Menus

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Here are a couple of menus we’ve used when entertaining. You might note that they both end with bread pudding – made with a combination of brioch and Irish soda bread. I love bread pudding.

Irish Stew Library Dinner Menu

Cocktail: A DogWood Cocktail --
Applesnap (Pomeau de Normandy with apple cider and spicy Blenheim’s ginger ale)

First Course: Hot puff pastry parmesan straws
Butternut Squash, Apple and Onion Soup, served in tin mugs as guests arrive

Entrée: Irish Stew

Salad: Bitter green salad with orange dressing

Dessert: Irish Soda Bread Pudding

Wines: Chateau Phelan 1998, Chablis Droin 2003

Ham and Cabbage Library Dinner Menu

Cocktail: A DogWood Mule
DogWood infusedVodka and spicy Blenheim’s ginger ale

First Course: Irish smoked fish, Irish Cheddar, Cashel Blue; brown bread, soda bread, Irish butter and mustards

Entrée: Bacon and Cabbage (smoked pork chops, smoked ham, smoked pork butt, cabbage and three kinds of baby potatoes all cooked in ham bone-broth) home-made horseradish sauce with fresh chopped parsley.

Dessert: Irish Soda Bread Pudding with pitchers of fresh cream

Wines: Chateau Phelan 1998, Chablis Droin 2003

The Fresh Orange Dinner

Cocktail:Orange Sangria

First Course: Gorgonzola with home-baked Walnut and Orange Bread

Salad: Salad of Bitter Greens (radiccio, endive, watercress) with suprémed orange segments, pine nuts and orange-mayo dressing

Entrée: Pasta with ground turkey and hot turkey sausage, sweet onion, fennel, fresh mint, shredded parmesan and orange olive oil


Dessert: Fresh Orange Trifle

Entertaining at 907

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Our biggest charity efforts go to the health and preservations of public libraries and a brilliant segment of the University of Connecticut, The Litchfield County Writers Project. And sometimes, quite often, actually, we entertain specifically as a way of raising money for the things we believe in. For instance, we’ve been ‘auctioned off’ for the benefit of a number of town libraries. A host, or a group of friends ‘buys us’ for an evening, and we give them dinner or cocktails and Frank and I hold readings for up to 16 people.


We’ve done dinners of Irish stew (albeit French in it’s complexity) in time for Saint Patrick’s Day and one of my favorites - ham and cabbage dinner I would have fed to royalty – if I knew any. (I don’t.) And by the way – I keep a book of parties - with menus and seating charts, flowers and place-cards, all noted, so I can look back and see what worked – and more importantly – what didn’t.