December 5, 2013 Dinner Party at Cynthia and Ricardo’s - Spaghetti with Seafood Red Sauce, Salad and garlic bread.

Several days ago Cynthia and Ricardo invited us to attend the Preview of 12X12 art works at the Harwood Art Center from 5:30 t0 7:00 and then go to their house for dinner.  We asked if we should bring red or white wine and Cynthia said “Red.  Ricardo is making his famous tomato sauce.”

So with a good deal of anticipation I grabbed a bottle of Chianti Reserva (Trader Joe’s $5.99) and we went to the Harwood at around 6:00 p.m.

We enjoyed seeing the art and especially visiting Ricardo’s and Cynthia’s studios.  Ricardo has started painting more, now that he has a place to devote dully to it, although both have excellent drafting areas in their studios.  In fact Cynthia has several drafting areas, so she can work on several projects at once, I suppose.   Cynthia’s studio also has a pattern of small purple orange and green handprints on the floor that is quite lovely and warm feeling.

My favorite piece at the show was by Ann Dunbar; a sort of futurist figure with a conical head and neck.

At around 7:00 we embarked for the five or six block drive to their house.  When we arrived the tomato sauce was simmering and Cynthia was laying wedges of brie and Havarti on a cheese board and bread sticks and water biscuits and a bowl of lovely raw green olives (from Smith’s) on their kitchen table.  We gathered around the table and discussed their planned lifting of their roof to create a row of clearstory windows on the south side of their kitchen, for which Ricardo had shown us the drawings at his studio.  Ricardo opened the Chianti Reserva and their bottle of Malbec and we started drinking the chianti with appetizers while Cynthia made a salad and heated a pot of water and made the spaghetti and Ricardo heated the large casserole of red sauce and added the seafood medley (calamari, baby scallops, and shrimp) to the red sauce and an aluminum wrapped loaf of garlic bread was heated in the oven.

After about twenty minutes Ricardo and Cynthia decided that the seafood red sauce was ready.  They told us that Ricardo had an interesting presentation for the spaghetti.  We watched as Ricardo used the slotted wooden fork from the salad tossing set to scoop a large forkful of spaghetti and twist it around the fork and then set the coned shaped mounds of pasta in the pasta dish and then scoop seafood res sauce on top of and around the mounded spaghetti.  A very artistic touch by a very artistic guy.

They took the spaghetti and sauce filled pasta bowls to their dining room table and Suzette served salad and Ricardo filled wine glasses with Chianti and later malbec and we passed the bread around.  I liked the bread very much it was the standard baguette from Bosque bakery, but with the addition of fresh garlic laced butter it came alive, standing independently as its own defined dish; the rich dough enhanced by the addition of fresh garlic and butter having a distinct taste and textural sensation.

 

After we had eaten our bowls of pasta and several pieces of bread, Cynthia announced that they had a small dessert.  They brought out a chocolate ice cream I had not seen yet from Trader Joe’s or Sprouts and fresh sesame seed covered Regina cookies from the Saratori's Pastry Shoppe next door to Tully’s Meat Market on San Mateo with we nibbled and ate small spoonsful of ice cream with the final bit of wine from the bottle of malbec.  

After a lovely evening and meal we said our goodbyes at around 9:30.

Bon Appétit