We recently hosted another in our series of dinner parties, this time for 7 people. The planning stages for the party followed the general trend laid out in our first posts - a few weeks before we decided on our invites, followed by some broad menu planning before ironing out the nitty gritty details in the final days before the party. Then on the big day itself we went off to Whole Foods, shopping list in hand, and lugged six full bags of raw ingredients back to our apartment. The lugging and the effort cooking was well worth it as this was one of our best parties yet. Here is what we served:
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dpetc Dinner Party, Wine
M and I found ourselves rather low on wine the other week so we decided to put in an order with Astor Wines. Although I prefer Chambers Street Wines when I’m trying to learn something new about wine, Astor is hard to beat for its vast selection of wines from around the world. This was right after the first nice day of spring, so we were both in the mood for some crisp white wines that would be well suited for weeknight consumption after getting home from work. For us, the wine that generally best meets those criteria is New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
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dpetc Reviews, Wine
P had a similar version of this dish at the Culinary Institute in Napa he liked so we gave this a whirl this past weekend. The marinade has a heavy onion-herb flavor and goes quite well with the lamb. The couscous provides a nice accompaniment and gets both a crunch from the nuts and a sour flavor from the cranberries. As is often the case, the lamb would probably be even better cooked on a grill to render down a bit more of the fact. Otherwise, the dish worked quite well, especially alongside an old red wine we had been saving for nearly a year.
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dpetc Recipes, Wine
I grew up in a traditional Indian household, which means I subsisted mainly on a variety of curries, dals, subjis, and assorted other Indian preparations. My favorite dish by far was (and still is) my Mom’s chicken curry. Before graduating from college and moving into my own place, I watched her make her curry and wrote down the recipe. This past weekend, M and I tried the recipe and it turned out exceptionally well (thanks Mom!). We got all of the ingredients at our local normal grocery store, so there is no need to trek out to a specialty Indian grocer or anything like that.
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dpetc Indian, Recipes, Wine
If there is a silver lining to the current economic recession, it has to be all of the great deals that New York City restaurants are offering right now (eater.com has a great list here). We will try to pick out the best deals from this list of recession specials and share them with you all. First up is Bobby Van’s Steakhouse - Broad Street.
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dpetc Burger, Reviews, Wine
In the waning months of my senior year of college, I read this article in the New York Times.
At first I did not think much of it. I grew up in a household where wine was never served with dinner or any social function, and until then my wine exposure had been limited to boxed wine (Franzia, Almaden, etc) at college parties with a few random bottles thrown in here and there (mostly recommended by friends from California). However, after I graduated and moved to the city, I took the recommendation of the article, bought a mixed case of wine, and decided to see what developed.
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dpetc Wine
