Sunday, July 3, 2011

HOW DO YOU know if you’re thrown a successful brunch or dinner party? When your guests are still sitting around the table four hours after you’re started eating, that’s how.

We didn’t eat for four hours, but we probably did eat for two and a half hours. It was fun, and I’m proud to say that for the most part, the food was good. Some of it was damn good.

Here’s what we had:

• Cactus and shrimp soup
• Machengo cheese and roasted pecans in tomato/olive oil sauce
• Beef tacos with red cabbage
• Albondigas de camaron seco (dried, ground-up shrimp in a corn meal and egg batter, pan fried) and Mexican cheese with a cranberry pepper jelly)
• Steamed chayote and cucumber salad with onions and pears and roasted pine nuts with a hibiscus sauce.
• Chicken mole
• Zucchini blossoms stuffed with a mixture of Mexican chorizo, mushrooms and raisins, topped with a pecan sauce.
• Basil sorbet with a blackberry/lime sauce.

It was a feast. I’m only sorry that my friend Karen thought the brunch was tomorrow. She missed out on some good food and good conversation.