Life, I tell you
The idea started, as these things do, over drinks with friends; tallying disappointing New Year’s Eve experiences in various restaurants and bars, my roommate and co-conspirator Ben and I had the same thought: why couldn’t we host a New Year’s Eve party?
And our friends agreed. And what began as a small dinner party grew as we discovered they were willing to change travel plans and return to Charlottesville, so that, this past Sunday night, our little kitchen produced five Italian courses for the twelve of us, and we celebrated New Year’s Eve in a manner to which I could become accustomed.
Ingredient shopping first at Feast, the gourmet purveyor and anchor of Charlottesville’s Main Street Market, I bought superfino carnaroli for the risotto, five Italian cheeses, local greens, local cream, prosciutto di Parma, and caviar. The patient staff helped me choose the cheeses and determine that “more intense” paddlefish caviar would work just as well as sturgeon for this guest list full of intense Ph.D. candidates. (The Charlottesville Whole Foods also carries caviar, but I prefer the dark, inky globules to the golden.)
Next door at Hedge, burgundy-tipped local roses for the year past and white kale for the year ahead seemed most appropriate.
A few more grocery trips followed as the menu came together and the immersion blender appeared; Sunday afternoon I took a break from prepping appetizers, watching the sun through the blinds illuminate the kale, musing about what 2007 might bring.
The first guests to arrive were my friends Michael, who later kept me company at the stove for hours, and Stewart, a singer-songwriter with a big, bright career ahead of him, who had agreed to play for the party and commenced finding an outlet for his keyboard in the other room.
I heard voices in the hall and felt like Elizabeth Dalloway as I smoothed the lace of my pink dress (my signature color for the evening, which I accessorized with Bolivian rose salt from Feast and new vintage earrings from Atlanta’s incredible Frock of Ages) and then like Clarissa; “It had begun. It had started.”
Angela helped Ben pour while Eric and Rob discussed the hors d’oeuvre options; from where I stood making blinis, the asparagus disappeared first.
Soon, energetic literary conversations floated to the kitchen that I hated to interrupt;
fortunately, Michael became my charming emissary of soup and the second course, cream of mushroom soup with a wild mushroom garnish, was served in new silver lustreware bowls I found at the marvelous store Artifacts (109 S. First Street).
(Watching Eric and Sara, I think these bowls will also lend themselves to a red miso like the one served at the new sushi den Ten on the Charlottesville downtown mall.)
Then, I plated the risotto with roasted carrots, red peppers, and broccolini, shaving black truffle on the top.
The next course, veal saltimbocca with a pan sauce, required attention as the prosciutto crisped and constant stirring during the deglazing, so I was not able to photograph that dish or the party antics during; Rob recorded it all, though, with his new camera,
including this fantastic shot of Keicy and John shaking a tailfeather to Rob’s new dance mix and John’s iTunes playlist.
At some point at every gathering lately, we cluster around the computer, browser pointed at YouTube; I captured the mirth before chalking the slate cheese board.
And we moved into the other room, partaking of salad and cheeses new to most of us.
(I think Eric could be a hand model if he declines the job offers he will certainly be offered in coming months.)
We were so busy talking that Stewart had to dramatically announce the stroke of midnight—we toasted with the champagne Eric and Sara brought, called, cried, laughed, texted, and transformed the table from savory to sweet.
As we finished the prosecco, I opened a Moscato d’Asti for the rest of the marsala tart with blood oranges (Italians eat oranges for good luck in the new year), chocolate squares, pizzelles, and panettone Angela and her husband Nate were kind enough to share.
The traditional holiday cake of Milan, panettone is studded with candied citrus zest and raisins; we cut ridiculously tall slices and nodded in agreement, mouths full, when Eric proclaimed that panettone tastes like “life.”
I then noticed Nate’s innovative mixology;
earlier in the night, he shelled and seeded longans to garnish his martini, moving on to discover that martini components mellow the skin of gooseberries—little did I think that the curious fruit I set out before the party would be incorporated so nicely in the final courses too.
Sara considered the merits of our house-cured bourbon with apples, cinnamon, and vanilla (more on that project in my next post), while Eric vocalized his displeasure that we had only cured one bottle, now empty.
Keicy, meanwhile, deliberated between spirits,
Michael opened a white,
Rob decided cheese was the clear choice,
convincing Keicy to join him and the mountain gorgonzola.
We wakened Eric from his food coma (doesn’t Dana look smashing in her dress?)
and all wrote resolutions and wishes, which Ben and Stewart discussed before adding theirs to the bowl.
Ben read them aloud, repeating hopes for the happy, healthy birth of Angela and Nate’s child this spring, that an excellent English department would be smart enough to hire the Miltonist in our midst, a fervent wish for world peace, and a resolution, for “actually, resolution.”
Stewart sang about old love and new, filling the house with piano swells, helping the celestial pendulum swing us, as he sang, “through the winter” and into all the potential of a new year.
Afterwards, the group portrait took a while to assemble, as these things do;
as Keicy took this one, I wished that this year and the years to follow would be filled with the sparkling wit and beautiful energy of friends like these.
And off into the early morning they went, with blue candles wrapped in starry tinsel to light their way…
The full image gallery is on Flickr.
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Posted Friday, January 5th, 2007, 1:01 pm | Filed in Entertaining, Food. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 6th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
everything looks amazing…wish I could have been there!
January 19th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Hey, if it’s a paying gig, I’ll sell my hands.