Dinner with friends

It's always exciting cooking for friends that share a common interest in food.  The other weekend we had our good friends Daphne and Bill over for dinner.  I always go the extra mile for these two because Bill is a chef of many years and really inspired and taught me to become a better cook.  The first time he had some friends and me over for dinner he just blew me away with his cooking.  I had been to great restaurants and experienced good food and at that point never saw myself making food at that level.  I was an ok cook and enjoyed dabbling in the kitchen but this guy Bill made some amazing food and was always happy to show me the way and teach me new things.  I was also at dinner with him one time and he made a comment of what he would have done differently with a dish and told me he always liked to change dishes to make them more his own.  That really changed the way I looked at things and has lead to a lot of creativity for me in the kitchen.

I remember the first time I had these guys over for dinner I was so nervous and intimidated and I think it took me a year to figure out the menu.  It's a few years later and I've learned a few new things and it took a lot less than a year to come up with my menu this time.  I made my version of tuna poke, 2 recipes from Alinea - 'oyster, ginger, salmon roe, beer' & 'transparency of manchego cheese', 72 hour sous vide short ribs with a port/wine reduction served with fingerling mashed potatoes, braised heirloom carrots and carrot top sauce, and for dessert Marina made a chocolate & tonka bean creme brulee.  For the most part everything came out quite nice...especially dessert.  There were some snaffoos along the way and I completely forgot to add some things but if you go all out and don't mess a little bit up you're not pushing your personal limits in the kitchen.  I'll share the recipes in future posts.