"International" Cuisine. Basically that meant, just bring whatever kind of food you wanted. Upon everyone's
arrival, I had a bottle of Charles Heidsieck 1985 Vintage Rose' Champagne as a reception drink. It was
extremely good for a twenty one year old bottle of Champagne.
Jennifer & Ian were responsible for the first course and the first two wines of the evening. They had tagged
teamed the appetizer together by creating a cheese stuffed empanada and topped it off with a tomato sauce.
The combination of the two was out of this world! They also brought a sparkling wine called Piper Sonoma
"Brut", related but the same Heidsieck as Charles. The red wine was Waterbrook "Melange" a blend of grapes
from the Columbia Valley region in Washington State.
From there we quickly moved into our salad course and that was deftly prepared by Sheree. It was a tossed
salad with grape tomatoes, apples and cucumbers all lightly tossed in a raspberry vinaigrette. Leslie wants the
recipe! She had brought a bottle of the Francis Coppola Claret that had won our Staff "Blend" tasting. We
consumed it rather quickly!
Next we took a short break between courses. We all were starting to get a little full. More red wine was opened
and we sat out on the patio to relax. One of the wines poured was a Burgess 1993 Howell Mountain Cabernet
from the Napa Valley. Instead of peaking like you would have thought, it was clear that this wine had plenty of
tannins and muscle left to last a good few years.
Back to the table we sat as I whipped up Petite Filet with a Gorgonzola Mushroom Sauce, A Potato Cake with
Pesto and a Prosciutto wrapped carrot bundle. These were served along side of a bottle of Frank's Family Cab
and a Yacochuya de Lafayette 2000 Malbec from Argentina that apparently I was the only one really impressed
with. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the beef though.
The last course was a dazzling heart shaped chocolate mousse expertly prepared by one Megan soon to be
Friedman. The richness of the mousse was excellent enough on its own, but when Shawn brought out his
Graham's 1980 Vintage Port, it sent us all over the top! What a perfect way to end a meal!
