The Ski Boy and I just got in from a fabulous dinner at Mary's - one of my best buddies. The occasion for dinner was a thank you from Mary to Peter - Peter is taking over our book club's secretarial duties from Mary.
Dinner was fabulous - rack of lamb, a divine french mashed potato concoction involving potatos, cheese, and cream, haricots verte, and 5 different wines. Yum. Yum. Yum. Total heaven.
After dinner Mary presented a multimedia show of slides and music from her recent trip to Paris with Joe. Joe and a friend of his are writing a book on the wine bars of Paris - and of course, fields trips are required for research!!!!!
After the wonderful slide show (I wanna go back to Paris!!!!), Mary and Joe sprung a little surprise - they brought out the most wonderful birthday cake - pour mois!!!! My birthday is on Tuesday and this was a bit of an early celebration - and totally unexpected by me!
Joe is a former professional baker and so his desserts are absolutely to die for. This cake was definitely special - you see, I have a fondness for an odd sort of cake. I adore chocolate cake made with beets. Which is doubly odd because I absolutely hate beets. I mean, I despise beets - my beet enmity is a family joke. However, there is something about beets and chocolate together that is amazing. The beet flavor is still strong but in concert with the chocolate, it is an other worldly taste experience. Sublime to the max.
Joe and Mary scoured the Internet for a recipe for chocolate cake made with beets. They found a French recipe that seemed like it would work - it involved fresh beets as opposed to the very evil canned beets. It definitely worked - the cake was fabulous.
The double coup des gras were the handmade chocolate truffles in the shape of beets and the carmelized beet threads. Joe carmelized the beet threads in sugar, salt, and balsalmic vinegar.
Wow!!!!!!
11:39:15 PM 
|
