Michelle Ho's "Chef's Table Masterpiece"!

During January 2013's Chef's Table excursion, I picked the artwork: "Family Concert" by Jan Steen.

 

Jan Steen was a Dutch painter of the 17th century while the "Family Concert" is an example of genre painting which is a scene of everyday life.

At first glance one would think that this was something of a scene of a fun family affair, and I would tend to agree until I started to really look at the painting in detail. There is a lot of disconnect going on in this particular painting... lots of harmony and chaos thrown together. 

Very much like a traditional family scene... so that was my inspiration... harmony and chaos:

A lover of the Dutch Baby Pancake, I decided to use that as my basis and popped that in the oven to cook for a while...

From here, I decided that I loved the idea of creating a quiche that I found a simple filling / recipe for a traditional quiche and changed things up to use ingredients that are probably more prominent in Dutch cooking as opposed to French (http://allrecipes.com/recipe/spinach-quiche/). 

I did a couple of test runs which provided very good results and the one presented at the Chef's Table had a bit of a "souffle" feel to it, which just added to the "organized chaos".

All in all this felt like a win in many levels... but not at all perfected... perhaps with a few tweaks here and there I would be happier with the results, but hey, that's the perfectionist in me ;-)

"Famous Paintings" Chef's Table: Gail's work of art.

On January 13, 2013, our little ragtag group of foodies took on the theme of "Famous Paintings".  Here is Ms. Gail's contribution:

The work of art I had to draw upon for inspiration was "The Watermill with the Great Red Roof" by Meindert Hobbema, a 17th century Dutch landscape artist.  

Looking at the painting, I put myself in the shoes of the little fisherman in the bottom left hand corner.  What would he like to eat if he were to take a little nosh break on this delightful day?  I began to research Dutch foods and quite honestly, I wasn't impressed.  All the dishes seemed rather bland and I simply could not bring myself to even taste pickled herring.  I decided to put together a little picnic combining a number of dishes I found recipes for and I wanted to recreate the painting, in an abstract manner on my plate.

I used triangular shaped Gouda cookies to build the structure.  The mortar was Heksenkaas, a surprisingly tasty Dutch sandwich spread of cream cheese, leeks, celery root and garlic.  Instead of pickled herring, a traditional Dutch treat, I used smoked salmon.  For the "red" element, I made a little slaw of roasted red beets and red onion dressed in peach red balsamic vinegar.  Snipped chives garnished the plate as well as a small triangle of Gouda cheese.

I was quite pleased with the results, even though I was kind of flying by the seat of my pants.  I never did a test run, but in the end, it all worked well together.  Below are the links for the recipes I used for my creation.

http://dutchfood.about.com/od/breadspastriescookies/r/GoudaCookies.htm

http://dutchfood.about.com/od/saucesgravies/r/Heksenkaas-Recipe.htm

Chef's Tables Past: the Childhood Toy theme!

Here's a dandy summation of our Children's Toy themed dinner from Gail.  Had it amongst my notes to include on this blog and almost forgot it was there (shame on me twice over):

 

John started us out with a Cootie inspired pre dinner beverage.  It was flavored with and garnished with black licorice because John informed us that the original game in 1948 was a black colored bug.  He made the cutest garnishes of cootie bugs made from black licorice pieces with candied orange peels as the appendages.  I sincerely enjoyed receiving John Cooties.

Aimee amused us with her bouche that represented Magic Rocks.  She had a totally 70's retro looking dish using a hollowed out chunk of cucumber as the vessel for a pate.  She had pumpkin seeds and other spear like veggies sticking out of it to resemble the rocks as they formed stalagmites and a few pomegranate seeds to boot.

Suzy gave us an interactive appetizer to represent Fuzzy Face.  We each received a small ramekin filled to the rim with a smooth surface of hummus.  Then we each made our own faces using roasted garlic, roasted red pepper spread, scallion shreds and hydrated basil seeds that looked like someone's fertilized embryos.  She also presented us with self stuffed straws of seasonings (yes, Suzy stuffed the straws) to add to our faces and we scooped away with pita chips.

Joy made a Greek Soup (sorry, I don't recall the name) to present Lego blocks to us.  It had egg yolks in it and a tangy flavor.  She used a fancy pasta to represent the Legos, there were croutons and veggies in the soup as well.  Sorry, I'm not doing her wonderful soup justice here, maybe someone else can fill in the proper details.

I made an orzo and grilled veggie side dish themed to the kaleidoscope.  It had feta cheese in it as well as pine nuts and a lemon vinaigrette.

Ben made a Vietnamese style fish stew to represent GI Joe Fish.  He used star anise, pumpkin, mackerel and fried ginger strips as a garnish.  He chose a Vietnamese style recipe because that's where GI Joe would have been when Ben was a Joe-less child.

Erza and Shelley made Easy Bake oven cupcakes that were flavored with almond and had a not too sweet salted caramel butter cream. I ate two, could have eaten more, but...

Pam finished the evening with a Raspberry swirl, ice cream and booze concoction to represent Spirograph.  We each received a Pam original coaster designed with Spirograph's technology. 

We were all given a treasured 70's toy as our party favor.  I got the coveted Scottie dogs, there was silly putty, a numbered tile puzzle and much, much more!

I'm hoping others will contribute to my basic descriptions here, but you should have a decent idea of how wonderful the evening was.  Fingers crossed, you'll be able to write the descriptions of our next meal for the poor souls who miss out on our delightful gathering.

Be well.

Gail