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Equestrian Inspiration

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Design Lovely on This Is Glamorous

This photograph is so simple and the three colors just jumped out at me.  The green and brown colors of a fields and horses would make a lovely table, but what strikes me most about this photograph is the juxtaposition of the refined and girly white dress against those colors.  The white is the element that would make a table pop and make it more Out of Africa than Lonesome Dove.

I actually already have a green-and-white equestrian themed tablecloth – don’t ask me why; I was looking on Etsy one day and got excited – and I would cover it with small tan or brown bud vases holding simple fluffy white flowers.  For a more rustic theme, you could put the flowers in aluminun cans wrapped in luxurious chocolate brown ribbons.  Natural light would display these colors best, so I would use this color scheme for a special lunch rather than drown out the colors in dinner darkness.

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Food Restrictions

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I recently came across this essay by a hostess who is tired of catering to her guests’ special dietary requests and concludes that she’ll only modify her menu if a guest will literally fall over from eating a particular food.

I have had enough with people who want to have it their way, and I am done catering to the quirks of food-obsessed numskulls. If you eat in my home, I will grudgingly respect medically diagnosed allergies, since it puts a pall on conversation when a guest goes into anaphylactic shock at the dinner table. But beyond that, I expect you to eat what you can, ignore the rest and not make trouble. On Thursday, 15 people are sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at my house, and with God as my witness, I promise you this: There will be dark meat.

Otherwise, her guests are expected to eat around whatever she serves. If she serves meat to vegetarians, then they can just stick with salad and bread.

I’ve been debating my feelings about this for a few days. Clearly, I not only modify my menus for people’s dietary preferences, I even take pride in doing so while still presenting a menu that you would never think of having been specially created. I only realize now that I’ve done so with a fair amount of joy because my guests with food restrictions have always avoided special treatment and told me not to worry about it – which of course makes me want to help them out as much as possible! Reverse psychology works on me, obviously! Probably because I grew up vegetarian and was around a lot of people with unusual eating habits, I’m not surprised when someone says they don’t eat eggs or wheat or any animal products and I’m used to working around it. At the same time, I’m also used to those people being aware that they’re imposing their choices on others and trying to avoid doing so as much as possible.

So while I take her point that a guest’s expectation for you to change a menu due to their choice not to eat something could be annoying, I think it depends on how your guest treats the issue. If a future dinner guest let me know about a food restriction that is clearly by choice and very restricting (“no carbs, please” or “I refuse to eat anything that is not organic”) and expected me to shape the menu around it, I probably would say that I would do my best and just make sure I had at least one dish they would eat. [By the way, total side note but semi on the subject: it is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when people say they CAN’T eat something that really they WON’T eat.  For example, I CAN eat red meat, but I choose not to (though that may change soon – my meat-eating ideas are evolving). And yet, even I find that word coming out of my mouth sometimes because I’ve made the commitment so, when presented with a steak, I really feel that I can’t eat it due to that commitment. It really sucks when you perpetrate your own pet peeve, doesn’t it?! I’m trying very consciously to do better with my semantics because no matter what, that kind of restriction is most definitely a choice.] If a future guest let me know about a food restriction and was happy to eat around it because, yes, it is their choice, then I’d try to write a menu around it but never make any guarantees. And of course, when I’m invited by someone else, I let the host know that I choose not to eat red meat (I remembered!) but will be perfectly happy with bread and the good company should they choose to serve steak.

Which brings us to restrictions that are not by choice: religious restrictions and allergies. Both of these are non-negotiable and must be followed, and not grudgingly (as the author writes). Either go all the way or don’t invite that person over. And if you invite people over who behave inconsiderately often enough to write an article griping about it, I’d just say maybe it’s time to look at changing your guest lists rather than your menus.

Honestly, though, I’ll continue to ponder this. There is a whole mess of social etiquette around the subject of people who just don’t like something – do you avoid that food or just say screw it, it’s your own fault for being picky? Ideas, thoughts or advice are very welcome.

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The Girl in the Garden

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You haven’t heard of Kamala Nair, but you will.

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She just sold her debut novel for six figures to Grand Central Publishing. The folks there are either incredibly lucky or insanely smart – or both – because The Girl in the Garden is going to be huge.  I was lucky to read it for the first time several months ago because (full disclaimer!) the author is my best friend.  I started it just before bed, planning to do some nice sleepy reading for a few chapters, then go to sleep and finish it later.  I had to be up in the morning fairly early, and I was tired.  Well: two hours later I looked at the clock and realized it was really late and I’d better go to bed ASAP to have any chance at a functional tomorrow – and I still could NOT put it down!  I read until it was done because I absolutely could not go to sleep without knowing what happened.  It was completely worth it.  It’s a beautifully written family drama that will thrill and delight you, worry you, surprise you and keep you turning the pages until there aren’t any left.  So, buy it!  Though this is rather early – it will probably come out in summer 2011 – but never fear, I will remind you then quite incessantly.

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Ahhhh....summertime reading....

Here is the official synopsis from Publisher’s Marketplace: “Kamala Nair’s THE GIRL IN THE GARDEN, the redemptive journey of a young woman unsure of her engagement, who revisits in memory the events of one scorching childhood summer when her beautiful yet troubled mother spirits her away from her home to an Indian village untouched by time, where she discovers in the jungle behind her ancestral house a spellbinding garden that harbors a terrifying secret.”

The Girl in the Garden will be a fantastic book club selection because there are so many controversial characters that can’t be pigeonholed into good/bad – people will have a lot of different opinions, I think.  Which, naturally, would make for a great dinner party or cocktail party.  I love themed parties like this, but hate for them to be too obviously connected to their inspiration.  For example, the novel is primarily set in India, but serving only Indian food would just be so expected.  And we don’t ever want to be predictable, do we!?  I won’t give much away, but there are other elements of the novel that gave me inspiration with a twist – two primary themes are inner beauty and childhood.  My menu is below, and flexibly works for either hors d’oeuvres or a casual dinner party (everyone will have to feel comfortable about eating with their hands).  You’ll have to read the book to truly understand why I chose these dishes ;)

  • Samosas
  • Hot Peel and Eat Shrimp with Saffron Parsley Butter
  • Arugula with Pineapple and Pine Nuts, served in the pineapple
  • Wedding Cake

I started with samosas, because although they are obviously Indian food, I love them and I refuse to leave them out.  We also needed a little something Indian in the menu.  The shrimp reminds me of the tropical climate of Kerala and in their skins, they are ugly on the outside but wonderful on the inside; a major theme of the book.  Also, you have to eat the samosas and shrimp with your hands, tearing off the unattractive outer covering to get to the tastiness inside, which takes us back to childhood and obviously follows our theme of inner beauty.  The plating of the pineapple salad follows it as well and is evocative of the garden wall, and since the fruit itself has a prickly skin but is sweet inside, it too adds to our theme.  Pineapple is also a tropical fruit, and – an aside – I thought I didn’t like pineapple until I went to Kerala and someone convinced me to try one.  Oh my goodness, I can still remember how sweet that pineapple was.  I’ve been completely converted to pineapple ever since, and love using it in non-fruit salad ways.  Finally, wedding cake (which is really any cake you feel like making as long as you decorate it nicely) for the ending the main character hopes to have – plus, back to our childhood theme: everyone likes cake.

Martha Stewart Weddings

Martha Stewart Weddings

I would serve this on a table designed with a combination of whimsy and practicality.  It’s going to be a messy meal, and one napkin is not going to hold up to that shrimp.  So, two strategically placed paper towel dispensers placed on the table where the candles would usually go will be amusing and purposeful!  Then, with the white paper towels keeping it from getting too crazy, dress up the rest of the table with color: bright pinks, yellows, blues, reds, oranges.  This would be a great time to use the idea of aluminum cans (labels removed) or old jars as vases, again bringing us back to childhood and a casual feeling, and the colors are evocative of India without going overboard with the connection.

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Images on left from Martha Stewart Weddings and on right from Snippet and Ink

This is neither a table nor menu that would make sense served without a connection to The Girl in the Garden, and it’s so fun to have inspiration come from extraordinary stories like this one.  I can’t wait for it to be published so everyone can read it!

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The Apple Tart

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On Valentine’s Day last year, I ordered a drink at Blue Water Grill that was made up of bourbon and apple cider and it tasted like love in a glass.  So good, in fact, that its taste-memory stuck with me for months, until finally I broke down and decided I had to try to recreate it. Now, this cocktail is so tasty it has erased that memory of the original drink  – which is either the sign that I’ve done a good job or I’ve just had way too much fun testing the recipe :)

With its fall flavors and sweetness, it would be a fantastic Thanksgiving aperitif.

The Apple Tart
Inspired by a cocktail at Blue Water Grill

Makes two fairly large cocktails

  • 4 tablespoons honey
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 2 teaspoons lemon zest (roughly one good-sized lemon)
  • juice of two lemons
  • 3 shots bourbon
  • 1/2 cup apple cider

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I love this drink because the apple cider and lemon don’t overpower the heavenly bourbon, and except for the apple cider, I usually have all the ingredients lying around (which means that in a pinch I make it with pomegranate juice or even orange, although orange juice really doesn’t meld as well with the bourbon).

I like my drinks stiff, so if you don’t then only use 2 shots of bourbon; I also like my drinks to not be very sweet, so if you like the sweetness then use an extra tablespoon or two of honey.  Serve over ice or shake it and serve it up in a martini glass: it works no matter how you present it.  Oh, bourbon….

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Michael’s Loaded Mashed Potatoes

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I kinda like my Thanksgiving dinner to have the same basics every time. It feels reassuring to have the traditional dishes we always have, made with all the weird accommodations we deal with for my family’s different eating requirements: my mom’s vegetarian cornbread stuffing cooked far away from the turkey, the turkey for everyone else cooked somewhere where she can’t smell it cooking (I know, I don’t get it either), homemade cranberry sauce for my mom and my sister and the jellied cranberry sauce from the can for my dad and I (what, the canned sauce is SO superior and if you don’t understand that then I have nothing to say to you), and lots and lots of classic creamy mashed potatoes for everyone.

The best - with the ridges still intact!

The best - with the ridges still intact!

This year we aren’t having a sit-down dinner, but if we were, I’d make sure we have these dishes. Inventive side dishes are fine and even enjoyable, as long as we have these basics on our Thanksgiving table to ensure that no matter what craziness is served beside them, we will have a tasty Thanksgiving. Except that last year, it got all topsy-turvy. I couldn’t fully comprehend it until later, and couldn’t accept it until much later. That’s right: we tried a different recipe for mashed potatoes.  Don’t all gasp at once.

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It was all my fault, really. My very good friend Michael came to Thanksgiving, and asked if he could make his traditional mashed potatoes, which are loaded with bacon, cheese, chives and tons of sour cream. I said of course, as long as you don’t mind also having our mashed potatoes on the table because everyone in my family likes them an awful lot.  He felt fine about that. So we agreed to have two mashed potato dishes and everyone could just choose the one they liked (an agreement I made while rolling my eyes and feeling a bit sorry for him and his complicated mashed potatoes that no one would eat and that – worst of all – would make bad sandwich leftovers).

Well. Needless to say, since I’m writing this story, everyone liked his mashed potatoes so much that ours seemed terribly boring in comparison – like someone just forgot to make them tasty and filled with flavor. Including me. Honestly, they are so good that I’m hoping to make them this year – the only homemade thing at our Thanksgiving, which is the highest honor I can confer upon a dish. So just trust me and make them for your Thanksgiving. Your taste buds will thank you. And yes, they are excellent as leftovers too. I was wrong about it ALL, all right?!  Geez!

I’ll post photos of the dish soon, but for now, please continue for the recipe and enjoy the beefcake photo of the chef that I coerced him into letting me put up! Love it!

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