| Our book started to fall apart about two-thirds of the way through! |
First, let me catch you up on what's been happening on Friday nights since we finished our Chili Nation project. We experimented with some chilis that were outside of the book and discovered a couple of interesting things. First, we should have been making our own chili powder with the many dried chilis we have on hand, which we did for our final party and will always do from now on. Also, we discovered how good chipotle chilis in adobo sauce are (a great substitute for barbeque sauce).
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We decided to make six of the highest scoring chilis for the party, making sure we had a variety of both meats and heat. The "lucky" states were: Alaska, Georgia, New Jersey, Utah, Florida, and Maryland (the chili that started it all; see my first post). We also made a bacon mustard coleslaw from Tyler Florence and the creamed corn from Alton Brown and one of the corn breads (I was actually going to make the spoon bread as well but ran out of time). My brother Steve brought his Skook chili which was delicious (had pierogies and meats soaked in Yuengling beer) and I MUST have the recipe!!
So let me begin this final post by thanking everyone who came to the party. Hopefully, those of you who haven't already done so, will read the blog.
I must confess that the last time I hosted a party for a large number of people was for Geoff's high school track team which didn't really compare because it was pretty short and sweet (they had a meet the next day) and before that, I was reminded, was when I hosted a birthday party for my dad (his 70th?); we've already celebrated his 80th so it might have even been his 60th, who knows? I was a little bit restless about the fact that the house needs painting, where would people sit and, honestly, how much food do we make? (It turns out, not nearly as much as we made; why don't I have one of those freezers in the basement so that I wouldn't have to cook for like 6 months with all these leftovers!). What I learned tonight is that when you fill your house with people, no one really notices that the walls need painting and you still have one of those old entertainment center pieces of furniture instead of a big tv hanging on the wall.
We had one little emergency on Friday before the party when it was discovered that we miscalculated the number of dried anchos we would need (we previously ordered all our dried chilis online). So the day before the party was a little late for that. I called all over the Philadelphia area grocery stores and specialty shops and no one had them. So on Friday (I took off from work) I made my way to South Philly's Italian Market in hope that the influx of Mexican vendors would mean a Mexican grocery somewhere nearby. The Spice Corner that I called and told me they had anchos, didn't really. The shop owner insisted that pasillas were the same thing, but I wasn't buying it. I quickly found a little corner shop that had cans of tomatillos and hominy in the window and all signs in Spanish that had all the anchos I would ever need. Emergency put to rest (and I also had an excuse to stop at Isgro's for cannolis!).
Geoff and I cooked all day Friday and Saturday. I didn't get up at 5:30 like I planned the day of the party, so I was a little bit nervous. But Geoff insisted that we were ahead of schedule. I guess he was right, but I still felt a little unprepared as guests started to arrive.
Oh, a note of fortuitousness. My piano tuner happened to call me on Friday that it was time for my yearly tuning and he was available on Saturday! How awesome is that? I had just sat down at the piano and determined that a tuning was really needed and, since were were having live music, a tuned piano was like icing on the cake. So, thanks Steve!! (It was our 25th anniversary of piano tuning together.) And, by the way, one of the best parts of the party was the live music. My son Ted and his friend Maura (pianist) played two awesome sets of jazz and they totally rocked!! Thanks Maura and Ted! We should have taped it and put it in the blog, but I didn't think of that until now (3:25 a.m.).
We were so happy to have family, friends, neighbors and coworkers. Thank you all!!
General comments seemed to be that Maryland and Utah (even among those who don't really like alot of heat) were on the top of people's lists. Ken commented that the shrimp in Maryland could be eliminated since the jumbo lump crab was really what made it; frankly an excellent idea. Alaska with its biscuits baked on top was also a hit. And the olives were a noticeable garnish in Florida's chili. Geoff's guacamole was, of course, a big hit. Everyone also liked the Tyler Florence coleslaw. We served Old Dominion beers and Blue Moon as well. Wines were provided by guests and my high school friend Bob made some very good suggestions. The vin Zin from Bogle was really good (too bad we drank that one the night before the party!!). We served the Gnarly Head Cabernet and had a Malbec and a couple of chiantis. Mel did some research and brought a white zinfindel--also a good pairing.
I hope you will all tune in for my new blog that will be all about our Thai food adventure. We'll keep you posted!
I'm kicking myself for not thinking of having a video clip of the music and my photographer (Mike) forgot that he was in charge of taking photos so the only ones taken were at the very end of the party after almost everyone had gone. Here they are:
