Dinner for the Family

[racheld]

Simply Beeyootiful!!! Of course, the GREENS would have stood alone at that meal.

Just what we have come to expect from our Wunderkind.

rachel

PS---No eggses in the cheesecake, Preciousssss?

[jgm]

If you feel so inclined, I would enjoy a discussion on the development of your menu. Did you start with a particular dish, and build from there?

[Megan Blocker]

Oh, my, Daniel. I particularly love the grits with mascarpone and the cornbread Madeleines. Both seem so...you. A wonderful combination of typically American foods with European ingredients and methods. Fantastic.

I, too, would be interested to know how you developed the menu - was it around the shrimp and grits?

Edited December 6, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[Daniel]

Thank you Rachel.. I completely forgot the eggs.. There were three eggs in the cheese cake, good thing I only forgot them in the write up..

JGM, I would love to discuss the menu.. I feel more natural cooking this type of food.. I really love Southern or just American Food.. After reading Megan's last post, I guess that is my style.. Anyway, my girlfriend has been reading the Babbo cookbook and wanted to do an entire Babbo dinner.. I, at this point am too nervous, dont feel I am worthy, or just not ready to go through the exhaustive life changing spin I am expecting this book to put me through..

Also, I know that my cousin and his wife love New Orleans.. They have actually written a guide book for their friends about the city.. They got married down there.. They go to the Inn at Little Washington often as well. So, I knew everyone would have enjoyed this type of meal..

Before I went Southern, I planned four other meals in my head.. One being an entire brain tasting menu.. My Uncle is a Neuro-Surgeon so when I thought I was just making dinner for my Aunt and Uncle I was going to do a more labor intensive, more complex, brain tasting.. Do various animals.. But I let them off the hook.. For a little bit..

Thats funny you asked asked about the shrimp and grits.. Because the original dish was completely scrapped and a new one created on the fly.. I didnt like how the orginal was coming out.. I had the marscapone for the cheese cake already so I decided to make that whiskey cream sauce shrimp. upthread. Alas, no cream in the house.. So I went New Orleans BBQ ..

The whole meal was originally going to be geared torwards serving Welsh Rarebit for a cheese course.. I just pictured everyone eating this awesome cheddar cheese dish with this great port.. But my meal that lead up to it was way too rich and had to many animal parts I didnt know everyone would enjoy.. There was only one brain dish in this scenario..

But the meal really moved Southern with my desire to make a bacon wrapped trout.. I actually based the entire menu around bacon wrapped trout and then scrapped it at the last moment.. Haha.. I really also wanted to cook quail for every one.. But really thought it to be too "weak" of a meal to have trout and quail.. If I did the trout then I would want to do a pork dish.. But there was already pork in the greens and in the crostini and wrapped around the trout for that matter.. So then I thought a nice cow dish might be good.. But boring.. So, I scrapped the trout, kept the shrimp.. Which then got me to making either chesnut soup, or oyster stew, or some other really hardy soup.. Oyster soup sounded so comforting.. It was a dinner for family..

Does my thought process make sense to anyone besides me.. Am I thinking correctly?

[Shalmanese]

Hah, yes, I went thought that exact same process many times. Basically, it involves me trying to build an entire menu around one signature dish, then realising the signature dish didn't work with the menu so it was scrapped and another dish was chosen as a signature, then the process is repeated about 5 or 6 times. I think at the end of my menu planning, every course had been changed substantially at least 3 times.