Being the foodies that we are, Lee and I get some unique offers and wind up in places I only dreamed we'd be someday. For instance, on Friday we were asked to cook for the after party for Anthony Bourdain at the Moore theatre. Now Anthony Bourdain is HUGE for me. I liked him..... really liked him if you know what I mean.... long ago before I ever knew any foodies or got involved with Lee and Culinary Communion. The fact that I eventually found out that he had gone to one of the Gypsy dinners for our little group, or that Lee had cooked for him before, was exciting enough for me. But now he was coming to town and not only did I get to meet him, but I got to cook for him and have him sign my books. Lee and I watched his lecture from the side of the theatre where it was dark and cozy and we could see Anthony up close. He talked about his travels and what he thought of the cuisine of the countries he had visited, much like his books speak of, and looked exactly like he does on TV. I'm sure he's a nice enough guy, but he seemed kink of aloof and jerky to me--I was very happy that the 'fantasy' of AB is nothing compared to the reality of canoodling with my honey while watching the show. Being cold and tough works much better for TV than reality for Mr. Bourdain. I do think getting married and having a baby has softened him though, and I didn't even see him smoking a cigarette once.
We served head cheese corndogs, bone marrow on toast, duck fat popcorn, raw beef tataki and pig trotter spring rolls. Not for the faint of heart. My favorite thing was the orange and kalamata olive ice cream sandwiches. I still can't seem to enjoy pig trotters--they are so chewy and fatty, yuck. After all was said and done, we had the 'Farwell to Gypsy' party at CC where I saw more local chefs and had a lime and anchovy jello shot, gross again. I was exhausted and when we got home around 1:30am I passed out and slept like a baby. Then we went to the Ballard Farmers Market the next morning for some street grub. Speaking of which, they have a new Mexican stand that has the best tamales I've ever eaten, at least the jalepeno and cheese one was!
Last night we had our Master's Class Dinner at CC. I chose something simple, but something I love, which your not really supposed to do for this event considering your supposed to showcase your culinary talent. I already know I'm talented and I'd never made cheese fondue before so that's what I made! Secretly, I think people may have been put off by my choice, but I wanted to make something good that I've never made before and Lee got me this gorgeous fondue pot that I wanted to try out. Well, after buying all these wonderful ingredients and following the directions to the 'T', my gruyere fondue failed miserably. It seized, or coagulated, or whatever you want to call it when your cheese ends up as a hard ball on the bottom of the pot. It tasted good, but it certainly wasn't fondue and I threw away the brick of cheese that finally loosened from the bottom of the pot this afternoon. Maybe I should have made something really fancy that took me 3 days, but I wanted fondue-what can I say? Now I'm going to be obsessed with making it correctly and won't stop until I get it right.
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