Connie put me in charge the night before, so I was more than a little nervous. Finally decided to do Southwest as a theme because I just couldn’t get pumped about Greek. We use the Pasqual cookbook. It’s a terrific restaurant in Santa Fe. We had an incredible menu thanks to the efforts of Phil, me, ‘Rents, Jennie and Bob. Can you believe it, we were the main cooks.
Here is what we had…

1. Appetizer. Bob made a really great appie which were barbequed shrimp. (I wore a headlight and used the Weber in the dark!). We had a really great five blend wine from Napa. We of course had a champagne to start. A Domaine Chandonne as I recall.
2. Salad. Phil slaved away all day and made his own blue cheese dressing. It was fantastic with the fresh romaine I got from Pike’s Place Market. He also did chili encrusted almonds on top. Yummm. This was done with a Kendall Jackson Chardonnay. I think it was pretty young, a 1996.
3. Soup. My mom and dad made a great Tom Yum Gai. Terrific and would never have thought that Thai would go with Southwest, but that’s the great thing about fusion. We are lucky to have so many great Asian options out here.
4. First Course. I did a grilled Portobello mushrooms on a bed of Polenta with a home made tomato sauce. The smokey grilling was terrific and having the tomato sauce as home made was just great. We had this with a side dish of traditional posole that took five hours to make and used Jennie’s own green chiles from Mexico. Fabulous and filling. We did this with a Storybook Zinfandel 1993. My last bottle and really great.
5. Main Course. Jennie and Adrianne did a spiced New York strip steak. Adrianne went all the out to Whole Foods and waited in line, but it was worth the wait. Got the big Cabernet out for this one. A 1991 Chateau Ste. Michelle.
6. Dessert. Phil out did himself making Lavender Honey Ice Cream. This was home made. It was quite a trick finding lavender honey this time of year, but the market did it for us. Also, Marketspice is just a fantastic store right there that had dried lavender leaves straight from France.
Anyway, that took us six hours from 6PM to Midnight. Next year, we’ll try to get this all done by 10 PM. But, What a great tradition!

One response to “New Years Eve 2002 Dinner”

  1. Rick Allsion Avatar
    Rick Allsion

    My mouth is watering looking at this New Years meal. With just two weeks to another New Years I’ll be checking the mail for my invitation.
    I’m just hooking up my new home theater. I got my Samsung 50″ DLP last week and happened on your blog while trying to find out about the Comcast Motorola PVR. It led me to check with Comcast where I got the expected “we know nothing” answer. I did find out that the DVI connection on my 5100 isn’t activated. The Samsung has an input so I hope they get this thing cooking soon (there I am thinking about food again).
    Anyway, thanks for the information. I appreciated the list of Seattle area hi def stations. They really make watching television a different experience.
    Rick

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