Thursday, June 19, 2014

Planning Your Rehearsal Dinner




You’ve probably seen the statistics, the cost of wedding events are at an all-time high.  In Atlanta, we trail ever so slightly behind the National average of nearly $30,000.  Every online wedding magazine you read, or bridal show you attend reminds you that one of the happiest days of your life will cost you as much as a down payment on a new home.  Brides are spending more each year on their nuptials.  I read one statistic that said 25% of brides in 2013 didn’t have a budget at all!  Imagine having virtually no spending limit…  I digress.

My clients depend on me to make their wedding meal a memorable experience. While the reception is the main food event, the rehearsal dinner presents a wonderful opportunity to set your wedding weekend off with a bang.  The average rehearsal dinner spend is about $1,200, depending on the number of guests.  I’ve catered one for more than $3,000 because there was extended family traveling from New York and the guest list ballooned to 75.  Regardless of what you spend, the dinner should be fun.  More importantly it should present a unique opportunity to celebrate privately with your bridal party, parents, family and friends.

Why do it?

Rehearsal dinners are a great way to let your hair down after walking through your final preparation for the big day.  It’s an opportunity for loved ones to give emotional speeches and moving toasts that would bring an otherwise lively reception to a screeching halt.  What’s great about the rehearsal dinner is that everyone in attendance gets to speak from the heart about the bride and groom and what they mean to them.

Also, this dinner is perhaps the first time members of both families have met.  It presents the perfect chance for everyone to get to know one another while sharing an intimate dinner with the special couple.  I’m often asked, “Do we do assigned or random seating?”  I mostly recommend placing people strategically around the dinner table which gives you an opportunity to introduce and seat people together who haven’t met that you believe would have good chemistry.  If you are seated family style you have the opportunity to place people next and across from each other.  Nothing promotes dialogue more than passing along a shared platter of food.

Should I have a Theme?

Themes are fun, especially when you work with a vendor who is very creative.  Although it be expensive, the good news is, it doesn’t have to be.  And if you’re a bride on a budget you needn’t worry about a special theme for this meal.  If you’re a bride without a budget and you want a special theme, the playbook is wide open.  You can choose a theme that compliments your wedding or do something completely different.  For example, one of my bride clients did a French themed rehearsal dinner because Paris is where she and the groom first met.  Their entrĂ©e selection was Coq au Vin because they shared that dish on their first date.  They wanted to honor that occasion and share it with family and friends.  Rehearsal dinners are a blank palette for your imagination; however, I recommend you make every attempt to make it a personal experience limited only by your creativity or your budget.

Who should you invite?

The average wedding guest list is approaching 140 family and friends.  The average bridal party is 8 to 10.  While you can't invite everyone you should make sure you invite the people who are closest to you.  Aside from the mandatory guests, the wedding party, moms, dads and grandparents, I suggest that you try to give your out of town guests the full wedding experience (including the morning after brunch).  They probably traveled a long way to share your day and you may not see them again for some time.

Your rehearsal dinner will set the tone for the weekend.  A little attention to detail can go a long way to helping you share your excitement and happiness with the ones you love.  Weddings are stressful but you’re at the finish line.  Take a deep breath and try to fun.  You’re about to enter a new and wonderful stage of your life with the one you love!

Friday, July 5, 2013

As American as Sweet Potato Pie... A Love Story

On this July 4th holiday I wanted to write about someone who was very special to me, my Grandmother, Marion Kelly.  She has long passed this life but I have moments when I still feel her presence.

Like the times when I am asked to make sweet potato pie.  The response I give is usually a mixed bag of emotional reactions.  First, I give a look that is a combination of bewilderment and fear.  Then, I’ll give that stare of incredulity followed by a sagging resignation.

You see, sweet potato pie was one of my grandmother’s specialties.  If she knew we were coming over for a visit she made sure to have an extra pie just for me.  My grandmother was a tough lady but we all knew her love was limitless.  She sacrificed so much for her children and their kids and I'm confident we descendants can all share a favorite memory that we would instantly recognize as a Grandma Kelly truth.

Warning:  If you think this blog post will end with a sweet potato pie recipe it won't be.  If this bothers you I suggest you stop reading right now.  This is just one persons memory of a loved one sparked by an American holiday and his feelings about a classic (Southern) dessert.  If I were asked to name one person as my culinary hero it would be Grandma Kelly.

It was never easy visiting my grandmother.  Though we lived in the same city grandma lived in the Throgs Neck projects in the Bronx.  Travelling to her place stretched the limits of our patience because to get there from Staten Island required a bus to a ferry, a subway ride only to (get this), transfer to another train and then another.  We would catch one final  bus only to walk about a half mile to her apartment building.

I suppose a pie is a just reward for embarking on such an arduous trip.  I'm grateful for the memory but as a culinary professional it is both a blessing and a curse.  My memory of her pie is flooded with the flavor of deliciously sweet potatoes.  My senses about the flavor are so distinct I sometimes wonder if my mind, and by extension, my memories are playing tricks on me.  I'm pretty good at making pies and I'm fairly certain her pie could have used an upgrade in the crust department.  I'm sure it was store bought and frozen which I would, no doubt, turn my nose up to today.  And even though the potatoes she used were fresh (not canned), if one were to examine a Grandma Kelly pie today, they would be skeptical of its special magical quality.  After all, she used all of the traditional ingredients to make her sweet potato filling:  milk, sugar, eggs and spices.  Nevertheless, I remain completely intimidated by the thought of making a sweet potato pie.  The reason is simple -- my previous attempt don't measure up.

Despite that, my love for cooking is derived in large part by the foods that came from my grandmother’s kitchen.  Her food was filled with the joys and the hardships of her life.  I feel my food is a reflection of my life (an idea I'd like to develop in future blog entries).  She was the daughter of a former slave who became a sharecropper from Virginia.  She was very young when she started working in tobacco fields where she picked up her lifelong smoking habit.  I don't want to overstate any facts but it's indisputable my grandmother had a very hard life.  At a young age and with the help of her friends she escaped her home and traveled to Philadelphia to live with her sister.  She ultimately ended up in NYC where she worked hard, got married to a military man and raised my mother and her four younger brothers.

The stories she shared with me included a somewhat odd friendship with Billie Holiday, the Harlem nightlife and an occasion when she stopped to listen to Malcolm X preaching on an uptown corner.  Being raised in an abusive home, having a marriage that she acknowledged was at times difficult (though she was unwilling to elaborate) and losing one of her sons to drugs is too common a story from women of similar circumstances.  For me, that she became the bedrock and glue of our family is her real story.  I believe it is a story of one woman’s strength and her uncompromising love.

I think that's what made her pies so special.  What she gave of herself became that magical ingredient in the food she made.  My theory is, if you really care about the food you're making people will love it.

When I was older and living on my own I would call her when I wanted to drop by and ask for my favorite pie.  I think it did as much for her to make me a pie as it did for me to receive one.  It was hard to visit her in the hospital seeing her succumb to all the hardships and hard living shortly before she passed away.  She was never able to give up her tobacco habit and the toll it took on her life became too much for her to carry on.


As this July 4th comes to a close I just want to honor her memory.  I miss that pie a lot, but I miss her more.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

It's Really French Isn't It?

I can't tell you the true origin of French salad dressing but I can say with certainty that it is not French. Using "trusty" Wikipedia as my unflappable encyclopedic resource, I discovered the somewhat sweet dressing is as popular in Britain as it is in the US. Wiki has it surfacing on US restaurant menus as early as 1899, but a much more reliable source, The Cook's Country Cookbook (the wonderful compendium of lost culinary treasures) found it in cookbooks as early as the 1930's.

I have been making quick homemade vinaigrette's for some time now and I'm always looking for new flavors to add variety to my salads. I don't believe you can ever go wrong with a balsamic vinegar and red or white wine vinegars are a nice break from the routine. Add a little Dijon mustard to help emulsify the dressing and you have a rich and silky, flavorful salad topper. But these are not the dressings I wish to discuss.

French Dressing is another version of vinaigrette; however, it's emulsifying base, ketchup, makes it sweet. This brings me to the purpose of this particular blog entry. I intend for this to be a theme that I will pursue for a little while. You've heard of the movie Julie & Julia about a woman who blogs her way through Julia Child's classic cookbook The Art of French Cooking. I'm using the same idea to help me blog about recipes in various cookbooks like The Cook's Country Cookbook (CCC). This book was produced by America's Test Kitchen and it provides recipes cataloging classic American fare. It's, more or less, the type of food I like to cook along with Soul Food, classic southern cuisine, and classic French dishes. This personal journey will help me broaden my appreciation for American cookery and I want to share it with you. Today is all about French Dressing.

In general, I prefer homemade over store bought. It has slowly become a point of pride with me. It's hard for me to completely trust a recipe so I generally make changes. I think CCC got it mostly right but I made a couple of small adjustments. The following recipe is VERY simple and I think you'll find it to be something you can add to your repertoire with little effort. CCC says "Odds are you have everything you need in the pantry..."

Here's what you'll need:
1/2 cup ketchup
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil
1/4 cup white wine vinegar or distilled white vinegar
2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 teaspoon grated onion
1/4 teaspoon hot sauce (or more to taste)

How it's prepared reminds me of the song that goes "You put the lime in the coconut and mix it all up..." CCC says to place "all the ingredients to a lidded container and shake vigorously..." What follows are my slight variations,

I added a bit more vinegar, maybe a tablespoon, and I chopped the onion. I like for my onion to provide noticeable texture to the dressing and the additional vinegar helped it to taste less like ketchup and more like traditional French (American French that is).

CCC offers a Creamy variation that I have not yet tried. It calls for the addition of 1/4 cup mayonnaise and if you use this variation I would suggest making the mayo yourself. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it if you try it. As before, you feedback is something I take seriously, even if it's stinging.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Virgin Blog - Pie Dough & Food Processors

My first blog. I can't be certain the thoughts rummaging about in my mind will successfully make it to the page. Or that these entries will be interesting at all. I'm pretty certain the direction of my writing will be influenced by my daily goings on in my kitchen and elsewhere, but it will most certainly be affected by you, the reader.

So it's Christmas time and I am terrible with surprise gifts. Mostly, I prefer to reveal what I want so I can give exact instruction on what to get. Many times I will go and get the gift myself. No surprises. No disappointments. Because I like to cook and I LOVE food, my friends, my family and co-workers love to gift books like The Ultimate Cookie Book or Home Cooking: The Costco Way. These books are mostly OK, but if I were suggesting a cookbook I'd select something like The Big Fat Duck Cookbook or Larousse Gastronomique.
Big Fat Duck Cookbook by Heston Blumenthal: Book CoverLarousse Gastronomique by Larousse Librarie: Book Cover


My most recent gift request is a full-sized food processor to replace the tiny 3-cup unit on my counter top. It sits under the Christmas tree unwrapped and in plain view begging me to use it. I need the larger unit because a 3-cup processor can hardly do the job of making dough for a two-crust pie. I needed it for one thing only, to make my pie crust-making easier. For that, my new 11-cup Pro 11 Cuisinart will suit me fine.

All of you pie crust making purists may think using a food processor to make pie crust is akin to cheating, but I disagree. I've made crust purely by hand, by mixer and by processor and I've discover my highest level of comfort, consistency and success using the processor. With a 3-cup machine, my ingredients typically reach all the way to the top of the unit forcing me to complete the dough-making process in a separate bowl. This forces me to take more time to bring the dough together. Time is important because I want my dough to remain cold to keep the butter and shortening from softening and melting.

Finishing in the processor is not without risk. If I'm not careful I could overwork the dough. It will likely take me a couple of tries before I feel I know my way around finishing it this way. In the past, my best crusts have been those where the butter is still visible when I put it in the fridge to rest for an hour. Also, I tend to use a butter:shortening ratio if about 3:1. Frozen fats are best and easy to work with when using a quality processor. A word or two on lard: I like lard and I use it. For me, all butter and butter/shortening crusts are OK but don't come close to matching the all around qualities of using a bit of pig fat. What are those qualities? Easy, layers of flakiness and great flavor! Hmm, I wonder how duck fat would do...

I recently wrote on someones Facebook page that duck fat is the best thing to ever happen to French fried potatoes. Try it and I think you will agree. I digress.

This is my second go round with a large Cuisinart, the last one and I got separated during various moves, and I cook A LOT more now than I did then. The slice, dice, mix and grind tango I do with this one will be memorialized in future postings. I would like to say it'll begin AFTER Christmas but I'm not sure I can wait that long.

In the meantime, I need to go and get started on my Roasted Chicken for tonight's dinner. I'll remove the back, flatten the bird and roasted under a weight. It'll have some fresh herbs, butter and bacon and the drippings will make a glorious gravy. I have some red skinned fingerling potatoes that I will saute in olive oil and minced garlic. I think creamed corn will work as a decadent side veggie that I'll flavor with some fresh rosemary from my mini-garden.

RECIPE:

OK, I make enough pie dough for a double crust. My recipe is really a merger of my favorite recipes over the years, including the process I use to create it. Here it is:

INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 Tsp Salt
3 Tbsp Granulated Sugar
1 1/2 Sticks Butter (12 Tablespoons)
4 Tbsp Lard/Vegetable Shortening
5 Tbsp ICE COLD water (or Vodka*)

HOW TO MAKE:

Mix 1 1/2 cups of flour, salt & sugar in food processor (pulse about 5 or 6 times for about one second per pulse). Cut butter and lard in small pieces of about a tablespoon each (careful, don't handle to much as you don't want the butter to melt) and add to the processor. Cut the fat into the flour by pulsing until the mixture becomes coarse. Most recipes say the butter should be cut to the size of peas. That works for me. Add the remaining cup of flour and pulse until mixed.

OK, at this point you have two choices; one, drizzle water into the processor while you pulse the machine. You need to know what dough should look like to do it this way because you can easily over mix it. And two, you can pour the flour mixture into a separate bowl and mix the water in with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Don't use your hands or you will melt the butter! Sorry about yelling. With the spatula, mix and press the dough together. If the dough is too dry it will be nearly impossible to roll (or at least very unpleasant) so feel free to add more water in increments of 1 Tbsp until you have a nice, mostly smooth, dough that is not wet or sticky. Take your time with this step and you'll be happy with the results.

Split the dough into two balls. I try to keep one ball slightly larger than the other. I'll then use the larger dough as the bottom crust which helps me to shape the pie shell better. At this point you want to flatten slightly into a disk, give it a light dusting of flour and wrap in plastic. Place in the refrigerator for one hour (or so). Before rolling, allow the dough to warm a bit to room temperature so it will roll easier. Use flour on your rolling surface but don't over do it because the flour can cause your dough to dry out.