There is a final evaluation for Brook's project in town. So they're coming over for dinner tonight. I've been fussing around in the kitchen already. The electricity has already gone off, but luckily it came back within an hour. I always start with my dessert first, cuz it's my favorite to make and it can usually last the longest (and takes the longest to set anyway). Today's, or rather tonight's dessert is a lime and ginger creme brulee (can't be bothered with accents) served next to some vanilla gelato. I really dislike grating ginger so I was glad to get that out of the way. Don't you hate those stringy bits? I do.
The great news is that I actually got my tofu to turn out today. A minor miracle that I don't mind sharing. The last couple of times have been flops, so it's a good day to turn out. I made a lovely creamy soy milk so I saved about 5 ounces of that for my carrot soup and as a back-up in case the beancurd didn't come out. Which was a very real possibility! It's really annoying when it doesn't, because you spend 24 hours soaking the beans, making the milk and trying to cook the beancurd and at the end of the day if you don't have the beancurd, it's not like you have soymilk in it's place. The whole affair is ruined. It's very annoying! I think part of the trick today was that I used the MgCl that Mikiko gave me from her stash from Japan. Seems to make a difference.
Anyway, so I figured we could start off with a cold soup of carrot with saffron and beancurd (hooray beancurd face!), then perhaps a pan-seared fois gras with avocado and chives... although this is the deal-e-o. I don't know if my avocados are off. I may have to go with another dish. Of course as soon as I open and cut the avocado it's hard for it to not change colors, so it's a little tricky. I'm kind of thinking the whole avocado thing isn't going to pan out. I've asked Binta to check in the market (belly laugh) to see if there are any there. Guess who's not holding her breath? So maybe...a prawn and goat-cheese ravioli with tomato and basil vinagrette??? I don't know. ravioli is such a pain in my butt. I don't want to work too hard for these guys. I'll keep you posted. Then I wanted to have a consomme before the next course (guess who's in fancy-pants mode??), so my favorite tomato-tea consomme, then for the main course veal sushi with mirin glaze (although the veal will be cooked, cuz whatever, it's veal). The rice part will be a truffle-cheese risotto. I'm excited about this dish actually. I haven't made it, but it sounds like fun. I'm going to pound my veal scalloppines really fine and drap them over little balls of the risotto. Too fun. Then a boring-blah blah endive salad with walnuts--ho-hum and then the lime-ginger creme brulee with the ice-cream jobby.
I got these really cool japanese placemats in Mongolia that I might bring out. I'm going to serve my consomme in some of my chinese tea cups (that are too cheap to actually serve real tea). So there we go. I'm excited about it. Of course I get excited about these dinners, probably more than anyone else. But guess what, you get to share in the excitement too. Would you try for the fois-gras or the ravioli? Any other suggestions? of course write quickly else I'll have to make a choice myself.
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