Appetizers:
Crudites
Carciofi alla Giuderia (deep fried artichokes in the traditional style of the Roman Jewish community)
Carmelized fennel root
Salad:
Fresh herbs and microgreens, Persian cucumbers, avocado, shallot, and Bosc pear, with a dressing of fresh blood orange juice, pomegranate molasses, black pepper, fresh garlic, olive oil, and anise seed.
Soup:
North African-style curried butternut squash soup with roasted cipollini (tiny Italian onions), red lentils, and hot pepper.
Main Course:
Roast duck (I'm not a fan of turkey)
Wild rice with roasted elephant garlic and herbs
Casserole of sage and onion dressing
Mashed winter root vegetables (including varieties of potatoes, parsnips, turnip, and celery root)
Sides:
Fresh whole grain pumpernickel
Fresh nine-grain peasant bread
Fresh cranberry relish with lime
Candied kumquats
Asparagus steamed with garlic
Roasted cauliflower
Carrots glazed in hard apple cider and honey, with allspice and clove
Steamed Sugar Snap peas in the pod
Desserts:
Pumpkin tart
Salad of tropical fruits and berries, macerated in mead, with star anise
Sorbetto alla ciocolatta
I'll probably serve the appetizers, salad, and soup with a New Zealand Riesling of some kind, or possibly an Alsatian Gewurtzraminer-- something light and crisp and fruity; and the main courses with a couple bottles of a nice, muscular Valpolicella that I've been saving for a rainy day. Dessert will probably be accompanied by chilled mead. After dinner, scotch will be offered for a digestif. Probably Balvenie, the 15-year malt, if I can get it conveniently. It's my favorite.
...And that's the way we throw down in the Levite hizzouse!
__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.
(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)
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