Text 1203, 172 rader
Skriven 2006-05-08 09:24:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: tastes 636
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2006 Annual Dinner
Celebrating the Kentucky Derby

"Seabiscuit": crab salad on tiny chive biscuits
Blue cornmeal pancakes topped with barbecued pulled pork
Smoked chicken and apple salad on endive
Oat toasts with Kentucky Derby ham salad

Mint Juleps

Charles Bove Vouvray Methode Traditionelle NV

Tablas Creek Vineyard Cotes de Tablas Blanc 2004,
 Paso Robles, Central Coast

Martin Ray Winery Angeline Pinot Noir 2004,
 Russian River Valley

***

Louisville Hot Browns
Homemade biscuits and cornbread

Calera Chardonnay 2002, Central Coast

***

Roast bluegrass-fed lamb with Cumberland Gap sauce
Crisp grits cake and sugar snap peas

Stonegate Merlot 2000, Napa Valley

***

Derby Day pie

Coffee - tea - decaf

***

2006 Annual Dinner Entertainment

A lively ensemble joins to play Music for the Chase:
Irina Muresanu, violin; Erik Ruske, French horn; Julia
Scolnick, flute; Peter Suiski, viola, and Tom Kraines,
cello. The program begins with Rossini's Overture to
William Tell arranged for flute, three strings, and
horn (taking the trumpet part). It concludes with the
last movement of Mozart's Horn Concert No. 3 in E Flat,
K. 447

***

We will end the evening with pastries:
Bourbon balls, Key lime squares, and oatmeal cookies

Domaine de L'Arjolle Lyre 2002, Cotes de Thongue, Languedoc

==

My friend Beth is the chair of the Annual Dinner Committee,
and it was her sense of whimsy as well as the coincidence of
the date that led to the Derby theme of the banquet. So:
we had a few things typical of the Churchill Downs area,
a few, shall we say, linguistic stretches, our punnishment
for allowing someone to chair the committee who is going out
with my friend Nicholas.

I arrived a bit early to print out some documents, and the
steward asked me if I'd care for a drink. I asked for tastes
of each of the wines, but Jim steered me gently toward Macallan;
I insisted, but it turns out he was right - none of the wines was
particularly special. The sparkler was sweetish, although clean
and with nice bubbles; okay fruit, a little woody and with a
lemony finish. The white, which I'd hoped was going to be a
Chardonnay, was an eyeopener - incredibly floral and with sweet
stone fruit aromas - not what I expected or hoped, but quite
interesting: would go well with all the appetizers except for
the one I'd wish a white wine for (the crab). I put that glass
down quickly, unfinished. Not surprisingly, turns out it is a
Viognier-Grenache blend. The Martin Ray Pinot Noir was pleasant
and typical; would have gone well with the ham and the chicken.
I went on to a julep, of which I asked the bartender to make a
small one for me. It was unbelievably sweet; after one sip, I
asked him just to pour me a glass of Bourbon straight up - it
was Knob Creek. A shame to pollute great whiskey with sugar
syrup and mint. Noticed others beginning to do likewise when
they saw what was in my glass - I'm often the first one to do
something sensible; others, shy of flouting convention, wait
until the ice is broken before going the same way.

The passed hors d'oeuvres were surprisingly decent, and I had
several of each. Smoked chicken in mayonnaise in endive leaves,
garnished with dill, was the least of the lot, the chicken
not very smoked, and the effect being that of ordinary chicken
salad on crisp but watery-tasting greens. Blinilike corn cakes
topped with pulled pork were pretty good, as were the "sea
biscuits," tiny baking powder biscuits topped with crab (some
kind of stringy but genuine crabmeat) in chive mayonnaise. The
best of the lot, surprisingly, were the nasty-looking blobs of
yellowish ham salad on oat bread. These were made with real
country ham mixed with some sweet pickle juice and mustard
based dressing.

After an hour of cocktails and stuff, it was time to go up
to the dining room. Beth invited me up to join her and Nicholas
at the private table in the Green Room overlooking the main
festivities, but it turned out that Nicholas was going to be
announced as the new president and had to sit downstairs to
receive his accolades and homages. By the time we'd got
downstairs, there was only one seat near him, so I was made to
fend for myself. Ended up sitting between a Sloan professor
and the wife of a Harvard Business School professor and talking
about the theories of executive compensation - a discussion in
which I believe (though fuzzily, after a fair amount of
alcoholic consumption) I held up my end reasonably well.

Across the way were my friend Ellen, who asked me to play Harold
in Italy next week with her orchestra (can't), and David Lappen,
the director of the Community Music School. So there was a bit of
music chat to save my poor brain from too much business talk.

The hot brown sandwich is a peculiarity of the Louisville area,
having been invented at the Brown Hotel in that city. It is a
turkey and bacon club, essentially (no lettuce, though, as it
would wilt), smothered in cheese sauce. This one was to the best
of my knowledge a pretty authentic one, but the cheese sauce was
undercooked and somewhat floury, not a surprise as this was a
dinner for 85-odd guests, and it's hard to make sauce for a big
crowd. The decent and also neutral Calera Chardonnay washed it
down well. I didn't eat the whole thing but did drink all my wine.

Our main course was kind of undistinguished, and I was glad I'd
filled up on the hors d'oeuvres. It was roast lamb, done pink
but nonetheless quite tough, as in held on a steam table, in a
very sweet orange sauce with a touch of mint (Cumberland Gap
sauce, get it?). Plus I got only two tiny slices, whereas the
lady next to me was offered three sizable slabs, which she sawed
away at unenthusiastically and then sent away. The grits cake
wasn't crispy, and the sugar snap peas were too much so,
essentially raw, and the strings hadn't been taken out.

Derby Day pie is pecan pie enriched with chocolate chips and
a tot of Bourbon. It was pretty good. My seatmate to the right
turned down dessert, and I should have asked for his too. The
rest of my Knob Creek went well.

Irina wasn't there to play the fiddle, so Lucy Stoltzman subbed.
She wasn't in particularly good form, and my colleague from some
of the committees, Henry, told me that they should have hired me
instead. Mere politeness I thought. I sort of dozed through the
entertainment, the most interesting part of which was not on the
printed program, an arrangement of the first movement of the
Mozart oboe quartet.

After all this, we toddled downstairs for the cookies, which
were accompanied by a rarity - juice of the Muscat Blanc a
Petits Grains allowed to ferment only partially and then
the fermentation stopped somehow (I think possibly by chilling,
because it didn't taste like it had been dosed with brandy or
anything, and the alcohol content wasn't notably high). It was
pleasant, very aromatic, but not compelling, so I returned yet
again to Knob Creek, which went well with the oatmeal cookies
(standard), Bourbon balls (not the best kind, which are like
chocolate truffles, but rather along the lines of Martha
Stewart's, which adulterate the chocolate with graham or other
cracker crumbs), and lime squares (just like lemon squares,
only somewhat greener).

Took the subway home and collapsed.
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