste. A wonderful compliment to our portobello and green bean ragout and artichoke parfait.

Though this meal took a tremendous amount of effort; both Ryan and I chopping and stirring away. It has yielded delicious left-overs.

For the first year of our marriage, I detested left-overs. For one, I have heard that bad bacteria grows in left-overs, so I tried to keep a safe distance and only cook what was necessary for the night's dinner. This is a good strategy, but it becomes tedious to reduce recipes (at the cost of flavor sometimes) and it takes the same amount of work to cook less without the added convenience of instant lunch or dinner the following day.

I especially love the instant lunch part, because I tire of packing my lunch for work after cooking dinner. Now, I often make an extra large salad for dinner that yields enough left-overs for a tasty lunch the following day.

In the recent weeks, I have become a friend of my slow cooker. I love it! Last week I made lentil sloppy joes for dinner. Though they had a nice flavor, the lentils overcooked a little, so the slop was a bit dry. This however did not stop Ryan or I from re-inventing the tremendous amount of leftovers (I think the recipe made six servings).

The night following the dry lentil sloppy joes, Ryan made his famous date infused basmati rice which is always moist. This rice has spicy notes of garlic and onion combined with sweet hints from the Medjool dates. The freshly chopped parsley also adds to its unique and satisfying flavor. While Ryan whipped up his rice, I heated the dry slop on the stove, adding water, hoping to give it back some life, and it did!

Wow! The combination of the date pilaf and lentils was surprisingly delicious. We opened a bottle of cabernet-sauvignon to add a little elegance and both of us felt like royalty at this modest feast of left overs. Ryan commented that the rice and the lentils paired perfectly, one was incomplete without the other.