Dinner # 30 - Seafood with a View to the Sea, Worth Kitchen Take Miami!

As part of a the plan as newly weds, it was decided that we would be spending the holiday season whose year ends with an even number with the Rofe's and the odds with the Donnelly's. So this past New Years we had the pleasure of not only spending it with Tamy's family, but also to take Worth Kitchen to the amazing apartment of Tamy's sister and brother-in-law.

Being in Miami is always a true pleasure. Not only does Tamy's family live there, but we both spent 3 years living and working there. It feels like being back at home... and so when we decided on the theme, I knew exactly where I was going shopping for the ingredients. A very special market that only very few people know about, but SO many more should know about. Casablanca Fish Market next to the Miami river is an amazing market that puts a new definition to fresh! Even though I already had a menu in mind, just stepping into this place lets the creatives juices flow at 100 miles an hour. Amazing fish, shell fish, mollusks, what ever you are looking for... anyways. If you are ever in Miami or live there, stop by. Highly recommended. 

Lia and Nathan have a beautiful apartment with an amazing kitchen, thank you for letting us come in and make a mess of it!

The Menu:
Appetizer
Cold Chipotle Avocado Soup with Grilled Calamari and Pancetta

Entree:
Butterfly Cut Prawns Cajun Style served with Saffron rice and Fresh Fish Broth sauce

Dessert
Coconut Mango Panna Cotta

Their apartment and kitchen is beautiful, as you can see here.

The avocado soup about to be served to the group.  Made with buttermilk and fresh avocados, very easy to make. The pancetta adds not only flavor but a delicious crunchy texture.

The giant prawns could not have been fresher and wonderful to work with. The special ingredient here was not only the garlic, the butter, the thyme, or the chives, but it was the Old Bay Spice. Amazing with shrimp!

Serving the entree. Lia likes to use this function on her camera where all color is washed away except one. Very fun

The wine was definitely a huge hit during this dinner! Thanks to Nathan for picking it all out. AMAZING!

Dinner #29 - Croquetas, Duck and Chocolate: A Beautiful Combination

It gets very difficult to create these menu's thinking "do all the dishes work together in perfect synchronicity?" Sometimes you just have to let go and go with it, sometimes I just have to trust my gut feeling for what a menu should be. Dinner #29 was a great example of this. When we created the menu, it was very difficult to see how the appetizer worked with the entree and the dessert. But the end product was fantastic. 

I won't bore you with the details, you see I have to write 4 more posts after this one, but I let the menu be kind of dictated with the ingredients this round. I walked into Dickson's Farmhouse in Chelsea market and my eyes landed directly on one piece of meat that I have never seen there before... wild boar pancetta! How do you say no to that. Well maybe its because I am a foodie through and through. But that is where the croquetas were born. Wild boar and goat cheese croquetas.

The duck breasts were right next to the pancetta so that was an easy decision. The dessert was an easy choice seeing as how we had a brazilian chocolate addict. We prepared the Brazilian "brigadeiros" warm  chocolate cakes. 

The croquetas were prepared in the traditional manner. Olive oil and pancetta grease was heated until smoking, 3/4 cups of flour was added and cooked for about 3 minutes. After this, 1.5 cups of warm milk and .5 cups of chicken broth were added and stirred for about 5-7 minutes. The pre-cooked pancetta and the goat cheese was added at the end and stirred for 2 minutes. The mixture was then allowed to sit and cool for about 1 hour and in the fridge for another hour. Then with a greased up hand, the croquetas were rolled out into small balls, dipped in eggs and then in the bread crumbs. Once all were rolled out, they were deep fried. about 2-3 minutes each. 

The duck was presented in two different styles as we had two different seatings for this special edition. One at 8 PM and one at 11 PM. We had a couple of friends that arrived really late after a broadway show. The second picture is how I served them, and personally my favorite.

Frozen "brigadeiros" were added to the cake batter before placed in the oven. Brigadeiros are basically condensed milk with chocolate (whats not to love?).

mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... 'nough said.

From Worth Street to NoHo: Dinner for 20 People

December 16th marked an amazing night for Worth Kitchen. It was the first time that we were asked to take the concept outside of our 4 walls and into a brand new space. We had the complete and utter privilege of cooking in the amazing penthouse of Red Car, a well known and very professional post production house dedicated primarily to the advertising industry. It was a very natural fit for us and our guests were mostly all advertising professionals.

We are used to cooking and plating for 8 to 9 people on a weekly basis. Tamy is a huge help when we have these dinners, but the work usually is not so overwhelming. This time around, no amount of prepping could really prepare us for how crazy it is to plate 20 dishes all at the same time and have them served hot. Tamy was not only a huge help, she was indispensable. I am lucky to have found not only a life partner so great as her but such a strong support in the moments when I most need her.

What we both most loved about this dinner is the fact that the Worth Kitchen concept still survives outside of our intimate setting. 20 perfect strangers came together and for one night were great friends. I like to think that great food and wine can spark any type of conversation, and this case was not any different.

Our learnings: 1) Prep, prep, prep! I had everything cut and in containers the night before. The moment I arrived to cook, 70% of the work was already done. This made a huge difference in the final product. 2) At events of 20+ we will need more help, especially for the plating. Feb 3rd, we will need at least 2 additional hands in the kitchen! 3) Always have fun. I think this goes for everything we do and what everybody does. If you can do it with a smile on your face you already won!

The menu:
Amuse Bouche 
Butternut squash & rosemary with honey toasted pinenuts

Appetizer
Fennel salad w/ shallot & champagne vinaigrette, parmesan chips and valencia orange slices

Entree
Braised short ribs with barolo reduction, ricotta polenta & balsamic marinated portobello mushrooms

Dessert
Warm chocolate cake with a vanilla cream injection

Some quick pics...

Dinner #25 - A Night of Ricotta

December is always a very crazy month and the same definitely applies for Worth Kitchen. In the past two weeks we have had 3 dinners, two of which have been filmed. We are planning our first dinner for 18 people this Thursday at a beautiful loft in SoHo. So our plans do not stop... but lets not get ahead of ourselves. We still need to go back to Thursday December 2nd, our 25th dinner.

The dinner of the ricotta. Delicious dishes, and my first braised short ribs of the winter. This is a dish that will make various repeats in the future.

The menu was the following:
Appetizer
Baked beets and ricotta with rosemary and truffle salt


Entree
Braised short ribs with a merlot and broth reduction on a bed of ricotta polenta

Dessert
Ricotta cheesecake

The baked beet slices with ricotta. A little amount of beet juice was poured on top of the cheese to give it a desired coloring. Experimenting with the presentation is one of the key take aways from these dinners. Sometimes its a hit, sometimes its a miss. You be the judge.

The short ribs were seared before putting them to braise for 4 hours in a chicken broth with leeks, carrots, celery, rosemary and a bottle of merlot. By end of the braise we had a delicious broth that when filtered and reduced to a perfect sauce. The polenta with ricotta was served a long with some chanterelle mushrooms

The ricotta cheesecake was very simple yet indulging. My first cheesecake ever and I think it came  out quite well. It was missing the orange zest, it could have given it an additional flavor bump. But for first time with a cheesecake, I was very pleased. 

After this dinner I had a lot of short ribs and polenta left over. So instead of keeping it around for a personal dinner or lunch, I took the everything to the office and prepared short rib tacos and ricotta cheesecake for anyone that was around. This was officially our first of what could be many more Thursday Left Overs.  Many were feed and all were happy.

The Vegetarian Dinner: The Good, The Bad, and The Delicious

It is not very often that I can actually make the link that is made on the title. Its not that I am not the vegetarian type, I am just too in love with all things involving meat and animal fat. I know that half of you reading this just kind of rolled your eyes and thought "eeeww animal fat". However the other half, who is cleaning up your keyboards from thinking or remembering my squash fried in duck fat... I am talking to you. There is something to be said about a well made vegetarian dinner. 100% vegetarian, no fat, not animal broth, no fish, just good 'ol earth grown goodness. If Mario Batali were ever to read this blog, I think he just clicked the back button. However, I think that the results of the challenge was a plate that would even make Batali proud.

Stepping out of your comfort zone is alway, ALWAYS, a good thing. It bring new things that you never thought you were capable of doing. The last time I made a "vegetarian" dinner, I included scallops. I cheated. So a month ago, when we decided to have a veggie only dinner, there would be no cheating. And so it began, the guest were set, the theme was there, all that I needed now was a menu. Inspiration came in various forms. First off, a friend of mine advised me to stay away from the staple vegetarian food; squash, eggplant, and zucchini. Apparently vegetarians are sick and tired of eating the same food when the order a vegetarian sandwich or dinner. Point taken. The same person suggested the use of polenta, the delicious italian starch that is made from dried corn, delicious. The rest of the inspiration came from two places. First, from a gift a past guest of our made, a ver large bag of hibiscus flowers (dried) and second, by strolling through the amazing Greenmarket in Union Square. Have you ever seen a head of romanesque broccoli? Just by seeing it makes you want to try it. The freshest veggies were chosen. Moving from stand to stand, not know what I was going to do, little by little the menu was created:


Pre-Appetizer:
Pan fried Shishinto Peppers with Sea Salt


Appetizer
Flash fried hibiscus flower taco with cream and a green tomato salsa
Fried goat cheese stuffed zucchine blossoms with a chipotle cream

Entree:
Seared baby portobello mushrooms on top of a Grilled polenta with asiago cheese surrounded by a pool of freshly made vegetable broth and steamed romanesque broccoli.

Dessert:
Hibiscus Creme Brulee... SPOILER ALERT... (it failed)

We finally began creating the menus again! Here is the table before everyone arrived. 

The appetizer was very interesting to make. Even though Hibiscus  flowers are hard to come by in the States, it is a very common in Mexico. I left the flowers soaking for 24 hours in water (the water I then used as a hibiscus iced tea, or agua de jamaica as it is know in Mexico). Then I flash fried them in very hot oil for no more than 30 seconds. Once you remove them from the oil and onto a paper towel, salt them immediately. The tortillas are also home made. The zucchini blossoms are from a recipe that I have used in the past with a white wine and flour base.

This plate came out so great not so much due to the cooking, but due to the freshness and amazing flavors of all the ingredients. The polenta was home made (no I did not grind the dried corn, but I did not buy that roll they sell in the supermarket) with rosemary and veggie broth. The mushrooms were sauteed with a little bit of salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. The vegetable broth was made 12 hours in advance using 6 leeks 2 onions, some garlic, 6 carrots and a lot of rosemary (about 6+ cups of broth).

Its seems as if its Tamy that always takes the pictures because I definitely come out way more than she does. Anyways this was the group just before enjoying the dinner.

Brian was warning of a a rabbit with big pointy teeth! (context)(more context)

Notice that I totally skipped the dessert? Well that because a) the camera ran out of memory space and b) the hibiscus flowers actually cut the cream and what resulted was a flavorful dessert that looked terrible and had very bad texture. But I guess in all experiments you can't alway succeed. Failure is an option and I learned a lot (much more) by failing. Its always fun to have this group of people to try my experiments on!
Thank you all.

I HOPE YOU ENJOYED!

Thanksgiving is Right Around the Corner... Its Time to be Grateful

There is always plenty to be grateful for. This year, Tamy and I started our life together. Created this awesome project which has just taken our life into a completely unknown direction. Professionally we are doing fantastic. And to top it all off, as some of you might or might not know, my father put up a great fight to cancer, lung cancer to be exact. It was very tough on him and the family, but he stuck to it and beat it. Thank God he was smart... due to regular check-ups, the cancer was discovered early on and did not metastasize anywhere else. This is indeed a very important Thanksgiving for the entire family.

It is for this reason, that this year we have decided to do something very special. It is time that we help out much more to those who have not been as lucky as us, to those who have not been able to put up the fight that my father did. Tamy and I will be flying to Mexico on a very special Thursday at Worth Street for a charity dinner with my family and friends. We will be supporting a very poor hospital in the city of Queretaro (about two hours outside of Mexico City) that helps out children with cancer. These kids never had the same chance that my father did, but with our help, we can at least give them a fighting chance.

The hospital is called AMANC Queretaro and we feel very fortunate to be able to help them in any way possible!

At this point I reach out to all of you. If you want to help out in anyway please reach out to us. We also have a PayPal account setup to receive any donations anyone might want to give. Please send us an email to worthkitchen@gmail.com with any comments, ideas, suggestions or anything you would like to share.

We will keep all of you all up-to-date on our progress and on the very special event.

Help us by saying FUCK CANCER! (sorry for the language but its the true emotion that the disease brings out!)

A Night Full of Nuts... Oh and Food As Well

There is very little more that I could add to dinner #22 that Tamy has not mentioned in her previous post. In fact, I won't even give it a shot as she pretty much created a great example of how that night went down. The truth is that it was truly a night full of surprises and one for the record books. I have never laughed and cried so much in a very long time. And agreed, there are many variables and excuses that helped, but there is a lot to be said regarding group chemistry and energy. Call me esoteric or what you will, but there was some amazing energy in that room that night. It seemed as if everyone gathered around were long lost friends... all it took was half an hour to get to know one another and then all of a sudden friends were catching up on everyone's lives. BUT, none of the guest had ever meet each other, nor did they have anything in common, no shared thread. 8 people, completely different, but coming together in almost perfect harmony.

Energy, that inexplicable force that draws us together, the pure essence that we cannot see, nor taste, nor smell but we can feel it. That is how dinner #22 can best be defined... that plus the fact that we were all completely nuts!

And now for the menu:

Appetizer:
3 Spreads on quinoa crackers.
- Spaghetti squash with pine nuts
- Smokey artichoke with pistachios
- Goat cheese and walnuts

Entree:
Lamb kabobs with pistachios on a bed of almond basmati rice
Brussels Sprouts cooked in pancetta oil and honey

Dessert:
Warm chocolate cake with a serving of pecan/Madeira caramel

As I dish the spreads, I try to create some sort of design with the goat cheese and walnuts, only to realize that I probably would not make a great pastry chef. However it tasted delicious. 

I finally figured out a great recipe and use for the quinoa. About a month ago I tried to make quinoa cakes, which proved not as successful as I had envisioned. This time around I created crackers and they came out delicious. The (red and white) quinoa crackers are topped with almonds, accompanied by the three different spreads. The recipe is not that hard but a bit long for the crackers. If there is enough demand I will post the recipe here.

The raw kabobs just before they went on the grill. You can see the the pistachios all over the meat. The recipe is very easy straight forward, but we had secret ingredient that came straight from Greece. 2lbs of ground lamb with a cup of chopped up pistachios, salt, and the special spice mix (it included mint and marjoram). Mix all the ingredients together, then roll into separate pieces and place the stick through it as above. Grill the meat for about 10 minutes on medium high heat. Make sure to turn the meat continuously to make sure all the meat is cooked through.

The final presentation of the meat laying on a bed of basmati rice with almonds and brussels sprouts sauteed with pancetta and honey. The mix was very different but absolutely delicious. When preparing the brussels sprouts, make sure to cut them in half and peel off the top layer of leaves. The pancetta was cooked first in order to release all the grease. I removed the 4 pieces of pancetta sauteed the sprouts then added it back chopped up into tiny pieces for flavor.

The warm chocolate cake was a great finale to the dinner. What really made this plate special was the pecan/Madeira caramel that we served apart (but meant to mix together). This recipe is simple. 1 cup of Madeira wine and about 1/2 cup of sugar. Let the mixture boil down to a caramel. Add the pecans and let cool down a bit in order to get a smooth caramel texture.

And this is the nutty group! Thank you all for making this such an amazing night!

A very special call out to the wines of the night need to be made! The following were the top three wines of the night in no particular order:

An unfiltered white from the Alsace region of France. The Binner was Amazing!

An amazing red from Lebanon, yes I know Lebanon. Spectacular and full bodied. Chateau Musar

The Donati was the clear winner of the night. Nobody expects the flavors that come out of that bottle. Its somewhere in between a sparkaling white and a beer. Don't believe me? Get one at Frankly Wines!

An Alien with Extraordinary Abilities and a Larger Than Usual Penis

Pic courtesy of Heather Lockhart

Yes, ladies and gentleman, you read correctly, I wrote penis on the title. Why did I do that? Because I can, and that is the beauty of this crazy, social, psychological, emotional experiment that we have going on! We can do with it what we want! I also wrote that oh so indiscreet word because it is what dominated most of the conversation for the last hour of dinner #22. But let me backtrack a bit, I don’t want our well behaved and for the most part sane guests to get a bad rap.

EXCUSE FOR OUR GUESTS TO BEHAVE INDECENTLY #1 – A NUTTY WEEK - The week leading up to dinner #22 was completely NUTS! Our heads were spinning with ideas and opportunities, we were waking up with a rush of energy to do more and create more. And that, we did, but it also made our week pretty insane and extremely busy. So we decided to make the theme of our dinner “GO NUTS”, why the hell not, we were already down that path so we thought, we might as well embrace it! So yes, the name of the dinner, as you can imagine, lead to all conversations being able to be misinterpreted.  And yes, the title might have pushed a bit of the indecent conversations that were taking place at 1AM in the morning!

EXCUSE FOR OUR GUESTS TO BEHAVE INDECENTLY #2 - THE FANTASTIC WINE This one is a no brainer, give your guests bottles and bottles of delicious wine and see what they start talking about, go on, do it and report back to me, I am sure it won’t be anything remotely close to PG13 conversations.

EXCUSE FOR OUR GUESTS TO BEHAVE INDECENTLY #3 –THE “WHY THE HELL NOT? I MAY NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN” SYNDROME

The “Why the hell not I may never see these people again” syndrome is a reoccurring theme at our dinners. There is something about eating in the comfort of a home yet in the midst of total strangers that makes people open up, let loose, relax and shed some ego. This syndrome manifests in different ways, sometimes through tears, sometimes through singing, this time it was through uncontrollable laughter and indecent conversations.

So let’s give our guests a break and thank them, really thank them, for letting us let go a little, live a little, and forget about the world and its complicated issues.

Oh and yes, in case you are still thrown off by the title of the post, there was indeed an alien among us. One of our guests confessed that his work visa described him as “an alien with extraordinary abilities”. This guest is also half Jewish, so you can draw your own conclusions as to the second half of the title.

Due to popular requests... here is our resident alient

Worth Kitchen's Take on Italian... But Not Traditional

We were taking some time to let the food inspire us. Its usually the best way to have the recipes come to life. So there we are, walking through Chelsea Market, browsing all the stores, looking at the food, searching for inspiration. As we walk into Buon Italia, we see the truffles, the frozen foie gras, the fresh pasta, the delicious cheeses, and right there the theme for the night was born. We need to take on Italian, but in a nontraditional way. And in keeping with the theme, in a very non traditional way, Tamy created the entire menu. From start to finish she designed all of the plates and even the ingredients. The Worth Kitchen Sous Chef created her first full dinner. This might not sound like big news to you, but 6 months ago she didn't even know how to heat up a soup in the microwave! I am very proud of her and her incredible menu, so I present to you the Worth Kitchen take on Italian.

Three pasta shells were stuffed with eggplant, hot Italian sausage and goat cheese. It was seasoned with basil, rosemary, and most important, an extremely fragrant truffle salt. In the center was a concentrated tomato sauce prepared with shallots, garlic, olive oil, red wine and garnished with basil. This dish is a must repeat!

Adding the last detail to the entree, drizziling warm olive oil and balsamic vinegar over the sauteed butternut squash cubes.

The entree consisted of an Angus Silver Point roast cooked in the oven for 45 minutes and covered in rosemary, salt and pepper; a stuffed mini eggplant with mozzarella basil and truffle salt, and sauteed and browned butternut squash with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Tamy serves the wine to the guests as we prepare to enjoy the dinner. You might notice in the background a couple of people that do not have food in front of them. Well this is due to the fact that they literally crashed the party. We loved it (they are good friends of ours). There was no food for them, but that was not a problem for as they had already eaten. They joined us for about 30 minutes until they retired for the night.

The dessert was a chocolate mascarpone mousse stuffed in a mini apple. On top a homemade whipped cream. The apple was so small that we decided to add an additional serving of chocolate... well also because it was so good. The trick for this dessert was to use semi-sweet chocolate instead of bittersweet, very rich yet delicious. Want the recipe for this? Shoot me an email. Very easy to make.

One fun additional anecdote from this week was that there were 2 alumni of both my high school and college. Alex studied in my high school (graduated 4 years before me) and Liza, our featured "stranger" of the week whom we meet on Twitter, happened to be a fellow Hoya. Very fun coincidence, just to add another theme to the dinner.


I want to extend a very warm "Thank You" to our guests this week: Karen, Lalo, Alex & Liza. We had a great time with all of you. It was a great night. 

A Night of Citric Fun...

For dinner #20 we took a recommendation that came from one of our past guests, Amy Chow and invited one of our neighbors. Now, truth be told, they found out about us through some other friends instead of a spontaneous invitation, as Amy originally recommended. Regardless, it was a blast having some neighbors come down a couple of floors and join us for a great dinner. Along with them we also invited another couple, who we have been trying to have over for a bit as well as a good Argentine friend.  Also, Julie, from DNAinfo joined us as our guest journalist (she wrote a really cool article about her experience at Worth Kitchen)

This dinner's theme was all about using citrus fruits. I know what your thinking... not very autumny, but hey it turned out great! The inspiration from this  has actually been coming from Tamy, something which I have seen more and more often. Personally I love it. It really shows how she is coming into her own within the culinary world. As with the menu for upcoming dinner #21, most of it was all her idea. Not only has the sous chef learned a lot about helping with the prepping, but she is actually working hard on creating the dishes. 

Now back to the citrus fruit and last week's menu...

Appetizer - Fennel & orange salad with shallots, blood orange juice and champagne vinaigrette. Topped with Parmesan cheese chips

Entree - Miso glazed Sole with grapefruit accompanied by bok choy  with shallots and walnuts and sauteed oyster mushrooms with ponzu sauce

Dessert - Grapefruit sorbet drowned in muscat

Friends gather as the salad is prepared and the hunger in the stomach grows. (They actually ate all the Parmesan chips TWICE before the salad was ready...) 

The fennel is a delicious vegetable with a very aromatic flavor, resembling a smoother anise.  However the flavor on its own can be overpowering. The Valencia orange and the Parmesan chips were added to balance that flavor. The vinaigrette was created by mixing one chopped shallot into 1/3 of a cup of champagne vinegar 1/4 of blood orange juice and 1/4 cup of of olive oil. The shallots should sit for about 1 hour in the vinegar before mixing for best flavor.

Preparing the Sole before backing it. On top of a parchment paper, I brushed the miso glaze (purchased at The Lobster Place in Chelsea Market with the fish) salt and white pepper, chopped scallions & topped with grapefruit slices. This is then wrapped and backed for about 15 minutes at 350°.

I know they are all very hungry... at least they had some amazing wines from Franlky Wines!

The dish as it was served.

Grapefruit Sorbet with a lemon zest on top. This was my first sorbet, but it was very easy to make. Since I didn't have an ice cream maker it took a bit more time, but it all came out delicious.

Adding the muscat to the grapefruit.

The final dessert, grapefruit drowned in muscat.

Post dinner conversations always get very funny. I think he was talking about a penalty shot blocked by a goalie in the World Cup. But to tell you the truth, he could have been talking about how tall he wants his future son (or daughter) to be. 

A Preview of Last Weeks Dinner...

Back to Basics... Wines and some Seasonal Veggies

Dinner #19 was a very fun one to work with. To say that it was earthy would be a huge understatement. The theme was a very simple one to choose, one step outside last week would have clearly reminded you that it was already Fall (in case you had forgotten). One trip to the TriBeCa Green Market (greatly recommended by our former guest and TriBeCa Citizen writer, Erik, whom I ran into at the market) would tell you that squash and pumpkins were back. And if you did not know, the great variety of both is amazing.  So squash and pumpkins had to be the theme. Now to figure out what to do with them… but that is always the fun part.

As for the invitees, we had the great pleasure of having our wine consultant Christy from Frankly Wines with her husband, Melissa from VinoVino with her husband, and Dinorah and Jorge two very good family friends that flew in from Mexico just in time to participate.

We always ask our guests to bring some wine, but I forgot to tell Dinorah and Jorge that we had invited two wine gurus to the dinner. As more wines come out from the Frankly Wines set (brought to us by Melissa and Christy), the level in which each was being described in can only be defined as pure love and passion for each bottle of wine. Our Mexican guest then realized that not only do they not have much to say about the wines they had purchased, but they almost felt bad in pulling them out after such magnificent presentation from enologists. Granted they brought two magnificent blends from South Australia (Adjenda - Shiraz, Cabernet & Malbec blend) and had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of (we love South Australian wine by the way).

In retrospect, the wines did steal the show for this dinner, they were all absolutely amazing. The stories behind each one was told as if the actual winemaker was with us explaining the journey that each particular grape made before reaching each bottle. The food was a fantastic accompaniment to the amazing wines. The earthly flavors of the ingredients definitely reminded us that fall is back but with it is a sense of companionship that these dinners always give us.

The menu for Dinner #19 was:
Appetizer – Fresh squash & Zucchini blossoms with goat cheese seasoned with rosemary and basil, served on a quinoa bread.
Main Dish – Duck with Worth Kitchen sauce, butternut squash pasta, and grilled squash julienne
Dessert – Pumpkin  Crème Brûlée

As the appetizer was served, the dish was explained, the wine was served and the autumn inspired dinner was ready to go.

If you have read a lot of this blog then you will know, but if this is your first time, let me tell you that quinoa is quickly becoming one of my favorite ingredients to work with. In this case, I placed one cup of rinsed and dried quinoa in the food processor for 5 minutes until it became flour. Then, by using two eggs and ¼ cup of olive oil mixed together to create a batter, I baked it in the oven at 350° for 15 minutes and made quinoa bread. This served as the bed for the squash and zucchini blossoms to lie on.

The main plate was a combination of duck in our special sauce (not like McDonald's, but the recipe for that one is amazing and unbeliveable. Anybody that wants it please email me), fettucini with butternut squash sauce (absolutely delicious), and grilled squash (tasted almost like french fries since they were grilled with the duck fat... mmmm). (Oh, also I bought the duck at Eataly, way too expensive, and ran into Mario Batali, and he was doing a great job of managing and working the place, instead of PR)

I will take advantage of any moment to show off the Worth Kitchen table (We love it). Also you will notice that in fact there is a lot of space on the plate. You might think to yourself "hhmmm they barely serve anything to their guests!" Not true! Its all part of the presentation. I prefer a more minimal one, and I never want my guests to leave with a feeling of being "stuffed" nor do I ever want them to leave hungry.

Caramelizing the sugar on top of the Pumpkin Crème Brûlée. The dessert came out spectacular.  For final presentation purposes and added flavor, I grated some Indian nutmeg over the dish (it added a sweet and peppery flavor, think white pepper) For the recipe, please see my Crème Brûlée recipe, additional to that cut into pieces about 3 cups worth of sweet pumpkin. Add the pumpkin to the mix as the mixture heats up. Once the pumpkin is soft (about 15 minutes) blend it. As you return it to the pot to let it sit, strain the mixture. 

The final interactions after dinner are always so much fun. The conversations can go anywhere. Sometimes they stay on topic (as here we continued to talk wine), sometimes they can go into a completely different direction. Thank you to all our guests for such an excellent night! Hope to see you soon.

Please stay tuned to a separate post about the wines... we will list them all out.
(also I have noticed the incredible amount of parentheses used in this post, they are used as my sidenotes. I almost feel as if I have so much more to say, so I use these parentheses to add some more thoughts!)