Bobcats Post Dump

Because I am the worse blogger in the world, I have neglected to update the Bobcat Chronicles, and I know all three of my readers are feeling the lack. So here are some reports to bring everyone up to date.

Les Chats de Robert Go Frenchified
We had decided to go regional/country French, and loosely settled on Provence. We started the evening with savory Quiche Lorraine, paired with Patricia Wells's Chanteduc Rainbow Olive Collection, which figured into another of the evening's recipes. Our specialty cocktail of the evening was French Martinis, with an alternative beverage choice of Raspberry Lemonade. Of course Edith Piaf and accordion music were in heavy rotation on the playlist.

Our main meal centered on another Patricia Wells dish, tuna daube in a sauce of red wine, garlic, tomatoes, olives, and onion. With this we had a spectacularly rich potato gratin, grilled asparagus with vinaigrette marinade and Parmesan, and salad. We followed this with an expertly curated cheese course, complete with breads, fruits, and all luxe accompaniments. Because we had not consumed all the calories in the world, we then moved on to dessert of the world's most divine dark chocolate tart, paired with lavender-honey ice cream, and silky creme brulee. Wine? It goes without saying. Also muscato.

The most amazing part of all? We finished virtually everything, a Bobcats first.

We Deep Fry Everything Imaginable
From the sublimely sophisticated to the pinnacle of downhome goodness, we decided to mix it up and go for a Festival of Deep Frying. It's hard to be exhaustive with a list of what hit the hot oil, but the meal started with appetizers of mozzarella with marinara, chunks of mac & cheese (amazing), taquitos, spring rolls, jalapeno poppers, mushrooms with homemade ranch dressing, plantains, and hushpuppies with choice of hot sauce or maple butter.

Then it was time for the serious eating -- good thing we had invited all our kids to participate. Main dishes included chicken, chicken fingers, halibut, french fries, corn dogs, tempura asparagus with herb mayo and lemon mayo, crimson cole slaw, cucumber salad, and green salad with feta. Of course no deep frying extravaganza would be complete without the entire party gathered around the fryer, giddily battering and frying every conceivable sweet. Dessert was consumed on a grease-stained square of butcher paper and eaten off of paper towels in the garage, mortifying our hostess. What we fried: Oreos, Nutter Butters, Devil Dogs, Twinkies, Milky Ways, mini fruit pies, ice cream balls, ice cream sandwiches, chocolate-chocolate chunk cookies, everything covered with clouds of powdered sugar. To wash it down we had a bowl of fruit salad, which my little asked if we were going to deep fry (no, even we have limits).

At the end of it all we were all desperately in need of a facial and swore to never eat again. Of course within minutes we were thinking of all the things we didn't fry, and will have to include next year -- calamari, falafel, corn fritters, apple fritters, chicken fried steak, churros, zeppole, doughnuts....

A Tour of Asia
For a perfect summer dinner, we gathered for pan-Asian grilling. We started on the patio of our hosts with an assortment of appetizers -- shrimp summer rolls, five-spice ahi tuna, beef satay, minced pork in lettuce cups. To drink, Singapore Slings, Asian beers of many nations, and lemonade. We inhaled that and moved inside.

Our main course was centered on a spectacular assortment of meat -- grilled beef with two marinades, chicken satay with Thai peanut sauce, pad thai with chicken, sauteed string beans, and Thai cucumber salad. Copious amounts of sake.

For dessert, which we enjoyed outside, we had the world's most gorgeous and fluffy coconut cake, which was presented as a birthday cake for me. Haven't had such a charming birthday celebration in years. We had that with pina colada sorbet, fruit skewers, coffee, and green tea.

Up Next
And that brings us up to date. We will gather again in September for a culinary exploration of Louisiana -- Cajun, Creole, and New Orleans inspirations.

Okay, Okay

I know, I've been lax. I owe a full recap of Les Chats de Robert and will bring it soon, along with a full, illustrated report on today's extravaganza entitled Five Hours of Deep Frying. I neglected to bring the pore-unclogging Noxzema, but the local cardiologists are going to be able to buy some very lovely summer homes this year. Among the topics of discussion: what can we fry next year, and should we all go in on a smoker.

Cooking a la Fronchie

The Bobcats gourmet club has a week to go until our next dinner, and we're hosting Chez Gateau. Theme is regional/rustic French. Menu shaping up as follows:

French martinis (a favorite of one Bobcat)
Light hors d'oevure, perhaps a little tapenade
First course of either onion soup or composed salad TBD
Tuna daube with green olives from Patricia Wells' Provence cookbook
Potato gratin
Vegetable dish TBD by Mr. Gateau
Cheese course
Massive amounts of dessert, including cake TBD, creme brulee, and honey-lavender ice cream
Wine, dessert wine, port, coffee, tea, etc.

Getting the ice cream going today.

Los Gatos de Roberto do tapas

The Bobcats, or in keeping with our Spanish theme, Los Gatos de Roberto, gathered late-ish on Friday night for an evening of tapas, which may have been our most successful dinner yet, if only because we finally all seemed to get over our baser instincts to double or triple every recipe we prepared. Maybe it's just the long graze that tapas is all about, but we seem to have figured out how to supply a luxurious dinner without drowning in leftovers. It's just too bad we were all too focused on making fantastic food for anyone to have remembered to bring a camera, so no photos this time.

For the first wave, we settled into the living room with glasses of white wine sangria and a table covered with mostly cold dishes, though the hot artichokes wrapped in bacon were a clear hit, as were the cheese-filled empanadas. With those were wedges of manchego with slices of quince paste, green olives stuffed with white anchovies, and platters of jamon.

With the remnants of that on the table, we moved into the dining room for the more substantial dishes, these served with bottles of rioja and dry sherry. Two types of tortilla, one with chorizo and one without, were accompanied by garlic shrimp, sherry-garlic mushrooms, patatas bravas, white asparagus in vinaigrette, and meatballs in a caramelized apple-sherry vinegar sauce. We capped that off with three desserts -- milk custard (served plain, rather than fried, when the frying didn't go well), burnt orange caramel ice cream, and Mexican churros with chocolate dipping sauce.

It was delicious, but even as we enjoyed our desserts, we were planning the next gathering. On February 27, Les Chats de Robert will meet for country French.

Halloween Scene

The Bobcats held our first annual Halloween party last night -- we were lucky that Halloween fell on a Saturday this year (which led me to wish that Halloween get moved from the 31st to the last Saturday in October from now on). Our original idea was to have an all-pumpkin dinner, sort of an Iron Chef challenge, but we decided to expand to fall vegetables generally, and do a sort of Thanksgiving-if-you-didn't-have-to-make-your-family's-required-dishes with a couple of deep-fried turkeys at the center. For the first time, the Bobcat kids were invited, so the house was filled with various pirates, Jokers, bloody surgical patients, mermaids, spies, and tin woodmen.

We started off with sweetly spiced pumpkin empanadas, served with beer, fruit punch for the kids, and killer hot spiced apple cider spiked with Jameson's. I made a soup course of Mexican-spiced pumpkin soup with a lime crema that I doctored liberally with ground chipotles, cumin, cider vinegar, and maple syrup (following the good comments thread on Epicurious). Our main course included the deep-fried turkeys with gravy on the side, twice-baked potatoes, carrots with butter and thyme, zcornucchini bread, sweet potato pie, sausage stuffing, and I made a deliciously simple corn pudding.

We were, of course, stuffed by then, so took a trick-or-treating break around the neighborhood to get some exercise. Once everyone had returned, Wonder Woman (a/k/a Bobcat Stacy) led a riotous candy exchange while we drank white wine and coffee and plowed through a "devil dog" cake stuffed with orange cream.

Halloween never tasted so good.

Bobcats go Italian

On September 26th, the Bobcats (our brilliantly named Gourmet Club) convened for our second dinner, this one exploring a broad swath of Italy. Upon arrival, apple martinis were pressed upon us, which I feel is always a good start to an evening. With garnish, no less.
Shortly after that, we launched into a little antipasto, and by "little" I mean "enough to feed the Roman Army." These included various meats, cheeses, olives, capers, artichoke hearts, melon wrapped in prosciutto with mint vinaigrette, and more drinks.
We were feeling little pain and wanting for nothing when we moved into the dining room for a little pasta. Aren't we a nice looking group?
Mr. Gateau made fresh linguine with basil-sundried tomato-olive pesto, using basil from our garden, and topped with Reggiano Parmesan.
Just when we were congratulating ourselves of showing restraint with the pasta portions, out came the main courses. Our hosts had prepared the central dish, osso buco with gremolata. I'd made risotto Milanese to go with that (done in the Crock-Pot, which works great; unfortunately I hadn't timed it well and by the time we ate, it had gone mushy). We also had chicken cacciatore, zucchini stuffed with parmesan and prosciutto, and just in case we hadn't had enough, Caesar salad and garlic bread. Sample plate below -- note the vast number of surrounding vessels holding alcoholic beverages.
But wait! We weren't done yet. Out came the cannoli, the tiramisu cheesecake (because tiramisu alone would not have been filling enough), the amaretto cookies, coffee, amaretto, and sambuca.
A good time and a good feast was had by all. How could it be otherwise? The Bobcats will reconvene on Halloween, Bobcat offspring included, to do a pumpkin (and other fall vegetable) feast, with a centerpiece of deep fried turkey. Costumes required.

Where the elite meet to eat

Because I am a terrible blogger, I failed to pull the photos together and post this anything like timely. However, I'm cleaning house, so here is the report on our very first "Gourmet Club" dinner from June 28. A little touch of summer on a winter-like October day.

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So we did it, we kicked off the so-called "Gourmet Club" last night with a foray into the cuisine of Morocco, and everything went brilliantly.

First, the weather was kind enough to stop pissing down rain long enough for us to have a beautiful evening. I was too nervous to haul a table out onto the back deck Just In Case, but we were able to serve drinks/appetizers and later dessert/tea on the deck, but had the main meal in the dining room.

We started with Fanatic Foodie's pomegranate-rose-basil mojitos, which were such a big hit that a second pitcher needed to be thrown together. We also discovered that the lime-basil-pom-rose combination is excellent, topped up with soda, as a non-alcoholic alternative. For starters, we had tomato jam with pita, finger sandwiches filled with goat cheese, marinated carrots, and green olive tapenade, plus assorted marinated olives.

When we thought we might be able to tolerate more food, we moved inside and served the main course -- grated carrot salad, chicken and chickpea stew, couscous with vegetables, chicken with olives and preserved lemon, and lamb stew with chestnuts and cinnamon. With this was harissa, wine, and more wine.

We rolled ourselves away from the heaps of food still on the table (note to self: in future, a recipe that says it serves 6 is just fine, as it will certainly be part of a giant repast and does not need to be doubled) and went back outside, where we had sweet mint tea, haroset balls with dates, cinnamon cookies, and the piece de resistance, rose petal cake.

Our next meal is planned for September, when we will take on Italian. Not sure yet which region we'll focus on, but I hear cannoli and gelato are already being planned.

We also came up with a name for our group. Because we're interested in food of many nations, fine dining, and refined conversation, of course we picked a name that might as well be a middle school soccer team.

Confidential to the group: click here.