Member-organized event - 2006 Heartland Gathering

[Pan]

You folks had a great time! Thanks for sharing a bit of the experience. Great thread!

[tammylc]

Btw, Tammy, she absolutely loved that pate you brought out.  She wanted to know where you got it.  I told her I thought a friend brought it back from France.

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Yep, that was the "party pack" of duck and foie gras pate a friend gifted me with upon returning from France last year. It was very good, and I was very glad to have a gathering large enough to merit opening up such a large container!

My two-year old thought it was great too - I gave him a bite of mine, and he ripped the bread out of my hand, stuffed it in his mouth and asked for more!

[ulterior epicure]

you guys wear me out!

[CaliPoutine]

Here is another pic of the fish with Dylan Wiley. She was on my sous chef on the fish. She seasoned it with salt and pepper, stuffed it with green stuff( thyme) and lemon.

[daniellewiley]

Here is another pic of the fish with Dylan Wiley.  She was on my sous chef on the fish.  She seasoned it with salt and pepper, stuffed it with green stuff( thyme) and lemon.   

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Dylie LOVES to cook. The fish was an especially exciting project for her because we never cook it at home. I'm deathly allergic! Randi was a great cooking teacher, and Dyl had a blast helping with the preparations.

[tammylc]

OMG, that picture of Dylan is SOOO cute!

[tammylc]

Oh, and I wanted to let people know that our leftovers were greatly appreciated. The Sunday night cook was able to use all those extra greens and cucumbers for her salad. I sent a message out about tino's bread, and it was gone by the next time I was in the common house. (Although I did take one of the whole loaves of honey whole wheat home for myself. It made an excellent breakfast toasted and topped with passionfruit curd.) Oh, and people were apparently coming in all day yesterday to seek out the trifle!

I took the 3 half bottles of white wine that were left over for dinner last night, so now I just have about a 1/4 of a bottle of Pinot Grigio left, and almost an entire bottle of Burgundy - I wish the weather was more appropriate to making beef burgundy!

[tammylc]

Did anyone talk about the giant bottle of wine yet? I hope there was a picture taken!

NancyH and Bob won a chili cookoff recently and their prize was a double magnum of wine. That's 3 liters for the wine speak impaired. It was very cool to be able to pour all 33 people a glass of wine from the same bottle to start their dinner!

[CaliPoutine]

Here is a picture of the Triple Chocolate CookiesI brought. I made these at home on Wednesday. The recipe is part of a larger recipe for ice cream sandwiches on Epicurious.com. These are intensely chocolatey.

Here it is plated with some amazing peanut butter ice cream and the trifle.

Edited August 7, 2006 by CaliPoutine (log)

[tammylc]

Randi, can you post a link to the cookie recipe? They were really great - the texture is amazing!

I was the lucky recipient of the leftovers, and enjoyed two of them this morning with a cold glass of milk. Mmmm.

[CaliPoutine]

Randi, can you post a link to the cookie recipe?  They were really great - the texture is amazing! 

I was the lucky recipient of the leftovers, and enjoyed two of them this morning with a cold glass of milk.  Mmmm.

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Done, I edited the post with the pics and provided the hyperlink.

[tammylc]

How much food did you all consume?!?!?

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The amount of food consumed was obscene, even by eGullet Society members' standards. I believe this was due to a mathematical error: for each course, enough food was prepared such that if the whole meal had consisted of just that one course then it still would have been enough. It was exhausting. Everybody was full before the first actual course was even served -- we had gorged ourselves on fried calamari and butter-tossed fries at lunchtime, tasted 21 wines in the afternoon, flirted with the green fairy, consumed about a hundred dollars worth of cheese, bread and pate and, oh yes, there was the matter of Ronnie's charcuterie spread. That was before dinner. Then we ate an excessive meal. And when we finished with the meat course, a whole fresh crew of folks moved in to the kitchen and started producing desserts and, somehow, like five more cheeses appeared. Wish you had been there.

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I think Fat Guy overstates things a touch. I actually thought that most people did quite well at portioning, and as it turned out, the overly generous courses were served family style so that people could only take as much as they wanted. We talked a lot about portion sizes in the pre-gathering cooks email and at least some of it sunk in. (Although the beef was appropriately sized only by accident - Nancy and Bob and Edsel all thought there was going to be a chicken course, and would, they told me, have bought much more if they'd known. They were worrying about it right up until their dish was served!)

I for one never felt overly stuffed. However, I was busy in the kitchen when the cheese and charcutrie were out, so had only small nibbles of both, and that probably made the difference. Had I had the opportunity to gorge myself on Ronnie's pastrami, I certainly would have done so.

[moosnsqrl]

Just arrived at home and haven't had time to even read this, let alone upload pics and post anything and have enough time to shower and head to the heirloom vegetable dinner at Starker's (it's a rough life but someone has to do it!).

But I also just realized, to my horror, that I am missing my Henckels Santuko knife! Did anyone end up with an extra? Or tammylc, will you kindly check your community kitchen? I thought I had everything rounded-up before the food coma set-in but apparently not. If anyone finds it, please pm me and I will cheerfully forward shipping costs along with my home address.

Could've been the absynthe, might've been the pastrami . . . whatever I was under the influence of, I'll be sad if I've lost my trusty Santuko Oh, BTW, it is a solid blade one, not hollow-edged.

TIA if anyone can help!

[Palladion]

Judy, I hope someone is able to find and return your knife to you!

We were scheduled to meet at the farmer's market at 10:00 on Saturday morning so we could organize and money could be dispersed to chefs who were purchasing items for the dinner.

Here's Nancy during the meeting:

We enjoyed great weather on Sunday. I know we were all thankful that the temperature and humidity were not nearly as high as they had been earlier in the week.

The market itself was great; we all saw some awesome produce. Lots of fabulous-looking squash, plums, blueberries, tomatoes, and nectarines. Ann Arbor is blessed with some wonderful food.

I ran into Scott (sweintraub) and Deborah in the market and accompanied them to Zingerman's Deli to pick out cheese for the evening. The place was packed, but we received some very enthusiastic and knowledgeable service. Scott and Deborah chose a goat cheese, a cheddar, a soft cheese, a blue, and one other that I can't recall at the moment.

Here's Scott eyeing the cheeses:

And some of the cheeses themselves:

If I hadn't already been to the Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco, this would have been my great cheese experience for the summer.

I headed back to the market, where I wandered around snapping a few more pictures. I couldn't resist the rows and rows of tomatoes:

And a shot of some of the plums that I bought.

I brought Micol Negrin's Rustico: Regional Italian Country Cooking up to Ann Arbor for inspiration, if I needed it. I paged through the book the precious night and had come upon a recipe for plum stuffed dumplings. Negrin says that in Italy very small plums are used, and a single plum is encased in each dumpling. In the cookbook, the recipe is modified to use plum quarters.

I spied the tiny (almost cherry sized) plums at the market and immediately thought back to that recipe. The farmer described the smaller plums as having stronger flavors. I tried one and found it to be tart, but quite flavorful. I figured the tartness would be tamed by the cooking and the sugar.

I asked about the other, yellow/white plums too; I was intrigued because "Shiro" means white (白) in Japanese (which the farmer didn't know). I bought some of each, with the plan to use one red plum and one white plum quarter in each dumpling. It didn't quite work out that way, but more on that later.

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Alex Parker

[Abra]

Wow, you guys. Just wow. What a great-sounding party. Ronnie, that spread was amazing.

You sure do have to pay a lot for blueberries there. Here they're about $5.99 a half flat, as compared to the shot of them for $2.50 a half pint.

[Alex]

Wow, you guys. Just wow. What a great-sounding party. Ronnie, that spread was amazing.

You sure do have to pay a lot for blueberries there. Here they're about $5.99 a half flat, as compared to the shot of them for $2.50 a half pint.

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They're also much cheaper at the Farmers' Market here in Grand Rapids, on the other side of the state. My impression is that the cost of living in general is higher in Ann Arbor than in other cities in Michigan. I should add, though, that the quality of life is higher, too.

[tammylc]

Wow, you guys. Just wow. What a great-sounding party. Ronnie, that spread was amazing.

You sure do have to pay a lot for blueberries there. Here they're about $5.99 a half flat, as compared to the shot of them for $2.50 a half pint.

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They're also much cheaper at the Farmers' Market here in Grand Rapids, on the other side of the state. My impression is that the cost of living in general is higher in Ann Arbor than in other cities in Michigan. I should add, though, that the quality of life is higher, too.

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Yeah, the going rate on blueberries in Ann Arbor is $6/quart.

Ann Arbor definitely isn't a cheap place to live - a couple of years ago Forbes Magazine rated it the 7th least affordable city in the US! (Through some measure that compared average salaries for the area to expenses.)

[moosnsqrl]

When we lived there I worked for the Chamber of Commerce and hence had constant exposure to lots of statistics on the cost of living there. It was fully 25% higher than Kansas City, owing mostly to housing and health care costs, although there was a calculable % on food and utilities as well.

As far as the farmer's market prices, though, I think that's just a question of what the market will bear there, in a city with many dual-PhD households. If you travel 15-20 minutes SE to the Ypisilanti market, you would find significantly lower prices (although probably a smaller selection - I didn't make it to that one this trip so I don't know for certain).

[Nina C.]

What an amazing weekend. Mostly I am wishing I could have been there for the camraderie, the sharing of knowledge and technique, the joy of watching someone's face trying something you love for the first time, the cooking, and the laughter. Although, I would have been happy to partake in the gorgeous food you all prepared. I look forward to seeing more pictures, and especially hearing more people talk about their favorite moments of the weekend.

Perhaps next year, you all could be persuaded to have the gathering in the eastern part of the midwest - like West Philadelphia? (don't stone me! just a bit of laughing-at-my-own-NY-centricness humor!) Seriously, it seems like this year's was a bigger group than last year; perhaps this is an event that will continue to grow into a can't-miss event.

[tammylc]

Perhaps next year, you all could be persuaded to have the gathering in the eastern part of the midwest - like West Philadelphia? (don't stone me! just a bit of laughing-at-my-own-NY-centricness humor!) Seriously, it seems like this year's was a bigger group than last year; perhaps this is an event that will continue to grow into a can't-miss event.

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As implied upthread, there is a movement afoot to hold next year's event in Cleveland, which should be very exciting. We're all hoping this will give Michael Symon the incentive he needs to get Lola open again.

I'd strongly encourage other eGullet members to think about holding your own member-organized event. It doesn't have to be as elaborate as this one was (although elaborate can certainly be fun!) and as you say - the opportunity for in-person camraderie is wonderful. As is the chance to learn from one another in person the way we do online!

[Lady T]

Eh. If Cleveland didn't rock already, it will when we're done. Good shopping opportunities, and probably some nice hotels at decent prices...but where to find a kitchen that will hold all of us *and* all the food?

[ronnie_suburban]

Perhaps next year, you all could be persuaded to have the gathering in the eastern part of the midwest - like West Philadelphia? (don't stone me! just a bit of laughing-at-my-own-NY-centricness humor!) Seriously, it seems like this year's was a bigger group than last year; perhaps this is an event that will continue to grow into a can't-miss event.

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As implied upthread, there is a movement afoot to hold next year's event in Cleveland, which should be very exciting. We're all hoping this will give Michael Symon the incentive he needs to get Lola open again.

I'd strongly encourage other eGullet members to think about holding your own member-organized event. It doesn't have to be as elaborate as this one was (although elaborate can certainly be fun!) and as you say - the opportunity for in-person camraderie is wonderful. As is the chance to learn from one another in person the way we do online!

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As Tammy posted above, a Member-organized event can take place in any venue where someone is willing to host one. Since Tammy (and Alex) took this upon themselves, the event, by default, took place on their home turf. The same would be true for anyone else's proposed event. In fact, the rumblings about a Cleveland-based event next year were primarily the result of the fact that we had more Cleveland-area attendees at this year's event than attendees from any other place. Then, they started talking about it, etc.

2 additional points:

1) Member-organized events can take place more than once a year. There are no quotas, although you'll want to make sure that your proposed event doesn't conflict with another planned event.

2) If you have any interest in hosting a Member-organized event, please pm me and I will be happy to help you plan it and launch an accompanying thread.

=R=

[ludja]

...

I brought Micol Negrin's Rustico: Regional Italian Country Cooking up to Ann Arbor for inspiration, if I needed it. I paged through the book the precious night and had come upon a recipe for plum stuffed dumplings. Negrin says that in Italy very small plums are used, and a single plum is encased in each dumpling. In the cookbook, the recipe is modified to use plum quarters.

I spied the tiny (almost cherry sized) plums at the market and immediately thought back to that recipe. The farmer described the smaller plums as having stronger flavors. I tried one and found it to be tart, but quite flavorful. I figured the tartness would be tamed by the cooking and the sugar.

...

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Alex Parker

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Looking forward to photos of the dumplings. Is the dough potato-based or farmer's cheese based? These types of dumplings are very popular in Austria filled with either small plums or with apricots.

Hope you have some photos of the finished product!

[sweintraub]

Here's some of the pictures I took at the gathering. More and captions as I have time.

Edited August 9, 2006 by sweintraub (log)

[torakris]

My first morning back in Japan....

I am missing everyone already and the gathering seems so long ago. I had left my camera back at the hotel so it is nice to see more pictures going up.

I really hope we can get the event happening in Cleveland next year! Maybe we can even get Bob (NancyH's husband) to prepare some of his award winning chili for us.

The dinner was fabulous, everything was. My favorite was probably Judy's soup and I also loved the chile and cherry sauce (and not just because I pitted most of the cherries and minced most of the peppers...)