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!
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.
Pranzo e un bicchiere di vino
Fixed a quick lunch of riso nero with sautéed onions, leeks & carrot served with a gently fried egg (directions from John Besh on the Splendid Table) topped with a pesto of spring greens and toasted walnuts and garnished with thinly sliced carrots from Crystal Organic Farm.
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! 🙂
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!
Tonight may have been a record for attendance at our little gathering. We had 19 people total! If it isn’t the record, it’s close!
It all started at 6:30, when our neighbor Marcia showed up, for the first time! What a great surprise! We had a lovely chat while I folded napkins and other last-minute (as usual) prep. Then others started coming, and coming, and coming! It was a delight every time the door opened. After awhile, our neighbors from across the street, having seen the line of cars on the street, texted me to say, “Do you have room for us tonight?” But of course! The more the merrier!!! Ah! We’ve achieved critical mass? (But not capacity! No! Never! We’ll find room.)
We got to actually expand into the annex – the media room, which we’ve only had to do a handful of times so far. The food was as usual phenomenal. And there was definitely a common theme: kale!!! One of our all-time favorite foods. And lots of other goodies! And for dessert – a birthday cake for our dear friends Tana and Harriet! We’re not telling their ages!
And by now, you’re probably wondering why the title is what it is? We had our god-dogs here that night (Mani & Moe) in addition to our own Coop-ster, all a little rowdy from all the excitement. And our across the street neighbor, who saw all the cars on the street and thought we had no room at the inn? He and his lovely bride came, and brought his dulcimer! He didn’t bring it out until later in the evening, when we could actually hear it over the lively chatter (oh, makes my heart go pitter-patter – both the musical accompaniment and the chatter!).
Posting food photos and will try to list the dishes as we can… and if we can get recipes to post will do that as well. If you see something you’d like the recipe for, post a comment and we’ll do what we can to get it and post it here! And of course, there was lots of great wine!
So, Victor has been jonesing for a sailing trip. Who’d have guessed he’d get it in Chicago?
Captain Victor at the helm
Our friends Cornelia and Sam coerced us (took a lot of arm-twisting…) to go with them to the Next restaurant adventure: this season’s theme being Vegan (that deserves its own post entirely)! When we contacted our set designer friend Collette to let her know we’d be in the area, her reply was something to the effect “we’ll be leaving town the day you arrive… but, if you want to come a couple of days earlier, we have a sailboat reserved.” Just the impetus it took to get Victor to commit to a couple of extra days in the Windy City. And oh, yeah, she and obliging hubby Mark offered their amazing home for us to stay in, both while they were there and after they left us.
Between the ritzy accommodations (a stunning remodel in the hip and convenient Lincoln Square) and the scenic sailboat tour, the trip was a triumph. On arrival, Collette took us on a stroll down to Julius Meinl, where we munched on yummy spaetzle (putting on temporary hiatus my moratorium on wheat!) and Victor’s omniscient grilled cheese. Then it was off to an architectural emporium, where many items were added to the wish lists. Then back to the casa for Aperol Spritzes, who emitted their siren song to call Mark to join us. And then to the Lake, but not before a stop (well, detour really) by Mana for take-away nosh for onboard dining later.
The calm before the storm
The view of the city from the lake morphed as we floated, breaking open first the wine (even though the boat was missing a corkscrew, and we had to improvise to get into the bottles!), then the food, and enjoying a lovely repast – totally worth the extra time we took for the detour to pick it up. Luckily, after we were all stuffed, we put away the remaining food, what little there was, and broke open another bottle of vino. On one side of the lake was the remnants of a beautiful sunset, on the other, a few angry looking storm clouds. To Collette’s query, Mark thought we would be able to stay south of them. With apologies to Mark… this was a little optimistic. Suddenly, the clouds must have changed direction, as the skies opened up right over our heads, and with no warning… buckets!
Collette and I did the only sensible thing: grabbed the wine and made for cover. We managed to save all but one glass, which Mark told us to leave (presumably so he’d have some to swill as he fought the rising waves). We tossed rain gear out to the guys and sat below deck, as women should, sipping our wine and chatting amiably as the boat rocked and the guys fought our way back to shore. It was nice to be able to deny the tempest that was happening above us, save for the glimpses of the dark horizon and the crashing waves through the portholes behind Collette’s head… which I tried to ignore. It was actually a little scary at times, had we not had the illusion created by being in the dry cabin.
The calm after the storm
Finally, the storm subsided and the guys glided the boat into the dock, where we sat for a few glorious moments, Mark gamely downing the rain-drenched glass of wine that had been left on board in the storm, despite our protests that we would pour him a fresh, undiluted glass. I imagined it was rather like consuming the beast that he had conquered!
The next day’s sail was longer, but much less eventful. The weather? PERFECT! Warm and mostly sunny, but with some cloud cover and a cool breeze, almost dangerously so for someone like me: a fair flower unaccustomed to the sun’s rays! The wind? Not strong enough to make it exciting, but only just enough to keep us moving and make for a very peaceful day. The rocking of the waves, the warmth of the sun, the gently energetic music coming through the speakers courtesy of Collette and Pandora, comfortable conversation. All in all, a perfect 24-hours on the water.
Our sincere thanks to our gracious hosts, Mark & Collette!
Amazing food with amazing friends!