A Meal My Family Would Enjoy

Father's Day weekend was a nice one.  On Saturday, I got some work done around the apartment, went for a bike ride along the coast, exploring new neighborhoods.  I  had been considering going to see a jazz show in New York City, which was in town for four nights.  After going back and forth about it, I decided not to go into the city that night.  I would be going in the next morning to meet my parents for Father's Day, and I did not want to hassle with finding a place to sleep.  You see, I had rationed that foregoing the show that night would be foregoing the show entirely.  Thursday had been out of the question, Friday something came up, the prospects for Saturday were evaporating, and Sunday night I would be monopolized with my parents in the city. 

If I was to stay home in Connecticut that night, it would need to have a good time.  Enter the girlfriend and enter the kitchen.  We decided to have a romantic dinner in.  It had been a while since we cooked something truly special for just the two of us, and this night the stars just seemed to align.  We prepared a three-course meal that my family would have been proud of and would have really enjoyed.  What I mean by that is that each course was tremendously influenced by a particular family member of mine.  The appetizer was for my aunt Liza, the main course was for my brother Bill, and the desert was a cocktail my mother would make if my mother drank cocktails.

Aunt Liza introduced me to beets, one of the tastiest ingredients to toss into a summer salad.  She taught me her typical preparation for them, which involves boiling them until tender, chopping them into chunks and storing them for later use in a marinade of red wine vinaigrette and herbs.  This is exactly what I did to the beets, only instead of using them as an ingredient in a salad, they became the salad itself.  I made the vinaigrette with fresh thyme and chives from my garden, then I placed a pile of marinated beets a top some slices of blanched beet leaves.  Around the plate I crumbled some manchego cheese and walnuts.

Beet Salad with Manchego and Walnuts

I actually had a similar dish in a tapas restaurant not long before.  It used blue cheese, and did not use the greens from the beets.  Still, I loved the simplicity, and made this variation.  Manchego is also one of Liza's favorite cheeses, so I really had her on the mind while we ate.  This is a tad ridiculous, but we had two almost finished bottles of wine, so we did a wine paring for each course.  With the salad we each had a glass of Chardonnay, which was a little nutty and went perfectly with the walnuts in the salad.

 The next course I cannot take credit for, it was all made by my lovely Vanessa.  She doctored some tomato sauce with extra chunks of diced tomatoes, vidalia onion, and garlic.  A pile of mussels simmered in this sauce, opening up and releasing their salty broth.  Linguine was then tossed in, and the whole thing was topped with aged Parmesan cheese and a chiffonade of fresh basil.

Throughout life, in nearly every Italian restaurant I have ever dined in with my brother, he has had always favored some variation of the same dish, and that dish is whichever pasta comes with the most shellfish.  He would have drooled over this plate, and I can only hope that he drools over the picture.

Linguine Marinara with Mussels

With this course we finished a a bottle of Côtes du Rhône, and enjoyed a fresh rosemary, olive and tomato focaccia, which I had picked up that day at the New Canaan Farmer's Market.

Rosemary, Olive and Tomato Focaccia

The last part of the meal was not so much a course as a digestif or a nightcap.  Oddly, this one really reminded me of my mother, who hardly drinks anything, save an occasional sip of wine at dinner.  However, the desert was a drinkable version of her baking.  I made what was essentially a chocolate milk for grown-ups: equal parts milk and dark chocolate liquor with a splash of Chambord.  Mom does not mess around with chocolate.  She uses only the best stuff, and it is always dark, dark, dark!  She also loves to accent chocolate with a hint of fruit liquor, and the rich raspberry flavor of Chambord is her accent of choice. 

Chocolate Milk for Grown Ups

We had a truly beautiful night, dining outside on our porch, alongside the garden.  From inside the door, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman played on the stereo - cliche for those who know jazz, but a wonderfully romantic album nonetheless.  I did not have a single reservation about missing the show in the city.  In fact, as fate would have it, the next night, Father's Day, my parents and I just happened to go to a restaurant that was on the same block as the show, and I got to hear the band after all!  That, my friends, is a good weekend.