Hey That’s A Nice Life

It’s National Ice Cream Day. To celebrate, I’m making this recipe for Buttermilk Basil Sorbet from Weight Watchers.*

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup(s) sugar, granulated, divided
2/3 cup(s) water
1 cup(s) basil, fresh, cut into ribbons, minced*
4 cup(s) buttermilk
3 Tbsp fresh lime juice
2 tsp lime zest, finely minced

Instructions

Notes

• To make this recipe without an ice cream maker, pour the mixture into a metal tray and place it in the freezer. When the mixture starts to freeze, rake a fork through it several times to break up the ice crystals. Repeat this process about 4 or 5 times over the course of three hours.

  You can also pour the mixture into ice pop molds.

* The mixture is still cooling so I can’t vouch for the taste, but my mention of it on Twitter generated so much interest that I thought I’d better get the recipe up right away.

I love soup. I eat it all year long, usually four or five days of the week. There are a bunch of places near my office that offer tasty soups, and I love making it at home, too.

Here’s how I make Maryland Crab Soup. Sorry there are no measurements but it’s hard to mess it up.

Warm a small amount of olive oil in a soup pot. Add onions, carrots and celery and soften (I used frozen carrots because we had them). Once softened add some fresh ground pepper.

Add frozen peas and cook through.

Add canned white corn.

I usually use V8 juice instead of stock or water for my broth. This time I used half tomato soup and half V8 juice. Once your liquid is warmed through, add a healthy dose of Old Bay. After I stirred this in, I sampled and decided I needed more. Remember that Old Bay will add to the saltiness, so it is possible to go overboard.

Add your  crab meat. It’s totally acceptable to use claw meat for soup even though you’d never want to use it for crab cakes.

Sometime I add some diced, cooked potatoes, too. Others prefer lima beans or green beans to peas. Here’s the official Old Bay recipe for Maryland Crab Soup.

Serve:

Delicious: 

As I have mentioned before, Don and I are not religious people.  However, I am a believer in ritual and traditions.  I also try to be thankful for my blessings - whatever the source of those blessing may be. 

For years, I have been thinking that I want to declare my gratitude before our dinner meal, but we never seem to get around to incorporating this tradition.

Don once forwarded me a link from Ask Metafilter about non-specific graces.  It may have been this one, although I’m sure the topic has been addressed on their forums many times.

I like the shorter Buddhist gatha offered by one contributor:

We receive this food in gratitude to all beings
Who have helped to bring it to our table,
And vow to respond in turn to those in need
With wisdom and compassion.

I also like the very simple but very accurate, “For what we are about to receive we are thankful”.

Gretchen (L) and Grace outside the American Indian Museum early this month.

It had been some time since I revisited my desire to show how thankful we are to the earth for continuing to provide our food, to the farmers who grow and harvest it, to our employers who pay us enough to afford it and to our parents who taught us how to cook and enjoy it.  Then my friends Dawn and Chuck visited with their two little girls, pictured at the left during their visit to DC.  Before dinner their youngest, Gretchen, offered grace.  She’s three, so the first part was hard to understand - though it was probably something along the lines of “God is Great, God is Good”.  Instead of ending with the traditional and expected, “Amen”, little Gretchen said:

“Bon Appetit.  Now you may eat … and drink.”

I found it utterly charming and I told Don that if we have a child I want to teach her say that before every meal.  BUT that means that we’ll have to start working the tradition into our own meals.  So, I’m contemplating what our grace should be.

Any thoughts?

Here’s another picture of Grace and Gretchen on their trip to DC.  It’s not really related to this post, but they are so darn cute I couldn’t help it.

Grace (L) and Gretchen with a SCARY lion (thanks, Tom!) at the National Zoo.

This cute cabbage showed up in our farm share today.

Here’s how I’m going to cook it.

CSA Fried Cabbage

3 slices of turkey bacon
1 tablespoon-ish olive oil
1 large onion sliced
1 head cabbage, cut into quarters and then sliced
salt & pepper
apple cider vinegar

In a large skillet cook the turkey bacon.  Remove from pan and cut into short strips.  Since the turkey bacon will not render a lot of fat, add the olive oil to the hot skillet and soften the onions.  Put the bacon back into the skillet.  Add cabbage and salt and pepper to taste.  Stir and cover. Cook until cabbage is soft, stirring often.  Remove lid, add a splash of cider vinegar - up to 1/3 cup or so.  Turn burner to high setting and cook till brown, turning frequently.

Last weekend my friends threw a wonderful bridal shower for me (more about that later).  Naturally, my Mom was here for the occasion and she spent the night.  She told me before she came that she wanted to work on a wedding project while she was here.  I decided that a good task for us to tackle would be the menu cards.

There was some prep work to be done before she arrived.  First I designed the page so that we’d get three menu cards out of one 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.  We repeated the font from the invitation.  Next I printed a master sheet and copied it onto the lighter blue metallic paper used in the invitation suite.   Finally, Don cut each sheet of paper into three panels.

Sunday morning, Mom and I got to work.  I cut strips of the darker metallic paper and used this awesome little craft punch I found at Michael’s (part of the Martha Stewart line) to make sand dollars and starfish.  Mom glued the sand dollars to the top of the card and the starfish in alternating locations on the cards.  We finished in about two hours and they look great.

I must have inherited the crafting gene from my Mom.   Check out her awesome work:

It was fun to work with her on this project.  Too bad she’s three hours away; there are at least three more big DIY projects to complete in 30 days.  Yikes!

One more shot from the project (in this one you can see how the starfish are in different places on each card):

If you’ve been reading the blog from the start, you know some of the early problems we had with the reception venue caterer.  If you started reading more recently, I wrote a lot about it during the month of August.  The catering manager was a challenge, to say the least.

Today, my mom sent me an article from the local weekly paper offered below without comment.

Dooley named new GM at Centerplate

(Jan. 9, 2009) John Dooley has been named the new general manager of Centerplate at the Roland E. Powell Convention Center in Ocean City. Centerplate provides catering services for all events held at the 40th Street venue.

Dooley most recently served as the food and beverage director of Centerplate at Yankee Stadium in New York where he had worked since 2006. He has also served as a regional executive chef for Centerplate at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., and then the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Earlier in his career, Dooley was the executive chef for Service America at Indiana Convention Center and RCA Dome in Indianapolis, executive chef and food and beverage director at the Doubletree Park Terrace Hotel in Washington, executive chef at Aramark at Sprint in Reston, Va., and senior food service director at Aramark at SAIC in McLean, Va.

During his career, Dooley has managed food and beverage services for numerous high profile events including the Grammy Awards, movie premier cast parties, the Economic Club Dinner for President George H. Bush and the NBA All-Star game in Denver.

“John brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to our catering operations,” said Mike Noah, convention center executive director. “We believe our clients will be well served by his expertise in food and beverage services.”

- Ocean City Today

I wonder what happened to Silent Bob?

I’ve been toying with the idea of wedding cupcakes for a few months and last month I learned that my birthday is the same day as National Cupcake Day.  To me, that seemed like a sign and Don was very agreeable.  After all, who doesn’t love cupcakes?

Also in December, two of my fabulous co-workers and I had a chance to sample some of the Washington Post award-winning cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes. 

They.
Are.
Amazing.

Sweet, moist, light, fluffy.  I just can’t say enough about these gems.

Oh, there is one more thing I can say about them … they actually fit into our budget.

Of course, if you’re paying attention you’ll note that Georgetown is in Washington, DC - 3 hours away from our wedding reception site.  Yes, it’s a problem, but these cupcakes are good enough to warrant finding a solution.

The friendly catering manager, Katy, tells me that while they suggest same day consumption for their cute little cakes, they taste pretty great on day two and that we will not have a problem picking up the cupcakes on Friday and serving them on Saturday evening.  On top of that, our friend and neighbor, Martha, offered to chauffeur the little beauties with her when she comes for the wedding (since Don and I are headed in that direction on Wednesday night or Thursday morning).Yippee!  

And, if that’s not enough good news, Katy also told me that they’d be delighted to decorate them (at no additional charge since they’d be decorating them anyway) with the beautiful chocolate sea shells from Guylian that I will provide for them.

I’m giddy with excitement of sharing these amazing little cupcakes with our friends and family.  All that’s left is to pick the flavors.  We can choose anything on the Friday menu and have already selected chocolate and vanilla,  and vanilla and chocolate - but will probably pick one or two more.  I’m thinking lemon blossom sounds YUM and the seasonal cupcake for May is toffee (which I love).  

Check out the Web site - http://www.georgetowncupcake.com/home.html - and click on menu.  What flavors sound good to you?

On Saturday, we arranged to taste some of the menu suggestions for the reception. Wow. The food was all amazing and I couldn’t believe HOW MUCH they served. We had plenty to box up and eat for dinner and lunches into the long weekend.

Here’s what we tasted:

• Chocolate Dusted Scallops with Vanilla Butter Sauce
• Maryland Crab Soup and Cream of Crab Soup
• New York Strip with Chocolate Merlot Sauce
• Crab Cakes - two kinds (with and without green and red peppers)
• Cocoa and Chili Rubbed Flank Steak
• Three kinds of of vegetables and two starches

The first item brought out for us was the scallop dish. The catering manager remembered seeing Emeril prepare a chocolate and scallop dish for a Valentine’s Day special. They were excellently prepared and had been suggested as main entree … but we didn’t want to compromise on the crab cakes. The caterer suggested a way to turn the scallops into an appetizer so that was appealing. Also, my father loved them, and I loved that my father loved them.

A few months ago, I had the idea that I really wanted to serve shots of crab soup as an appetizer. They have really gotten into the idea (probably because it will make a great offering for future events as well) and have been researching glassware and the best way to present the soup. Even though they haven’t found the right bar ware yet, the presentation was amazing. A simple silver tray with both kinds of soup (red Maryland crab and white cream of crab) served in footed sherry glasses. The sherry glasses are too big, but they will look for similar shot glasses. On the top of each soup shot was a pinch of crab meat along with a whole wheat crouton on the cream of crab and a piece of corn on the Maryland crab. Both soups were delicious; their recipe for cream of crab was particularly excellent (Don really liked that one).

After tasting the appetizers, we moved on to the entrees. We had asked for a traditional Eastern Shore crab cake and a beef using cocoa or chocolate in some way. When the suggestion came back, there were two chocolate and beef entrees that sounded really appealing so we asked to sample both. There is no such thing as sampling with these people. We were served three full entrees with full portions of meat, veggies and potatoes.

We each received two crab cakes and were asked to select between the version with peppers and the version without peppers. Both were good and the version with peppers looked really pretty. To me, though, the peppered version tasted more like crab imperial than crab cake, so we selected the version without peppers (no one but me seemed to have a preference).

We also had to choose between the two kinds of meat. We first sampled the NY strip with chocolate Merlot sauce. The sauce was applied heavily and not attractively arranged, but the flavor was pretty good. Then we sampled the flank steak with cocoa and chili spice rub and thought it was excellent. My father actually liked the chocolate Merlot sauce with the flank steak better, so we decided to offer that as an optional drizzle for anyone who wants to sample it. The catering manager suggested amping up the Merlot and going lighter on the chocolate which I agree would make it tastier.

Since we’re having two stations - one for crab and one for beef - there will be different veggies and starches for each area. That way we won’t have to worry about making separate vegetarian options; anyone who wants a meat-free meal can choose to eat two vegetables, a potato and orzo or couscous. Oh, and we’re going to wait and choose the vegetables in the spring because we expressed our interest in sourcing local food where possible and they were very receptive.

We were very impressed with everything from the presentation to the flavor and feel really good about the venue / catering selection. Can’t wait to see what everyone else thinks.

In Arlington County you can vote early for just about any reason you can come up with - including if you’re going to be a poll worker on election day (Don) or you work outside of the county (both of us). Don voted on September 27 and I voted today.

This is a long, sort-of sad post about why we have not been able to sign a contract on our reception venue. You can read it if you want, but I warned you.

As you may know, Don and I found a reception venue that we really like in Ocean City, Md. The venue overlooks at the Sinepuxent Bay (sometimes called Isle of White Bay) on one side and a tidal marsh on the other. It’s a long room with windows on both sides and a perfect view of the Sunset. There’s a two level deck over the water and it’s a short walk from the ocean where we’d like to hold the wedding ceremony.

Twenty years ago (or more), the Sunset Room was a night club. However, many years ago the building was purchased by the Town of Ocean City and is run by the Convention Center (which happens to be right next door).

The Convention Center is the exclusive caterer for the venue and they contract with a national company called Centerplate. Centerplate is a huge company with contracts for lots of large facilities including ball parks (hence the name).

Initially this scared me. Trade associations, like the one I work for, are in the convention business so I’ve sampled quite a bit of convention food that’s left a little something to be desired. BUT, the chef at the Ocean City Convention Center was recently named Maryland 2008 Chef of the Year so I’m not too worried.

However, even though we’ve been working on securing this venue for almost eight weeks, we really haven’t made much progress.

First there was the dilemma about who really is in charge of the venue. I put a reservation on the space in July with the Convention Center staff only to be told a few weeks later that the calendar maintained by that staff isn’t the official calendar and that my date might already be booked.

After we cleared that hurdle, there was the debate about how much the room costs. I was told by the Convention Center staff that there was a $1500 room charge but if you spend $5000 on food and beverage, the room fee is waived. Then Centerplate told me that there was a $1500 room charge (that, I have been told on more than one occasion, essentially covers the linens and tables) and $5000 minimum food and beverage order. The $1500 fee is never waived. [Side note - both times I've seen the room it was set up to seat about 160 people. That's twice as many people as we expect at our wedding - twice as many tables, twice as many chairs, twice as much linen. If the room fee really is in place to cover the table and linen use then we're getting screwed big time!]

Putting everything else aside, we really like location. So we decided to pursue it. That’s when the phone calls began.

They continued.

And continued.

And continued.

Until finally, I asked my mom to go there in person and get some kind of response. Thankfully on the day she was to visit in person she called to find out where in the building she would find the catering sales office and amazingly got the caterer, who I have nicknamed Silent Bob, on the phone. He gave her some song and dance about how busy he is and then scheduled a meeting with us on August 1. [Another side note - We're busy too. The difference is that we have full times jobs that are not planning our wedding whereas his full time job is to plan events for clients of the Convention Center and Sunset Room.]

So, we met with him on August 1, a Friday. The meeting was very good as meetings go. We were sad to learn the $1500 fee is not going to be waived, but decide it might be worth it anyway. We discussed some specific food ideas we had and asked to have a menu drawn up with pricing. He told us that it would take about a week so we expected to hear from him on August 8.

On Thursday, August 7 I sent him a “thanks for meeting with us; looking forward to seeing your menu creations tomorrow” e-mail just in case we’d slipped his mind. No response.

The 8th came and went. There was nothing over the weekend. Monday slipped into Tuesday.

Finally, I wrote again. He told us he should be able to get us something the following day, or by the week’s end. Wednesday became Thursday, Thursday became Friday and we headed into the weekend with no communication.

Tuesday night, August 19 (18 days after our meeting, and 7 weeks after I placed my first call to the Convention Center to enquire about the space), we sent a final e-mail to Silent Bob. We said we needed to make a decision by the end of the week or move on to our second choice location. [Side note - We don't have a second choice location, really. There are some places that would be fine ... but nothing that felt as right from the first time I saw it.]

If I don’t have something from him tomorrow afternoon, I’ll make one final attempt to contact him via phone - our hail Mary pass.

Don’t worry though, when we run off and elope we’ll take lots of camera phone pictures and it will be almost as special.

Almost.

Cross your fingers that it all works out. We need all the positive thoughts you can muster.