March 27, 2016 Easter Dinner at Amy and Vahl’s, the South Rises Again. Baked ham, Cheese Grits, fresh steamed Asparagus

March 27, 2016 Easter Dinner at Amy and Vahl’s, the South Rises Again. Baked ham, Cheese Grits, fresh steamed Asparagus

Amy invited us for Easter a Dinner today.  Suzette had agreed to bring an Italian Cloud Cake.  Yesterday after Gruet, we went to Costco and bought eggs.

This morning we started cooking at 8:00.  Suzette made the cake with 15 egg whites in a spring form pan collared with parchment paper.  Here is the recipe: 

It was my job to make the pouring custard to be served with the cake.  Suzette asked me to make a lemon custard.  I quickly found a wine custard in my Classic Desserts Cookbook that used egg yolks to bind the custard instead of gelatin and used wine instead of milk.  Here is the.recipe:

Wine Custard

1 bottle of Nessa Albariño

6 2 inch long  slices of lemon peel

1 cup of sugar

15 egg yolks

You bring the wine, lemon peel, and sugar to a boil.  Then you let the wine mixture infuse off the heat.  Then you remove the lemon peel and add the cooled wine mixture to the eggs. Then you heat the egg and wine mixture over low heat until it thickens.  The recipe calls for baking the custard until firm in the oven, but I stirred the custard and stopped cooking it when it thickened to the consistency of thickened cream.

I used 1 bottle of wine which is slightly more than 3 ½ cups of wine and the entire 15 egg yolks, so the custard began to thicken almost immediately

I also took a bottle of 2010 Toulouse Winery Recipe Rose’ and a bottle of 2014 Archery Summit Rose’ because we were eating ham. 

Willy drove, so Suzette studied for a Food Service Certificate and I rested and read this Month’s Book Club selection, To Bury the Dead by Eskens.

We arrived at noon, which was the designated time.  Vahl and Amy had invited a number of Friends and neighbors.  The theme of the party was to wear an Easter bonnet.  There were several really creative ones the guests had made by attaching things,  like chickens, to a hat.

I  enjoyed talking to most of the men about wine and talked to Sarah, who is a Reynolds family descendant.  Sarah brought the other dessert, an almond cake made with almond extract, flour, sugar and eggs that is an old family recipe.  I loved the moist cake infused with almond flavor.  The Reynolds are an old ranching family from Fort Worth.  When Amy and I were married in Fort Worth, we were friends with Tommy and Karen Reynolds, because Karen was one of Amy’s old friends.  Tommy went toBerkley School to learn guitar, then returned to Fort Worth and took a degree in “ranch Management” from TCU, where he met Karen Deweese, who we knew.

The best wine of the day was brought by Rick, who was married to Sarah.  It was a 1999 Clos de Val Reserve.  It was the smoothest Cabernet Sauvignon I have ever tasted and had a fruity appealing bouquet.  I enjoyed two small glasses of it.  Amy had baked a swirl cut ham and her famous Baked Cheese Grits, which I think contain lots of butter and cheddar cheese.  There were also flake pastry rolls from Whole Foods, and a platter of beautiful steamed asparagus as thick as your finger doused with an herbed butter sauce.  There was sweet mustard and a strawberry jam for ham sandwiches and a fruit salad of sliced strawberries and fresh blueberries.  A pretty basic and wonderfully delicious meal.  I opened the 2010 Toulouse rose’ before dinner and the 2014 Archery Summit rose during the meal.  Both were wonderful, but the Toulouse was really elegant after it opened up.  I actually thought the delicately soft 1999 Clos de Val Cabernet went better with the salty ham.  It had a perfumed bouquet an elegant texture that flowed softly across and around the tongue. A memorable wine.  Most of the men seemed to know their wines.  I spoke at length to Mike who joined Amphora’s wine club, Sonoma County vineyard and told me that wine futures was a great way to buy wines from reliable wineries.  Ideally, you get to taste the fermented wine when it is aging in the barrel and then you pay for your wine months or a year ahead of release,  which is a win win,because it gets the winery cash for wine to be delivered in the future and the customer a discount on the wine.

 Everyone was super impressed with the Cloud Cake, which Suzette served on a puddle of the custard and some of the fruit salad and some orange zest we had grated at home. 

Finally we left at 4:00 after a dramatic finish to the meal when Vahl brought a large Nazi flag out that his father, who recently died at the age of 98,  had captured during WWII.  It was about 6 ½ feet tall and over 12 feet long with a huge Nazi Swastika in black in a white circle on the red background material.  It appeared to be made of cotton broadcloth.  Quite a souvenir of the war.

When we arrived home a bit after 5:00 we were not hungry, and decided to play bocce, since it was a warm sunny day.  We played two games with Willy and then went in to watch the last half of 60 Minutes.  We were not hungry, but Willy went to Little Anita’s for some Mexican takeout.

We went to bed early, as we were still feeling the effects of our yard work yesterday.  I have noticed lately that I often feel the effects of exercise the following day.  Resting in bed was delightful and soon Suzette joined me.  We went to bed around 9:00.

Bon Appetit