Zakushka Party Finale

I did my best. However, I'm sad to say there are no actual pictures of the party itself which was a great success. I was doing a pretty good job of getting some pictures during the final day of cooking - the day of the party. But then as we came down to the last two hours of plating everything and setting up for the actual event, it just got chaotic. Then E, a friend of Cabinet Lady and Dr. Debbie, said we needed to try the vodka just before the guests arrived, well that pretty much ended picture taking.

What, I didn't tell you about the vodka? In traditional old Russia Zakushka (and modern Russia too for all I know), vodka was the traditional drink, the idea being to counterpoint a bite of food with a shot of vodka as you went around the Zakushka table. That being said, CL and DD had made their own flavored vodkas - orange, raspberry, pepper, and vanilla. Forget anything that you've bought in the way of flavored spirits. These were MUCH better. We were concerned that most people today would not drink straight spirits and would want wine or beer or something mixed. Not the case. If not taking shots per bite, at least having vodka with you as you ate and communed with the other guests was the theme of the evening.

OK, the last pictures.

Wait - another comment - Wife gets no credit for all the work she does in the cooking OR the fact that she is getting more and more into the choices and creativity of the cooking itself. I need to figure out a way to change that.

Wife preparing the flavoring for Noodle and Spinach Kugel

Kugels almost done without their bread crumb and cheese topping.

Wife made three kinds of home made bread - these pan loaves, some braided loaves, and an unleavened Central Asian onion flat bread (really good).

Wife also made these tomato tarts - kind of a pizza like thing with a pastry crust - I made that :) - pre-baked, filled with cheese, fresh basil, and fresh tomatoes. It was a hit.

This is the 'in the middle' scene of making tuna rolled in roasted peppers. Unfortunately the finale never made it to photo. It was imported canned tuna, flavored with chopped oil cured olives, garlic, parsley, and lemon juice like a kind of tuna fish salad put into roasted peppers, rolled and cut into pieces like a sushi. Another hit.

My home made gravlax came out great and was very popular. I didn't know if I was going to be able to cut it as thin as necessary. But I found a knife I don't use much, got it real sharp, and had no problems. Cutting scene below.

Pate uncovered and out of the pan. It came out great as well.

The Team just before our pre-guest vodka shots
Dr. Debbie, Cabinet Lady, E, and Wife

A shot of the 'cold buffet'
Pretty much all picture taking stopped after this so sorry but no picture of the 'hot buffet'.

But I did get this one picture of CL and DD's Charlotte Russe dessert - another winner

When your guests arrive and immediately dive in and start eating and drinking, you know that you've done well :)

Cooking Up A Zakushka Storm

As promised in spite of prodigious cooking taking place all day, I did my best to fulfill my blogging photo journalistic obligations. There's no particular pattern with these, just a kind of photo stream of consciousness.

The first dish of the day - Trout in Orange Marinade

Chopping onions for the Liver Pate

Chicken Wings and meat for Meatballs

The Chicken Wings in Garlic Sauce cooking

The meatballs have been flavored with bread crumbs soaked in wine and garlic.

Wife (ecstatic as always at being photographed for the blog) polishing silver.

Wife was also busy making a Central Asian bread, Non

The Meatballs in Chorizo Sauce
A very neat recipe where the sauce consists of chorizo, ham, roasted pepper, tomato, garlic, coriander, cumin, pimenton, and red pepper sauteed together and then blended with water and returned to the pan.

One Step-by-Step Dish
Mushroom Ragout

Shitakes

Portabellos

Hens in the Wood

Tomatoes, red onion, scallions, garlic, wine, stock, and tomato paste added

Then cooked down to a think stew.

Zakushka Party Decorating

Dr. Debbie came over during the day today to assist Wife with the decorating and organization of de-I Tower for the grand event. Things are looking smashing.

Here they have laid out all the serving dishes. Pictures that we have of Zakushka tables show them using lots of glass and silver. Most of our silver serving ware hasn't been used in years so Wife was hard at work getting them cleaned.
You will note if you look carefully that they have little slips of paper in them. Those show which foods will go in which dishes.

You might remember this room from our Xmas festivities as the Pink Suite. Now it has been converted in the Red Parlor (good for all those former Communist functionaries that might be attending the party)

Must have traditional Russian style eggs right?

Tomorrow I will take off from work for the major part of the cooking. Will try to take pictures.

Preview of Zakushka Food

Time has been scarce since in addition to getting ready for this party, I've been getting my business sales back up after the interruption with Dad. (He is stable by the way. Not going to get better but seems at peace and doing more of his normal stuff. I go back on Sunday for a few days right after the party). But since there was this clamor for food pictures, here is some that I've been able to secure.

First the "How To" of making a (close to) real French Pate (there are suppose to be two accents in that word but I don't know how to do them in Blogger).

You see below on the right a meat mixture, in this case about 1.5 pounds of pork shoulder meat, 1.5 pounds of chicken dark meat, .75 pounds of pork fatback, and .25 pounds of chicken livers ground coarse. I have my butcher do this. I give them the order and pick it up. Easy.

Then the meat mixture is flavored and allowed to rest for at least one day and up to three days for the flavors to meld.

The rest that is needed is the pay and the bacon.

Put some thyme and a couple of bay leaves in the pan

Line the pan with bacon

Put meat mixture in pan

Cover and enclose with more bacon and put more thyme and bay leaf on the top.

Seal with two sheets of aluminum foil put into a pan and put in hot water up to about a half an inch up the sides and cook for two hours at 325 degrees.

When it is done you put some cardboard on the top and weigh it down to compress it. I can't show you the finished product until the party. Sorry

Can You Guess What This Is?

Right you are, cabbage and beets marinating in vinegar and water...for six days at room temperature. This is my most daring recipe. I tried some today and am still alive to write about it so all is going well!

Next Quiz Question - What's This?

Right again. Gravlax curing in its salt, sugar, cognac rub. Here it is without the weights on.
I actually tried some of this today and its going to be great.

The oil cured eggplant doing its curing.

Marinated mushrooms marinating.

Tomorrow is a busy work day but I will have to start the Trout in Orange Marinade. Friday I'm taking off from work just to cook but it may be until Sunday before I have time to get things posted.

Zakushka Dinner Menu

This upcoming Epic Cooking Event is so big I having trouble even finding the time to take pictures let alone put together edited cooking posts. I think we're going to have around 25 people and there will be a combination cold and hot buffet accompanied by home made flavored vodkas (Dr. Deb and Cabinet Lady are doing those) - it is a Russian themed party after all. Here is what we're making. I'll do my best to get some pictures as we go along.

Cold Buffet:

• Gravlax - home made
  
• Pate de Campagne - home made
  
• Traditional Russian Liver Pate - home made
  
• Trout in Orange Marinade - home made
• Selection of Cured Sausages and Hams - purchased
• Selection of Imported Cheeses - purchased
• Pickled Cabbage Salad - home made
• Oil Cured Eggplant - home made
• Pickled Carrots - home made
• Pickled Mushrooms - home made
• Tuna in Roasted Pepper Rolls - home made
• Estonian Ham & Potato Salad in Herring Sour Cream Sauce - home made
  

Hot Buffet:

• Tomato Basil Tart - home made
• Wild Mushroom Ragout - home made
• Meatballs in Sausage Sauce - home made
• Chicken Wings in Saffron Sauce - home made
• Kasha (a traditional Russian buckwheat grain) - home made

Breads:

• Country White - home made
• Central Asian Onion Flat Bread - home made
• French Baguettes - purchased
• Russian Style Black Bread - purchased

Dessert:

• Charlotte Russe - a home made confection that has a base and sides of lady fingers and is filled with a custard, chilled and turned over and decorated with whipped cream. (another contribution of Cabinet Lady and Dr. Deb)

This last weekend I started the salmon curing, made the Pate de Campagne (hope to get some pictures up tomorrow), started the cabbage curing, pickled the mushrooms, and started the eggplant curing. I need to do the trout tomorrow or Thursday. Friday I will do all the hot meat dishes and the liver pate. Saturday I help Wife with the tart, Estonian salad, breads, etc.

This is going to be so good :)

Solitude

I like being alone. I like time to myself without others around. And I am basically an early person. I love the early morning when the world is very quiet. My typical schedule is getting up at 5:30 AM, meditating for 40 minutes, then showering and heading off so I can make a 7:30 or 8:00 AM breakfast meeting.

My exercise of choice is walking (hiking is the once a week big event). I will do a 45 minute loop that takes me to the valley at the foot of the mountain out of the neighborhoods and into the open space of the national forest. To get this in with my regular schedule means getting up an hour earlier, 4:30 AM. I will do that a couple of times a week.

During the summer when it is light early and it gets hot, lots of folks are out during the 5:30 to 6:00 AM time slot. But not during the winter. Exercising in the winter is an ideal time for obtaining solitude. It's cold (for here). It's dark. And it's quiet. If you do see anyone, they're just shadows anyway.

This morning when I went out, it was particularly wonderful. The moon was full. The mountains were bathed in that soft moon light. And we had gotten a dusting of snow over night. Just enough that the bushes and trees were soft and rounded. And the mountains glowed even more in the moonlight.

And there was no one. Not a soul that I saw during the whole walk. Just the beauty, the quiet, the peace and me.

Something Pleasant To Write About

Things have somewhat settled down with my Father. I doesn't look like this is the crisis that ends it. We've put together a care team that seems to have Father feeling secure. He's gotten stronger (though clearly not going to fully recover). So my brother and I are going to try and pull back the amount we're going to Connecticut as it could be months now.

So I'm going to be home for almost 10 days, a real welcome spell to focus on my business and try to get some revenues in. And as an extra added bonus, we're not going to have to cancel our second Cooking Event of Epic Proportions. You may remember the first event in August where we collaborated with our friends Cabinet Lady and Dr. Debbie for a grand international chile oriented event. We were so happy with the outcome that we almost immediately decided we needed to do another one, in the winter.

So for the winter event, I decided to go back to my Russian heritage and the tradition of the zakushka table. This was a buffet that was always kept stocked because in the vast spaces of Russia guests didn't 'call' they dropped in. And you had to have food and drink ready at all times in that account.

Stay tuned for the details.