Anyone can be glamorous when it comes to dining, entertaining, decorating. Just pick up any Martha Stewart Living, Southern Living, Bon Appetite, Gourmet, Saveur, Wine Spectator magazine ----------- and the list is endless. I can tell you right now I have an excessive and irrational commitment to food. I watch the food channel when I pause long enough in the kitchen to grab a few apple slices with peanut butter for lunch.
I would like to share with you one of my favorite menus. Let's begin with a nice sashimi grade crudo and, of course, foie gras. Follow this with a simple salad, escabeche of skate with French first press olive oil. yummmmmm! Now for a bit of roasted bone marrow and parsley crostini.
Now we're getting to the good stuff................slow roasted wild salmon on dilled cucumbers and avocado with tarragon creme fraiche and Spanish Marcona almonds.
I chose a bottle of white full bodied Louis Jadot Montrechet (1999) for the above.
The dessert could be either a lovely raspberry and lemon curd roulade, or my to-die-for Grand Marnier creme brulee. A bottle of Taylor Fladgate & Yeatman 20 yr. tawny port would be perfect with either.
Of course, for this meal, I would have polished every piece of silver, drug out my best china, and made sure there were no spots on my crystal. And let's not forget the painstaking ordeal of floral arrangement. No table of mine is complete without a fresh bouquet-----and I like'em big!
Now let's look at some examples of my personal touch.
Okay, so the flowers are not exactly fresh----or real------and I haven't changed them in 2 years. I LOVE red poppies. How often do you see fresh red poppies, really? Now, let's get a closeup of my lovely bouquet. You may not have noticed an inhabitant.
That's right. It's a crow. He was so cute (in a macabre way) that I had to put him right in the middle of my precious poppies. Not ONE person has ever said a word. It's like getting a really bad haircut and everyone pretends they don't notice.
When you wrap a tree toad or a lizard around a person's napkin it is impossible for them to not notice. It even sets a certain level of expectation, as in, "I'm not getting foie gras tonight." So, I'm off the hook and can serve my fake crabmeat crab cakes. I think I may stock up on Yellowtail Pinot Grigio. WalMart has it on special for $4.97.
Why not kick up the atmosphere a notch with a couple of spectators on the windowsill? They don't eat anything.
Don's personal touch for the cooktop. Doesn't it look terribly French? Again, no comments. I'm beginning to think we have acquaintances lacking senses of humor--------or maybe we ARE just weird.
Dessert. It appears my brulee torch is out of fuel. How 'bout some ice cream? And coffee. Put enough Irish Cream in that coffee and everyone leaves thinking what a wonderful meal they had, even if the decor was strange.
The part about having a food fetish is absolutely true.
