Willy was scheduled to arrive at 7:30 p.m. and we
had coordinated a small party by asking Eli Hicks to gather up some of Willy’s
friends for a party and we invited the Souder Graf’s, the Palmers, and Richard
and Anna Orsofsky. Willy had roomed and
traveled in Spain, France, and England about five years ago with Robin Orsofky
several years ago.
We went to the garden and picked a large bag of
assorted salad greens that we cleaned and bagged and put in the fridge. We worked
until 2:00 p.m. Then I went to Pro’s
Ranch Market to see if they had any better avocados that the green ones I had
bought on Thursday and a few other things I had forgotten to get such as
tortilla chips (Michael’s 14 oz. bags for $.99) and 40 lbs. of ice to ice the
ice chest that the Palmers lent to us. I
spoke to Susan and when she so graciously said, “What can we bring? I said,
“What about a cake to go with our mango and peach ice cream?” So we had baking support from Susan, which is
always a good thing.
So about 2:30, when I got home, I set up the five
tables that Suzette had brought home end to end in front of the banquette we
built along the side of the raised beds and she covered them with the long 33
foot piece of plastic fabric we had bought in Guerande, France last year. We then
went to the garden to pick a basket of large basil leaves for the Caprese salad
and some tarragon, chives, parsley and oregano and Suzette went to the other
garden and picked some lavage. We chopped up our respective herbs and Suzette
then the herbs into the Cuisinart to blend them and then Suzette put mayonnaise
and crema into the Cuisinart and blended it. It tasted very much of
preservatives from the mayonnaise. We
then put about ½ can of anchovies into Cuisinart and blended it the dressing
and then the dressing tasted too salty.
We added more lavage and a little heavy cream and then the dressing
tasted just right.
Suzette had made the fresh pasta and rolled out the
sheets of lasagna and de-stemmed the kale and steamed it and had made a duxelle
with mushrooms and peeled turnips from our garden while I was out, so next we
put together the lasagna. Suzette
brushed the bottom of a large pyrex baking dish with olive oil and then cut two
strips of pasta to fit the bottom and then brushed that with olive oil. We then put a layer of kale and some shredded
mozzarella cheese. Then she put on
another layer of pasta and brushed it with olive oil and we then put a layer of
the mushroom and turnip duxelle and more cheese and then another layer of pasta
and then more shredded cheese and then some grated Parmesan cheese.
Then I started slicing Mexican squashes and an onion
and a small bulb of garlic from the garden and then stripped oregano from four
sprigs of oregano and we started cooking the squash for the enchiladas. Suzette
put some of the Green Chili Sauce in a small pan and we took out two ceramic
baking dishes and she began sautéing the tortillas in the green chili sauce and
then put a layer of them in the bottom of each ceramic dish. Then we put a layer of squash and onions and
shrimp and covered that with tomatillo sauce and some shredded Longhorn and
jack cheese and then another layer of tortillas and more sautéed squash and
tomatillo sauce and cheese. After a final
layer of sautéed tortillas, we put more tomatillo sauce and cheese and a bit of
the green chili sauce and we were ready to bake the enchiladas.
After about fifteen minutes of baking the
enchiladas, we inserted the lasagna and Suzette and I decided to make the fruit
salad. I cut up and cubed a pineapple
and a papaya. I fetched the watermelon that had been chilling in the fridge in
the garage and Suzette marked the area that needed to be removed in order to
make watermelon look like a basket with a handle and I cut that area out and we
removed the watermelon meat from the inside of the melon and I cut it into
cubes and mixed it with the papaya and pineapple and then we put it back into
the watermelon basket and took it to the fridge in the basement to chill.
We put tortilla chips into baskets and dome of the
green chili sauce into a bowl, so we could serve chips and salsa.
Then Suzette started making the custard for the ice
cream with four cups of milk and 2 cups of sugar and 12 egg yolks. She stirred the mixture over low heat and
then I stirred. After abot an hour it
became apparent that we had made a mistake and I suggested that the problem was
that we had used 2% milk instead of whole milk.
Since the recipe called for adding four cups of cream to the mixture
after it turned into custard, we decided to add one of those cups of cream now
to enrich the custard mixture and help it thicken. After another ½ hour we had something what
was thick enough to call light custard, which we put into the fridge to
chill. While I was stirring the custard,
Suzette made the Caprese salad. The
Mozzarella cheese now comes pre-sliced, so she laid successive slices of
tomato, mozzarella cheese and basil leaves on a platter and then dressed it
with a simple balsamic and olive oil dressing.
Around 7:00 Eli and several others began to arrive
with six packs of beers from the countries which Willy had visited this summer,
which was the requested beverage each person was to bring. By 7:15 when it was
time to go to the airport to pick up Willy, we had prepared everything except
the ice cream. At around 8:00 the
Palmers arrived with a large 14 X14 inch pan of white cake iced with a lovely
lemon butter cream icing.
When I brought Willy home about twenty persons had
gathered to surprise him and welcome him home.
He was really surprised and happy to see them and be home and we then
put the food out on one end of the 30 foot long table and ate on the other end. We made mojitos and we all ate and talked and
had a great time. At around 9:00 the
Palmers and the Orsofsky’s left, and a guest who was a bartender made another
pitcher of mojitos and the drinking continued.
I drove to Pro’s to fetch another 20 lb. bag of ice so we could make the
ice cream in the old style churn with a motor driven paddle in a wooden
bucket. Suzette put the chilled custard
and cream and fruit mixture into the churn and we inserted the paddle and put
the lid on connected the motor to the top of the churn and by 10:00 the ice
cream was ready. We cut the cake and
served ice cream and cake. I faded at
10:30 p.m. and went to bed and Suzette and Jim Graf and the younger folks
partied on by playing a beer drinking game around the folded down ping pong
table on the patio.
I think everyone enjoyed the very successful and
pleasant evening patio and garden party.
Bon Appétit 
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