Cross Over Dinner

Wed. Night September 22, 2005
Wine: 2002 Syrah Ampelos Santa Barbara County from Silverlake Wine
Guests: Cathy & Cliff

It was the end of summer the beginning of fall. So we had a dinner based around the last heirloom tomatoes of the season and the first fall pears. We do hope to squeeze out one last tomato dish: Papa al Pomadore next week. We will see.

On Tuesday night we wentwith Bea Landen to a fund raising dinner for Huricannne Katrina. It was held at a restaurant that we always like but go to very rarely:AOC. Owned by the gang from Lucques it centers around small plates and Spanish – Moroccan dishes. The dinner and wine was great.

Wednesday Cliff went with Cathy to the American Film Institute, where she works. Looking for volunteer work he assembled File Dividers for them while Cathy viewed a movie.

Afterwards we decided to go out to lunch. We wound up at Gingergrass, and had a wonderful Spicy Pork Sandwich. It was huge and we split it. They had a chocolate coconut desert on the menu and we planned to have it for desert. By the time we were ready for desert we thought we would be better served if we took it to go and had it for desert with dinner.

We planned to take our regular walk around the neighborhood and then cook dinner. About 5:00pm we saw on the internet that a Jet Blue airplane was having difficulty and would be making an emergency landing at LAX. We started watching TV news, and until it made its safe landing we watched its plight. Interestingly enough, we could watch it live on TV or lookout our window and actually see the plane as it flew over for its landing.

We had bought heirloom tomatoes from the Hollywood Farmers market on Sunday. On Tuesday we prepared them for the pasta we were going to make. A great recipe for tomatoes from: Lynne Rossetto Kasper: Oven Candied Summer Tomatoes. Simply slice into wedges coat with olive oil, salt, pepper and place in a 400 degree oven. Every 30 minutes reduce heat by 50 degrees until the tomatoes are brown around the edges. They are wonderful, in a great oily sauce.

We had purchased a chicken from Gelson’s after the eating the Pork Sandwich for lunch. We cooked the whole chicken according to a recipe from:

While the chicken was cooking we watched the premier of “My Name is Earl” which we had recorded the previous night. Jason Lee, the star of the show, had just moved into a house around the corner from us, that he rented from Beck. He appears to be an ok neighbor, playing on the front lawn with his wife and new baby.

For the first course we had a delicious pear salad. It was made with sliced Pears, candied walnuts and Basque Blue Cheese from The Cheese Store of Silverlake. We drizzled Saba over the salad. It was excellent. Can’t wait to have it again tonight!

The chicken recipe was Roast Chicken with Ginger, Macaroni with Roasting Juices from the cookbook: LuLu’s Provencal Table by Richard Olney. Cathy augmented the recipe by baking the tomatoes according to a recipe from The Italian Country Table by . Once the chicken was baked, we made pasta, combined the tomatoes with fresh Garlic and Basil, pored all of the chicken juices over the pasta, sliced the chicken and added to the pasta and served. It was a fabulous recipe.

We had the coconut chocolate dessert from Gingergrass. It came with a chocolate sauce and coconut cream.

Exceptional dinner!

After the dinner late a night we took a walk through the neighborhood, it was very quiet and very pleasant.