Since Pompey's Feast

Did you miss me? Apologies for the enormous delay between posts. I mostly blame this on a spring break trip up to NYC. While I got to see friends and family, and eat some amazing food, I did very little in the way of blogging or cooking. We should be returning to the standard schedule at this point.

I've been hyping up this author dinner mash-up thing (Shakespeare vs. Katherine Anne Porter) for a while now, and now that it's here I'm a bit nervous. I'll come straight out and say that the company and the experience made for a lot of fun that I won't be able to entirely demonstrate here. So much like my cooking, I've decided to mix all the metaphors in a bowl and see what happens.

O, for a blog of fire, that would ascend
The brightest kitchen of invention.
A restaurant for a stage, waiters to act,
And patrons to behold the swelling scene.
Then should the cooklike Justin, like himself,
Assume the role of host; and at his stove,
Leash'd in like hounds, should skillet, pan and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy blogpost to bring forth
So great a shindig: can this webpage hold
The vasty pot of stew? or may we cram
Within this mangled speech the very couch
That did contain the guests at Silver Spring?
O, pardon! since a blurry picture may
Attest in little place a muffin;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of this blog
Are now confined some mighty recipes,
Whose cooked-correctly and delicious foods
The serving forks and spoons will part asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one cake,
And make imaginary small-talk;
Think, when we talk of courses, that you see them
Printing their proud stains i' the receiving floor;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our plates,
Carry them here and there; tripping o'er legs,
Turning the accomplishment of many hours
Into an accident: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who (nervous) asks your humble patience please,
Gently to view, kindly to judge, my peas.

Mr. Shakespeare, I am so, so sorry.

My main plan for the party was to remake an old recipe (Flounder with Dried Plums) as a main dish since it had already been proven in combat, and then try something new for a side dish. That turned out to be Sweet Pea Purée with Capers. I thought that peas were a good combination with beef (to complement the other main course), and the minty/capery side of things would work well with the fish.

It's a theory, anyway.

I was doubling the recipe since there would be so many dinner guests, so step one was to make sure that my ingredients would actually fit in the appropriate saucepans. Don't worry, I took the peas out of the bag before cooking them.

Seeing as how the pre-measuring worked so well the first time, I did the same thing with the mint. I was worried that I wouldn't get a cup of mint out of the package I bought, but it turned out I had just the right amount. The recipe might as well have said ALL THE MINT.

ALL THE PARSLEY SOME OF THE PARSLEY

ALL THE BUTTER HALF THE BUTTER

And into the food processor they go, to await the peas. And then we're back to...

ALL THE CAPERS

I love capers. I'll tell you a story about how much I love capers sometime. I was really sad to have to drain them, so I actually poured the brine back into the jar for use in martinis. Trust me, go make a dirty martini with capers, or even better, caperberries. You will not regret this, unless you have an addictive personality, in which case, "My bad."

Peas join the herbs and butter in the blender. There was a brief moment of panic when they hit Caliban's maximum food limit, but I invoked my knowledge of high-school-level science to determine that pureed peas would take up less volume than solid peas.

And I was correct! After just a little bit of processing, there is room for everypea.

After the first set of ingredients are fully pureed, the capers enter Caliban's maw for a few quick pulses.

BLEND ALL THE THINGS!

Have I mentioned that I love capers?

The final product! I made some vague attempts at being fancy here. That's a sprig of mint inside the caldera, and I may have gotten all zen rock garden with a fork. The whole thing was really easy and really tasty, and I highly recommend it.

Now that the new food was out of the way, I decided to move on to the fish. We've already done this once before, so I won't be reposting every single step. Instead, we can focus on the important changes - like the wine. Which, incidentally, wasn't very good even accounting for the fact that I forgot to chill it after cooking with it.

Another major change was that I actually had the correct ingredients this time around. INGREDIENTS, ASSEMBLE!

Not that it's a major change, but I poured the seasoning into the pan after the wine this time, which led to little floating Spice Islands®.

This is what the ingredients look like for double the standard amount of sauce, since I was making twice as much fish.

It worked out really well because the sauce was never in danger of thickening up early due to the longer cooking time. All the fish cooked, and then I had a chance to make sure the sauce hit the right consistency. There was, however, an issue with the fish itself. This was... not what I expected to see when I opened up the package.

Let me explain. I picked up most of my ingredients for the meal at Safeway, just because it tends to be cheaper. They were carrying flounder for about $8/lb, but I thought I would check out Whole Foods just in case. The fish counter at Safeway has a nasty habit of smelling like fish, which even I know is a bad sign. If the prices weren't too much worse, Whole Foods would be the way to go. And if not, I'd double back and pick up the flounder.

I failed to take into account the helpfulness of the fish counter guys and my personal laziness. While there weren't any filleted flounders (or any other flatfish, for that matter), there were definitely two whole flounders on ice. The whole-fish price seemed reasonable, and after some weighing and discussion of fish weight vs filet weight, I decided to just go for it. Honestly, I would have felt really bad about walking away after the guy put the fish on the scale for me. He took them away to clean them up, and I stood around awkwardly while every single other person at the fish counter tried to help me. I attempted to return the favor by informing patrons that I had taken the last two flounder so that no one had to walk around the counter to the barrels of ice to search for them. Also, I refrained from laughing maniacally at the other customers, which I thought was very big of me. I wound up with almost three pounds of fish for $36, which was half again what I would have paid at Safeway. But I also saw the fish it came from, and I guess that's a thing that influences me in a positive fashion? 

Back to that picture. When the fish was being wrapped up, I saw that there was some skin left on at least one piece, but that was no big deal. People cook fish with skin on, I'd received it in restaurants before, I could deal with that. However: 

That red circle? That's a mysterious organ of some kind. Luckily, it just came right out when I tugged on it. The lines? Those are outlining the fins, which were still entirely attached, and composed entirely out of bones sticking into the food-to-be I wanted to feed my guests. I may have panicked a bit. People had already begun to arrive by the time I unwrapped this (since the fish cooks quickly, I thought I'd wait until the last minute), and I bombarded them with questions. Does anyone know how to cook a fish? Clean a fish? Fish? Is a fish? Is Aquaman? Anything? Three things calmed me down. First, a couple of people suggested I just ignore it and cook and see what happens. Second, Angela volunteered to try and eat all the bones. Well, "volunteered" is a strong word, but close enough. Third, Edward and Kristen brought mead with them. You can see it here as it descends from heaven into my outstretched hand, to make my life better. If I had thought to switch my camera to video mode, you would have also heard a choir of angels.

On to the party food! I'm going to hit all the non-Katherine Anne Porter stuff first, since Susanna sent me some notes about that side of things. I'd like to keep it slightly coherent. And there is nothing more coherent than starting with dessert. Ashley brought us Emily Dickinson's gingerbread cake, a very clever way to sneak another author into the mix.

Oh, speaking of dessert, I had been completely and totally overthinking the whole dinner while I was out shopping, so I also picked up a bunch of kiwis to make foole in case anyone wanted it. People wanted it, so  I made foole (which I accidentally over-maced). People ate it anyway.

Angela made carrots lyonnaise. Either that or "something with potatoes," according to the planning document. But they tasted a lot like carrots and she kept mentioning carrots lyonnaise, so I'm going to assume they are carrots.

Are you sitting down? Go sit down. Kristen and Ed also brought eggplants stuffed with more eggplants. If only there were an internet meme that I could use to comment on putting a thing inside another thing to enjoy twice, but alas, there is not.

EDIT: One of my loyal readers has fallen for my clever scheme to get someone else to make a meme for me.

I didn't get any pictures of Bethany's pumpkin dip or cheese-beer dip, because they were, uh, invisible. Yeah, that's the ticket. Delicious and invisible. So let's move on to the bridge recipe. Susanna gave Heather KAP's corn muffin recipe, since Heather is a baker of renowned renown. If you are too lazy to click on the picture, the post-it on the left explains that it is the vegetarian side and no pigs were harmed, while the note on the right thanks a pig for its contribution to foodness. The real reason I explained this was so you wouldn't click on the picture and discover that the bowl on the right contains one of the "invisible" dips I was talking about. Merde.

Here we go! This is Katherine Anne Porter's Beef with Imagination Sauce, the dish so whimsically named that it set us on the path to dinner-partydom. Turns out, it is a stew! I'm stealing Susanna's commentary from our email conversation, which I didn't tell her I was going to do until afterwards.

Using KAP's recipes was a bit like...hm. What's something that's harder to prepare for than to actually do? I'm awash in metaphor emptiness. But the prep work for these recipes was the booger. First, I had to translate her handwriting. Loopy loopy. I wouldn't have been surprised to find a heart-dotted i. This code-breaking revealed something I hadn't seen before...the recipe called for something called 1812 Sauce. A bit of internet-ing discovered that this is not available anymore in stores, but can be faked with various combos of alcohol, lemon, Worcestershire, hot sauce and several other ingredients. So that was a fun side-adventure. Then, I had to interpret sentences on the Beef With Imagination Sauce recipe like this one: "Throw in anything and everything you have." So like...MnMs? Frozen Pot Pies? Socks? Fireplace utensils? I have all those things. I decided that "anything and everything you have" should be limited to three places: veggie drawer, spice cabinet, and alcohol stash. Since I couldn't "start it no later than 10 in the morning" and stir every hour like KAP recommends (um...blue blood?), I used the slow cooker.  

Next up was Guinness Punch, which I had been eagerly awaiting for over a semester.

The Guinness Punch was a breeze, and quite delish. Major ingredients include 1/2 and 1/2, Guinness, Bourbon, Sugar, vanilla, and coffee. It also called for raw eggs, but I like having friends, so I left that out. If I made it again, I'd serve it over ice. Maybe with real whipped cream on top. 

Oh, that's Susanna in the yellow shirt. Hi Susanna! The punch may sound gross if you hate things that are delicious, but I assure you it was not. Gross, that is. It was quite delicious. The following picture is to prove that we started with a lot of it, and then quickly had very little.

And since I don't have a better wrap-up, some final KAP commentary:

...having poked around a bit more in KAP's writing and archives--her recipes are very HER, both in style and her philosophy about other people's talents. She believes that people who don't naturally know how to write well can never learn. Seems she has the same understanding about cooking: if you don't know how to interpret "throw in anything and everything you have," well...I'm not gonna tell you. And maybe you don't deserve to be eating good food anyway. .... Anyway, a neat study in recipes as narrative.  

Indeed it is, Susanna. Indeed it is.


Nobody ate my peas.