slkinsey

The bowls I am going to use are small, narrow bowls. Something like this bowl from Ikea, but a little smaller. Remember, the idea is that it's not a very big serving. The whole thing will only be maybe a cup and a half in volume. For reaching the bottom layer, I think I will just have to hope that no one stirs up their soup, although I might say something to the effect that it's not meant to be stirred. Obviously there will be some mixture of the two ingredients as the diners reach the bottom of the bowl. I do want a big color contrast, and I also want a big texture contrast. This is one reason I had originally thought (and am still leaning in the direction) of a sort of dense, creamed spinach puree. To be honest, the "spinach puree on the bottom" idea is ripped off from something Doug Psaltis made at Mix which had a layer of spinach puree on the bottom, and below that a few poached oysters. I'd love to have one more secret under the bottom layer, but can't think of anything that would work as well as oyster, and I'm already serving oyster in the previous course. I'm definitely keeping the curry oil. That's what made the dish such a hit last year. Curry spices and cauliflower go together very well. Although the oil does provide a very nice color contrast, more importantly it provides a lot of really nice flavor. It's especially nice to incorporate the curry flavor as an oil drizzle, because some spoonfulls will have a lot of curry flavor, some will have none, etc. This year, I just want to remove the shellfish element, refine the dish a bit and -- dare I say it? -- kick it up a notch. I'll get into plates later, but I think I have enough to do every course with a fresh, clean plate without having to rely on washing in between.

I'm loving this idea. Thanksgiving and fennel are inextricably linked for me and those fronds are about as pretty a garnish as it gets. Hmmm. I've never pureed fennel. This is well worth a shot. ← This is an appealing idea. I've made a fennel puree soup before for Thanksgiving, and it worked very well. The fennel would, I think, have to be pureed as I am looking for a denser but still smooth texture for the hidden element. Fennel goes with cauliflower, I think. How well do we think fennel goes with curry flavors? I'll get into this a bit later, but there are two key elements: 1. Plan as many dishes as possible that can be largely cooked ahead of time and can be easily reheated with little monitoring. If they can be completely or partially plated ahead of time, that helps too. 2. Plan out the logistics of the meal. Literally write down a list of what has to happen when. Plan out where things will be stored, account for stovetop and oven real estate, and consider and where pots, dishes, glasses will be placed when you're done with them. Once you go through these steps, it is a small matter to simply execute the plan. Looking at my menu, for example, the only element that is really time-sensitive is cooking the turkey breasts. The granita in the first course will be pre-portioned, and I can open the oysters right before we sit down. Meanwhile, the soup elements are coming up to temperature on the stove and the brussels sprouts gratin and soup bowls are in the oven. While one person clears the oyster settings (demitasse spoons into a bus bin and the rest raked into a trash can, then the slates stacked out of the way), I can prepare the soup settings (1 small ladle of "hidden element TBA" in first, then 1 larger ladle of cauliflower puree, then place the garnish on top and give it a drizzle of curry oil from a squirt bottle -- I estimate around 15-20 seconds per serving; should have 10 to 12 servings banged out by the time the oyster settings are removed and the wine poured). And that's the way it goes. I also have the advantage of having an kitchen that is open to the dining room, so I can stay in touch with everyone even during these brief periods of work.

Cool. Thanks for the info. I hope to evaluate several different strategies this weekend. Will post pictures and comments if I can.

WBC, it's a fact that cooked fish fillets are very delicate. You have to turn them extremely carefully, or they will fall apart. It is especially difficult with larger fish fillets. This is one reason there is such a thing as a fish spatula. If your fillet fell apart on you when you tried to turn it, it is also likely it was a little overcooked anyway. Nonstick is, IMO, essential to cooking fish fillets unless you want to use a lot of fat. Otherwise you are going to have sticking. IMO, this is a foolproof method for cooking "crispy skin" fish fillets: preheat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat for a minute; add small amount of fat, drop in fish fillet skin side down; monitor fish, cooking it on the skin side until it appears to be around 3/4 cooked through; carefully turn fillet over and cook on the flesh side for approximately 30 seconds; slide fish out of pan to waiting dish; serve skin side up. You want to make sure the skin side is really dry before you put it in the pan. Pat if down with a few paper towels and then, just before moving it to the pan, draw the blade of a sharp knife sideways down the length of the skin to remove that last bit of excess moisture.

That's an interesting idea, Lucy. The two conditions I absolutely need to meet for the underlayer are: 1. has to be denser than the cauliflower soup so it stays on the bottom and doesn't mix too much; and 2. I don't want to have to thicken it with additional starch (e.g., potato) because that is too filling. If this works with chervil, parsley and cream, it could be a nice idea.

So, that does it for the savory courses. Major things to improve this year: better presentation/use of garnish, smaller portion sizes.

Really loved the Coturri Albarello last year. A super-powerful, funky different wine. I always think it's fun to go out with a wine that is not only very powerful, but also unusual. This fit the bill. Not sure whether we'll have the same one this year, but I'm certainly looking for something like it.

Last of the savory courses is: Turkey Two Ways With Cornbread Dressing, Foie Gras And Black Truffle Carpaccio Coteaux du Languedoc Pic Saint-Loup "Le Rollier," Domaine Mas Foulaquier, 2001 Sonoma Valley Red Wine "Albarello," H. Coturri & Sons, 2001 There was a fair amount of interest in the Turkey Two Ways recipe last year, and much to my delight several eG members duplicated the recipe for their dinner with great results. Since RecipeGullet is still in development, I duplicate the recipe here:

Next: Lemon-Thyme Sorbet "Vigneto Biancospino," Azienda Agricola Dante Rivetti, Piemonte, 2002 This is always a winner, and it gives me some breathing room before the main event. I think it's also the right time for something light and refreshing that isn't the least bit filling. This allows the diners to rest for around half and hour, and get their second wind. The recipe is simple: combine two pints Fairway lemon sorbet with the leaves from one bunch of thyme. Chill. Serve. The only difficulty is in making sure that the thyme leaves are tender. I've tried various methods, and haven't been entirely satisfied to-date. This time around, I'll try poaching the thyme leaves in a little farigoule thyme liqueur and then pureeing the whole works. Sparkling Moscato d'Asti works perfectly with this, so I don't anticipate changing that either. In years past, I've served this out of frozen hollowed-out lemon halves (using the juice for the ceviche). My mother recently decided I couldn't live without some antique footed glass sorbet dishes, so guess what I'll be serving it in this year?

Next: Toasted Corn And Stilton Soufflé Sautéed Brussels Sprouts With Guanciale and Chive/Oregano Vinaigrette Bourgogne Rouge, Domaine Alain Hudelot-Noellat, 2000 Again.... this was pretty good. The corn and stilton soufflé wasn't exactly what I would have wanted though (a little too much like eggy cornbread), and it's a pain to make these at the last minute. This time, I think I am going to build a course around brussels sprouts. I was thinking something like "Brussels Sprouts four Ways." It would be something like: 1. A tiny little "brussels sprout crème brûlée." I have a lot of tiny ramekins from the soufflés last year, so it would be easy to make up some brussels sprouts custards, chill them in the refrigerator and then do a thin burnt sugar topping a la minute. I think it adds extra interest in the form of contrast that this would be cold. 2. Little servings of brussels sprouts and cheese (gruyere?) gratin. Easy to make in a large baking pan and then punch out circles for service with a cookie cutter. In this dish the brussels sprouts will be cooked until completely tender. 3. A few halved brussels sprouts fried cut-side down in guanciale fat until well browned, served with tiny pieces of crisp guanciale. These will be cooked, but still with some considerable bite. 4. Raw brussels sprouts shaved micro-fine on the mandoline and dressed with a light vinaigrette. I'll have to QA this to make sure that raw brussels sprouts are palatable. Otherwise, I'll blanch them for around 2 seconds to get out the raw taste and shock them in ice water. The only element of this dish that really has to be done a la minute is to brûler the custards. For the halved brussels sprouts, I'll probably pre-brown the cut sides by iceing down the halved brussels sprouts and frying the cut sides on very high heat. That will give me nicely browned surfaces with not too much cooking of the brussel sprout. After that, I can warm them up to temperature over low heat during the preceding course without overcooking them.

Next is: Mixed Herb Salad With Shrimp Ceviche Saumur Blanc "La Papareille," Domaine Saint-Vincent, 2002 I like the idea of having a tiny little salad and something cold after the soup. I'm looking for bright flavors and some acidity, no richness. This salad, which was a handfull of mized herbs dressed with integrated lemon/olive oil and two medium shrimp "ceviched" in lemon juice, worked well for that purpose. However, I've done the shrimp ceviche thing for around 5 years now, and I have the sense that it's time to move on to something new. Not really sure what to do with this one. I could keep the herb salad and do a little piece of cold poached salmon or seared-but-mostly-raw tuna in place of the shrimp. Or I could go in a more bitter direction and do something with frisee or endive. I like to stick with seafood until the main course. Still thinking about this one.

Continuing to look down the menu, we have: Cauliflower Soup With Seared Diver Scallop And Curry Oil Saumur Blanc "La Papareille," Domaine Saint-Vincent, 2002 This was the surprise hit of last year. It's literally nothing more than a large head of cauliflower cooked until just tender in milk, then pureed and enrichened with a little cream and chicken stock. The curry oil is made by heating good curry powder in olive oil and infusing the oil for several hours, then straining it all through a coffee filter. Last year, each dish was garnished with a single seared diver scallop and drizzled with the curry oil. The nice thing about this soup is that it can be made several days in advance and then warmed up on the stove for service. I've tried it cold, and it just doesn't work. I'm going to be keeping this dish more or less intact this year, with a few modfications. I'm reducing the size of the serving and switching from a wide shallow bowl to a tall narrow bowl. I'm eliminating the scallop. I'd also like to do another layer of something hidden underneath. I've been thinking of putting a spinach puree on the bottom of the bowl and then filling the rest of the way with the cauliflower puree and garnishing with the curry oil. Spinach goes with curry flavors, right? Any thoughts? It would also be nice to think of one other garnish element for the surface of the soup. Something like a single leaf of chervil laid down flat on the surface.

It is more or less interchangable with the common cream liqueurs, although a bit different. Check out the web site here.

This is why Audrey is so great. There are some new ones on the menu that are definitely worth a try. I think her Tantris Sidecar is a brilliant drink, and one you really should try. But it's really hard to pick. I've never had anything there that wasn't exceptional. If it's on the menu, it's very good. And the menu offers very good descriptions of what the drinks are like. Off the menu, she makes a brilliant Manhattan with Bookers bourbon and Carpano Punt e Mes, and the Dreamy Dorini Smoking Martini is extremely interesting. But, then again, the Sazerac at Bemelman's is superb (it's Eric_Malson's favorite) and so are the other classics like their Pegu Club and Pisco Sour. I can't decide! Could this be why I often need a blood transfusion after I've been there? I'm looking forward to a full report. Talent like Audrey and Sasha Petraske and Julie Reiner and others like them are what makes NYC a great place for the cocktail enthusiast.

We have a large-for-NY but small-for-anywhere-else kitchen, so it's difficult to have a lot of help back there. I have help moving plates out to the table and clearing in between courses, and some limited help at plating... but not much. The real secret is to come up with things that can be made ahead of time and plated easily. You also have to have a good game plan in place for which things go where and when certain things get done. As you can see, the oyster course isn't particularly difficult to plate and I'm under no time constraint there because I can open the oysters before everyone sits down. I would never schedule the opening of a dozen oysters in the middle of the meal, because that would be too much trouble and take too much time. Once I start talking about the next course, I'll begin to talk about dinnertime logistics and scheduling.

Right. Well, there are two things at play here: 1. the cucumber cup is not meant to be eaten, and 2. if the cucumber cups freeze well and they are sitting on a block of frozen slate, melting will hopefully not be an issue. But it's definitely something I should QA.

So, next is: Kumamoto Oyster On The Half-Shell With Cucumber Granita Muscadet de Sevre et Maine sur Lies, Cuvee Vielles Vignes, Domaine Clos des Briords, 2002 This I thought worked very well as the course that calls everyone to the table. It's nice to sit down at the table and have something briny, bracing and cold to start the meal. Last year I served these on little mounds of rock salt, on top of frozen blocks of inch-thick slate. That was pretty cool. I've vastly improved my oyster opening skills in the last year, so this one should be easier, too. It's also good that this course doesn't require any cooking -- the soup course can come up to temperature on the stove while we're eating this one. I can I'll keep this for 2004. Nevertheless, there are things that I wasn't entirely happy about. Last year I ordered the oysters ahead of time and picked them up. This means that I didn't get to pick them out. They were high quality oysters, but overall a good bit larger than I might have liked. I'll be picking out my own this year. It means more time at the store when it's mobbed, but c'est la vie. Last year I put a scoop of cucumber granita right into the shell with the oyster. Nice idea in my head, but not as good in execution. It's also diffisult to execute under time pressure. Better would be something that can be pre-set and simply placed. This year, I think I am going to use some hollowed out sections of English cucumber to form little "cups" for the granita. Hopefully I can portion the granita into the cucumber-cups a few hours before dinner and place the filled cucumber-cupsin the freezer (I'll have to see how this effects the appearance of the cups). That way, once the oysters are opened, all I have to do is place a mound of rock salt on each piece of slate, bed the oyster shell in the salt and drop a filled oyster-cup onto the corner of the slate. I need to think of a cool and interesting garnish for this. Wine TBD (there will be a section on wines early next week). Cleanup is easy. Just use a damp cloth to swipe off each slate into the trash and stack the slates in a predetermined out-of-the way niche. This whole course is one bite of oyster, maybe 4 demitasse spoons of granita and around 1/3 of a glass of wine.

Bread pudding has always been a big hit at Thanksgiving, but there are a few things one has to consider... In general I try to make the dinner as light on starch as possible, because starches can be so filling. The portion of dressing is very small, and is really the only starch. After a few gut-busting Thanksgiving dinners, I also am beginning to get a handle on portion size. These are all plated courses, so I can control the portion size. You have to have small portions when you have so many courses. This year, I am going to make the portions even one size smaller than last year.

I'll get to that. Some of those are changing. However, I should point out that the scallop is really just a garnish in the cauliflower soup, and the ceviche/herb salad dish is basically herb salad with a ceviche garnish.

Okay... so step one of menu planning is to take a look at what we had last year and decide what I think about it. There are three concerns here: 1. to replace or tweak things that weren't a total success, 2. to improve, refine or vary good ideas from last time, and 3. to rotate some dishes off the menu so it isn't the same thing every year. With that in mind, here are some thoughts I am kicking around: Assorted Crudités Prosecco di Valdobbiadene Rustico, Viticoltori Nino Franco, NV This is something we eat/drink before coming to table. The idea is to have something to snack on, but not too filling. The Nino Franco prosecco is excellent. That said, we've done this more or less the same for years and I think it might be time for a change. First, as certain regular guests have been agitating for cranberry, we had the thought of doing a "cranberry bellini" instead of just straight prosecco. This needs to be tested, but my going-in idea is: cook/puree/sieve a bag of frozen cranberrys (this is good, because it can be done several days in advance -- a key element of the overall strategy for this party), then each champagne glass will get a spoonfull of cranberry puree, then a sugar cube soaked with orange bitters, then filled with prosecco. Could use rosemary stalks with all the needles stripped off except up at the top as a garnish. One advantage of this is that I can (and should) buy cheaper prosecco. Fellow eGulleter ewindels usually does the crudités. We will talk about ideas for this year. More menu thoughts soon...

We have in the past had guests with severe fish and nut allergies, which we were able to accomodate with minor revisions to the dishes they were served.

We usually have between ten and twelve. The table is designed for ten, but twelve is workable.

Just FYI, the clear base coat is also enamel. This is from Le Creuset's UK site: This is from Le Creuset's Australian site: Interesting how they both give information that the other doesn't have.

Note: Now that it's Thanksgiving week, this Diary has upped the ante by turning into the weekly foodblog as well. Click here to go down to the beginning of the foodblog. In consultation with our blog Czar over in the General forum, I am going to be writing about the preparations leading up to our big Thanksgiving Dinner which, as most of you know, is just around the corner in a few weeks. I guess it's been around ten years now that I've been doing Thanksgiving dinner partys, and they have increased in sophistication and complexity every year. It was just the usual turkey, dressing, and vegetable sides the first year. Then that grew into Turducken with the usual sides jazzed up a bit. After a few years of Turducken, I started getting tired of that and began moving in the direction of multiple courses. The first time I think we made a lobster bisque followed by a buckwheat crepe filled with a leek and gruyere mixture alongside a bundle of three asparagus spears held together with a strip of bacon, and then a turkey ballotine stuffed with a chicken and foie gras mousse. From there, it just kind of took off, and this is where we found ourselves last year: So the question is, what are we going to have this year? Over the next few weeks I'll post here about the process from end-to-end, from settling on a guest list to picking the wines, to QAing new dishes to picking out wines to dinnertime logistics and execution to cleanup, and more.

Dude. A cocktail that you have to shake by hand for five minutes can't possibly be a good/easy choice to serve out of a pitcher. Kind of a funny recipe you linked to as well. Confectioner's sugar? No lime juice? Vanilla extract? Two egg whites for one drink? Half and half instead of cream, and more of it than gin? Try this one here instead, and try shaking it with ice for 2-3 minutes instead of blending it.