This week, seven courses of photos to celebrate a week of eating and connection to friends.
Thursday evening, eight of us converged on the Shanghai Pavilion in New York City to eat the meal you see laid out above. The gathering was two years in the making. The planning began when Vivien described to me the incredible meal she had there, hosted by her friend Wangsheng who is the CEO of a Hong Kong foundation. Although Vivien and I continued to scheme to bring people together for a special meal, circumstances conspired against us for a long time. Most recently, 4 of us we were ready to travel to New York in February, when suddenly the city received a big dump of snow and we had to postpone again...
The wait was worth it. We were joined by Vivien's son Evan, her daughter Loren, and my brother Eric. Vivien, her husband Bill, our friend Marvin, Amy and I took the train in from New Haven. Wangsheng had pre-arranged with the chef to prepare a fixed menu for us (he had also counseled us which days of the week would provide the freshest food!)
I thought Beggar's' Chicken (marinated richly and cooked in lotus leaves) was one of the best things we ate. Bill got the head:
Two days later, it was Rick's birthday, and he and Anne took us "Hobbit-style" to the wonderful Spanish restaurant in New Haven, Ibiza. (For those who don't remember the opening scenes of Lord of The Rings, Bilbo follows the Hobbit custom of giving presents at his birthday party.) Our meal was as fabulous as Bilbo's birthday. We started with an amuse bouche from the kitchen (little cups of gazpacho, with little fried blue cheese balls on the side) and things got even better from there. Behold a wonderful ceviche below:
Ibiza's amazing sangria, worth the trip by itself, provided a bridge between courses, until eventually by the end we received the final "complements of the kitchen" -- a little milkshake and cookie -- and Rick blew out his candle.
I was reminded of what these two meals had in common as I was reading the book that everyone in our ceramics class has picked up, Erica Bauermeister's The School of Essential Ingredients. It's a very sweet book about the food and people in a cooking class. The meals, and the book, left me appreciating how special it is to have just the right ingredients -- good friends who pay attention to each other and the joys of life -- and then to have a meal that turns the mundane task of nutrition into a song of joy. A mix of familiar and intriguing flavors and textures, wrapped up in a beautiful dumpling package.
Yum.
Two days later, it was Rick's birthday, and he and Anne took us "Hobbit-style" to the wonderful Spanish restaurant in New Haven, Ibiza. (For those who don't remember the opening scenes of Lord of The Rings, Bilbo follows the Hobbit custom of giving presents at his birthday party.) Our meal was as fabulous as Bilbo's birthday. We started with an amuse bouche from the kitchen (little cups of gazpacho, with little fried blue cheese balls on the side) and things got even better from there. Behold a wonderful ceviche below:
Ibiza's amazing sangria, worth the trip by itself, provided a bridge between courses, until eventually by the end we received the final "complements of the kitchen" -- a little milkshake and cookie -- and Rick blew out his candle.
I was reminded of what these two meals had in common as I was reading the book that everyone in our ceramics class has picked up, Erica Bauermeister's The School of Essential Ingredients. It's a very sweet book about the food and people in a cooking class. The meals, and the book, left me appreciating how special it is to have just the right ingredients -- good friends who pay attention to each other and the joys of life -- and then to have a meal that turns the mundane task of nutrition into a song of joy. A mix of familiar and intriguing flavors and textures, wrapped up in a beautiful dumpling package.
Yum.
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