Our first tasting

Ah, I love food. When looking at so-called wedding porn... no, that's not meant literally. I'm not talking about the increasingly-popular trend of pre-wedding boudoir shots, but rather photographs of decor and details. Like the fabulous (FABULOUS! I can't help myself...) photos on Abby Larson's Style Me Pretty. Even my cold, un-girly heart thaws slightly at these photos. Anyhoo, when I'm ogling the wedding porn, I usually end up drooling over gorgeous place settings. Generally, there aren't a lot of food shots. However, there are great shots of tables and settings with the occasional speck of food.

Well, it's going to be different with us. I hope. I want some shots of the food and I especially want the food to be fabulous. D. and I will actually try to take some time to actually eat the meal we planned. The WIC (Wedding Industrial Complex) demands that we have a "theme" to the whole affair. Fine. The theme is: THE BEST DAMN DINNER PARTY EV-AR. How's that?

With that said, we had our first tasting today. We weren't expecting much... small portions, mediocre food, etc. Since our expectations were so low, we were blown away by what we were served. For one thing, it was a full-sized 4-course meal. Secondly, it was good food. Quite good. Much better than I expected. Lastly, they surprised me with their take on bouillabaisse.

First up, the appetizers: satay chicken, bacon and cheese on new potatoes, and potstickers. With D., it wouldn't be a wedding without his beloved potstickers.

Satay chicken fell flat... no seasoning, but the chicken was moist. The potatoes were great and I loved that they were bite-sized. It's a great amuse bouche. The potstickers were deep-fried, which I don't like, but D. was satisfied and that's all that matters.

D.'s steak frites. We're actually going to re-taste this, because the steak was near-inedible. For some reason, it was really tough and tendon-y, so they'll make it again with a better portion of beef.

The fries were insanely perfect. Those are definitely on the menu. The mushroom-based demi-glace was fine.

One of the vegetarian station options was risotto, so we opted to taste it. The risotto is served plain, with pesto or saffron-infused cheese as mixers. For "toppings," there were asparagus, roasted peppers, and olives with blue cheese. It was really good... I'm worried it would be a little plain for the vegetarians, so I'd appreciate some feedback from the vegetarians out there in the interweb... would this appeal to you? Or does it seem like yet another carnivore's attempt to turn a side dish into your meal?

Lastly, the fabled bouillabaisse. Somewhere in Paris, in Port d'Orleans (I think.), there's a little mom-and-pop restaurant that forever ruined me by serving the perfect bouillabaisse. Hearty and home-cooked, bouillabaisse brings me back to Paris. It reminds me of my mother, who spent years there. I've never tasted an American version as good and I still haven't, but this dish was a damned good attempt.

Why attempt to include it in the menu? Well, D. and I first wanted a menu that reflected both Chinese and American. Unfortunately, to many companies, it meant some horrible bastardization of Chinese food. Instead of risking sub-par food just to fit our "vision," we scrapped the idea in favor of French-bistro cooking. Figuring it would play along with our engagement, it would be simple and hearty food that had the best chance of pleasing the majority of our guests. Furthering the inspiration was our first-choice caterer, which happens to be owned by a Frenchman. I wasn't sure what to expect when I suggested bouillabaisse, which wasn't on the menu, but hopefully the owner/chef knew how to make it. He did and it was nicely done.

The broth was deliciously rich and infused with a hint of saffron. There was a smidge too much white wine in it, but not so much that it affected the product. There were huge scallops, shrimp, and green mussels in it. It was really good. Served with a crusty baguette, it would make a great meal, especially during a cool evening.

I really hope this translates well when prepared for 100+ people. Whew! Talk about my dream wedding. Hehe.

Random Notes: Good Food and 80's Bear

A ragtag collection of notes from the past couple of weeks. The first thing is that Bear had surgery for lipomas two weeks ago. Has it really been two weeks? Poor thing... he was woozy afterwards, so as he stood next to us in the kitchen the first night, we noticed he was swaying ever so slightly. Always the charmer, the vet staff sent him home with lavish praise about how sweet he was. Not that Bear ever needs to have his ego further inflated.

We fitted him with a cone, just in case:

Ugh, are you serious?!

Turns out all he needed was a t-shirt to cover the stitches. He didn't scratch very much, which was good.

Very cute... way too cute.

Notice the cute 80's-style t-shirt knot. His hind legs were tangling in the hem of the shirt, so we had to pull it back. All he needs is a scrunchie on one ear and a slappy-wrist bracelet.

Food-wise, some items worth mentioning... the first being a new guilty pleasure: Einstein's Bagels Apple-Cinnamon Coffee Cake. Yum. It's probably the baked apples and streusel, but I love it. It's not kind to the waistline, though.

I haven't been overly thrilled with our CSA, which has the smallest parcels during peak growing season. What's up with that? Our veggies rot easily, especially the roots (potatoes, carrots, etc.). One would think everything would be more robust right now, but we're apparently receiving the worst of the harvest. Sure, they should save some for market, but for what they're charging, this is ridiculous. However, the strawberries are good. Organic and picked when the sugars are fully developed, they're fantastic.

Phuong Trang's bo cuon mo chai, or ground beef wrapped in caul fat, is excellent. It's really moist and flavorful. Served with a generous heap of greens, dry rice paper, and warm water, it's perfect because the rice paper is moistened at the table.

At $9.50, it's a generous serving and worth every penny.

My Best Friend, Esquire

Ok, so she can't use the suffix until she passes the bar and, regardless, she doesn't intend to use it. The bar is a different kind of hell that I'm happy to never experience. However, the suffix "Esquire" amuses me, especially applied to Indira. If it isn't already obvious, my best friend just finished law school and is preparing for the bar. I was honored to bring a cake to her graduation party. She only had two requests: the flavor should be chocolate/raspberry and there should be some sort of screaming pink color on it.

The end result was a tiered chocolate cake with raspberry buttercream that was decorated with dark pink Swiss dots, dark pink "ruffles", and purple carnations. Costco didn't have carnations in pink, so the purple was our next best choice.

The raspberry buttercream was delicious and has a lovely story to it. My friend J., the recipient of my first successful tiering attempt, is originally from Santa Fe, N.M. She and her mom made incredible wild (yes, hand-picked) raspberry jam and gave us a couple of jars. I still had some on hand, so I stirred it into the buttercream, resulting in a sweet and strong raspberry flavor.

The cake is from an old standby that I've been using for a couple of years. Just about all of the chocolate cakes on this blog have been made with that recipe. It's amazing, foolproof, and produces a light and delicious cake that doesn't require any frosting. It's great as a layer cake or as cupcakes. In my oven, the baking time for layer cakes is shortened to 35-40 minutes and it dries out easily, so keep an eye on bake time.

I was anxious about transporting it to the Bay Area because I had to check my luggage. The whole affair went off smashingly. The cake was filled and frozen, then packed carefully with tubs of frosting and my tools. The frozen cake thawed en route, but was still pretty stiff by the time I arrived at Kirkleton's apartment 4 hours later. Once we were in Indira's hometown of Manteca, CA, I frosted, stacked, and decorated the cake. It was small, cute, and transported in an ingenious carrier: a frying pan that the cake fit into exactly. The sides were high enough to keep the cake still, but shallow enough so it could be removed easily.

Some lessons learned from my second tiering attempt:

• Use lots of frosting in the beginning, because scraping and smoothing removes tons of it. The dark chocolate frosting layer ended up being rather thin after I scraped and smoothed it out. I had more than enough frosting, so there was no reason to skimp.
  
• When freezing a cake, use lots of frosting to fill it. I found that the cake actually seemed to shrink a little bit, resulting in the bottom tier being shorter than I liked.
• Line the cardboard round with strips of parchment. Using strips the same length as the radius of the round, line the round like petals of a flower. After it's decorated, the strips could be carefully removed for a clean cardboard. I didn't do that, so the frosting ruffles were a last-minute effort to cover messy edges and the top tier's cardboard, which was sticking out.

Overall, it was great. My buttercream crystallized a little bit, resulting in a grainy appearance, but it was still creamy and delicious. The party was a lot of fun, topped off with a touching speech thanking me, Kirkleton, and Tirrone for being there for her. And a proud cheering squad we are! Hehe.

Congratulations, Indira!