Dinner #10: A Spring in One’s Step

Menu
May 27, 2018

Appetizers
Three Breads and Three Butters

Course One
Golden beet Soup with Beet Chips and Chives

Course Two
Grilled Peach Panzanella

Course Three
Pappardelle with Baby Artichokes, Mascarpone, & Hazelnuts

Course Four
Grilled Thai Ginger-Garlic Pork Chops with Chimichurri

Beverages
Thousand Dollar Mint Julep
Evening Shade

Spring flavors are really cool. The year before, we had gone with a theme - Mediterranean - so we didn't get to show off seasonality as much as we would have liked for our Spring AJRB (which in all fairness, was kind of a Summer AJRB anyway). It felt like new and uncharted territory, which was exciting and fun. 

This would actually end up being one of our smallest AJRBs, with 12 people, but it meant we could do a long table again and could do a little more adventurous menu with less palates to to think about. We started off with something seemingly traditional - appetizers of Three Breads and Three Butters, thinking it would be a cool take on something that you would find in a restaurant. The breads were a traditional sourdough, an olive bread, and a focaccia and the butters were...well, I forget entirely but I am pretty sure one was garlic, and one was herb. All in all, it was a lot of bread but we luckily were smarter about how much butter we made. 

Our next course (Course One) was one of the prettiest soups that I think we've ever done - a Golden Beet Soup with a Beet Chip and Chives. Honestly, I can't remember at all how the soup tasted, but the color was so rich and I remember the saltiness and the crispness of the chip. See, I'm telling you - that presentation thing makes a big difference. Course Two was a Grilled Peach Panzanella (which is a cold bread salad - and writing that down, I know that sounds weird and gross but trust me, it's delicious). 

John and I have been asked, if we had to eat one food for the rest of our lives, what would it be? John's (cop-out) answer is cobb salad because you can kind of make it whatever you want. My, also, cop-out answer before I ever even met John was also salad but not specifically cobb because I love the variety of salads in the world! Basically, you can call anything a salad - there are pasta salads, corn salads, bean salads, etc. etc. etc. I'm sure at one point in this blog, I will revel the one ingredient I would eat for the rest of my life if that is the only thing I could ever eat again. 

Back to panzanella though - why I like it is because it is a "different" salad. Our Course Three was going to be one of John's star dishes - Homemade Parppardelle with Baby Artichokes, Mascarpone, and Artichokes - but unfortunately we couldn't find baby artichokes in any store (and we tried at least four) and learned the hard way that adult artichokes are not the same as baby artichokes. That being said, it set the stage even better for the true showstopper, Course Four's Grilled Thai Ginger-Garlic Pork Chops with Chimichurri. 

My showstopper, Course Five, a Grapefruit Tart with Chamomile Whipped Cream and Pistachios, was served with tea and a few coffees. 

It had been really fun to showcase spring through the colorful, vibrant ingredients and as our guests left, we began thinking about all the lovely produce we would be getting in the summer.