I decided just one day to acknowledge my turning 70 was not
enough, so I had two celebrations; an intimate one on the actual day and a
party on St Pat’s Day. I’m certain St Patrick won’t mind sharing his day. I’m
part Irish myself and have cycled a good portion of the Republic of Ireland, so
combining the events seemed logical to me.
For my birthday, I prepared a Beef Wellington, which could
have served twice our number, but then I do enjoy leftovers. I selected a
bottle of Silverado Winery 2000 Cabernet
Sauvignon from the Stags Leap district. There was spice, plum and red berry
on the nose, with some tobacco and earth. I opened it two hours before serving
to get all those ripe red and dark berry fruit flavors with hints of chocolate,
earth and cloves and a wonderful finish.
This was my second Beef Wellington and much bigger than the
one I did for my wife and me on Valentine’s Day. The pastry crust did separate
a bit so I added aluminum foil. The pastry and pate coating – and we are not
discussing fat content here – permits the internal steam to evenly and
completely cook the meat to the proper temperature, which for me is medium
rare. The entire tenderloin roast was done to a perfect medium rare and
sensually tender.
My wife, Barbara, handled the Yorkshire pudding, which is a
bit of a misnomer as far as pudding goes, but this is an English dish after
all. Our good friends Don & Jan Swanson joined us and brought killer
desserts and a bottle of Louis Roederer
Premium Brut Champagne, which rocked with the supreme carrot cake.
Don and I finished with a glass of Black Bush Irish whiskey
in traditional Claddagh glasses. The Claddagh symbol is two hands and a heart
signaling eternal friendship and a perfect end to my birthday dinner.
St. Patrick’s Day
The Sunday dinner on March 17 required my wife and me to put
in a lot of time to make a traditional Irish dinner such as my Grandmother used
to make. Her recipes do require a bit of interpretation and a firm
understanding of all things Irish to make them come out right. A pinch of this
and a dash of that don’t quite cut it these days. I was also puzzled by a list
of ingredients that included a box of raisons for the Irish soda bread. What
size box did she have in mind?
Well, no matter, I added raisins and dried cranberries as if
I was making Miss
Fogarty’s Christmas cake. Check out the link if you’ve never heard the
song. While I worked on the Irish stew, Barbara labored over the fadge. Fadge
is sort of an Irish potato pancake, with day-old mashed potatoes, flour and a
wee bit of grease to hold it together. Ironically, she used a star pattern, and
Starr was my Grandmother Lizzy’s maiden name. I think that would keep her from
rolling over in her grave in case we got the ratio of ingredients off a bit.
The salad had lots of mandarin orange slices in it as a nod
to the Protestants of Northern Ireland where Miss Starr was born, but all of
our guests turned out in lovely shades of green. I donned my World’s Tallest
Leprechaun outfit to receive my guests and did create a stir. (See the picture
below from 1998.) As it happens everyone showed up that said they would and
everyone that wasn’t sure they could make it showed up too. That made it
sixteen for dinner so I was glad we had plenty of everything, including wine.
No one wanted any green beer, which was a plus, but Keith
Powell did gift me with a six-pack of assorted Irish beers and stouts. Being a
somewhat non-traditional bunch, however, the sparkling wines and champagne
headed the list. Some of those well-traveled sparklers did fizz over the top
and I feared the place would rival a World Series winner’s locker room. It is
usually a good idea to let sparkling wines rest up before opening, but everyone
was ripe to party so we did.
I served a couple of bottles of Mark West 2011 Pinot Noir, an always dependable Pinot, and later a
bottle of Mark West 2010 Santa Lucia
Highlands Pinot Noir, which was exquisite with the lamb stew. Some of our
guests preferred bigger red wines, so we had a couple of Cabernet Sauvignon
wines and heavy red blends.
We then launched into the Irish soda bread, my first at high
altitude (5,100 feet), which needed extra moisture and came out grand, even if
I guessed at the size of the raisin box. Barbara also made a carrot cake for
me, and it was the best I’ve ever had, nicely spiced with a perfect cream
cheese icing that did not require added sugar. That was probably the only
concession to culinary sanity in the entire meal.
Just the same, next year I’m having the event catered.
Posts
