January ABDC
Last night was another successful gathering with the theme "Family Dinner."
Eight people gathered at one of the usual venues, where we shared a lovely meal of appetizers - stuffed olives, cured meats, roasted almonds and a selection of beverages.
Salad was the first sit down course and gardenpriestess blessed us with a fresh greek salad including goat milk feta (no lactose in goat milk) and a lovely vinaigrette. There were 3 kinds of bread, and while I'm not usually a bread-with-dinner sort, I couldn't get enough of the french loaf, semolina or the homemade walnut bread.
Second was a pumpkin and wild rice soup served from a pumpkin tureen. It was topped with curried pumpkin bits as well and was so lovely with more bread to sop. Our soupmeister was M, one of bzdchris 's co-workers and so obviously devoted to all things gastronomic that we must have him back again and again :) Also, the adorable grin and english accent don't hurt.
The entree was a joint effort between barley52 and me - a roast duck, with an amazing and seemingly fail-proof technique of boil-air dry-roast-serve. The duck was moist and delicious, and topped with a gingered blueberry compote made from fresh berries and candied ginger. Along side was a wild rice/smoked oyster dressing. We served a syrah with this. In addition, legogeekgeezer contributed steamed broccoli with hollandaise and crispy pancetta bits. I eventually had to have the pancetta removed from my vicinity, so I could return to the bread.
Dessert was a DIY banana split bar with 3 kinds of custard, homemade chocolate sauce and other traditional toppings, plus whipped cream and cherries. YUM. bzdchris and busman1994 know how to do dessert in all forms.
Afterwards, we lolled around and chatted and laughed until we all agreed it was time to head out. It seemed a bit early for an ABDC, but we got home around 10:30 and became extremely glad we hadn't tarried. It seems the boy had made himself a fire in the fireplace, and after a time, decided it was done, and so was he. So he closed the flue and went to bed. When we arrived the downstairs was thick with smoke and smelled like a campfire. We learned our smoke detectors are missing their batteries, and that it takes at least an hour with all the doors open and all the fans/filters running to clear out the house. There were 2 small logs in the fireplace, burning merrily away, but at least they were contained. To think we had finally gotten out of the habit of saying "don't burn the house down" when leaving the boy alone. He's never gonna live this one down.
We got up this morning to remnants of the campfire smell, but the sunday cooking marathon has pretty much resolved that.
ETA: dressing with the entree, doh!