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ОглавлениеThe Mistress of Modernism's Art Gallery Opening
Peggy Guggenheim
Peggy Guggenheim was a twentieth-century patroness of the arts, most notable for bringing together the European Surrealists with the American Abstract Expressionists. She opened her New York Gallery, Art of This Century, in December 1942. A partial inventory of the opening works includes pieces by Arp, Brancusi, Calder, Chagall, Duchamp, Ernst, Kandinsky, Klee, Magritte, Man Ray, Miro, Mondrian, Picasso, and Vail (her first husband).
Art of This Century was comparable to the Armory Show of 1913, with its scandalous modern content that rocked popular imagination and drew large crowds. Peggy's gallery was interactive, making art fun and accessible to a general audience rather than just to elite wealthy buyers. It was a highly democratic experience, with the idea that it would be an art center where ideas would be freely exchanged. Its goal was to show that art was not static. The mission of the gallery was to serve the future, not to record the past, and its greatest contribution was that it showed unproven artists.
Peggy Guggenheim was one of only two female gallery owners in New York at the time of opening Art of This Century. She exhibited an all-women's art show, “Exhibition by 31 Women” in January 1943, with the works of Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Meret Oppenheim (who had shocked MOMA viewers with her fur-lined tea set). She has said that her single greatest discovery was Jackson Pollock, whose career she launched with a one-man show.
A Bohemian Painter's Party
Peggy Guggenheim's discovery, Jackson Pollock, is credited with the invention of “action painting.” In action painting, Pollock used sticks instead of brushes to drip and fling paint onto a giant canvas, which was not upright on an easel but laid out flat on the floor of his barn studio. He hovered over the canvas and became part of the painting. The recipes below take off on the painting theme to create an artist's palette for your guests' palates!
The recipe for Paint “Brushes” with Paint Pot Dipping Sauces mimics Pollock's technique because the “brushes” have no brush, just the stick part. The different colored dipping sauces are arranged to resemble paint pots. The sauce flavors are honey-mustard, lemony ranch, zesty barbecue, olive-marinara and sesame-soy. The Modern Art Tart is an eggplant pizza with Asian flavors. It is garnished like an abstract modern art piece with various forms and vibrant colors. For dessert, the Jackson Pollock Ice Cream Canvases give your guests a chance to create their own paintings of vanilla ice cream with colorful sauces of caramel, butterscotch, chocolate, and strawberry. The Painter's Palette Cookies complete the meal and the theme with a sugar cookie cutout in the shape of a paint palette and painted with a mixture of egg yolk and food coloring. (Renaissance artists painted with a similar mixture of egg yolk and tempera pigment.)
Paint “Brushes” with Paint Pot Dipping Sauces
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
18 hard breadsticks
18 slices bacon
½ cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ cup Dijon mustard
¼ cup honey
½ cup ranch dressing
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ cup barbecue sauce
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper sauce
½ cup marinara sauce
2 tablespoons chopped black olives
½ cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sliced green onions
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and set aside.
2 Wrap each breadstick with a slice of bacon in a spiral so the bacon is wound around the breadstick from end to end.
3 Spread the brown sugar out on a piece of foil and sprinkle the cumin over it. Mix to combine with your fingers and gently squeeze out any lumps in the brown sugar.
4 Roll the bacon-wrapped breadsticks in the brown sugar mixture to lightly coat them and place them on the foil-lined baking sheet.
5 Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the pan and cool on lettuce leaves (the grease can drain and they won't stick to lettuce like they would to paper towels.)
6 Combine the Dijon mustard and the honey for one dipping sauce.
7 Combine the ranch dressing and lemon juice for the second dipping sauce.
8 Combine the barbecue sauce with the Worcestershire sauce and cayenne pepper sauce for the third dipping sauce.
9 Combine the marinara sauce with the chopped black olives for the fourth dipping sauce.
10 Combine the soy sauce, sesame oil, and sliced green onions for the fifth dipping sauce.
11 Put the “brushes” in a cylindrical vessel, such as a vase or a clean paint bucket, and arrange the five dipping sauces in small bowls or ramekins around the brushes.
Modern Art Tart
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
1 prebaked pizza shell
2 Japanese eggplants
¼ cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
¼ cup roasted red bell pepper strips
½ cup hoisin sauce
¼ cup sliced green onions
¼ cup smoked Gouda cheese, shredded
2 tablespoons chopped peanuts
fresh cilantro leaves
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2 Slice eggplants into ¼-inch rounds and brush them with oil. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper and grill them on a grill pan or an outdoor grill. Be sure to cook them until they are tender enough to eat and try to get striped grill marks on them for flavor and presentation.
3 Put the pizza shell on a pizza pan and spread the hoisin sauce over it.
4 Arrange the grilled eggplant slices over the sauce, then scatter the roasted red bell pepper strips and sliced green onions over the eggplant. Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the tart.
5 Bake the tart for 15 minutes, until the cheese has melted and everything is heated through. Remove the tart from oven.
6 Garnish the tart with the chopped peanuts and fresh cilantro leaves and cut it into 6 wedges.
Jackson Pollock Ice Cream Canvases
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
6 ounces cream
6 ounces chocolate chips
1 cup frozen, sweetened strawberries, thawed
½ cup caramel sauce
½ cup butterscotch sauce
1 rectangular block of vanilla ice cream (half-gallon)
4 plastic squeeze bottles
METHOD:
1 In a saucepan, heat the cream to a simmer. Add the chocolate chips and remove the pan from the heat. Let sit for 10 minutes, and then stir the melted chocolate into the cream to combine. Pour this chocolate sauce into a plastic squeeze bottle and keep in a warm place.
2 Purée the strawberries with their liquid in a blender and then strain it. Pour this strawberry sauce into a plastic squeeze bottle and set aside.
3 Heat the jars of caramel and butterscotch in a saucepan of warm water. Pour the sauces into two separate plastic squeeze bottles and keep in a warm place.
4 Peel the sides of the ice cream container down to expose the sides of the rectangular block of ice cream.
5 Cut the ice cream block, with a knife warmed in hot water, into 1- to 2-inch slices and place them on each guest's plate.
6 Set the squeeze bottles of sauces out for your guests to paint their own ice cream canvases à la Jackson Pollock.
Painter's Palette Cookies
SERVES 12
INGREDIENTS:
4 ounces soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon cream
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1¾ cups flour
1 egg yolk
food coloring (red, blue, yellow)
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.
2 In a mixing bowl with an electric mixer cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg, cream, and vanilla and mix well. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3 In a separate bowl mix together the salt, baking powder, and flour and then add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Mix to form a smooth dough.
4 Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to prevent sticking. With a 3-inch x 4-inch oval or egg-shaped cookie cutter, cut cookies out of the dough. Brush excess flour off the cookies and place them on cookie sheets.
5 Cut a small off-center circle out of the cookie with a canapé cutter or the large end of a pastry piping tip to resemble the part of the palette that the thumb and brushes go through.
6 Divide the egg yolk, mix it with different colors of food coloring, and paint it on the cookies in circles around the edge to resemble the paint on a painter's palette.
7 Bake cookies for 12-15 minutes. Cool on a rack.
Proper Attire
Inform your guests on the invitation to wear or bring their own painting smocks because they will be creating their own edible artwork at the party. Suggest that they “brush up” on their knowledge of modern artists and hold a game of guess-the-artist by showing pictures of paintings with the artists' signatures covered. Award various art supplies, such as paints and brushes, for prizes.
Titanic Tragedy
In 1912 when Peggy was thirteen years old, her father, Benjamin Guggenheim, brother of Solomon Guggenheim of art museum fame, went down with the Titanic in full evening attire. After his death, heiress Peggy was thought of as the “poor relation” in the family.
The Queen of Palm Beach's Luncheon
Marjorie Merriweather Post
Marjorie Merriweather Post was the only daughter of breakfast food innovator C.W. Post. Her father's inventions include Postum, a coffee substitute, Grape-Nuts cereal, and Post Toasties breakfast flakes. Born in 1887 in Springfield, Illinois, Marjorie was involved at an early age in her father's entrepreneurial projects. As a child she glued Postum labels onto the product's packages and when her father moved the family to Battle Creek, Michigan, she accompanied him on sales trips to win shelf space in a Grand Rapids grocery store next to his fellow inventor and competitor Kellogg. After Postum's success came a ready-to-eat breakfast food that was touted as “Marjorie's Baby Food”—Grape-Nuts. Marjorie later made her own mark on the company her father started by purchasing Clarence Birdseye's “frosted foods” company, General Foods. She was sympathetic to the average housewife's drudgery in the kitchen even though she didn't cook herself, and she was determined to make a difference by providing them with convenient alternatives for preparing the family meals.
The heiress to the cereal fortune became the toast of Palm Beach society along with her second husband, E.F. Hutton, in the 1920s, a time when the stuffy Old Society was breaking down to make way for the Jazz Age's cult of youth. The virtues of hospitality and sociability from Marjorie's middle-class Midwestern childhood and her participation in her family's acts of charity to the ill and needy combined with her fortune to pave the way for the elaborate benefit balls she staged in Palm Beach. Marjorie, now the “Queen of Palm Beach,” threw theme parties and costume parties with friends such as the flamboyant showman Flo Ziegfeld and his actress wife Billie Burke. In a tribute to those sophisticated soirees, here is a dinner menu suitable for entertaining your friends Palm Beach style.
A Cereal Queen's Party
This luncheon menu starts with a Cold Cucumber Soup that was once on the menu of one of Marjorie's friend Billie Burke's dinner parties. The dainty Palm Beach Finger Sandwiches are so called because a sandwich filled with pimento cheese is sometimes called a “Palm Beach.” (The vintage Highland Park Pharmacy lunch counter in Dallas has it on their menu.) Macadamia Nut Crusted Trout is an elegant entrée and it happens to have one of Marjorie's pet projects in the ingredients: macadamia nuts. Ms. Post financed a cousin's idea to plant macadamia seedlings in Hawaii and made arrangements with General Electric to create a macadamia nutshell cracking machine. Before this, there was no macadamia nut industry.
For dessert, a nod to the breakfast cereal that made Marjorie Merriweather Post's ascendancy to the throne as the Queen of Palm Beach possible, Grape-Nuts Ice Cream.
Cold Cucumber Soup
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
3 cucumbers
½ cup chicken broth
1 cup cream
salt and peper to taste
2 slices smoked salmon
¼ cup sour cream
6 fresh dill sprigs
METHOD:
1 Peel, seed, and chop the cucumbers.
2 In a blender, purée the cucumbers with the chicken broth until smooth. Add the cream and blend again until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Chill until ready to serve.
3 Slice the smoked salmon into strips.
4 Divide the cucumber soup evenly among 6 chilled soup bowls.
5 Garnish each soup bowl with the smoked salmon strips, a dollop of sour cream, and a dill sprig.
Palm Beach Finger Sandwiches
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
4 ounces sharp yellow cheddar cheese
4 ounces white cheddar cheese
¼ cup diced pimentos
1 tablespoon cream
¼ cup mayonnaise and
salt and pepper to taste
12 slices good white bread (thin slices)
METHOD:
1 Shred the yellow and white cheddar cheeses and put in a bowl.
2 Add the pimentos, cream, and mayonnaise to the cheese and mix well.
3 Season the pimento cheese mixture with salt and pepper.
4 Divide the pimento cheese among six slices of bread and spread it out. Top with the remaining six slices of bread to make sandwiches.
5 Cut the crusts off the sandwiches and discard them. (Or snack on them!)
6 Cut each crustless sandwich into four triangles and arrange them on a platter.
Macadamia Nut Crusted Trout
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
3 whole rainbow trout, deboned
salt and pepper to taste
¾ cup chopped macadamia nuts
¾ cup bread crumbs
½ cup melted butter
6 lemon wedges
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Open up the fish and then place, skin side down, on an oiled baking tray. Season them with salt and pepper.
2 Combine the macadamia nuts with bread crumbs and coat the fish flesh with the mixture.
3 Drizzle the melted butter over the macadamia nut crust.
4 Bake the trout for 12 minutes, and then broil it to brown the crust.
5 Serve with lemon wedges to squeeze on top.
Grape-Nuts Ice Cream
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup half-and-half
⅔ cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1 cup cream
1 tablespoon vanilla
½ cup Grape-Nuts cereal
METHOD:
1 Heat the half-and-half and the sugar to a simmer, then turn the heat to low.
2 In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk to break them up and then temper them with ½ cup of the hot half-and-half.
3 Pour the egg yolk mixture into the rest of the heated half-and-half and cook, stirring constantly, until the custard thickens to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat.
4 Immediately strain the hot custard into a bowl set in an ice bath.
5 Stir the cream and vanilla into the custard and let the mixture chill completely, stirring occasionally to let the steam escape.
6 Freeze the chilled ice cream custard in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions.
7 Add the Grape-Nuts when the ice cream is almost finished. Store in the freezer until ready to serve.
Mar-A-Lago
Marjorie Merriweather Post and E.F. Hutton built this Palm Beach Florida palace at the height of the Roaring Twenties on seventeen acres between Lake Worth and the Atlantic Ocean. Designed by the Ziegfeld Follies stage set designer, Mar-A-Lago was elaborately decorated with furniture, tapestries, and paintings from decaying ducal palaces. The estate was the site for Marjorie's elaborate benefit galas where she and her hundreds of glittering guests would party the night away under an artificial blue moon. Mar-A-Lago is now owned by Donald Trump.
The Original Flapper's Hotel Room Fete
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald
Zelda Fitzgerald was born to party. She set the standard for the Jazz Age cult of youth in the 1920s, dazzling society with her unbridled spirit and fearlessness. Even before she was a wild woman she was a wild child. Growing up in Montgomery, Alabama, she acted on her impulses regardless of what other people thought. She swam in a scandalous flesh-colored bathing suit, hung out at the ice cream parlor sipping dopes instead of doing her homework, and wore mascara before the other girls did. She was no proper Southern belle! Zelda Sayre's fiery personality attracted the attention of F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance when he was an Army officer stationed near her home town during World War I. It was love at first sight for both of them. After a rocky courtship, Zelda and Scott were married in New York City in the spring of 1920 and began living the high life in peerless fashion. They took up residence in the Biltmore Hotel and regularly ordered fresh spinach and Champagne for midnight snacks.
The Fitzgeralds never lived in one place for very long. They rented a cottage in Westport, Connecticut, and continued to party with friends from New York before moving back to Manhattan. They retreated to St. Paul, Minnesota (Scott's family home) for the birth of their daughter, and then they rented a house in Great Neck, New York, where they partied with their neighbor Ring Lardner. They went to Paris to take their place in café society, partying with Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriates, and then they rented a villa on the French Riviera where Zelda entertained herself by cliff diving into the sea and dancing on restaurant tables. They returned to the United States and after a stint in Hollywood, they rented an old mansion on the Delaware River where they could get some rest from their wild ways and Scott could get down to work.
Scott turned this rich life experience into his great American novel The Great Gatsby and several more, in addition to numerous short stories. Zelda was his muse and some of her ideas were infused in his stories, for example The Jelly Bean. His novels were inspired by the life he was living with Zelda but he claimed the material as his territory. Zelda tried to carve out a career of her own as a ballerina but became obsessed with this quest to the point of exhaustion. So she started competing with him in the literary world, writing a lengthy play, Candalabra, a novel, Save Me the Waltz, and short stories including Eulogy on the Flapper. Zelda also began painting and ultimately had an exhibition of her work in New York in 1934. The following party is a tribute to Zelda's arrival in Manhattan and the decadent hotel life the newly-wed Fitzgeralds shared at the dawn of the Jazz Age.
Room Service for a Party of Two
In honor of the salad days of Zelda and Scott, this intimate party is for lovers—lovers of romance and fancy hotels, champagne and room service. Stay in your bedroom all day watching movies and enjoying these dishes. My favorite thing to order from room service in a luxury hotel is breakfast in bed, and the recipes for Eggs Benedict and Hollandaise Sauce are classics of the genre. Waldorf Salad is suitable for a light lunch while you are lazing the day away in your “suite.” This salad was named after the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where it was invented in 1896. In homage to the spinach and Champagne the Fitzgeralds dined on at the Biltmore, Champagne Creamed Spinach combines both ingredients to make flapper-inspired ambrosia for your midnight pleasure.
Eggs Benedict
SERVES 2
INGREDIENTS:
2 English muffins
1 tablespoon white vinegar
4 slices Canadian bacon
4 eggs
½ cup warm Hollandaise sauce (recipe follows)
2 black olives
METHOD:
1 Split the English muffins, wrap them in foil, and keep them in a warm oven until ready to assemble the Eggs Benedict.
2 Bring a saucepan full of water to a simmer and stir in the vinegar.
3 While the water is coming to a simmer, fry the Canadian bacon in a skillet, and then keep it in a warm place until ready to assemble the Eggs Benedict.
4 Crack the eggs individually into a teacup and gently slide them into the simmering vinegar water. Poach the eggs until the whites are set and the centers are still soft. Remove poached eggs from the simmering water with a slotted spoon and drain them on several layers of paper towels.
5 Remove the English muffins from the warm oven and open them. Place a piece of fried Canadian bacon on each muffin half and then top the Canadian bacon with a poached egg.
6 Spoon enough Hollandaise sauce onto each poached egg to cover.
7 Cut the black olives in half lengthwise and garnish each egg with one of the halves. Serve two eggs per person.
Hollandaise Sauce
SERVES 2
INGREDIENTS:
1 egg yolk
1½ teaspoons cold water
2 ounces melted butter
½ teaspoon lemon juice
pinch cayenne pepper
salt and white pepper to taste
METHOD:
1 Whisk egg yolk and water in a stainless steel or glass bowl over simmering water and cook until mixture thickens to ribbon stage.
2 Slowly pour melted butter into yolks, drop by drop at first, whisking constantly to form an emulsion. Pour the butter in a thin stream after the emulsion gets started and the sauce starts to thicken, and continue whisking.
3 Remove bowl from heat and whisk in the lemon juice and cayenne pepper.
4 Season sauce with salt and white pepper to taste.
5 Serve immediately or keep in a warm but not too hot place until ready to serve. (A thermos will hold it at the perfect temperature for a long while.)
Waldorf Salad
SERVES 2
INGREDIENTS:
¼ cup cream
¼ cup mayonnaise
1 cup diced red apple
½ cup diced celery
¼ cup halved seedless grapes
¼ cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
2 leaves butter lettuce
METHOD:
1 Whip the cream to soft peaks in a bowl. Whisk the mayonnaise into the whipped cream.
2 Add the apple, celery, grapes, and pecans to the mixture and fold every thing together.
3 Season the salad with the lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste.
4 Serve the chopped salad on a butter lettuce leaf.
Champagne Creamed Spinach
SERVES 2
INGREDIENTS:
2 ounces unsalted butter
1 minced garlic clove
6-ounce package, prewashed fresh baby spinach leaves
¼ cup Champagne
¼ cup cream
pinch of salt
2 pinches of white pepper
2 pinches of ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan cheese
12 toast points
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2 Melt butter in a 12-inch sauté pan and sweat the garlic in it for 2 minutes over medium heat.
3 Add all the spinach at once, then add the Champagne and cover the pan with a lid to steam for 5 minutes.
4 Lift the spinach out of the liquid in the pan with tongs and set it aside in a 12-ounce gratin dish.
5 Add the cream to the liquid left in the pan, turn the heat to high and reduce liquid by half, 5 minutes.
6 Sprinkle the salt, pepper, and nutmeg over the cream reduction and swirl the pan to distribute the seasonings. Remove the pan from heat.
7 Pour the cream reduction over the spinach in the gratin dish, sprinkle the spinach with the Parmesan cheese and bake for 15 minutes, until browned.
8 Serve with toast points.
Jazz Age Philosophy
Beneath Zelda Sayre's 1918 high school senior yearbook photograph read the words:
“Why should all life be work, when we can all borrow. Let's only think of today and not worry about tomorrow.”
Party in Shangri-La
Doris Duke
Born with a silver spoon in her mouth in 1912, Doris Duke would become the heiress to her father's tobacco fortune at age twelve. Born to a rags-to-riches millionaire, baby Doris grew up in an opulent Fifth Avenue mansion in New York and immediately started receiving sacks of mail asking baby Doris for money. Kidnapping threats were routine and the pampered “Million Dollar Baby” was guarded from the public by a battery of nurses and bodyguards. Her father showered her with toys, ponies, and expensive gifts but didn't allow many friends to play with her in her gilded cage. He was obsessed with germs so he bought a private Pullman car (naming it Doris) to isolate her from the public on her travels between their New York mansion, their country farm estate in New Jersey, and their Newport, Rhode Island, beach house.
The richest girl in the world grew up in the rarified air of over-the-top extravagance where dinner guests at parties would be given unimaginable party favors. At one such Newport party, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds were buried in sand at the center of the table, and the guests were given sterling silver shovels and pails to dig for their treasures.
Doris and her fellow “poor little rich girl” Barbara Hutton, heiress to the Woolworth fortune, became jaded young women in this atmosphere of excess and their competitive pursuit of excitement became legendary. The “gold dust twins,” as they were known, were frequent guests on the party circuit and had lavish debutante balls of their own in the same year. As a result of their astronomical wealth “Dee Dee” and “Babs” developed different behavioral problems. While Barbara Hutton became the victim of her own excess, Doris Duke never learned the value of money and became known as one of the smallest tippers among the young social set. She often carried no cash on her, which meant others were stuck with the cab fare or the restaurant bill. Barbara squandered her money in grand gestures while Doris held back, burdened by the obligations of such a fortune.
In adulthood Doris Duke became fascinated with Hawaiians and their culture and, with her husband Jimmy Cromwell, she rented a cottage in Hawaii. She started taking hula lessons and spent her days on the beach at Waikiki. Doris found peace in the simple pleasures of island life and was frequently seen surfing. She befriended Olympic swimming champion Duke Kahanamoku, who was also the sheriff of Honolulu. She spent time swimming and surfing with Kahanamoku and eventually she was considered one of the best female surfers on the island. The Cromwells built a vacation house in Honolulu and Doris dubbed it Shangri-la. The heiress on her surfboard near her Diamond Head home is the inspiration for the following party.
Surf Party
Every surfer needs energy, and dates are packed with the source of it in the form of natural sugars. The Date Smoothie is a surfer's delight—just sip and go. Chocolate Chip Banana Bread takes advantage of the produce of Hawaii. Bananas and cocoa beans are both grown there and high quality chocolate is produced from the locally grown cocoa beans. Another Hawaiian crop is pineapple and it is put on a stick with tropical delights such as mangos, coconut, and bananas along with pound cake in Tropical Fruit Brochettes for a refreshing beach-worthy snack. Fish Tacos are the perfect beach party food, with a squeeze of lime that adds a splash of sunshine to your tongue. You can bring the flavors of the beach to your table with this menu even if it is cold and snowing outside. Just serve up the tacos on beach ball motif paper plates and the fruit brochettes in plastic sand pails. Place your “sidewalk surfboard” (skateboard) in a pile of sand in the center of the table, line it with banana leaves, and serve the banana bread slices on it. Decorate the edge of the table with hula skirts and hang loose!
Date Smoothie
SERVES 2
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup chopped dates
1 cup milk
1 banana
1 cup vanilla yogurt
¼ cup orange juice
4 scoops vanilla ice cream
METHOD:
1 Soak the dates in the milk for about an hour to soften them.
2 Purée the dates, milk, and banana in a blender.
3 Add the yogurt, orange juice, and ice cream and blend until smooth.
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup honey
6 ounces unsalted soft butter
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups flour
1½ teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped macadamia nuts
¼ cup shredded coconut
½ cup chocolate chips
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9-inch x 5-inch loaf pan and set aside.
2 Combine sugar, honey, and butter in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy and light yellow in color.
3 Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add bananas and mix well.
4 Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and then add it to the batter, mixing well.
5 Fold in the macadamia nuts, coconut, and chocolate chips.
6 Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake the bread for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a wooden skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Tropical Fruit Brochettes
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
½ cup shredded coconut
12 pound cake cubes, cut into one-inch squares
1 banana
12 strawberries
6 mango chunks
6 fresh pineapple chunks
6 bamboo skewers
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2 Toast the coconut and the pound cake cubes in the oven for 10-15 minutes. Let cool.
3 Peel the banana and cut it into 6 chunks.
4 Thread one strawberry onto each skewer followed by a cube of pound cake, a banana chunk, a mango chunk, a pineapple chunk, another pound cake cube, and finish with a strawberry.
5 Sprinkle toasted coconut on the fruit.
Fish Tacos
SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
12 corn tortillas
1½ cup diced tomato
¼ cup diced onion
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
¼ cup diced avocado
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1½ pounds firm white fish, such as halibut or snapper
½ cup cornmeal, seasoned with salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup shredded purple cabbage
¼ cup tartar sauce
6 lime wedges
METHOD:
1 Warm the tortillas wrapped in paper towels in the microwave for 15 seconds and then wrap them in foil to keep them warm.
2 In a bowl, combine the diced tomato, onion, cilantro, avocado, and lemon juice. Set aside.
3 Cut fish into strips, dredge them in the cornmeal mixture, and sear them in olive oil for about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels.
4 Break the fish into bite-sized chunks. Fill the warm tortillas with the fish.
5 Top the fish with the shredded cabbage, then the tomato/avocado mixture.
6 Serve with tartar sauce and lime wedges.
New Year's Eve with The Thin Man
Nora Charles
Dashiell Hammett, former Pinkerton detective and author of The Maltese Falcon, created the characters of Nick and Nora Charles in his detective novel, The Thin Man. Nick is a retired private detective and Nora a wealthy socialite whose personality was allegedly modeled after Hammett's lover, playwright Lillian Hellman. Myrna Loy brings Nora Charles to life in the movie rendition of the story, starring opposite William Powell as Nick. The witty banter between the Charleses provides comic relief while the plot thickens. Intrigue and murder are interwoven with constant cocktails and a party scene hosted by the Charleses in their luxury hotel suite. With a festive backdrop of glittering holiday decorations and a shiny, silver Christmas tree, Nora graciously shakes her martinis and totes a tray of stemware around the suite, offering drinks to her guests. Her witty perception of situations led to her reputation that one could not pull a fast one over on the no-nonsense Mrs. Charles. Being clever in a graceful and politic manner and a blend of humor, style, and a touch of sarcasm were Nora's hallmarks. The following party is the way Nora would spend New Year's Eve.
A Sophisticated New Year's Eve Party
Plan a tasteful dinner party to ring in the New Year with style, and serve your guests an elegant meal of rich, decadent dishes. Encourage your guests to wear formal party attire, such as tuxedos and Art Deco gowns with bangles and bobbles adorning their ears, necks, and wrists. (These may be found at a vintage clothing store or costume shop at reasonable prices.) Provide party tiaras, hats, and noisemakers for your guests and have jazz music playing as they arrive. Start your sophisticated soiree with the simple and elegant Caviar Puffs and cocktails. After the cocktail hour call the guests to the dinner table for an appetizer of Cornmeal Blinis drizzled with clarified butter and surrounded with red grapes. Follow the opener with a luscious Brie Fondue served with dippers of shrimp, bread cubes, and blanched vegetables. Finish the meal with Chocolate Champagne Truffles and a glass of bubbly. The Cognac-flavored truffles are rolled in tan-colored raw sugar making them look like Champagne bubbles. Provide the entertainment of several Thin Man movies and spend the midnight hour and beyond with Nora Charles.
Caviar Puffs
SERVES 8
INGREDIENTS:
1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
1 egg, beaten with 2 tablespoons water
½ cup sour cream
1 ounce black caviar
2 tablespoons chopped chives
METHOD:
1 Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2 Cut shapes, such as stars or flowers, out of the puff pastry sheet with a cookie cutter and put them on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet.
3 Brush the pastry with the beaten egg mixture.
4 Bake the pastry for 15 minutes, turn the oven down to 325 degrees F, and bake for 10 minutes more.
5 Cool the pastry before garnishing.
6 Garnish each pastry with a teaspoon of sour cream, a ¼ teaspoon of caviar, and a sprinkle of chives.
Cornmeal Blinis
SERVES 8
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup cornmeal
½ teaspoon salt
1½ cups boiling water
2 eggs
1 cup milk
½ cup flour
2 tablespoons melted butter
¾ cup clarified butter
½ cup red grapes
½ cup sour cream
¼ cup fresh dill sprigs
freshly ground black pepper
METHOD:
1 In a bowl combine the cornmeal and salt, then stir in the boiling water. Cover and let stand for 10 minutes.
2 Beat in the eggs one at a time.
3 Stir in the milk, then the flour, and finally the melted butter. Beat until smooth.
4 Fry the blinis in the clarified butter on a griddle or crepe pan. Turn each over like a pancake and cook the other side.
5 Cut the grapes in half lengthwise.
6 Garnish the warm blinis with a drizzle of clarified butter, a dollop of sour cream, a dill sprig, black pepper, and the grape halves.
Brie Fondue
SERVES 8
INGREDIENTS:
1 minced shallot
1 tablespoon butter
6 ounces freshly squeezed pink grapefruit juice
6 ounces white wine
2 tablespoons flour
2 pounds Brie cheese
1 teaspoon pink grapefruit zest
2 tablespoons chives
½ teaspoon white pepper
1 loaf French bread
1 pound cooked shrimp, chilled
1 cup blanched asparagus tips
1 cup blanched baby carrots bamboo skewers
METHOD:
1 Sauté the shallot in the butter until tender.
2 Deglaze the pan by adding the wine and grapefruit juice and reduce over medium heat to one cup.
