Garden Party

Saturday at noon we arrived at friends’ for a lovely day of great food, wonderful wines, and lots of fun conversation.  Friends Lew and Nancy are known for exciting food choices.  They go for the exotic, the difficult, but always tasty recipes.  Below there are a few pictures of some of the food they prepared for the 13 of us. 

The party began in their open kitchen and the next few courses were served at tables on the back lawn.  Then for the main course, those of us at our table wimped out and went inside.  The sun was beating down on us.  We sat in AC and enjoyed the main course.  Dessert was buffet style, again in the kitchen area.

Remember to click on the pictures to enlarge them.

This is Nancy’s menu.  Each course was served with a wine to compliment the dish.   I was enjoying the food so much, I did not get pictures of all courses. 

The bacon and eggs were close to the best taste of the day.  Poached Quail eggs warmed in butter with leeks and other minced veggies and extra crispy bacon bits all on a little spoon.  This was one bite, but I wanted a couple more.

Garden salad

This is vegetables “growing in dirt”.  Be sure to enlarge this one to see the detail.  The dirt is dried olives and browned Grape Nuts.  Under the dirt was a caper mayonnaise.  Growing out of the dirt were tomatoes, carrots, radishes, bok choy, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.

No, this is not Crème Brulee.  This is Foie Gras Brulee.  Be still my heart.  I loved, loved this dish.  I was hoping other people wouldn’t like it and I could have theirs.  No such luck.  We  just had a ban on Foie Gras in California become law.  Stupid bleeding heart non good food eaters!   Nancy planned ahead and bought before the ban when into effect.  Or she drove to Nevada to shop.

The salad was good, but the tomato tartare under the greens and beans was to die for.

Rice and corn porridge.  The white is a scallop, the dark slices are wood ear mushrooms.  Very tasty.

This is the where the wimps’ moved to an inside table. We all live in the fog belt and the beating sun was cooking us. The entree had two types of lamb, spicy and one garlicky with a potato dish.  More great wines.

Dessert was lovely, see menu.  I forgot to take pictures. 

We had a lovely day.  Thank you Lew and Nancy.