It was my turn to host the Cookbook Supper Club after a year-long hiatus of moving home and setting up and adjusting to a new kitchen.
For readers familiar with the extreme dinner collaborations I've written about in vivid detail in my Fog Valley books, you'll understand my low-level anxiety in taking on another culinary challenge with this bunch of super foodie friends.
Still, the proof is in the pudding and I have to say, it is well worth the mild freaking out ahead of time — by the evening of, when the most extraordinary, mouth-watering, multi-course dream dinner materializes before your very eyes.
As I was in the host role for this gathering, I didn't take as many photos as I should have. Here are some I did manage to snap amidst the whirl of laden plates and wine pair pours.
We chose Cooking Wild — Recipes for Eating Close to Nature, by Sonoma County's beloved Chef John Ash as our cookbook of choice. The way this fun, rotational dining event works is that whoever in the group is hosting, picks a cookbook of their choice.
Second step is selecting a four, five or six course meal from the book's recipes, depending on how many couples/pairs are participating in the dinner.
According to chief instigator, Suzanne's rule sheet, an email is sent to the group after the book has been selected, announcing the theme for the upcoming dinner and listing the course options that are up for grabs on a first come first served basis. If you are a slacker with your email, you might expect to be left with the most complex sounding dish! That's not always the case, though, in this particular group there are some serious over achievers who love a culinary challenge.
On the evening of the dinner, each course is paired with beautiful wines, ciders or beers.
As I was hosting the week before Thanksgiving, I was keen to select a menu that wouldn't be repeated a few days later.
Santa Rosa-based Chef John Ash is a two-time James Beard award-winning author, teacher, and restaurateur. He co-hosts a weekly food and wine radio talk show, The Good Food Hour, broadcast in Sonoma County and teaches cooking classes at various cooking schools, including the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, California.
He writes in this lovely cookbook that his grandmother taught him how to forage wild plants such as lamb's quarter, wild asparagus, purslane and huckleberries and to catch trout with his hands.
Chef declares that there are many reasons to seek out wild foods. "An important one os the difference between foods found in the wild and their cultivated versions."
If you cook from his new book, you'll be referring to its pages and lovely photos throughout the year as recipes are from the four seasons.
I was so seduced by these recipes I picked a few courses that had to be improvised upon somewhat due to seasonal availability of ingredients.
This created a richer, more enjoyable meal as we enjoyed one another's tales of having narrowly missed fig season by a week and another, fortunately able to source Dungeness Crab at the start of crab season, just in the nick of time.
These sorts of dining experiences make us more aware of the seasonality of our local produce, meats and fish.
Our Cooking Wild dinner kicked off with miniature apples baked in the oven and the stuffed with Point Reyes Blue Cheese and dressed with honey — a quick and terrific improvisation on the chef's Grilled Figs with Honey and Blue Cheese Recipe.
First Course (above) was true to the book — super tasty Rockfish Cakes with Homemade Tartar Sauce, followed by equally tasty Crab Stuffed Mushrooms (and a fancy, extra touch of a carved mushroom) pictured below.
Next course (each being on the modest size, portion-wise), juicy Spatchcocked Pine Chicken (with additional potato rounds) was followed by a great little Arugula Salad with Baby Artichokes and Fennel and last but not least for the savory courses, Boar Braised in Red Wine with Pasta.
I wish I had a photo of the wild boar dish — we were all so full and happy by this stage I forgot all about taking any more photos . . .
In lieu of my favorite fruit for the chef's Rhubarb Galette, I whipped up a fall-flavored Cranberry Apple version, captured below.
For the fall table, whatever looked pretty in the backyard made for fresh decor. The wines paired were superb. If we'd experienced a meal such as this in a restaurant here in wine country, the bill for a party of ten would have been prohibitive.
For those who love great wine, fabulous, fresh, lovingly prepared local food and the company of friends who share the same passion for time together around the table, I heartily recommend you gather yourself a Cookbook Club for 2018. Plan on four seasonal meals and see how it goes from there. Our group has enjoyed the most amazing meals over the past couple of years, thanks to Suzanne's clever vision.
I think Chef John Ash would have been proud of our efforts in our interpretation of his glorious recipes and I recommend the book for inspiring meals of any size, shape or form.
I'd picked out Cooking Wild weeks before the devastating wildfires ravaged our region. Chef John Ash and his Vintner's Inn Event Center stepped up as one of the key locations for Sonoma Family Meal, a grassroots relief program set up by Santa Rosa Press Democrat's Heather Irwin and other key food leaders in the region to nourish all who needed food and company during the weeks that followed the fires.
Click here to read about this important story and the coming together of chef's from throughout the area thanks to Chef John Ash's generosity and spirit.
Follow my daily culinary adventures in Sonoma County on Instagram at food_wine_and_famiglia.
