31 December 2002
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Each row corresponds to a course; follow along for more fun. I will be posting recipes, prep sheets, and further analyses to gastronome over the next few weeks - check back in! Thanks to my NYF cohorts from this year: Beca, Tad, Adam, Duane, and Russell - i had a great time. We all thank Russell and Beca, my ever-faithful NYF sous-chefs.

The table setting. You can check out a .pdf of the menu, if you like.	An "artistic" view of a place setting...	...and a place setting that might give you a better idea what it really looked like.
Our first course - a domestic caviar tasting. From left to right: Sterling Premium, Sterling Classic, Paddlefish, and Whitefish caviar. The blinis are from the French Laundry Cookbook.	It was important to me that we choose domestic caviar that is responsibly farmed - and we found it in Sterling. Eating locally, keeping our dollars local, and supporting a company who is responsibly farming sturgeon satisfies both my Slow Food and my environmentalist urges.	Whitefish caviar & blini - and the vegetarian option - black olive tapenade, green olive tapenade, and eggplant spread.
Duet des potages - champignon & cresson.	(That's mushroom and watercress, to you & me.) The mushroom soup i made up; the watercress soup is from Chez Panisse Vegetables.	Empty soup demitasse cups. I confess to being inspired by Suzi, here. I hope she'll forgive me.
Tour de fruits de mer - crab atop artichokes atop yukon golds, with a basil vinaigrette. Recipe from Cooking with Patrick Clark.	Tad's vegetarian variation - with chanterelles replacing the crab.	. Russell's ahi and avocado variation.
The meat course - bifteck tartare. I love the grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid!	The tartare was premixed with egg yolk, salt, shallots, cornichon, and capers. (Oops - i forgot my painstaikingly mashed anchovies.) More tiny tasties and hot sauce were served alongside so each guest could mix theirs to taste. That bread you see? My first pain de mie. Cool, no? Pain de mie recipe from Chez Panisse Menus.	Tad's version included smoked red bell peppers, dressed in olive oil rather than egg yolk. The other accompaniments remained the same.
This combined salad/cheese course is notable in that it uses my first homemade puff pastry - the first few turns after adding the POUND of butter were stressy, but after a bit it seemed easy enough. And it puffed! The filling is a basic egg/créme fraiche custard with leeks, pancetta and goat cheese. The salad is very simply dressed with a vinaigrette. The puff pastry and tart recipe are from Chez Panisse Menus.	Tarte du poireau et chèvre.	A table of tarts.
Tarte pointillé	Pointillé is French for dotted. This is a basic lemon tart, with spots of blood orange. I adapted the recipe for lemon curd to use blood orange juice - unfortunately, the egg yolks drowned the gorgeous color of the oranges. I resorted to food coloring to bring the spots back to the bright juice color. Recipe adapted from Chez Panisse Fruits.	A girl and her tart.