Sunday, January 18, 2009

A Good Time Was Had By All...


An earlier entry detailed my New Year's Resolutions. One of them? Invite Interesting People to Dinner Once a Month. Well, we did and they were.

Many thanks to Randi and Brad, Michelle and Jeremy, Daniella and Steve, Lindsay and Robin, Leslie and Gene, Kate and Dick...conversation ran from home remodeling and redecorating, travels to Italy and everywhere, the joys of Facebook, and so much more. I learned a new phrase from Jeremy that will be incorporated into my lexicon immediately: "voluntold." Ex: "I voluntold him to pick up the dry cleaning."

“One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.” Luciano Pavarotti


Bernard put out an amazing spread as always. The photo above really doesn't do it justice. One of his strengths as a chef is strategic purchasing. He traverses the entire City of Chicago and burbs to source the tastiest and most authentic stuff. Some of his secret spots that showed up on the table last night were:

Hagens: For smoked fish and smoked shrimp
Caputos: In Elmwood Park, for artichokes, cheeses, eggplant, San Marzano tomatos, olives, etc.
Veseckey's: In Berwyn, for that amazing strawberry pie, called Kolac.
Fox and Obel: Best meat counter in the city. He picked up a tenderloin that was just luscious...
Costco: Yes, Costco. For shrimp and crab. And wine.

My favorite dish was the aubergine-tomato salad from Giorgio Locatelli's cookbook, Made in Italy. Locanda Locatelli is our favorite restaurant in London, when we can manage to get a reservation (their phone number is unlisted).

There were many requests for B's pinenut/apple tart. It's an incredibly easy recipe and always comes out right. I believe that it came from The Silver Spoon, the bible of Italian cooking and only recently translated into English. If you have room for only one Italian cookbook, this is the one you should get. Here it is (it warbles between metric and US weights, but that's how he wrote it down):

1 Kilo Golden Apples (about 5 medium)
2 lg. eggs
1 cup + 4 oz. flour
4 oz. butter
1 cup +4 oz. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
Lemon Zest
4 oz. pine nuts

Preheat oven to 350. Peel, core and thinly slice apples. Mix egg, flour, butter, sugar, and baking powder in bowl to make batter. Add apples and 1/2 of the pinenuts. Pour into buttered 8 inch round pan. Top with remaining pinenuts. Bake for 40-50 minutes.

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