GDC Week 8 (Finale): Michael & Yen

All pictures courtesy of Chi Chau & (the other) Yen

Michael and I had the great pleasure of hosting the last and final Gourmet Dinner Club for 2009.

The advantages of going last?... we could learn from everyone else's mistakes had plenty of time to plan.

The disadvantages of going last?... expectations were higher than ever and we had less ideas to play with.

Not only have Michael and I never hosted large dinner party, but Michael has little experience in cooking for more than two people at a time. And even when he does cook for just us two, there's barely enough for us since he's not big on leftovers! lol

So to make up for the areas we potentially were lacking in, we knew we needed something to differentiate ourselves.

As each week passed, the dinners got more impressive and our (my) confidence shaken! All I knew I wanted was a theme. Something that represented us! Something that we were both passionate in. Something close to our hearts! So we decided to host a

European Taste Tour!
With our move back to Portland, we often found ourselves reminiscing about Europe. This was the perfect occasion to share our experiences abroad with our family! Food and travel was the theme. We wanted to make everyone feel as if they were traveling from country to country with us. So I flipped through my online photo albums and chose some of our most memorable dishes from some of our favorite European countries. If our food and service risked not being as good as the others, let's at least get some brownie points for creativity!

So we started in Turkey, where Michael is a huge fan of hummus and Mediterranean meze. And my love for seafood led me to fall in love with Scotland and Spain. So for appetizers, we served:

Turkish Meze
Hummus, Tomato & Cucumber Salad, & Olives
Scottish Mussels

Spanish Shrimp

And since duck is Michael's favorite poultry, we chose a dish from Italy as a main course.

Papperdelle w/ Duck Ragu

Papperdelle is not easy to find! This dish took nearly 6 hours to make and was definitely made out a labor of love. The duck legs (all 11 of them) sat in a red wine, carrot, celery, and onion marinade overnight. In the morning, the legs were removed from the marinade and quickly seared only to then be tossed back into the marinade - this time, with some spices and tomato paste to braise for 3-4 hours. Once braised, each leg is carefully shredded, piece by piece, leg by leg! Honestly, I felt sorry watching him do it :) Finally, the shredded duck was placed back in the pan and cooked some more, for the marinade reduce to a ragu! Phew!

SO MUCH WORK!!! more on this later.

Since I was the brains behind this project (hahahahah!!!) and he's the talent (but only in this particular case :) my only job in the kitchen on the day of execution was to make dessert. The only problem is, I don't bake. Period. Yet my ambition led to go with two French desserts.

Mini Fruit Tarts with a Homemade Lemon Curd Mousse
&
Cream Puffs (stuffed with coffee ice cream instead of cream)

I used a cupcake pan instead of a tart pan so some of it broke as I dug them out of the pan!

For you non-believers out there, I actually made this lemon curd (mousse) from scratch!

I don't think they tasted that good (I can't stand tasting the food that I actually make - that's why I can never actually cook) but it turned out looking decent, if I might say so myself! hehehe

Now that judging is over, I can tell you a little story about the Cream Puffs :) I did a test run of the puff pastry a few weeks prior and they actually turned out looking great (see pic below)!.But on the day of the dinner (I must have accidentally used a modified recipe), they turned out looking like sweet buns! They tasted like puff pastries, but I made two batches of the batter and neither of them looked right, but I was running out of time (I swear, it was like Iron Chef that day) so I just had a quick meltdown, and decided that if I drenched it under enough chocolate syrup (also homemade btw :) no one would notice! Ha!

We served a variety of beers from Germany, Belgium, Ireland, and the Netherlands. I even tried my hand at making (red & white non-alcoholic) Sangria (from Spain)!

To build a little excitement and anticipation during the week leading up to our dinner, I hand-made and snail-mailed everyone invitations (who doesn't like getting things in the mail?!) crafted into U.S. passports highlighting our menu, with a course on each page and a few images of our real passport stamps :: figures crossed :: Like I said, brownie points for creativity!!!!

Special thanks to my dear friend Tram for tracing the passport logo cover on Illustrator. It took her hours! And a special thanks to ME for hand-cutting each page! hahaha! The stupid paper cutter at Kinkos sucked.

And (since I am unemployed) for the ultimate TOURIST experience, I painted an Eiffel Tower backdrop and set up a photo printer for INSTANT pictures! (I got the idea from all the school dances I use to attend :) I then created "Thank You" card picture templates! I am pretty proud of myself (as you can tell) since I'm not artistic at all!

Michael's cousin Kathy cautioned us that prepping and decorating would be a nightmare, but we both waved off her warnings. How hard could it be to put a few plates and wine glasses on a table?! RIGHT???


Though we were happy with the outcome (did you know tulips are from the Netherlands?), we had no idea what was in store for us. Cooking and entertaining 16 people (plus 6 kids) may not sound like a huge deal... but cooking, presenting, and serving 16 people who are actually judging you is a totally different story and utterly exhausting. There was SO much to do, it was beyond ridiculous. And I am (borderline OCD) organized! I had a timeline and check-off sheet of all the things we needed to do, but planning, prepping, cooking, baking, heating, plating, serving is a b*tch! Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all the planning and prepping up until 2PM that day, when our guests were due to arrive in three hours.

Service was our hardest obstacle. It is not easy to serve 16 people + 6 kids! How come no one warned me of that?! Everyone made it look so easy!After dinner, all the boys pitched in to do the dishes! Hooray! We had heard nightmarish stories of people taking two days just to clean their kitchen after GDC. So I don't know if it's because they thought after 8 weeks, they'd take over some of the duties, or they just felt sorry for us. Either way, we were so grateful for them! I really wanted to be a gracious hostess and insist they stop washing, but honestly, I did not have the energy to stop them. I hope our scores weren't affected by it!

All in all, it was a wonderful experience. I had tons of fun planning and scheming :D The two days of prepping and cooking were worth the returns (although I really think our service could have been more seamless and our food could have been even more refined), but we were aiming for some creativity and meaning in our dinner and I think we accomplished that!

Were we happy to be a part of it all? Absolutely!

Would we do it again? Probably Not! :D

It really allowed me and Michael to step outside of our comfort zone and put our hidden talents to the test! It was also good to put my brain to use after all these months of unemployment ;) And now, cooking dinner for a group of friends is easy peasy!