The Art Of Entertaining
One of the many joys of unemployment (see above) is getting back to your roots. As a fresh-faced college grad I followed my gut instinct and headed for what I was certain would be the greener-pastures of San Francisco. 12 months were spent toiling away in the many kitchens of the California Culinary Academy - I had to forgo my uniform of designer denim and Dior pumps for the flattering, oh-so-feminine checkered pants and double-breasted long sleeve coat ensemble. With rubber clogs and skullcap. I felt certain I looked like a pre-adolescent boy. From Holland. In the 1950s.
But I sucked it up and had a crash course in gourmet cuisine. My classmates were an odd bunch: baby boomers launching second careers, high school kids with their GEDs, and plenty of ne'er-do-wells. The food industry draws an interesting crowd. When our instructors discussed the greats, like Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy, people stared blankly while I relegated the perfect mushroom crepes I'd had at Les Bouquinistes or the mix-and-match menu and spongy, airy chocolate chip meringue I'd tasted at Spoon in Paris. Needless to say, I stood out not for my culinary capabilities but for being the know-it-all. Which I was totally proud of, by the way.
Months of grueling work included roasting rattlesnakes, gutting fish, mixing vats of house pate with my hands (or up to my elbows, in actuality). We watched videos of chickens and cattle being slaughtered. We even visited a meat fabrication plant - have you seen Fast Food Nation? It was not pretty, and smelled even worse. Burns on arms, hands, even faces - don't ask. Sweating in polyester as we sautéed our hearts out. Painstakingly tempering chocolate. Rolling out fondant or dough until our arms were like rubber. On one occasion, during a full-service dessert buffet for a few hundred people, I was in charge of creating every last tartlet shell. Pate brisee and I have a long, tortuous history.
And then there was the live demonstration of how to kill a rabbit with your bare hands - something the French director of our school was asked to cease performing the year I arrived. Hours upon hours spent cleaning guts and grime from drains, on my hands and knees at certain points. It is no wonder that after 365 days of this I stopped cooking for nearly three years.
Moving to a tiny studio in Manhattan didn't help the cause. I was a) never home, b) enamored by the variety of delivery options, and c) had zero-to-no ventilation. When I cooked Italian food, my apartment smelled like Little Italy for a week. Forget anything ethnic. My mini fridge was stocked with cold milk for the decadent cereal dinners I consumed when I actually ate at home.
Fortunately, time heals most wounds and so does a fabulous new apartment (complete with a built-in vent and fan!). It's been ages since I have been able to look at ingredients with such passion and enjoy the art of cooking. Being trained so specifically really turned me off of the whole process - I started to over calculate and psyche myself out (is this seared enough? should i add more salt?). Obviously, these are good questions but not when they freeze you up entirely. Besides, everyone knows the key ingredient to an excellent meal is good company.
Which is exactly what I had a few Friday nights ago. If you have not been to the magnificent, mouth-watering, award-winning Farm On Adderley yet, get yourselves there immediately to sample some of the finest food in all of New York. Okay, I am mildly biased since the congenial owners are two of my dear friends, Gary and Allison, but the buzz speaks for itself. (as usual) I digress...just thinking of their custard-y french toast topped with caramelized, thinly sliced apples takes me to another place. Although the food is well executed, well priced, and full of interesting flavor combinations (mozzarella with arugula, apples, and white balsamic vinegar was a star at a recent meal), what really gives them the leg up is the comfortable atmosphere. It doesn't hurt the ambiance that their attractive and very fun friends get to stay and hang out in the back garden, drinking really good wine, until 2 in the morning.
I decided to take a tip from them and host a dinner party of my own, inviting Gary and Allison over (along with Regan and Jordan) for a Congratulatory celebration - the pair recently got engaged. What better way to celebrate than with, natch, a Moroccan feast? It only dawned on me halfway through preparing my preserved-lemon and olive chicken tagine, seven-veg couscous, and carrot and cumin salad that Jordan's mother was, in fact, from Morocco. I felt the old CCA nerves creeping back up (would the food meet his expectations?) but pushed them aside. Because that's the best way to handle feelings - bury them, right?
Lucky for me Dean & Deluca carried a decently priced jar of preserved lemons, and Whole Foods has an insane olive bar. The rest of the ingredients were surprisingly easy to come by (seven vegetables, couscous, and chicken, essentially). I played Toots and the Maytals (for some reason, my cooking music of choice for years) and got to work. In less than three hours I'd prepared a worthy feast, and as soon as the guests arrived I'd completely impressed even myself: hors d'oeuvres and crudités in the living room, set table, fresh flowers from the Greenmarket, Amy Winehouse playing softly in the background. We popped open a bottle of champers to toast the newly engaged twosome and sat around the living room hearing the very sweet story. Then the feasting began.
The chicken tagine turned out as I'd hoped - the dark meat was falling off the bone and the lemons and olives had blended nicely together, creating a tangy, salty , and yet almost creamy (perhaps it was the schmaltz?) sauce. The blend of spices was never overwhelming but the food had kick. Jordan was a huge fan of the seven vegetable couscous "broth" - apparently he's into gravy. Who knew? And the wine continued to flow.
As hostess I was glad to see that everyone was enjoying themselves, and Jordan's praises validated my very cooking philosophy - if you have fun in the kitchen and with your friends, who cares what your meal tastes like? Of course, mine was delicious, but that's advice for the rest of you out there sans Associate degrees (jealous?).
After dinner my friends indulged me and my fanaticism for all things trivia with a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Slightly G-rated, I know, but I am an avid trivia buff and will use any excuse I can to get people involved. Sadly, the cooking must have taken a lot out of me because my team (Girls v. Boys) lost, and were immediately at the mercy of our smarter (less inebriated?) male counterparts.
Armed with just $20 and liquid courage, we losers had to go to the neighborhood Duane Reade to retrieve items that would, we were instructed, "make the night more fun." I love a challenge. We sauntered into the drugstore and proceeded to raid all of the various aisles - makeup, toys, office supplies, even clothing (there's an extensive selection of Hanes Brands). We were, as always, a bucket of laughs because the graveyard shift employees (all dudes) got in on the act. With their sage advice we ended up with the following:
a mini bowling set
a holy bible key chain
a harmonica
"just add water" expandable rock & roll figurines
cherry red lipstick
false eyelashes
1 packet of Hanes underwear
The underwear, eyelashes, and lipstick ended up over our pants, around our eyes, and all over our mouths, respectively. We hid the other goodies in our briefs and raced back to my place, but not before the guys working the counter took pictures of and with us. Seriously. As we rode the elevator back upstairs, it dawned on me that I had to go to that place on a regular basis. Next time I swing in for a pack of Marlboros I'm going to have to sport Groucho glasses and a black bob wig.
Sparing you the details and, even more incriminating, the photos, the evening lasted well beyond the witching hour and at 4am as I crawled into bed I realized that the night had made me, bona fide, a hostess extraordinaire. The lovely men cleaned the kitchen so I awoke to a near-spotless apartment; the games were neatly arranged on the dining room table, and the trash was gone.
In retrospect there isn't much I would change. Sure, I used paper napkins and wasn't serving any special pomegranate-passion-fruit-umbrella-ed cocktail to fit the theme, and there were no place cards or fancy china or even party favors (save for fond memories and full stomachs). But a dinner party that starts at 8pm, ends at 4am, and leaves your mind, body, and inner-child satiated? Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart; I think you've met your match.
But I sucked it up and had a crash course in gourmet cuisine. My classmates were an odd bunch: baby boomers launching second careers, high school kids with their GEDs, and plenty of ne'er-do-wells. The food industry draws an interesting crowd. When our instructors discussed the greats, like Alain Ducasse and Guy Savoy, people stared blankly while I relegated the perfect mushroom crepes I'd had at Les Bouquinistes or the mix-and-match menu and spongy, airy chocolate chip meringue I'd tasted at Spoon in Paris. Needless to say, I stood out not for my culinary capabilities but for being the know-it-all. Which I was totally proud of, by the way.
Months of grueling work included roasting rattlesnakes, gutting fish, mixing vats of house pate with my hands (or up to my elbows, in actuality). We watched videos of chickens and cattle being slaughtered. We even visited a meat fabrication plant - have you seen Fast Food Nation? It was not pretty, and smelled even worse. Burns on arms, hands, even faces - don't ask. Sweating in polyester as we sautéed our hearts out. Painstakingly tempering chocolate. Rolling out fondant or dough until our arms were like rubber. On one occasion, during a full-service dessert buffet for a few hundred people, I was in charge of creating every last tartlet shell. Pate brisee and I have a long, tortuous history.
And then there was the live demonstration of how to kill a rabbit with your bare hands - something the French director of our school was asked to cease performing the year I arrived. Hours upon hours spent cleaning guts and grime from drains, on my hands and knees at certain points. It is no wonder that after 365 days of this I stopped cooking for nearly three years.
Moving to a tiny studio in Manhattan didn't help the cause. I was a) never home, b) enamored by the variety of delivery options, and c) had zero-to-no ventilation. When I cooked Italian food, my apartment smelled like Little Italy for a week. Forget anything ethnic. My mini fridge was stocked with cold milk for the decadent cereal dinners I consumed when I actually ate at home.
Fortunately, time heals most wounds and so does a fabulous new apartment (complete with a built-in vent and fan!). It's been ages since I have been able to look at ingredients with such passion and enjoy the art of cooking. Being trained so specifically really turned me off of the whole process - I started to over calculate and psyche myself out (is this seared enough? should i add more salt?). Obviously, these are good questions but not when they freeze you up entirely. Besides, everyone knows the key ingredient to an excellent meal is good company.
Which is exactly what I had a few Friday nights ago. If you have not been to the magnificent, mouth-watering, award-winning Farm On Adderley yet, get yourselves there immediately to sample some of the finest food in all of New York. Okay, I am mildly biased since the congenial owners are two of my dear friends, Gary and Allison, but the buzz speaks for itself. (as usual) I digress...just thinking of their custard-y french toast topped with caramelized, thinly sliced apples takes me to another place. Although the food is well executed, well priced, and full of interesting flavor combinations (mozzarella with arugula, apples, and white balsamic vinegar was a star at a recent meal), what really gives them the leg up is the comfortable atmosphere. It doesn't hurt the ambiance that their attractive and very fun friends get to stay and hang out in the back garden, drinking really good wine, until 2 in the morning.
I decided to take a tip from them and host a dinner party of my own, inviting Gary and Allison over (along with Regan and Jordan) for a Congratulatory celebration - the pair recently got engaged. What better way to celebrate than with, natch, a Moroccan feast? It only dawned on me halfway through preparing my preserved-lemon and olive chicken tagine, seven-veg couscous, and carrot and cumin salad that Jordan's mother was, in fact, from Morocco. I felt the old CCA nerves creeping back up (would the food meet his expectations?) but pushed them aside. Because that's the best way to handle feelings - bury them, right?
Lucky for me Dean & Deluca carried a decently priced jar of preserved lemons, and Whole Foods has an insane olive bar. The rest of the ingredients were surprisingly easy to come by (seven vegetables, couscous, and chicken, essentially). I played Toots and the Maytals (for some reason, my cooking music of choice for years) and got to work. In less than three hours I'd prepared a worthy feast, and as soon as the guests arrived I'd completely impressed even myself: hors d'oeuvres and crudités in the living room, set table, fresh flowers from the Greenmarket, Amy Winehouse playing softly in the background. We popped open a bottle of champers to toast the newly engaged twosome and sat around the living room hearing the very sweet story. Then the feasting began.
The chicken tagine turned out as I'd hoped - the dark meat was falling off the bone and the lemons and olives had blended nicely together, creating a tangy, salty , and yet almost creamy (perhaps it was the schmaltz?) sauce. The blend of spices was never overwhelming but the food had kick. Jordan was a huge fan of the seven vegetable couscous "broth" - apparently he's into gravy. Who knew? And the wine continued to flow.
As hostess I was glad to see that everyone was enjoying themselves, and Jordan's praises validated my very cooking philosophy - if you have fun in the kitchen and with your friends, who cares what your meal tastes like? Of course, mine was delicious, but that's advice for the rest of you out there sans Associate degrees (jealous?).
After dinner my friends indulged me and my fanaticism for all things trivia with a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit. Slightly G-rated, I know, but I am an avid trivia buff and will use any excuse I can to get people involved. Sadly, the cooking must have taken a lot out of me because my team (Girls v. Boys) lost, and were immediately at the mercy of our smarter (less inebriated?) male counterparts.
Armed with just $20 and liquid courage, we losers had to go to the neighborhood Duane Reade to retrieve items that would, we were instructed, "make the night more fun." I love a challenge. We sauntered into the drugstore and proceeded to raid all of the various aisles - makeup, toys, office supplies, even clothing (there's an extensive selection of Hanes Brands). We were, as always, a bucket of laughs because the graveyard shift employees (all dudes) got in on the act. With their sage advice we ended up with the following:
a mini bowling set
a holy bible key chain
a harmonica
"just add water" expandable rock & roll figurines
cherry red lipstick
false eyelashes
1 packet of Hanes underwear
The underwear, eyelashes, and lipstick ended up over our pants, around our eyes, and all over our mouths, respectively. We hid the other goodies in our briefs and raced back to my place, but not before the guys working the counter took pictures of and with us. Seriously. As we rode the elevator back upstairs, it dawned on me that I had to go to that place on a regular basis. Next time I swing in for a pack of Marlboros I'm going to have to sport Groucho glasses and a black bob wig.
Sparing you the details and, even more incriminating, the photos, the evening lasted well beyond the witching hour and at 4am as I crawled into bed I realized that the night had made me, bona fide, a hostess extraordinaire. The lovely men cleaned the kitchen so I awoke to a near-spotless apartment; the games were neatly arranged on the dining room table, and the trash was gone.
In retrospect there isn't much I would change. Sure, I used paper napkins and wasn't serving any special pomegranate-passion-fruit-umbrella-ed cocktail to fit the theme, and there were no place cards or fancy china or even party favors (save for fond memories and full stomachs). But a dinner party that starts at 8pm, ends at 4am, and leaves your mind, body, and inner-child satiated? Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart; I think you've met your match.
posted by Chaden at 8:55 PM
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