Holiday Barrel Weekend

We broke the month of November interlude by serving up a thousand guests for Holiday Barrel Weekend, Dec. 5th, 6th, and 7th. Longshadows was our venue Friday, Saturday, and Sunday during tasting hours. Reininger held their wine club party Friday Night and we dropped off platter appetizers for a house party Sunday.

Hand passed appetizers at Longshadows:
- cheese filled saffron risotto balls and sun dried tomato dip
- crostini with caramelized onions, gruyere, prosciutto bits, and thyme
- crostini with red wine beef ragu, brie, and parmesan
- swedish pancake filled with apple butter and fresh pear (this paired so well with their late harvest reisling)

Platter appetizers at Reininger:
- cheese filled saffron risotto balls and sun dried tomato dip
- puff pastry filled with caramelized onions, goat cheese, and prosciutto bits
- fingerling potato chip, medium rare flat iron steak slice, and blue cheese cream
- italian sausage skewers with roasted garlic marinara
- portabella mushroom skewers with roasted red pepper dip

New Favorite Things:

• Blue Cheese Cream. Great blue cheese, mixed with heavy whipping cream, then passed through a fine sieve to eliminate any lumps, then whipped with sour cream, a tiny bit of garlic puree, a dash of worstcheshire, salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon. It tastes like the best blue cheese dressing ever, but super intensified, and holds its shape in a nice little dollop on top of a steak slice. It is the perfect accompaniement to nice steak and a crisp fingerling potato slice.


• Magazine Photos. Lifestyles magazine ran a photo of our riso ball app. Amazing how many guests exclaimed "I am so happy to get to try them!"


• Apple Butter from Rome Apples. I make apple butter a lot from extra apples. I love the stuff. (Grandma and Grandpa had a saying "He doesn't know sh** from apple butter." It's always cracked me up.) All apples make nice apple butter, but some are a little too tart, or a little too sweet. But there is something about the Romes that make it special. The tart, sweet, and acid all blend perfectly. They aren't so tasty as an eating apple, but perfect for cooking.

Finished the busy weekend off by sharing a lovely bottle of 03 Reininger Cab with my daughter Frances.

Cheers

Erin's Wedding

First we killed 'em with appetizers.

And more appetizers...

Followed by a three course dinner, wedding cake from the Patisserie and Erin's Grandpa's super yummy ice cream.

Basel Cellars was our venue. The weather held nicely. Below is the menu printed for each table. I have no idea why this table was called Peanut Butter and Company.

Missing is a picture of the second course I like to call "Corn Explosion". Corn ravioli, mascarponed sauteed, corn and white bean filled cannoli, truffle oil, and parmesan crisp. (very tasty, never again will I make ravioli for 90 guests, sheer insanity)

Picture of the main course, tenderloin, truffle butter, mashers, local sauteed veg.

All in all, a very tasty wedding feast.


Cheers

Darin and Andy's Wedding

Thai Wedding - Check.

Spanish Wedding - Check.

Nacho Wedding - Check.

'Merican Wedding - Check.

French Laundry Wedding - Check.

Vegetarian Appetizer Wedding - Check.

Add Darin and Andy's Filipino/Hawaiian Wedding to the checklist. (stay tuned for August's Indian Wedding)

We were paid the highest compliment a Filipino wedding goer can pay "These lumpia are pretty good... for a white guy." (And the highest compliment possible from our server Anna "Wow John, these are hot-dig-a-liscious." Whitman students... inventing language daily.)

Stone Creek Manor was our venue for 150 guests (their first wedding production ever), as fine a site for a Walla Walla wedding in town. The grounds were immaculate and I believe owner Christine orchestrated the coolest July 4th/5th weather ever recorded in Walla Walla. (weather manipulation fees are very affordable at Stone Creek.)

For the cocktail hour we served four tasty appetizers. Darin's mother's lumpia recipe with a garlic chili vinegar, melon and pineapple skewers with a citrus mint dipping sauce, thai omelet rolls with soy lime dip, and shrimp skewers with cilantro cucumber coulis. One guest offered a server $20 if she could bring him more lumpia when they were all devoured. The fruit and citrus mint was so refreshing it was like a vodka cocktail on a stick. And after countless variations the shrimp has found a perfect partner with cucumber cilantro coulis.

Buffet Menu

• Amity's greens, veggies, chinese black bean vinaigrette
• Japanese noodle salad, spicy red peppers, carrots, green onions, cilantro, peanuts, mirin soy dressing
• Sticky rice
• Aloha coconut sweet potatoes
• Thundering Hooves kahlua pork
• Adobo chicken
• Dessert - Hidden Valley Bakery sweet biscuits, Klicker strawberries, ice cream, whipped cream

Darin swears the coconut sweet potatoes were the star of the show. (seriously Darin, sweet potatoes?)

"Hi John

Thank you so much for a fabulous catering experience!

Rosie"

Cheers

Two-fer: Hannah and Erika's Wedding (not to each other)

Busy day. At final count we fed 332 guests today. 97 at the market, 20 box lunches, and 215 between two weddings.

The camera I brought to Erika's wedding happened to lack batteries. My faithful employees at Hannah's wedding have yet to produce any photographic proof we were there. So the two pics below are at home recreations of selections from each.

For Erika we did a simple yet tasty backyard grill party with a couple of haughty touches. Hannah celebrated the soul of Spanish Cuisine with paella and tapas. We were happy to partner with both Saffron and the Patisserie.


















Erika's wedding menu:

• spoons of crab salad, cucumber, tobiko caviar, and lemon aioli
• bruschetta of white bean puree and pork confit

Buffet:

• Welcome Table Farm greens, avocado, mandarin orange, toasted almonds, red onion, and an orange vinaigette
• spicy roasted red pepper pasta salad, bay shrimp, Amity's spinach, and parmesan
• artichoke halves with aioli and garlic butter
• grilled flat iron steak and chimichurri
• grilled salmon and tarragon lemon butter
  

Hannah's wedding menu:

• marcona almonds, piquillo peppers, spanish olives
  

Buffet

• cheese filled saffron risotto balls with sun dried tomato dip
• mushroom bruschetta with marinated morels, oysters, and criminis
• garbanzo bean salad spanish style
• Paella from Saffron (holy smokes that was good, cheers Chris!)
• Patisserie truffles and almond bars

John,

"It was delicious and people are still talking about the food. THANK YOU for bringing us all together with food! Everything was delightful. I have mailed you a check for the balance, please let me know if you do not receive it. Our photographer is out of town for the next week or so, but if I get any pictures of the food, I will be sure to forward them along. The blog is cool!
Talk to you soon,"

Hannah Israel
Dunham Cellars

Cheers

Doubleback Winery Launch

I nominate the Doubleback Winery launch party as the best private party of the year! 160 plus guests, hosted by Walla Walla's native son Drew Bledsoe, honoring his winery venture with winemaker Chris Figgins. Hilltop at McQueen Vineyard with the Walla Walla Valley spread below, and the windfarm peaking over our shoulder; the setting couldn't have been more perfect... maybe a bit more perfect minus the wind.

Guests were bussed in from the Marcus Whitman, champagne served en route. We greeted them with wonton crackers topped with spicy ahi tuna. The wines weren't too shabby either. Leonetti, Pepperbridge, Le Ecole, Waters, a German gewertziminer (sp), Grammercy, and a couple others I can't recall.

The Menu: flat iron steak chopsticks with soy ginger dipping sauce, bruschetta white bean puree and pork confit, grilled shrimp and scallop skewers with herbed butter, endive goat cheese mouse lemon zest candied hazelnuts, artisan cheeses, and bonnie's asparagus with aioli.

Did I mention the windfarm? It was so windy the tent was tethered to heavy machinery. When guests arrived the busses were employed as windbreaks. Still the tent sides bulged, linens whipped over the buffet tables, and the hanging lanterns swung violently. The roar of the wind in the tent is a sound I will soon not forget.

Our cooking location was thoughtfully blocked by haybales and some careful Volksy parking. Unfortunately our 'kitchen' was on loose dirt and we had not the time, nor resources, to place it elsewhere. Creative cooking, plating, and wrapping saved the food from healthy doses of dust. And shockingly, despite the wind, the sad sack of a grill, and the dust, we pulled it off. Given proper circumstances the food would have been better, looked a tad nicer, and been warmer (!). But it was good, damn good. And if we are ever scheduled to cook in Florida during hurricane season we will be primed and ready.

Cheers

Longshadows Spring Release

How does one go about serving 800 people appetizers (that actually taste good)? That question has been haunting me the last couple of months. And was finally resolved today. The answer is... it is easier than you think, if you are willing you roll 1,500 risotto balls, and double stuff 1,500 mushrooms. The proof is in the pre-planning, and the risotto pudding, 3o cups of it to be exact. If there has been a more popular appetizer at our events than the cheese stuffed risotto balls then I have been extremely clueless. (no comments please sweetheart) Literally, fried, plated, carried to cocktail table, 30 seconds later... gone.

Menu:

- cheese stuffed risotto balls with sun dried tomato sauce

- duxelle and mascarpone stuffed mushrooms

- crostini red wine beef ragu and parmesan reggiano

- crostini white bean puree and pork confit

- baguette slices and crackers, cambozola and brie

We are three for three. Unscientific as it may be, but three big wine weekends, three times wine tasting patrons have exclaimed "best food at any winery in town." Saviah, Reininger, and now Longshadows. I can give you the long winded version with evidence and personal comments, but I think this picture says it all, guests moments after the platter from above was placed on the table.

A picture of myself and Gilles the winemaker. Becca and I, Gilles and his wife Marie (Forgeron's winemaker), met randomly at Pioneer Park and the Patisserie two years prior. Nice to be reunited in a Walla Walla kind of way.

Cheers