Derby 2015

Behold the lovely, fragrant lilacs! I do hope your Derby was fun (and profitable!) this year. I bet, as is my foolish wont, and once again, I didn't win a dime. At my party, I put out the usual spread of Martha Stewart's shrimp and grits, Benedictine sandwiches with cream cheese and cucumbers as well as sliced tomatoes sprinkled with freshly ground pepper and salt that filled flaky Pillsbury Grands biscuits. Cornbread was another addition this year and chocolate chip and sugary gingerbread cookies provided a fine finish to the race. And of course, there were mint juleps!

Here's this year's steaming stew of shrimp and grits, laced with thyme and parsley and topped with crisp bacon!

Lazy afternoon views of the table just before the guests arrived...

and more of the room, flooded with flowers!

Giddyap, everybody--and do enjoy!

Spring Fling!

My brilliant cousin gave me a beautiful vintage table cloth with bouquets of muted pink and teal flowers against a bordered pale blue and white background. When she saw it at a flea market it struck her because she remembered from a recent visit that we had set of hand-embroidered floral napkins that would match perfectly. She also paired this with a set of blue candlesticks to wrap up the whole thing, suggesting it would be an idyllic spring table setting. But who can wait? I hastened to set up a somewhat wintry table with the promise of spring just bursting through and launched my Spring Fling!

Behold this woodland creature who stopped by!

An issue of Gourmet magazine set the stage for this one, from January of 2008. The fabulous menu for eight is quite extensive and looked absolutely exhausting and impossible to execute without staff! I just cut down on the outrageously overwrought menu and corners as well to make it as simple as I could. I prepped the sugared blackberries days before, planned my table, braised the pork in advance and had the pots and pans I would need at the ready the day of the party. Don't forget to chill lots of white wine! Biscuits were courtesy of Pillsbury.

Champagne punch was served first before we moved to the dining table for my Night and Day Souffle and hot biscuits with butter and honey. Pork hash accompanied sumptuous shrimp and grits, followed by a respite of winter lettuces with warm bacon dressing. Ambrosia, sugared blackberries and biscuits ensued with a bread pudding of sorts until we were all appropriately flung!

THURSDAY:
Sugared Blackberries
This was so nice--do take the three days to macerate your berries though, and take them out of the refrigerator to tend to them once a day by briefly stirring.

FRIDAY:
Made Braised-Pork Hash
Adding homemade vanilla extract at the end was my own invention, otherwise I would have tossed in a split vanilla bean at the start, had I not thought to do so too late. It was a great idea--and if only fortitude had won over timidity, I would have added more.

SATURDAY:
Double-checked my lists and chopped/sliced/diced whatever I could.
Made "Bread Pudding" with cubes of a Betty Crocker orange cake, added in Jell-o banana pudding, later to be drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with fresh strawberries.

SUNDAY: Spring Fling!
Champagne Punch
This was so good. Can be chilled up to 3 hours before serving; Champagne bubbles in at the end.

Night and Day Souffle
I couldn't be bothered with the timing of the creamed eggs with spinach and country ham found here. It looks really wonderful, just too much. My Night and Day Souffle is much easier. For this version, I just beat 8 eggs together with heavy cream, chopped bacon and chives, salt and pepper and a little grated Parmesan on top. It goes into a 350-degree oven for 40 minutes or so and DONE. Serve it quickly though while it is puffed up and strutting; soon it naturally does collapse. Put up a side of Pillsbury biscuits with honey and butter.

Lowcountry Breakfast Shrimp
Prep your onions (just slice them and ignore the worry-work of a fine dice), garlic and scallions the night before. Cook them in butter ahead of time and add in the shrimp later, just before serving. Dredge half of the shrimp in flour and work in to create a nice creaminess that won't overcook the shrimp. Threads of thyme are a recommended (by me) addition.

Creamy Stone-Ground Grits
Use instant grits instead of all the folderol and add heavy cream, milk and butter to your liking. Enough already.

Braised-Pork Hash
This is not difficult at all. The braising just takes a lot of time so just move on to other things like laundry while the meat simmers down and falls off the bone.

Winter Lettuces with Warm Sweet-and-Sharp Dressing
Again, couldn't deal with all of this--oy, boiling vinegar, reducing? Ugh. I adapted my go-to Shallot and Champagne Vinaigrette courtesy of Michael Lomonaco, found here. And I made it the day before in the food processor and kept it in the refrigerator instead of huffing and puffing over an oven. I subbed cider vinegar for Champagne vinegar; brown sugar for regular sugar; 1/4 cup melted bacon grease with 1/2 cup olive oil instead of just 3/4 cup olive oil to create an entirely new, hassle-free dressing. Crumbled bacon was thrown in over the salad and a little extra bacon grease (warmed from the microwave) too. Jaws dropped.

Ambrosia
So easy and delicious--from jars of Del Monte supremed white and pink grapefruit and oranges, no apologies! I wasn't about to supreme 8 navel oranges. The only thing that takes any time is the chilling of this dessert in the fridge. And no, I did not roast a whole coconut in the oven and hack it apart. A bag of shredded coconut is quite serviceable. Please.

Sugared Blackberries
Served with a pillar of more biscuits, cold this round.

Our Orange Cake and Banana "Bread Pudding" is seen below.

Do you know how to spring fling?

Soundtrack: Lawrence Welk, Champagne Time; Art Van Damme Quintet, Manhattan Time; Stephan Grappelli, Shades of Django; Bossa n' Madonna; Combo; Fleetwood Mac and Annie Lennox lingered on

Kentucky Derby Bon Voyage Party

For the first time in the 15 years that I've been throwing Kentucky Derby parties, I actually had to make more simple syrup for the Mint Juleps! Probably because I made Trudy's Mint Juleps for the first time too, which our guests found irresistable. This Derby party was also special since Baby and I are going overseas for a few weeks and we wanted to be with some of our nearest and dearest before we take off. Hence, a Kentucky Derby Bon Voyage Party!

When folks arrive, Benedictine sandwiches are always on the table, the recipe pulled from an issue of my beloved Saveur magazine collection. To whit, cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, with a touch of Tabasco, lightly spread on Pepperidge Farm Very Thin White Bread. We also juiced a parsley bunch and whisked it in for some color and flavor, instead of the curious use of green food coloring.

Martha Stewart's Menus for Entertaining has always been epic in my mind, instrumental in planning my Derby parties--stuck in between its pages, my sentimental copy has grocery receipts, shopping lists and pressed lilacs from years past. From the "Fried Green Tomatoes" Brunch, the simple to make Buttermilk Biscuits with Red Tomatoes are always a crowd pleaser. I don't actually make the biscuits, as Ms. Stewart suggests, I just buy Pillsbury Grands; I don't think biscuits get much better than that. We purchased Homestyle, Southern Style and Buttermilk for a decent variety, sliced the tomatoes somewhat thinly, with a widge of salt and pepper and served in a colander lined with a cunning cloth napkin.

We introduced a vat of the legendary Chasen's Chili to the Derby party, which I think is probably the best chili I've ever had! We ordered Gebhardt's chili powder online (for cheap!), but also threw in some of Penzey's Chili 9000 powder, which features cocoa powder in its list of ingredients. We served with grated cheddar cheese, sour cream, scallions and Frito's, like a Frito Pie. Mama yo quiero! How do you say delectable, divine?

Now to the race itself, the most exciting two minutes in sports, nobody at our party had bet on the winner, Mine That Bird, but since my pal and I had both bet on Pioneer of the Nile, who came in second, we split the pot. Another first! I had never won a dime ever at any Derby party!

Apres le competition, we served Ms. Stewart's Southern Shrimp with Grits, this time incorporating tender, flavorful rock shrimp as opposed to regular shrimp which is a pain in the neck to devein. We broke out and served it on individual spoons, with a dollop of grits, covered over by a fine dice of red, orange and yellow peppers with the shrimp and a topping of bacon and parsley. Just between us, anything presented on an individual spoon is sure to elicit innumerable 'oohs' and 'ahs.'

I think we all had a wonderful time and thankfully, the weather was with us once again for the Derby as we sipped our minty juleps with the breath of spring in the air, having pushed the windows wide open, even as we lingered into the evening.

Soundtrack: Sippie Wallace, Sippie; Atlantic Blues, Vocalists; The Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 Foursider; Antonio Carlos Jobim, The Man From Ipanema, Disc 2; XTC, Skylarking; and later, The B-52's Anthology, Nude on the Moon.