February 14, 2015 Valentine’s Day Dinner

February 14, 2015   Valentine’s Day Dinner   

What can you say about a wonderful meal that can do justice to the experience of enjoying it in real time in the atmosphere of a great restaurant?  How can you dissect the parts in such a way that one appreciates the totality of all the components when merged into the experience itself?

I think my experience of this meal was very different than what others felt, but what is true is that everyone contributed their part and everyone enjoyed the meal together.   The thing that everyone felt I am sure is the sumptuous nature of the meal and surroundings, which I think pretty closely approximated a dinner at a great restaurant.  

So let me try to chronicle the meal best I can.

The table:  Suzette’s lovely Noritake azalea pattern china filled the table with light pink color.

            We put out our family Baccarat hand blown French flutes and champagne glasses.

            Suzette filled the candelabras with long tapers and made a lovely flower arrangement    with lilies and chrysanthemums for the centerpiece.   

            Suzette used a lovely light damask table cloth over our red French table cloth.

            Most interestingly, Suzette printed lovely quotations about love on small white cards       and placed one in a card holder in front of each person’s seat on a small English ceramic      painted china card holder. 

            The effect was wondrous, a light and colorful table.

Suzette's table

The dinner guests and their courses:

            First Course:  Fish Soup with oysters.  Debbie and Jeff made a lovely fish soup using the Joel Robuchon’s recipe. The soup was wonderful but Debbie had trouble finding fresh oysters so used canned oysters, so the taste was there but not that the tactile feeling of eating a fresh oyster.  It was delicious soup and I loved it with the Gruet Rosé. 

The salad

the Beef and potatoes

Doug and Crystal

Suzette, Doug and Crystal

Tom and Janice

the red wines

We went around the taking turns to read the quotes on the cards Suzette had put at each person’s place, which created a lovely interlude that made the meal very special and set the mood as a dinner celebrating love.  This is not the kind of experience that one rarely can have in a restaurant and made the entire meal more romantic.  

            Second Course:  Crystal made a wonderful Chopped Salad composed with red tipped Belgium Endive, pecans, crumbled blue cheese and sliced apples and dressed it with French vinaigrette.  I cannot say enough wonderful things about this salad.  It had everything I love, my favorite nut, my favorite cheese in a salad (blue), one of my favorite salad greens (Belgium endive), and thinly julienned slices of slightly tart fresh Granny Smith apples lightly dressed with a very pleasant vinaigrette.  I loved it.  Crystal’s salad was refreshing, interesting and beautifully composed in every respect. 

            Third Course: Suzette made Boeuf Bourguignon with truffle mashed potatoes

Suzette used Julia Child’s recipe from Vol. 1 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking.  Suzette described the experience of making the dish as, “This was a Julia and Julie moment.” I guess she meant the feeling one has when immersed in the step by step process of creating one of the great recipes of French Cuisine.  It took her three days to complete all the steps of the recipe.  The result was impressive.  It looks likes beef stew but it tastes like something out of this world.  Each of the major ingredients, boneless beef short ribs, pearl onions, white mushrooms, herbs, wine, beef stock and bacon is discernible on its own and also blends with the other ingredients into a pleasing whole. 

After going to Williams Sonoma and Trader Joe’s, I finally found a small jar with two black truffles at Ta Lin.  Before dinner I shaved a truffle into thin slices and put a slice on each pile of mashed potatoes. The truffle did not infuse the potatoes with truffle flavor but when I ate my last bite of potato with the slice of truffle, I was hit with that sharp aromatic flavor of the truffle.  I guess I should have used both truffles or stirred them into the potatoes, so each person could get a better sense of what a truffle tastes like.   

the truffle cutter and the truffle

Bob cutting the truffle

Doug and Crystal brought two bottles of red wine for this course; a Faiverly Bourgogne Pinot Noir and a Bouchard Vin de France.  Both wines went well with the dinner but everyone liked the more complex Bouchard with the dish.  We also opened the bottle of Las Rocas 100% Grenache Spanish red that Tom and Janice brought. I have not drunk many Spanish red Grenaches and I liked this one very much.      

            Fourth Course: French Apple Tart   Janice and Tom brought a lovely freshly baked apple tart and I opened a bottle of 15 year old calvados that has been sitting in our basement for the last ten to fifteen years.  The tart was simple, yet elegant; fresh Washington State apples cooked in light syrup and then baked in a tart shell of French pastry.  This dish is the one I can see Claude Monet eating in his house in Normandy with a small glass of Calvados, just as we were.  We could have been sitting with him in his dining room at Giverny, just as we were sitting in our dining room in Albuquerque.

            Summary: Tom and Janice and Doug and Crystal arrived between 6:30 and 7:00.  I poured a glass of Marques de Caceres 2013 Verdejo from Rueda before dinner and we sipped and talked until Debbie and Jeff arrived a little after 7:00.  We started eating at 7:30.  After dinner we sipped calvados, wine and/or water and talked a bit more.  Finally at 10:30 we said goodnight to each other after a very special meal.        

This dinner was as close as we were going to get to a great meal in Albuquerque tonight at any price.  

The next step above the quality and presentation of this meal could only be had by flying to Las Vegas or Paris and eating at one of the great three star Michelin restaurants such as Joel Robuchon’s L’Atelier Restaurant.  A full prix fixe meal at Joel Robuchon’s restaurant in Las Vegas costs $198.00 for the food portion and wine and drinks and service tips are extra.  This meal if served at a comparable restaurant would have cost well over $100.00 per person in my opinion.  The benefits of a meal such as ours tonight cannot be overemphasized.  We enjoyed impeccable food and wine among friends in a warm and pleasing environment without having to travel very far or deal with crowds or pay the high price of such a great meal.

Bon Appétit