I'm a lady who likes to think big. Big portions. Big flavors. Big parties.
Okay - Perhaps my idea of a "big" dinner party isn't exactly Stepford material, but heck, a multi-course extravaganza for six isn't half-bad for a New York gal in a New York-size apartment.
But, when it came to opening up a few of my special bottles from Napa, I decided to be a bit more contained - all the better to relish the vino. And, so I whittled my table down to four - focusing solely on the female of the species.
After Celeste, Stacy, Maureen and I downed the Domaine de Saint-Laurent-l'Abbaye Pouilly-Fume 2002 that Celeste brought to kick off the evening (she didn't want to compete directly with my Northern California offerings), I was pleased with the decision to keep the evening intimate - and girls only. Would we have felt half as comfortable inhaling a wedge of Triple Creme and a hefty bowl of olive-tomato tapenade as a before-dinner nibble, if gentlemen had been present?
Well, actually, yes. But, we most certainly wouldn't have been half as bawdy!
And, keeping our numbers to only four meant that we didn't drift off into separate conversations. We were one party. One laugh-out-loud, smutty, foodie, oenephile party.
The menu, you ask? We sipped on deep pink glasses of Miner Mendocino Rosato 2003, as Celeste helped me prep the first course from a recipe by RNM Chef Justine Miner, Sauteed Hearts of Romaine with St. Agur, Sliced Pears and Toasted Hazelnuts. Then we moved on to a palate lingering bottle of Robert Biale Vineyards Black Chicken Zinfandel 2002, with Seared Rib Eye Steak with Anchovy Butter, which was delightfully spiked with the sweet, smoky heat of Piment d'Espellete. On the side, we moaned over crisp Sugar Snap Peas that I had picked up that morning at the Greenmarket and sauteed in butter with lemon juice, garlic cloves and fresh thyme.
Unwilling to move from the table before every morsel was gone, I broke out a bottle of spicy, earthy BearBoat Pinot Noir 2001, which I didn't pick up while in Napa, but was instead from Northern California's Russian River Valley. That bottle almost put us over the edge.
Almost.
We weren't about to let the dessert course go without indulging in the decadently honey-sweet, nose-tickling bubbly bottle of La Spinetta Moscato d'Asti that Mo brought in tow.
It was an ideal match to the dense treat that Stacy brought us all the way from deepest darkest Tennessee: a Pepper Patch Tipsy Cake, soaked in Black Label Jack Daniels. Dense, loaded with butter, eggs, new crop pecans, plump raisins and steeped in whiskey, the Tipsy Cake finally pushed us into Never-Never Land. Even my homemade Lemon Gelato and sliced, fresh from the farm Strawberries weren't enough to counteract the cake's potency.
We were officially toasted.
So, let's do the math - Four ladies + Three courses + Five bottles of wine + One Tipsy Cake = A really good time and four nasty hangovers.
But, I'm sure that the vitamins in the Sugar Snap Peas and Strawberries helped us ward off plenty of viruses and the Lemon Gelato definitely prevented the four of us from getting scurvy.
All in all a really therapeutic evening. Don't you agree?
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