tammylc

Im curious, are we set on doing fish and a meat option? I ask because while Robin and I eat fish, we dont eat red meat. I'm availble to help with any additional courses. Robin said she'd help too, but she'll need a bit more direction. LOL. ← We're not set on anything. It's all what people are interested in cooking and what looks fresh and good that day at the market. I'm sure there will be more than enough food, even if people opt not to eat a course or two because of preferences or allergies. I was using the term meat in a fairly non-specific way. It might be beef, or pork, or duck, or chicken, or buffalo or who knows what else. I just thought we needed a couple more "entree" kind of courses, so I'm volunteering to coordinate one of those.

Great! So CaliPoutine - you don't need to worry about a non-chocolate dessert. In terms of courses, I can organize something meat-y, but since I'll be busy with hosting duties, I'll need a good team of sous chefs. Any volunteers?

Our service ware is plain white Corelle. We have roughly 80 pieces each of 10 inch plates, 8 inch plates, and dessert plates. We have the same number of cereal/soup bowls and then a smaller, shallow dessert bowl. Then there are larger bowls and platters etc, for family style service. I expect that what's going to work for us is going to be some combination of plated and family style. If we do a lot of plating and don't have quite enough plates, the cycle on the Hobart is only about 90 seconds long, so we can do a quick mid-dinner clean. Plus it has the advantage of warming the plates...

As Alex said, there's some information and pictures in my foodblog. But basically, the Great Oak kitchen is a souped-up home kitchen. There's a 6 burner gas stove and two electric ovens. The dishwasher is a Hobart restaurant style sanitizer. There's a 2-compartment dishwashing sink, plus a regular 2 bowl homestyle sink. Just one regular size refrigerator. Because we're always cooking in teams, there's lots and lots of counter space. Between what's in the common house and what I own, we've got 3 stand mixers, 2 or 3 food processors, 1 blender. There are some pretty good knives in the common house, although they'll no doubt need to be sharpened. And I have my own knives too. There's a pantry stocked with spices, staples, etc. Anything we're going to use in quantity we should buy ourselves, but if we need bits of this or that from the pantry, that's fine, and we can just make a small donation to the meals program to cover replacement costs if necessary. There's an abundant fresh herb garden right outside the kitchen door.

That sounds utterly divine to me. Someone eles might be inspired towards making a fruit dessert, but if you want to do both, I won't complain...

What he said. I don't expect we'll have any shortage of food. The reason I mentioned fish up above is because the market we'll be visiting has an excellent fishmonger. But they also have an excellent meat market. Embrace the power of "and." What we have so far: Hors D'ouevres - CaliPoutine (fig and goat cheese crostini) Salad - Torakris Soup - Devilkitty Pasta or dessert - CaliPoutine Flesh or Fish - Devilkitty, if we don't get enough other volunteers (or maybe even if we do) Any other volunteers? We can have more than one of each kind of course, of course.

That all sounds great to me! We have the perfect small bowls for a little soup. Alex has been the keeper of the RSVPs. I've still got some locals/ non-eGulleteers to invite, but we should have some since of firmer numbers once we get closer. So far we've got Jean and Devilkitty needing hotel reservations. Is anyone else planning to stay at a hotel Friday and or Saturday night? I can try to negotiate a discount and reserved block at one of the hotels I listed above, if there's enough interest. PM me as soon as possible if this applies to you. Thanks!

Thanks for the reminder about the timezone change.

Definitely. I'll add you to my Friday dinner list. Are you going to be around on Saturday during the day, or just for dinner?

Sure - bring whatever you like. The shopping and the cooking is part of the fun, but other contributions are of course welcome. As a budding wine geek, I'm always enthusiastic about people sharing favorite bottles. There are some great wine shops in Ann Arbor that we can visit too. Just a reminder to everyone from the original post - we're estimating a cost of $15/person to a shopping fund for the day. Everyone will be asked to pay that amount, even if you're planning to bring something in addition. Of course, if you have something extra special and/or expensive that you'd like to bring, feel free to PM me to discuss alternate arrangements.

Organizational post, part the second. Our agenda for the day: 10 am - Tour of Zingerman's Bakehouse and Zingerman's Creamery ~12 noon - Head down to the Kerrytown area for lunch and shopping at the farmer's market, butcher, fish shop, Zingerman's deli, etc. When we're done shopping we'll head back to Great Oak and let the cooking begin, aiming for dinner to be served around 7 or 7:30. I will send out PMs to everyone who is coming with directions to my house. Those wishing to carpool/caravan to the Zingerman's tours should meet at Great Oak by 9:30 am. Otherwise, you can just meet us there - I'll post directions in a subsequent organizational post. Similarly, if you want to/need to skip the tour, you can just meet us in Kerrytown. I'll PM my cell phone number to everyone to facilitate hooking up. If you need/want to come even later than that, you can just show up at Great Oak while we're cooking, or even just show up for dinner and socializing after, although you'll really be missing a lot of the fun that way. In terms of the shopping and cooking, as I described in a much earlier post to this thread, I'd like to suggest that individuals or teams of people volunteer to cook a particular course. We have lots of plates, so these could be served plated if you want to get all fancy, or just passed family style. If you'd like to be in charge of a course, please speak up. Ideally we'll want to base what we cook on what's fresh and available from our marketing that day, so I'm looking for committments on the level of "I'd like to do a pasta course" or "I'd like to do something with fish" etc. If you don't want to be in charge, I'm sure there will be lots of sous chefs needed!

There are three hotels very near to my house. Weber's Inn http://www.webersinn.com/ Best Western Executive Plaza http://book.bestwestern.com/bestwestern/pr...pertyCode=23137 Super 8 http://www.super8.com/Super8/control/Booki...73&brandInfo=SE They are listed in decreasing order of amenities and (presumably) cost. There are a number of other hotels in other areas of the city, but these are the best choices nearby. What time do you expect to arrive on Friday? I just threw 7 out as an idea, I'm open to another time. With the baby, I'm usually eating by 6 these days, but I figured I'd have to tweak my schedule to accomodate the rest of you. :-)

Just about a month left until the second Heartland Gathering! Me and my co-conspirator (Alex) are discussing some organizational details and hope to post more information about the big event in the next day or two. But for now, I'd like to get a sense of who is planning to come out on Friday. We'll be having a dinner out somewhere in Ann Arbor, location to be determined based on how many people we have. If it's a small enough group, I'd like to suggest my favorite place, and home of the best kitchen in Ann Arbor IMNSO, Jefferson Market. If we get a crowd, well, I'm sure we can find something almost as good! So - if you're coming on Friday, July 15, please post here to let us know. Right now I'm thinking of dinner around 7, so also let me know if that timing works well for you.

What makes cooking common meal nice, and manageable, is that I have 2 assistant cooks and - most importantly - an entire crew of cleaners. So the problem with doing things the night before is that I have to do all the prep and cleaning myself - blech! But sometimes worth it. To get 10 hours of marinating it would make the most sense for me to do the prep in the morning, and if I did that I could leave the dishes for that night's cleaners... Ziplocks - good idea!

For the kind of cooking I'm doing, "can be made ahead" isn't actually a selling point. And things with ten hour marinating times can be tricky, as fridge space can be a challenge. But the recipe does look interesting, so maybe I'll think about how I could manage it.

Cookin' Common Meal - "A Trio of Summer Salads" A light summery meal for a hot sweltering day. Attendance was about 38 adults and 10 kids. I didn't expect ot have quite so many, but there was a mix-up with Sunward and I didn't know a bunch of them were coming. I was worried about not having enough food, but ended up fine. More potato salad would have been eaten, I'm sure, although there was a tiny bit left at the end of the night (which got scooped up for leftovers). Curried Rice and Broccoli Salad with Mango Chutney Vinaigrette This is a beautiful and tasty salad. I made 5 times the recipe, which was about the right amount for this number of people. Onions and ginger are sauteed with curry powder and rice, then cooked (I transferred it to the rice cooker instead of doing it in the same pot). This gets mixed with broccoli florets and diced stems that have been briefly blanched, as well as diced red pepper and shredded unsweetened coconut. The dressing is made from mango chutney, honey, lemon juice, cilantro and mint and gets added just before serving. Lovely. Shopping/Ingredient list: 5 lbs rice (recipe uses 10 cups) 5 lbs broccoli (organic) 5 red pepper 2 onions (organic) 1 pkg unsweetened shredded coconut curry powder 3 jars mango chutney 4 lemons honey 1 bunch cilantro (organic) mint from Common House herb garden Potato Salad with Gouda, Eggs (with crumbled bacon on the side) This is the American potato salad recipe from Cook's Illustrated, which I have made before and which is fabulous. The secret ingredient is celery seed, which totally kicks it up a notch. Also 5 times the recipe, but in this case that probably wasn't quite enough. I jazzed it up with a 1 Year Boerenkaas Gouda from Zingerman's, as well as Nueske's Applewood Smoked bacon. I figured this would be a relatively inexpensive meal, so I could add a couple of luxury items. That turned out not to be quite true, although all those extra people brought the cost back down to my usual $4-$5 range. I should have had more cheese, though - I only bought a pound, and two would have been better. There was bacon left over. It also should have had more eggs - I had 10 boiled eggs that I had saved from Amy's meal last night, but decided I should leave some of them for the kids, so only used half in the salad - I should have used them all. Shopping/Ingredient List 10 lbs potatoes (Side note on organic potatoes - they really tend to suck. But they also suck up lots of pesticides and are thus on the "dirty dozen" list of things that it's really good to buy organic. But I must remember to buy extras, because there will always be more wastage than with conventional potatoes.) distilled white vinegar 1 bunch celery 1 red onion (organic) 1 bunch flat-leaf parsley (organic) celery seed mustard powder 1 jar sweet pickle relish (organic) 1 jar mayonaise (Hellman's, because sometimes you have to prioritize taste over nasty health food store mayonaise) Green Salad with Sauteed Criminis, Pecans, Granny Smith Apples and Garlic Croutons Weird combination of stuff, but I thought it worked well. I'd been inspired to the mushrooms and bread by a salad I had at the spring feast a Zingerman's a few weeks ago, and then felt compelled to add nuts for more protein. And then it seemed like it really needed something to add brightness and flavor, thus the apples. It needed its own salad dressing - probably a red wine vinaigrette - but I was too lazy and too short on time to do that, so we just put out the bottled dressings and let people roll their own. 4 big bags of organic salad mix was one bag too many. And I bought three loaves of day old Zing bread for making croutons, but only used two (and that made a lot). The croutons were exactly what I wanted them to be. Some crunch, some chew, and intensely garlicky. 3 packages of mushrooms, 3 apples. Only a pound of pecans, because they're so damn expensive this year. Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp with Ice Cream Got a great deal on organic strawberries, and harvested rhubarb from Scott and Sue's house. I made the crisp at the request of a neighbor who ended up not even being able to attend. Crisps are a popular dessert for GO diners, but I'd forgotten how time consuming they are to make. My assistant cook started making them at 4 pm, and they didn't get into the oven until 5:30. I'd asked my other assistant cook ([info]shadowriderhope) to pick up a couple things at Meijer, so it was 4:45 before she arrived. Even though I'd started cooking around 3:20, these two factors made for a real time crunch, and we ended up having to recruit a couple of people to set the tables for us. And left the kitchen in a shambles for the cleaners. Shopping/Ingredient List 6 lbs organic strawberries (another on the dirty dozen list, it was nice to find reasonably priced organic strawberries) 8-10 stalks of rhubarb 1 lb butter oats, flour, sugar, etc from the pantry 3 gallon pail of cheap vanilla ice cream This was another popular meal. I'd definitely do it again, with some variations as noted above, but I'd find a way to manage the time better. Like make part or all of one of the salads the night before. Do a different dessert so 90 minutes of my assistant cook time wouldn't be taken up by it. But it sure was tasty.

I've been pondering details and will hopefully soon post the beginnings of an organizational post. On this specific question, people can either arrive at my house by around 9:30 or so, or can just meet up with us directly at the Bakehouse.

Very cool! Hope you can make it! As for spaces left, there's no limit. Well, I suppose we can only seat about 80 for dinner, so we should cut it off around there.

As the primary host of said Heartland Gathering (and an ex-pat Canadian myself), we would definitely welcome north of the border eGulleteers.

Tom Ka Gai soup, Sesame Noodles (with chicken or tofu) Last Sunday I did a new menu, after a couple of reruns. We're experimenting wth some different cooking teams, so rather than my usual two assistants, I just had one other person to work with. The idea being that you both work a longer set of hours, and can more easily coordinate advance preparation if you're so inclined. This meal didn't require advance preparation, and really would have been better done with the regular team staffing it. Of course, it would have helped if my co-cook had shown up at 2:00 when I started, rather than at 2:45. She is a friend, but also a flake, and tends to overcommit herself to things. But we still managed to get dinner out on time, so it wasn't a tragedy or anything. This was a big meal - 32 meat eating adults/teens, 11 vegetarian adults/teens, and 16 kids of various ages. My sesame noodle recipe is from Cook's Illustrated. It's a nice dish to do for common meal, because it's served at room temperature - no last minute rush to get everything out to the tables while still hot. The recipe served 4-6, so I did 5 batches for the carnivores, and 2 batches for the vegetarians. There was just a little bit leftover, so this was the perfect amount. The shopping list (mostly organic): 8 lbs of spaghetti (2 lbs cooked up plain for the kids) 1 3/4 c sesame seeds 1 3/4 c peanut butter 2 heads garlic lots of fresh ginger soy sauce (bought a small bottle, and ran out - bigger bottle next time) hot sauce (used what was in the pantry) brown sugar (pantry) 6 bunches scallions 7 med carrots (I bought a 2 lb bag and used most of them, as they were smaller than I'd think of as medium) 2 red peppers 2 cucumbers 7 1/2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts 2 lbs extra firm tofu sesame oil Cooked the spaghetti, rinsed with cold water, set aside. Toasted the sesame seeds, then pureed in the blender with the rest of the sauce ingredients (through brown sugar) - did this in 3 batches. Grated the carrots in the food processor. Sliced the red peppers and the cucumbers (peeled and seeded). Broiled the chicken, let it cool, then shredded it into bite size pieces. Cubed and pan fried the tofu to crisp. Once everything was ready, I tossed the spaghetti with sesame oil, mixed in the sauce, then mixed in the scallions, carrots and chicken for the meat eaters, and scallions, carrots, red peppers, cucumbers and tofu for the vegetarians. Sprinkled with some reserved sesame seeds, and it was done. I added extra vegetables for the veggies after coming across a meatless version on the Cook's Illustrated website that called for the peppers and cucumbers. Around here, it's essential to have an actual veggie protein source, so they also got tofu. Chicken has a lot of it's own flavor and texture, but tofu is just sorta there. So I figured this would bump up the flavors for the vegetarians, and it did - they really raved, and some of the meat eaters who tried it even commented that it had more flavors going on. Next up, the soup. My co-cook had suggested we make this, but didn't actually have a recipe or anything. So I went to the Internet, and found a couple I liked. Then I had to cross my fingers and hope I'd be able to find the ingredients I needed. Tom Kha Gai 35 cups water 4 bunches lemongrass (about 8 stalks) 2 lbs of limes (couldn't find lime leaves) 1 pkg galangal (frozen) 1 bunch cilantro 7 cans coconut milk 7 cans straw mushrooms salt red curry paste brown sugar Brought the water to a boil. Chopped up the lemongrass into 2 inch pieces, smashing to bruise and release the oils. Zested 7 of the limes. Added the lemongrass, lime zest, stems from the cilantro and the galangal to the stock pot, and let the herbs steep for about 15 minutes. Then added the coconut milk and salt. The salt should have been fish sauce, but I was making a vegetarian version. I followed the recipes suggestion for substituting salt, but since I was mutiplying it by 7, ended up adding too much - I tasted the soup, and all I could taste was salt. Oh no! But I knew I had additional flavors to add, and just crossed my fingers that it would balance out. Drained and rinsed the mushrooms and cut them in half because they were large, and added them to the pot. Then much tinkering adding lime juice, brown sugar and curry paste. I ended up using all of the juice for the 2 lb bag of limes, and more of the curry paste than I intended to, as it came out a little hotter than I'd hoped. But, fortunately, somewhere in the last addition of curry paste and lime juice, I actually succeeded in balancing out the salt, and by the time we served the soup it wasn't oversalted anymore. Phew! Part of the problem with salt, of course, is that it only adds salty flavor and nothing else. Next time I might substitute soy sauce to provide some depth of flavor. Or just tell the vegetarians to suck it up and eat their noodles, and put the fish sauce in anyway. Probably about half of our vegetarians do eat fish, anyway. To add something green to the meal, we cooked up the florets from 7 bunches of broccoli. If I'd had more time I would have tried to find something interesting to do with the stems. Serving a side of vegetables is a challenge at common meal - something like broccoli always seems to overcooked, cold, or both. So I got a big pot of water boiling, and waited until about 6:12 to add the broccoli, cooked it for a scant 5 minutes, then drained it and rushed it out to the tables. I'm pleased to say it was bright green, tender, and hot (for a couple minutes anyway). After all that we had no energy for making dessert, so I just served storebought cookies. But I didn't buy enough, apparently, as by the time I went up to get some for myself, they were gone. :-( Another good meal. Lots of compliments. Definitely one for the rotation.

Sounds delightful. As an ex-pat Canadian, I might make a special request for some particular chocolate bars to share around too!

It's about a 4 hour drive from Chicago to Ann Arbor, depending on traffic and construction, of course. And as others have already said, age is no barrier to participation. You are very welcome, and I look forward to meeting you!

Thanks for the reminder - I should note that because of life-threatening food allergies in the community, we cannot prepare or eat shellfish in the common house anyway. I have no idea about # of courses or anything like that. It will depend on how many people we have coming and what they think. You're the only person to chime in on my mad cap scheme so far. Realistically, we're probably approaching the limit of number of people one could comfortably plate for. Eaters are certainly welcome - cooking is totally optional.

Whatever contributions people have will certainly be welcome, just so long as you take any leftovers back with you! There are some fun and good wine stores in Ann Arbor, so I'm sure some wine will be purchased day-of as well.

Ron - thanks for the information. We did indeed end up at Tru, and it was a great meal. What with the various extras, the 3 course meal is really 7 courses, plus we added a cheese course, so we definitely got a good experience in the two hours we had for dinner. We called in the afternoon to say that we wanted "the best Tru experience we could get in two hours" and they assured us that the 3 course would meet our needs, and it did. Tru is a beautiful restaurant. Three suited men greeted us "Good Evening" in unison when we arrived. The tables are nicely spaced apart, so you're not overhearing your neighbors, and the ceiling is soaring. There are little windows into the kitchen. The sinks in the bathroom are a sloped pane of frosted glass and really have to be seen. Upon sitting down we were presented with our first non-course - a spoon containing white bean puree topped with a haricot vert. And some sort of sharp something - I thought cilantro or something in that family, but my companion says that the haricot vert was pickled and that's what I was tasting. In any case, a yummy little hint of things to come. We made our selections of appetizers and entrees from the three course prix fixe menu, and ordered wine (a half bottle of Condrieu). We got to choose from an assortment of many kinds of bread - I had the sourdough, he the baguette and pumpernickel, and both of us scarfed a couple of the little (and extremely delicious) parmesan biscuits. Then arrived the second of our non-courses, the chef's amuse bouche collection. Four little bites, to be eaten in this order: 1. Carrot and Ginger soup (a single spoonful - delightful) 2. Braised short ribs with cucumber salad (my favorite taste of the night - intense) 3. Baby beets with horseradish cream (mmmm) 4. some orange drink thing - also good, but I can't remember anything about it except that it was served in a shot glass So far so good. I had high expectations going in, and they were meeting them so far. As is our usual way, my friend and I picked two appetizers that we wanted to try, each ate half, then swapped plates. I started with the black truffle risotto, creamy hot truffley-decadent and delicious, with haricots verts and big chunks of lobster hiding amidst the rice. It was served in a shiny little copper pot, with the lid still on to keep the truffle aroma inside. Then we switched and I finished the chicken and foie gras ravioli, which was decadent and rich with creamy melting pieces of foie gras, and even better than I had expected. Next up the entrees. I started with the seared ahi tuna, served very rare, just as we'd requested. This was swoon worthy tuna. Buttery smooth and delicious. It was served with two sauces I don't recall the details of, and a small mound of mixed vegetables - tiny florets of cauliflower, leaves of brussel sprouts, bits of roasted tomato. Tasty, tasty dish - very light and fresh tasting. I definitely was the winner, getting the tuna first, as as the pork dish that was our other entree choice was very rich, and I'm sure it wasn't quite as nice eating them in the other order. There were little rounds of pork tenderloin, fatty pork belly that melted in your mouth, and pork rilettes that were almost overwhelmingly rich. All very good, but I preferred the ethereal lightness of the tuna. At this point it was only 7 pm, and he and I are wondering if we could have managed the 7 course after all - we still had 75 minutes before I needed to be in a taxi. And then they rolled out the cheese cart. We were given the option of either or both of us having a cheese plate as dessert, or simply adding a cheese course. Given that we had plenty of time, we opted to add a cheese course. We chose the Bleu D'Avergne, the Epoisses, a goat milk camembert, a fresh goat cheese topped with apricots and pistachios, and a strong and stinky Corsican sheep's milk cheese. There were yummy sweet crackers/cookies to go with, as well as some sundried tomatoes and a fruit and nut bread. Very good cheese, nicely ripe. I even quite liked the blue (I'm just now coming around to liking blue cheeses). By this time I'm really feeling pretty stuffed, and dessert is still to come. Before we were served our desserts there came a dessert amuse bouche/palate cleanser of sorts - a little shot glass of strawberry lemonade. Lovely. I'm a big dessert fan, so I was really looking forward to checking out Gale Gand's dessert selection. But I think we made a criticial error in ordering, and didn't get the best we could have. We had a Buttermilk Panna Cotta, served with fresh strawberries and a balsalmic strawberry sauce. This was very nice - I'm a huge panna cotta fan, and appreciated the lightness of it coming after the heavy pork and cheese courses. For the other dessert, my friend insisted that we should order the Chocolate Immersion, as an opportunity to try 4 different chocolate things - a chocolate creme brulee, an opaline (sort of chocolate candy), and two different sorbets/ice creams. They were all good, but really - death by chocolate desserts are much the same anywhere you go, and I always find myself disappointed by them. Don't get me wrong - I love chocolate as much as the next person - more, probably - but coming at the end of a decadent and rich meal, on a full stomach, I think I'm happier with something else. Especially since one almost always gets a selection of petit fours at the end of the meal that includes the bite or two of sinfully rich chocolate indulgence that is all one really wants anyway. The Tour of Teeny Sundaes would have been fun (although hard to split, as I expect each of the 5 sundaes was in its own spoon). And I seem to recall some sort of shortbread with a lavender ice cream or something. Even the other chocolate dessert, with orange accents and cardamom ice cream, would have been less oppressively chocolatey. Sure enough, as soon as our half-finished desserts were cleared, a lovely, lovely petit four cart comes to our table. Many beautiful tiny bits of sweets to choose from, and all I could manage was a single passionfruit gellee. Which was perfect, and all I really needed. But I still wished I'd had the appetite to try some of the rest. I think it was about 8 pm as we headed out, lovely parting gifts in hand (a pair of Canelles, a type of soaked cake), suggested to be eaten with your morning tea or coffee, as a reminder of the evening's meal. Nice. Quite an excellent meal. Service was good - very attentive but non-intrusive, and well tuned to the mood of the table. One of our waiters caught on to our running joke about crumbs on the table cloth and played right along, bringing an extra napkin and covering my friends side of the table with it (when in reality I was the crumb leaver). That was really fun. The only slight faux pas was the long and unexplained gap between our deciding we wanted the cheese course and someone coming to serve it to us, while we waited and looked wistfully at the cheese under glass.