second Saturday dinner party in a row

It's just like old days around here: friends over, Conrad entertaining them, me feeding them. You'd never guess that our year has been so disrupted by personal and work travel. Two weekends in a row, and two Saturday night dinner parties for a small group of us, seated around the kitchen table. Sarah and Tim took a turn at our table last night.

Given all that's going on with us (and Conrad's work travel - he got back from Austin on Friday night and even as I type this on Sunday morning, he's on a plane to Honolulu), a simple dinner with little to be done while the guests are here is what we strive for. Even better for us, Sarah and Tim were delayed by the festival of lights or whatever it is down on Michigan Avenue. Well before they arrived we had the table set
(those are dried pomegranates in the bowl), wine ready, and both of us relaxed.

It's always great to see Sarah. I've known her for about half my life (and hers), and our conversation can get wildly out of hand if given a chance. Tim, a friend of hers from London, fit into the conversation well, and we had an especial chuckle when we pieced together that earlier in the day, as part of his research he's doing in town, he was visiting someone across the street from us but didn't recognize the same buildings and area when he arrived at our place for dinner.

We started out similarly to last Saturday - hey, if it works... - with some cheese, toasts, nuts, and a bottle of an Henriot Champagne Conrad and I had picked up in Paris in 2005. We'd intended at that time to use it for the holiday season that year, but somehow never did. So then, why not celebrate a friend being in town?

While they munched, I got Sarah to come into the kitchen to take photos of the dinner: roasted brined Cornish game hen with parsnip and leek puree, Brussels sprouts, and a white wine and white port reduction. They birds cooked up nicely enough, I think. Meanwhile, I've taken the leftover puree and used it in place of potatoes for individual shepherd's pies for dinners in the days ahead. With the hens we drank down a bottle of a Quails' Gate Pinot Noir. It tasted a little young to me, and I wonder if we might have been well served picking up a Beaujolais Nouveau instead. Ah well.

Sarah also photographed the desserts for me as I plated them, then I took a turn with the camera.
I served pears poached in red wine with rosemary butter cookies, Roquefort cheese, and poaching syrup. The poaching syrup also had rosemary flavouring it, and the echo of that in the cookies appealed to me. Sarah had thoughtfully brought over a bottle of a Quails' Gate ice wine, and we enjoyed that with the dessert.

After that, onward to midnight when they left, we sat in the kitchen,
munching some of the Moorish Delight biscotti and a wedge of Cypress Grove Midnight Moon goat's milk cheese. By this point we were mostly drinking water, and I now kind of think coffee would have been good. No matter. Tim had brought us some gorgeous chocolate-dipped candied orange slices from Switzerland, where he works. We gladly dug into those before sending them off in a cab and getting ourselves to bed.

Not a bad dinner, then. I'm in the kitchen today, preparing things for tonight's swim team banquet, but I will happily dine out through much of the week ahead. I need a bit of a break now and again, of course!