Themed cooking - a slightly belated post

Meandering through the grocery store can be debilitating, at least for me. The choices and options are limitless, making a decision becomes impossible. That’s why I am always armed with a shopping list. That said, when cooking for an event, I always find it helpful to have a theme upon which to lean for ideas, or rather, to ideas to exclude.

It started at an apartment in Manchester Friday night. Some co-workers hosted an annual wine and cheese night. The crowd was younger, and not as acquainted with wine, but that didn't lessen the fun. Bottle after bottle popped open as we sipped and sampled along with a variety of cheeses and appetizers. My offering was a fromage forte, a blend of cheeses mixed with dry white wine, lemon, pepper, fresh herbs, all into the food processor for a tasty dip. However, the highlight of the evening was a homemade lox. It still had a slight briny flavor and almost a sashimi mouth feel, not that smoky, dried texture you may have come to expect from a New York Deli, but it was delicious all the same.

Saturday night was another themed food event. A friend of mine recently decided to modify her diet to exclude many GMOs, high fructose corn syrup, artificial ingredients, etc. She has been feeling great about it and wanted to share her experience. Healthy appetizers was the theme as everyone laid out their offering of vegetable-filled, kale wrapped, whole grain, and turkey/chicken (instead of pork/beef) foods. Contrary to what many might think, healthy and delicious are not mutually exclusive. I brought a sweet potato vermicelli noodle stir fried with onions, garlic, green chilis, mushrooms, soy sauce, cilantro, and a bit of peanut butter to give it a Thai flavor. Luckily, the sauce covered the almost translucent gray noodle. But the hit of the night was a quinoa cake, held together lightly with egg and slightly sweetened by agave. The cake loosely crumbled in my mouth as I bit into it, yet I could still get a crunch from the individual grains.

The next day was a quarterly event, the seasonal brunch. Despite the snow on the ground, it was a beautiful sunny day for a spring inspired late morning meal. Calling it a meal may be an understatement, it was more like a feast. In no restaurant would you be able to get the variety of dishes that were brought. Freshly made waffles topped with real maple syrup, whipped cream, and berries sat next to an assortment of breakfast meats including thick cut maple glazed bacon, kielbasa, turkey and veal sausages. My potato hash, stuffed with peppers, onions, garlic, and cooked in bacon fat, complimented well the egg quiche which used English muffins as a base and baked in a 9x13 pyrex rather than a pie crust in a pie pan. We all left stuffed and ready for a nap. Note that the picture below was taken in the later parts of setup. There was more food laid out, another room full of mimosas and bloody marys, and a third room with coffee and tea.