January 14, 2012 - a Four Course Dinner Party at Cynthia and Ricardo’s home

January 14, 2012 - a Four Course Dinner Party at Cynthia and Ricardo’s home

Ricardo missing, behind the camera

Cynthia Elliott and Ricardo Guillermo, Suzette and Mark Dawson, and Suzette and I, who are all cooks, enjoyed a dinner party with the following dishes:

Appetizers – When we arrived at Cynthia and Ricardo’s around 6:15 p.m. an assortment of appetizers was laid upon the kitchen table, including drained artichoke hearts that had been packed in water, a tapenade, fresh green olives and marinated green olives and wonderful oiled thick round cracker from Spain that Cynthia had bought at La Montanita Coop.  During the 45 minutes it took for me to prepare the Soup, we drank (Blaisson?) Burgundy Sparkling wine from Trader Joe’s ($9.99), talked and ate appetizers in the kitchen.  When the first course was ready we moved into the dining room.   

First course - Seafood soup/stew by Bob included fresh mussels, clams, oysters and salmon and frozen PPI Paul Prudhomme BBQ’d Shrimp plus some scallops.  I sautéed about three ounces of onion, with two minced garlic cloves and then added three diced tomatoes, several sprigs of thyme and garlic greens and cooked until soft. 

Then I added about ¾ cup of leftover Sauvignon Blanc and about two to three cups of water.  Then I added 32 ounces of thawed PPI BBQ’d shrimp and their BBQ sauce and the scallops.  Then I added the mussels and clams and salmon.  Finally after everything returned to a boil and the mussels and clams opened, I added the fresh oysters and after a minute or two of boiling, we served the seafood soup with wonderful fresh baked sourdough bread drizzled with fresh Chilean olive oil, baked by Suzette Dawson whose specialty is baking and desserts.  The crust on the rolls was slightly crispy and the center was spongy and somewhat elastic like good sourdough bread should taste.  We drank a delicious German Riesling Auslase that Mark brought with the soup and bread.   

Main course - prepared by Cynthia, was two dishes.  One was a leek in phylo baked casserole.  The other dish served with it was fresh blanched string beans that were then tossed in sautéed thin strips of a smoky flavored Canadian bacon that I had never tasted before. Both dishes were delicious.  Cynthia is an awesome cook.  She had also prepared a salad but it was not served because the amount of food was becoming overwhelming.

Ricardo brought out a magnum of Italian Proseco to accompany the Main course.

Dessert – Suzette prepared two desserts.  The first was individual ramekins filled with dense baked custard with a slightly solidified caramel crust on the bottom.  The second dessert was a delicious fresh rhubarb pie with a beautiful lightly browned, shiny crust.  Suzette put eggs into the filling with sugar and fresh diced rhubarb so the filing was pleasingly custard like.  She served the slices of rhubarb pie with organic vanilla ice cream.  The fresh warm fruit pie and the cold ice cream made a terrific combination.

We finally parted company at around 10:15 and made it home in time to see the beginning of Saturday Night Live.  I did stay up a bit longer than usual, probably due to all the extra digestive work my system had to do with all the wonderful food and wine, which allowed me to catch Washington Week in Review and News Hour on TV.

Bon Appètit