Sometimes there are things that you just can’t pass up; a killer dinner party is one of them. Our friend, who is a financial genius by day and a chef extraordinaire by night, had wanted to experiment with some new cooking techniques and presented us with the idea of partnering an eight-course (yes 8!!) meal with wines & champagne. He would provide the food if we would host. Um, YES! We were also lucky that is wife is a wonderful photographer who loves to shoot food, especially food made by her talented hubs.

Chef Stuart

It is our belief that delicious food should be paired with a beautiful setting. Actually, doesn’t it seem that any kind of food always tastes better when you set the table nicely? We were very lucky to be able to use a family members backyard, which was in bloom, and is perfect for events. We didn’t want the table to overpower the food so we used simple white tablecloth and added a splash of color with coral napkins, gold menus, dahlias, and a rad gold candelabra.

Everything the chef prepared was inventive and absolutely delicious. We were in a food coma for a few days after the meal. Everything was amazing and the desserts were out of this world, he carbonated grapefruit (yes carbonated!!) and wrapped them in a citron vodka gelee! Here are some of the other highlights of the meal:

Started off with bubbles of course! 2009 Bonny Doon Sparkling Moscato, Veuve Clicqout, and Schramsburg to wash down our first dish.

Trio of Tomato – one of the tomato items was an essence of tomato gelee wrapped around mozzarella with balsamic caviar

Beef carpaccio with arugula and fried capers

Rabbit with carrot puree and brussel sprout leaves

Sun-choke soup topped with a parmesan crisp!

Good food, good friends, does it get any better?

Ginger & Sugar signing out! XOXO!