Our friend Bob Tobin was passing through town and brought our new friend Tim Styles along. They came over for our potluck and treated the lucky attendees to a lovely impromptu concert. And of course, the food was amazing, along with the company, as always!!!
I think it was a great deal all around!
Video coming soon…
Corn and peaches were the seasonal ingredients of the night! Corn chowder and corn pudding, and peach cobbler and peach tart with chestnut flour crust.
Out in the Decatur Cemetery. Really. Amazingly beautiful and lively! Fun for a good cause, with Peter & Colleen Morich and Dayle Hosack! Victor was of course at the Alliance for the preview of Bull Durham: the Musical.
In the auction, Dayle and I tried to buy the Hog Heaven item with the stipulation that we’d be able to spare the pig’s life. Got outbid, but at least they had to pay more, and it helped the cause – theirs and ours!
As you can see from the photos, there was great food (and wine!), in addition to the great company. The outstanding menu providers, from a vegetarian perspective, were:
Thanks to the organizers: Robin Chanin, Judy Turner, and former mayor Bill Floyd. A great evening!
Today, Victor had a craving, and I was the lucky beneficiary! 😛 Although he’s thwarting my attempts to lean into being vegan.
Sunday’s Late Lunch
While at Alon’s to get cheese for Monday’s potluck, he developed a hankering for a grilled cheese sandwich and homemade potato chips. So he grabbed a beautiful loaf of focaccia, came home and got to work. First he started the chips, shaving the potatoes paper-thin on the mandoline. Wish I’d snapped a photo during the process, as there were these gorgeous, delicate slices piled atop the cookie sheets waiting to be tossed into the oil. He fried them to a crisp, and hit them with just a whisper of smoked applewood salt. And into the iron skillet went the focaccia, piled high with cheese and topped with fresh raw sweet onions, then pressed flat and grilled stovetop. After that, the sammie went into the oven to get more golden and delicious, cheese oozing out ever so slightly.
Feeling the need to have a little green to pretend I was making it healthier, I added a little arugula and sorrel to mine, along with a drizzle of truffle oil, ala Toscano & Sons‘ famous Giovanna. The gooey cheese nestled happily between the focaccia sheets and the greens added a nice little pop of lemony, peppery freshness to the sweet onion and salty, luscious cheese. I thought the focaccia was a great choice, as it didn’t get too crunchy as some breads can tend to do, and it gives way, allowing easier biting and melding of the flavors of the rosemary-scented bread into the rest of that yumminess!
The potato chips were truly the star of the plate: little lacey, almost see-through slices of comfort that melted almost the minute they hit the tongue, although with such a nice satisfying little crunch. Lighter than air, they were. So that even after consuming a crazy big pile of them, you feel like you just had a virtuous meal. And you did. Or I did. Yum.
What’s for dinner, honey?!
Now, I’m the first to admit, okra isn’t always my favorite. Having grown up in the south, I had my share of disgusting boiled okra, so slimy that my dad claimed he didn’t eat it (or oysters) because, in his words: “I don’t like anything in my mouth I don’t have control over.”
That said, in the last few years, I’ve been treated to a whole different view of okra, thankfully, one that involves delicate and sophisticated preparation that bears no resemblance to that gelatinous mush of my youth. Victor made fried okra for me last year that had a beautiful light breading of Indian spices – coriander, fennel and cardamom – that I still get cravings for. True enough, I love all of those spices so it might be the spice mixture, but also, it rendered the okra crispy and succulent, and made it the perfect carrier for those spices, maybe even enhancing them with its earthy, nutty flavor.
Okra seemed to be the star produce of the week. At the Morningside Farmers’ Market on Saturday, the demo was by the Cooks’ Warehouse: Curried Okra and Okra Cakes by Gloria Smiley, with tsatsiki sauce. And at the Freedom Farmers’ Market, chef Jason Zygmont, of Athens restaurant Five and Ten, also worked with okra, making a delectable roasted okra with blackberries!!! Yes, you read that right: blackberries. So luscious, and transformative to both the okra and the fruit. And I brought it home to share with Victor, so it was cold by the time we had it, and it didn’t suffer a bit for it. I had bought okra from Crystal Organic Farm, and also from D&A, and thought it’s providence. Definitely an okra night for potluck.
So, with Victor’s fried okra from last year dancing in my head, I set out to make the okra cakes but infuse them with that sweet heady spice mixture. I can never leave well-enough alone, plus I’m a tad bit indecisive, and that curried okra sounded good too. The result? Indian spiced okra cakes, made with our very local Lovebird Eggs (so local, they’re across the street!). They were insanely easy to make, and just yummy. And to accompany, instead of the traditional tsatsiki the recipe called for, I decided to try and make something akin to that, but without the dairy, since I didn’t have yogurt anyway, and didn’t feel like getting out to get any. Plus, I’ve been trying to lean vegan, so I’m working to veganize as many recipes as possible, just to get some practice in. I had gotten some soy yogurt, but it was a little sweet, so I added garlic and salt, in addition to the requisite cucumber – amazing lemon cucumbers were what I had on hand, and I’m in love with these! But it still needed something, so I looked around for something else creamy but savory: avocado! That did the trick. It was just the right mix, and I had enough left to dip into the rest of the week, a little at a time!
Here’s the rest of the line-up:
* Harriet had a watermelon growing in her garden, and had been watching it for a while, waiting for it to get just ripe enough. It was getting pretty big… and then it disappeared! She thought some critter had absconded with it and was cursing it for making off with her prize. But then, she found the real culprit – the melon itself! It had gotten so large and heavy that it dropped off the plant, and then proceeded to roll down her very steep driveway into the road (Lindbergh Drive, a well-travelled thoroughfare), where it became… well, roadkill! Harriet found the carcass and discovered that there was a good chunk still intact. She fought off the ants to salvage just enough to incorporate into the salad!
It always amazes us how well the dinner all comes together, with no planning or coordination on anyone’s part! And because we all shop locally at our farmers’ markets, there’s frequently overlap in the ingredients, but rarely in the preparation, which makes for a really wonderful opportunity to compare and contrast dishes, and to garner inspiration for next time.
We should start cataloging the wines people bring as well. I paired the okra cakes with a lovely rosé we got from Highland Wines.
This was another great potluck, with special finds!
Sam & Cornelia brought a portion of their bounty – morel mushrooms foraged earlier in the day! – to share with us. Sam sautéed them in a little butter and that’s about it… and all they needed! They were mouthwatering.
And we harvested our few not-so-little oyster mushrooms grown from the bag they gave us. We may have more growing in the floorboards of our guest room, as that’s where we put the bag for safekeeping from the rambunctious Luce. When I checked on it, the table and floor were white with spores, but we had the beautiful crop for use in our dinner.
Apologies to all, as I’ve now forgotten what the other dishes were (posting this after the fact), EVEN the one we made with the oyster ‘shrooms. If you snapped a pic of the dishes, please forward to me. OR let me know and I’ll make you a contributor to the blog so you can post them yourself! 🙂
Victor made a lovely brunch of poached eggs on a bed of Swiss chard and white beans.
Cena da casa Preston!
Per celebrare la prima di primavera, abbiamo cena con gli nostri amici Anne e Clay. Clay cucina il cibo favuloso:
E vino italiano, certamente!
Molta buona! Che una meraviglioso strada comincia la primavera!
Can’t believe we didn’t get any pictures… but, come to think of it, isn’t that better? We were all just in the moment, chatting and enjoying each other’s company, rather than trying to document it for later. Anyway, we had friends over last night, and Victor made a feast, and served in courses! Here’s the menu:
And many bottles of wine… shared with friends Wriston & Tony, Colleen & Peter, and Christine. A very serendipitous gathering prompted by the early spring weather, as we dined on the patio so our friend Tony could stay for longer than 10 minutes. Cat allergies. It was so beautiful and we had the perfect weather for it! Before waking up to the lovely rain and a foggy head! Worth it. Totally!