A pleasant surprise

It’s been awhile since I’ve done any catering, but last night ended the drought. My friend Angie asked me to help with a surprise 40^th birthday party she was planning for a girlfriend. Eager to get my catering skills back up to snuff, I readily accepted.

The plan was hors d’oeuvres for 25-30 people. Cool, easy enough. Then Angie threw me the curveball. The birthday girl doesn’t eat red meat, chicken, pork, nuts or cheese. Omitting the meat wasn’t too much of a problem, but I don’t think I’ve ever put out a party spread that didn’t contain cheese and nuts. I turned on my brain and got down to recipe browsing.

Once I got my head wrapped around the menu constraints, coming up with ideas wasn’t as challenging as I feared it might be. Vegetables and fruit were fair game, of course, and the possibilities there were endless. So were crackers, dips and spreads, as long as they didn’t contain dairy. And seafood was allowable. Birthday cake for dessert was already taken care of.

So here’s what I came up with:

the spread

First, instead of a standard run-of-the-mill veggie platter, I decided to take a note from Black Market and assemble a variety of fresh pickles. I picked five items  to pickle and used different recipes for each to provide plenty of flavor variety. I’d made the pickled grapes and the lemon pickled zucchini before, but the dill green beans, Asian carrots and icebox pickles were all new experiments, and ones that worked out great. I prepared the green beans, carrots and grapes the night before so they’d have plenty of time to marinate, and then banged out the cucumbers the morning of and the zucchini at the last minute (I knew from experience that these don’t take long to soak up the juice).

a fine pickle

Hubby and I pulled all the pickles out of the fridge for a mid-afternoon taste test to make sure things were on track. And boy, were they! The carrots took on an awesome soy ginger tang and the cucumbers were spicy sweet thanks to the pickling spice I used. The green beans were my favorite – crunchy crisp and packed with bracing fresh dill and puckery vinegar. Yay! I breathed a sigh of relief and turned my attention to the rest of the menu.

wine-baked olives

Wine-baked olives were something that I immediately pulled out of my recipe box for consideration. Easy peasy and elegant. The only tricky part is boiling the olives briefly at first to soften slightly and leech out some of the excess oil. Then you simply drain them, throw them into a casserole dish and pour in a little red wine. Sprinkle in some fresh thyme and grate over a little orange zest, then bake for 30 minutes and there ya go. One gentleman at the party said they were the best olives he’d ever eaten. Thank you, kind sir!

California shrimp cocktail with orange and avocado

Shrimp cocktail was one of the first things that leapt to mind, and I have a great recipe from my catering mentor Jen that I’ve made a couple times before. A California spin adds in sliced avocado and orange sections over mixed greens. Served individually in little cups, they look attractive and taste great. And as Angie’s husband Ben so aptly noted, avocado is like bacon for vegetarians.

spicy roasted chickpeas

Figuring we needed a little something crunchy to go with the drinks, I toasted up a big batch of spicy chickpeas instead of setting out a bowl of hummus like I’d originally intended. Drain the garbanzos, then toss with olive oil and a spice blend of your choosing (I used cumin, thyme, garlic salt, pepper and cayenne), then bake on a cookie sheet until crunchy. These little babies are great to have on hand in lieu of nuts or chips, and totally threw some of the party guests for a pleasant loop when they bit in.

I rounded out the mix with crackers, toasted pita wedges and a yummy roasted eggplant dip recipe from Ina Garten. Ina never steers you wrong.

All in all, the birthday girl was surprised, the party was a success and I got lots of great feedback. Nice to know I’ve still got it.

Home sweet home

Have spent the past few days reacclimating to the old homestead, and fighting off a pesky cold/flu bug that’s infiltrated my sinuses. Funny that we’ve been on the go in Europe for three weeks, out and about in cold rainy weather, navigating transatlantic flights, and when do I get sick? Only after I get back to the comfort and safety of my own home. Hmph.

I’m delighted to be back in my own kitchen and working again with my own knives, utensils and pots/pans; stocking groceries in my own roomy stainless steel fridge; and sitting down to eat at my own massive dining table. Needing a culinary break from continental fare, the first few meals I made this week were as decidedly anti-French/Italian/German as I could think up — chicken curry with sweet potatoes and chickpeas, Asian crusted tilapia with Thai peanut noodles (thanks for the recipe, Gillian!), and fluffy chocolate chip buttermilk pancakes. We did break down and order a quattro formaggio from Bazbeaux one night when I didn’t feel up to cooking, but American pizza is really nothing like true Italian pizza anyway.

Yesterday was the granddaddy of all American meals, the most comfortable of all comfort foods — Thanksgiving dinner. My family was sort of scattered to the winds this year and since my closest unit members and I are still recovering from our trip (did I mention I’ve been up at 5:30 or 6 a.m. every day this week?), we decided to play it very low key. Fortunately, our lovely friends/neighbors down the street invited us over. I was all prepared to cook a turkey breast with some scaled-down fixings at home, but feeling as under the weather as I do, was secretly thrilled not to for once.

Thanksgiving is always a bittersweet holiday for me, resurrecting memories of all the years I spent alongside my mom in the kitchen as she prepared a huge spread of her tried-and-true classics. Always the same stuffing recipe, always the scalloped corn casserole, always the cranberry ice that made my teeth ache. I was living in Los Angeles the last Thanksgiving my mom was alive, and it was the first year I didn’t make it home for the holiday. After a very nice dinner at my Uncle Dave’s house in Camarillo just northwest of L.A., I remember stealing a few moments to myself in a darkened bedroom to cry, somehow knowing that the unquestionable family tradition I’d enjoyed for 31 years was changing and would never be the same again.

And it hasn’t. The year my mom died, we went out to eat for Thanksgiving for the first time ever. It felt like a sacrilege, but the thought of even attempting to recreate her traditions in her kitchen without her there was more than I could bear. I don’t remember much about our dinner that year, other than the food seemed bland and tasteless and there was a gaping hole at the table where my mom should have been.

That was eight years ago. Time does heal wounds, but never eliminates them entirely. I’ll always think of my mom on Thanksgiving day, bustling around the kitchen like a fearless conductor of her own culinary symphony. I have cooked my own Thanksgiving dinners since then. One year, the “fresh” turkey I’d purchased the night before turned out to be completely frozen solid in the middle when I went to put it in the oven. Certain side dishes have met with varying degrees of success. I’ve learned some valuable trial-and-error lessons along the way. I know some people get totally flustered about the idea of cooking a Thanksgiving dinner, but at this point, preparing the big meal doesn’t freak me out. I’m something of a traditionalist when it comes to turkey day, so I usually try to serve a combination of old favorites and maybe one or two new recipes thrown in to keep things fresh.

This year, though, Ron and Janet saved me the trouble, bless them. Their spread was a fabulous collection of all the best stuff — perfectly roasted turkey, creamy mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with yummy melty marshmallows on top, green bean casserole (which I always vow needs to be made much more often than just once a year), and a savory wild rice with mushrooms. As Janet so accurately summed up, Thanksgiving is all about the starches. True dat! I contributed a stuffing I made with apples, onions, celery, sage and rosemary (hubby already said he wasn’t going to eat any, so I made it to please myself!); and a bowl of vanilla orange cranberry sauce. All in all, it was a delicious and satisfying dinner shared with good friends. What more could a person ask for? I was truly thankful.

By the way, best use of Thanksgiving leftovers in my book? White meat turkey sandwich on white bread with Miracle Whip, a layer of stuffing and some cranberry sauce. Followed up by a piece of pumpkin pie doused with Cool Whip. Yeah, baby. Now you’re talking.

My thoughts are already turning ahead to the holidays. So many recipes, so little time. I’m already mentally running through lists of cookies I want to make, roasts I can put in the crockpot on the cold nights ahead, my mom’s brandy slush recipe, and a slew of seasonal side dishes. Every year, I have big plans to invite friends over for dinners, a cookie swap, maybe a brunch, and before I know it, Christmas has come and gone. I vow this year not to get so wrapped up in the shopping and stresses of the holiday season that I forget to just relax and spend some time with the people I care about. Spontaneous stolen moments are way better than no moments at all.

Today, we hope to venture out to get our Christmas tree while my adorable stepson is here to help decorate. Perhaps we’ll even follow up our tree-decorating efforts with some cookies and homemade hot chocolate… ah. I know many people loathe the long, cold winter, but I look at it as an opportunity to cuddle up with the ones you love and enjoy a bunch of heart- and tummy-warming dishes that don’t taste nearly as good any other time of year.

To that end… my nose is running again. I think it’s time for a cup of tea and my favorite afghan. Don’t forget to count your blessings.