The Occasional Fancy Dinner

Every once in a while I cook elaborate multicourse meals for clients. I find them really fun, and tend to take lots of risk with them; I just trust that, if I’m relaxed enough and give myself plenty of prep time, it’ll all turn out just fine, even if I’ve never made, let alone practiced, some of the dishes. I just make a ton of food, figuring that I’ll have enough winners to keep everyone happy.

Last night was a dinner for a few of the board members of the SF Zen Center, held at the home of my dear friend Norma. I was prepared to go all vegetarian, since a few priests were present, but votes came in for lamb, so lamb it was! I didn’t have time to take any photos, alas, but here was the menu:

• Mezze (kind of a starter plate) of carrot pate, smoked trout, a spicy feta spread (made with manzano chiles, shallots, and paprika), spiced cashews, and homemade Turkish crackers
• Petrale sole poached in a spicy gingery broth made from freshly made almond milk, turkey stock, star anise, and sauteed turmeric root and ginger
• Salad of dungeness crab, mache, pink lady apples, fennel, pomelo, and calendula flowers, with a coriander-pomelo vinaigrette
• Lamb done two ways (a rack with a crust of cumin, coriander, and fennel, and a leg marinated in pomegranate molasses, roasted and thinly shaved), with four side veg dishes: cauliflower cooked with saffron, elderberries, and pine nuts; squash timbale/kibbeh and spiced breadcrumbs; three-beet tartare (red, golden, chiogga); and little nuggets of tofu/egg/sunchoke/herbs, rolled in sweet rice and steamed
• Matcha panna cotta, served with a dizzying variety of citrus wedges, adroitly prepared by Kaz Matsune, my sous chef for the evening (and many other evenings; the man is a wonder).

Everything turned out as I had hoped, with the exception of the panna cotta, which didn’t quite gel enough. So it got turned into a kind of matcha dairy dip for the citrus, which turned the dish into modern,  breakaway creamsicles!

It all started with a trip to Berkeley Bowl (where else?). The incredible selection of citrus — mulitiple types of tangerines, tangelos, clementines, grapefruit, oranges of every stripe, pomelo, blood orange, every lemon and lime  — was beyond inspiring. Seven-eighths of my huge shopping cart was filled from the produce aisle. The only other shopping was done at Monterey Fish, where the crab and petrale looked crazy good.  I took it all home, plopped it on a big table, and started formulating ideas.

Menu writing can be a lot of work, and I’m bloody tired from all that cooking. But man, it’s good work. Sometimes I can’t quite believe that I actually get paid to do something that gives me such thrills, and I can’t quite imagine not doing it.

(photo by Annabelle Breakey)