Dinner Party #6: Summer Dinner in the Fog

Summer in San Francisco is not like summer in most American cities. It is not hot and is only sometimes warm.  Daytime can bring blue skies and sunshine, but evening brings cold wind and fog so thick you can see literally see it moving over buildings.  July evenings in San Francisco call for soups and stews, but the plentiful produce calls for summer dishes meant to be eaten on patios in shorts.

For the July dinner party, I summoned American summer to our apartment. The menu was quintessential  summertime  and I kept the house warm enough so we were comfortable in t-shirts.

THE MENU

Appetizers

Lamb meatballs & mint-yogurt dip (with lamb from ours CSA) from Epicurious 

Fig & blue cheese grilled bruschetta from Williams-Sonoma Entertaining: Dinner Party

Salad

Arugula & spinach with radishes, bacon, goat cheese & lemon vinaigrette

Main

Grilled halibut w/ herbed butter from Williams-Sonoma Entertaining: Dinner Party

Orzo salad with tomatoes, olives and basil from Williams-Sonoma Entertaining: Dinner Party

Dessert

Lemon Semifreddo with Summer Berries from Epicurious 

Wines

2007 Ladera High Plateau Cabernet Sauvignon

2008 Gevrey Chambertin Burgundy

2010 Chaudoux Verdigny Sancerre

THE PREP

I went to the super hippie, bulk-bin galore SF grocery store Friday night to stock up on produce, dairy, and spoonfuls of items like currants. Early Saturday morning I picked up fish and flowers. 

My phone has been ringing non-stop. Paris Hilton wants me to introduce her to all the hot SF spots.

Prep for this menu was actually pretty easy. Everything could be made ahead of time (except the fish) so there was not a lot of timing to manage. All in all, I probably spend 4 hours in the kitchen - often intercepted by email.  (Side note -we shipped!) My poor time management made me more hectic than I needed to be so I forgot to take pictures of a number of finished items:(

THE VERDICT

This meal was a bit disappointing actually. None of the dishes  were stand out stellar in my opinion. While the grilled halibut was good it lacked the gravitas of a platter of roasted meat. The lamb meatballs were over-cooked & over-seasamed (oops - timer was set for 8 hours, not 8 minutes). I liked the lemon semifreddo - it was fun to make &  looked great abut wasn't as plate-licking good as other lemon desserts I've had. 

I will continue to experiment with dinner party menus that are not roasted meats, though I think they will need to have a layer of complexity to their preparation for me to be satisfied. 

THE EYE CANDY

See complete (meager) collection on Flickr.

 

Dinners, but no party

Unfortunately, a June dinner party didn't come to fruition, but it was a month full of home-cooked dinners. This was our first month as a member of the Marin Sun Farms CSA. Every month for the next six months, we get a box of meat straight from a local farm. They give us a combo of beef, pork and lamb ground beef, braising cuts and steaks. It will be a little different every time.

For June we got a pork tenderloin, butterflied pork chops, spareribs, lamb stew meat, ground beef and ground lamb.

The freezer full of meat is intended to encourage more at home cooking, and in June it worked! Not only did we plow through the Box of Meats, I also tried my hand at pizza from scratch.

Some highlights from our June Dinners

• Slow Braised Pork Sparerib Ragu Sauce from Cook's Illustrated
• Lamb Shepard's Pie from Fannie Farmer
• Homemade Pizza from Deborah Madison (sauce and dough) and my head (not that mind-blowing toppings)
• Molasses Glazed Grilled Tenderloin (over grits) from Epicurious
• Lamb Burgers - One with a beet salsa. One with lots of chili powder. Do not recommend the salsa.

Eye Candy

It's easy to forget about taking pictures when cooking. Here are just a couple.