Julia Google Doodle
Julia Child’s birthday is August 15th, which was a Saturday this year, so that seemed like as good a reason as any to have my birthday dinner that night, even though my real birthday was the Tuesday before. Julia turned 103 – I’m a lot younger, I just feel like 103 sometimes.
We had a pretty impressive array of appetizers:
- Hummus with a curried onion and cauliflower topping, kind of like this Food & Wine recipe – I didn’t have the pink peppercorns, and I probably used less olive oil for the frying, served with some breads that Costco was called Naan but worked fine as pita;
- Little toasts to spread with whipped goat cheese (that had a little honey mixed in) and zucchini butter, and roasted cherry tomatoes, and a few Potters Crackers cranberry hazelnut crisps from the Farmers Market;
- Dill dip, and carrots and cucumbers and red and green peppers;
- Bowls of curried cashews and wasabi peas from the co-op.
Then we ate chilled corn soup, topped with fresh popped popcorn, and I had bread bowls with mini corn muffins with fresh corn kernels in them, and focaccia, on the tables.
Followed by Salade Niçoise – that was the homage to Julia. Nice mixed greens, mesclun, (from what we call the “beautiful booth” Jones Valley Farm, where L’Etoile restaurant buys, too), steamed multi-color fingerlings, tossed with their own vinaigrette, and extra parsley, hard boiled eggs, Niçoise olives, chunks of tomato, and green beans. Tipi gave us Romano beans in our CSA boxes on Thursday, and I was going to roast them, but thought they might be too tough, so I decided to cook them the way I normally would – braised with onions, and tomatoes, and dill.
Partly the lightness of the dinner was so we could finish off with pie – I made a cherry pie and a peach galette, and a crisp from the leftover peach and cherry pie filling, mixed.
We decided to have everyone go upstairs for the appetizers, then come down for dinner, and then go back up for dessert, buffet style. We also decided, even though I served up the soup in individual bowls, to serve the salad on the buffet too, on the big platters that would be too hard to pass. Everything worked just about perfectly, and I had a ton of help, although the guests all showed up a bit early. Kind of why I thought I could do regular dinners here. We have the space, and I sure have the equipment. Rach is here, she organized her work week to be here for the party, and my brother came from Seattle, and both kids and one of their girlfriends (the other had to work) from Chicago. It was really fun having a house full of family, and a bunch of good friends.
I got a few key items for the dinner in my CSA box Thursday – the Romano beans and lots of tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers to cut up to go with the hummus and dill dip. I did a Costco / Willy St. run on Friday morning to buy party stuff, then came home to do party prep. I made the hummus, and I had something like 19 ears of corn, from the market and my CSA box, and I got it all cut off the cobs, and measured out for the soup and the muffins and corn salad. Saturday morning my brother, Mark, and I biked to the Farmers Market Saturday for the rest of the supplies – lettuce and cauliflower and cherry tomatoes and potatoes and more corn just because I wanted it.
Friday night we had a pick up dinner of stuff I got out of the freezer – beef & bean burritos and a chicken enchilada casserole – plus the corn salad with an avocado cut up on top & chips. We opted NOT to go to Sugar Maple Fest, and I baked all the pies, and made the little toasts. The cherry came out best – the peach and the crumble got soggy by Sunday, when I ate the top of the crumble for a mid-afternoon snack. On Saturday I made the corn soup – I was so glad that I knew to cook the vegetables until they were really soft, based on my test batch experience. I also made the focaccia and mini corn muffins, boiled eggs, braised the green beans, cut up the veggies for the dip – Al says he came into the kitchen for a carrot and I told him to get out – I don’t remember that – made the hummus topping, steamed the potatoes, and tossed them in some scallion vinaigrette I had in the fridge, made a big batch of fresh vinaigrette and dressed the tuna. Rinsed the greens.
It all sounds like a lot of prep on Saturday, but there was time for Rach and my brother and I to eat egg salad made from the eggs that wouldn’t peel and the too vinegar-y pickles I had in the basement, made from an earlier CSA box’s cucumber and fresh dill, on buttered dense whole wheat bread. And there was still time for moving furniture – Al was our muscle – and making placecards, and showers, and I got Rach to French braid my hair, and make up my eyes.
There was pretty much the right amount of everything – still kind of a lot of corn soup in a big jar in the basement fridge (maybe I can make it into pasta sauce or enchiladas…) – but we had bagels with goat cheese and roasted tomatoes and zucchini butter for Sunday breakfast and my brother kept slicing hunks off the focaccia, so now there’s just about the right amount of it it to freeze with the corn muffins (that got pretty crumbly) for breadcrumbs and a Thanksgiving stuffing that couldn’t be beat. I picked the wilted lettuce leaves out of the bowl of salad leftovers, and now there’s a mixture of tuna, olives, green beans, and potato that I bet Rach and I can eat up this week, maybe on top of fresh greens.
It was fun being surrounded by family and friends, interesting and embarrassing, too. Al obviously remembers some things a little differently than John and I do. Well, maybe not exactly differently, instead, as a member of the “never let the truth stand in the way if a good story” contingent in our family – that would be him, my mom, and my brother – he has used his skills as a raconteur to create a suitably embellished version of events that’s just a bit more tellable. Interesting, and embarrassing, too, for those of us who play a part in the tale.
