Takin' it to the streets

Sunday, January 9, 2011... To many, this day will go unrecorded in their Rolodex of memories. It will be what some refer to as, "just another day." I feel sorry for those people. The date 1/9/11 will remain seared in my memory for one reason. Is it because 1/9/11 was the day Dan and I ALMOST bought one of them there new fangled flat screen television sets? No, although almost purchasing something like that is almost a big deal. Is it because 1/9/11 was the day I found out Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock are really together? No, although I was (and still am, by the way) very happy with that news. It didn't make 1/9/11 a memorable day for me though. Mostly because I actually read about that on usmagazine.com long before the radio confirmed the news for me on Sunday. With Us Magazine at my side, I cannot be scooped in the gossip arena. The people at Us probably knew about Ryan and Sandy (what her good friends call her) even before Ry-Ry (what his REALLY good friends call him or at least what his REALLY good friends will call him when I become his REALLY good friend) and Sandy-B themselves knew. But I digress...

1/9/11 will be remembered by me as the day I took my interpretation of some of the Mommsen Family Cookbook recipes public. It was like my own personal cooking IPO. When we moved down to SLO in May, by sheer coincidence two couple friends of ours moved from San Francisco to SLO at exactly the same time. So, we had Bill and Ang (who I briefly mentioned in my first blog) and their dog, Nalu, as well as Monica and Tim and their dogs, Gracie and Gavin over for dinner. This all seems very chill and non-threatening, right? Well, there were a couple tricky things that challenged even me, a seasoned cook with two recipes under my belt. First, Ang is a strict vegetarian. Second, Tim is a chef... Not a chef as a hobby. A chef... like for a pay check. Gulp. Plus, Dan and are are not flush with space and kitchen tools, so making food for 6 people could get tricky. Did I mention Tim is a chef???

First order of business... Deciding what to make. After scouring the MFC for delicious vegetarian recipes, the menu I decided on was:

Appetizer: Aunt Bonnie's toasted asparagus (Don't think that is correct name)
Main Course: Patti's cheese fondue
Dessert: My mom's lemon squares

Let's first go over the preparation:

Asparagus: "One loaf thin sliced Pepperidge Farm bread?" Where does one find such a product? Can it be any kind of bread? Or, does rye/white/insert any other type of bread here work best? These are the questions I had wandering through Ralph's grocery store on Sunday. I decided that since I was going to take a rolling pin to these bread slices, I wanted them as airy as possible. I figured the lowest calorie bread probably had the most air, so I picked some 45 calorie per slice loaf of wheat bread. After the 'thin sliced Pepperidge Farm bread' mystery was solved (or set aside, at least), these were super easy to make! I had never had them before, but come on... Bread, cheese, mustard and asparagus all toasted up together? If those aren't the ingredients for tastiness, I don't know what are.

-->RESULT: Deeeelish! I can all but guarantee that both couples will make those rolled up bundles of toasted tastiness again. I know Dan and I will! Super easy + super tasty = a keeper.

Fondue: Fondue. What a perfect entree for a dinner party. Social, delicious, no last minute prep, classy but not stuffy... Dare I say it is 6,000 calories of perfection? Goal for the fondue prep: no blood. Lofty, I know, but isn't there some saying about aiming for the stars and landing in the tree tops? No? Well we were aiming for the stars and no treetop landing would suffice. No blood, that is the only outcome we would settle for. Nothing more, nothing less. (Not really sure what more would be, but the saying felt right to include). What was the inspiration for setting the bar so high? A person at work had one of the gnarlier encounters with a cheese grater that I have ever seen the consequences of AND my cousin Chirsty used to literally get attacked by the cheese grater when we made nachos as kids. We were not going to have any trips to the emergency room because of a grating accident or in Christy's case a grating "accident" (suspected foul play there). Dan(h) was brave enough to take cheese grating duties and I'm happy to report that the only part of Dan that made it into the recipe was a dash of his love and effort (I just threw up in my mouth reading that... That was cheesier than the fondue). Whatever, no fingers were hurt in the making of the fondue. What did we dip in the cheesy goodness? Bread, bosc pears, apples, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, gherkins and grapes.

-->RESULT: A hit, of course! It's fondue! You never know with fondue, though, because everyone has the fondue flavor they are used to (whether they grew up with it or they always make it the same way) and any divergent flavor doesn't tast as good to them. Well, everyone loved this recipe! Not even a scrap of cheese left at the end and we beefed up the recipe pretty decently. The surprise hit dipping treat? Gherkins. People were wary about them at first, but they grew to love the gherk, as we all do.

Lemon squares: This seemed like a natural choice for dessert. They are my mom's recipe, for one thing. We have two lemon trees in our back yard so we will take any opportunity to make use of those citrusy delights, for two things. And, they are billed as "so-o-o-o-o-o-o good" in the MFC, for three things*. How could we NOT choose them? (*I am testing out that listing system. I've definitely said/written, "for one thing" before. I have never continued with a list after that, though. Is it, "for another thing..."? Or maybe, "for a third thing..."? I don't know. Swish it around in your heads and let me know what you think.)

I knew I had decided on a winning dessert and thought it would be smooth sailing. Wouldn't you know it but things started to go a little awry here, if I'm going to be totally honest (and you know what? I am going to be totally honest. Things did go a little awry...just a little). Awry-ity #1: So it turns out that 1/4 cup does not equal 1/2 cup. Who knew? The answer to that question is simple: Everyone. Well, I dumped 1/2 cup of flour into the mixing bowl where my four cracked eggs were waiting when the recipe only called for 1/4 cup. I'm an overacheiver, what can I say? I believe in giving more that just what is asked of me and the extra flour is just another example of that. I didn't have any extra eggs, so there was no taking a mulligan on this attempt and starting over. Life lesson: de-flouring eggs is difficult, but not impossible. Awry-ity #2: With approximately 1/4 of flour added to the eggs, it was time to add the sugar. A mere 2 cups was all the recipe called for. I think cooks call that a "pinch" of sugar. Another math lesson: 1 and 3/4 cups of sugar does not equal 2 cups. Quite the bummer when all of the sugar in your house adds up to 1 and 3/4 cups sugar the recipe would prefer you put in 2. Luckily, we live close to a couple of markets and Dan saved the day by going to the store for some more pure cane delightfulness. Problem solved. Awry-ity #3: The directions said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "pat down mixture firmly" (referring to the bottom crust of the lemon squares). Well, my mixture came out kind of runny (i'm sure no blame could be bestowed upon awry-ity #1), so patting down wasn't really an option. I just smoothed it out a bunch of times and hoped that would do the trick.

-->RESULT: This is where I was most nervous b/c of the awry-ities and b/c it involved a little more mixing and what not so I felt there was more chance to mess it up. I sprinkled powdered sugar and cut them into squares and crossed my fingers (which made it really hard to carry the lemon squares out so I uncrossed them for the transport). The bottom crust wasn't so much of a crust, but you know what? People actually liked them better that way! Or so they said... Not just with their words, but with their bellies. Everyone had at least 2 lemon squares, so I was happy. The squares just melted in your mouth was the good part, the bad part is they are not as portable as one would have liked and a fork was the ideal method of consumption.

Overall, a fantastic night! Thanks to all!!

Some pics of our guests and the food...

Gavin! (Trust me, not this calm all night... But this cute all night!)

Gracie!

Nalu!

Lemon squares pre-powdered sugar. You would have no idea that there was an awry-ity or two (three, as it turns out) in the making of this

The asparagus toasty rolls ready for their oven time... Not a great photo, but you get the idea.

Fondue spread.... I think "fondue" is Swiss for, "can you believe how good this is." I'll have to look it up, though