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Orr Springs picnic
Dec. 8th, 2008 08:25 pmSo busy lately. ( extremely brief summary )
Today is the end of the busy period for a while. A guy at the Billy lunch had suggested a Monday afternoon outing to Orr Springs. Many people in this county are employed at irregular hours, so this was not at all an unreasonable idea. I had a picnic to test, so I immediately offered to provide it for them.
Readers from less agreeable climates may wish to stop reading now, since this was one of those days that makes all of America hate California. So sorry. Warm sunshine, cool breeze, an extravagant little French-Asian picnic in the garden after soaking with friends in warm mineral springs. You know, the things that make the earthquakes and firestorms worth putting up with.
The newly remodeled bathhouse is truly, truly beautiful. I hadn't seen it since they redid it all. All natural materials, a bamboo garden, care and good taste lavished everywhere. Lots of gates and bridges. Sulfur smells. Naked people! I don't know exactly what it is that's floating in the water, but I'm pretty sure it's organic.
The picnic went very well. French onion tarts, cabbage and peanut salad, whole wheat noodle salad with grilled eggplant and spinach, bread, cheese, salami, olives, cornichons, packaged duck liver pate. Scaling up the tarts would be a challenge; they take one and a half POUNDS of onions each and it takes a while to reduce it all down. And no, traces of bacon fat are not going to be acceptable in the vegetarian version!!!
The whole wheat noodle salad worried me a lot but it worked out just fine. This is going to be my flagship vegan dish, and sure enough there was a hard core vegan there and he LOVED it. I make the pasta using a Kitchenaid roller attachment, which is working very well and is a whole lot easier than a hand crank machine. Just a quick dunk (about a minute) in boiling water, then straight into an ice bath, and drain. They come out chewy, but after holding them on ice for a few hours the texture is perfect. They turn into a solid block during transport but when I add the dressing they fall right apart again. I'm a total noodle snob so getting good results on this is very satisfying - I think it's as good as the best cold noodle dishes I've had in Japanese restaurants.
This particular picnic was for seven people, and they scarfed it all up, but it could work for ten on the same budget. Total shopping time, 45 minutes, prep time, five hours. Materials about a hundred bucks. Cleanup yet to be determined. I think I can make this work for $150 setup plus $15 per person, at least to start off with. 10 people at $30 a head for this doesn't seem unreasonable, it's really quite deluxe. Just gotta find the right clients. That is, ones who will actually pay for it. ;-)
All together it's been a fun but entirely frivolous week and a half, I really must buckle down and get things done.
Today is the end of the busy period for a while. A guy at the Billy lunch had suggested a Monday afternoon outing to Orr Springs. Many people in this county are employed at irregular hours, so this was not at all an unreasonable idea. I had a picnic to test, so I immediately offered to provide it for them.
Readers from less agreeable climates may wish to stop reading now, since this was one of those days that makes all of America hate California. So sorry. Warm sunshine, cool breeze, an extravagant little French-Asian picnic in the garden after soaking with friends in warm mineral springs. You know, the things that make the earthquakes and firestorms worth putting up with.
The newly remodeled bathhouse is truly, truly beautiful. I hadn't seen it since they redid it all. All natural materials, a bamboo garden, care and good taste lavished everywhere. Lots of gates and bridges. Sulfur smells. Naked people! I don't know exactly what it is that's floating in the water, but I'm pretty sure it's organic.
The picnic went very well. French onion tarts, cabbage and peanut salad, whole wheat noodle salad with grilled eggplant and spinach, bread, cheese, salami, olives, cornichons, packaged duck liver pate. Scaling up the tarts would be a challenge; they take one and a half POUNDS of onions each and it takes a while to reduce it all down. And no, traces of bacon fat are not going to be acceptable in the vegetarian version!!!
The whole wheat noodle salad worried me a lot but it worked out just fine. This is going to be my flagship vegan dish, and sure enough there was a hard core vegan there and he LOVED it. I make the pasta using a Kitchenaid roller attachment, which is working very well and is a whole lot easier than a hand crank machine. Just a quick dunk (about a minute) in boiling water, then straight into an ice bath, and drain. They come out chewy, but after holding them on ice for a few hours the texture is perfect. They turn into a solid block during transport but when I add the dressing they fall right apart again. I'm a total noodle snob so getting good results on this is very satisfying - I think it's as good as the best cold noodle dishes I've had in Japanese restaurants.
This particular picnic was for seven people, and they scarfed it all up, but it could work for ten on the same budget. Total shopping time, 45 minutes, prep time, five hours. Materials about a hundred bucks. Cleanup yet to be determined. I think I can make this work for $150 setup plus $15 per person, at least to start off with. 10 people at $30 a head for this doesn't seem unreasonable, it's really quite deluxe. Just gotta find the right clients. That is, ones who will actually pay for it. ;-)
All together it's been a fun but entirely frivolous week and a half, I really must buckle down and get things done.
