Sunday, November 8, 2009

4 Seasons Fall 2009

After several flase starts for unhappy reasons, half the group assembled at Becker's for the Fall 2009 4 Seasons gourmet food & wine dinner. We missed our comrades TERRIBLY, but getting a double wine pour helped ease the pain a bit!



We started with an excellent vintage Champagne from Kim & Jim:
Henri Mandios '93 with some excellent cheeses including a tasty Vermont goat cheese. We toasted the birthday couple, Dave & Lynda, and sang them a Happy Birthday!

Moving the party from the kitchen to the dining room, we settled in for a tasty salad of arugula & figs with a delicious dressing. This was paired with another Becker wine: 2008 La Cote de Jury Sancerre which stood up well against the dressing.

We moved on to skewers of shrimp & a terrific squash soup paired with the final Becker wine: a 2006 Chassagne Montrachet which was breathtaking it had such extraction! The soup was one of the big hits of the evening -- fresh & organic all the way.

Dan & Kathy brought a 1987 Chateau Margaux, one of the five 1st Growth wines from France -- it had aged very well and led to much interesting conversation. Kathy had prepared a wonderful food pairing of crostinis with roast beef. By this time the party was pretty much out of control!

Then Dave & Lynda brought out TWO rustic apple tarts made from a recipe in Katie Lee's new cookbook. Dave paired that with a 2003 Domaine des Baumard Quart de Chaume chenin blanc dessert wine. The pairing was so good that many people had to have a second helping of the dessert just to convince themselves that the pairing was as good as they had imagined.

Lynda & Dave opened birthday cards & presents amid oohs & ahhs galore.

All-in-all a very successful 4 Seasons dinner & many thanks to our host & hostess, Jim & Kim Becker for a great evening!

4 comments:

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Danno - you captured the evening so well. Thanks for keeping the memories alive! Lyn

Dan O'Hanlon said...

Hi All: I'm glad everyone enjoyed the rustic apple pie. It was truly an easy recipe to follow and not time consuming, except for peeling all those apples for two pies!!!

Lynda

Dan O'Hanlon said...

If you hadn't made two pies there would have been a fight. I'm willing to help peel apples if it gets me more of those pies.

Jim

Dave, anymore Quart de Chaumes?

Dan O'Hanlon said...

OK, Lynda. Jim’s offer stands. He’ll peel apples anytime you want to bake apple crisp!
Kathy