An Autumn Business Dinner at My Farm

November 12, 2018

Fall is such a wonderful season for entertaining.

Last week, I hosted a lovely dinner for a group of business colleagues and partners. My friend, Chef Pierre Schaedelin, from PS Tailored Events, and I, planned a menu for 16-guests. For this meal, I wanted to serve pot-au-feu, one of my favorite French comfort foods. We also served endive salad, white truffle risotto, and for dessert, homemade pomegranate sorbet and brown butter shortbread cookies. It was a delicious meal.

Enjoy these photos…

: As always, my longtime housekeeper, Laura Acuna, set a lovely table for the event in my large Brown Room. Laura and I have worked together on many, many table settings over her 32-years with me.

: Here is my place setting at one end of the long dining table. Each setting is decorated with bright fall orange placemats and crisp white napkins.

: The beautiful pumpkins, grown right here at my farm, add such a warm and colorful touch to the table scape.

: Just outside my Winter House, Ryan carries two potted plants through the upper terrace parterre. I always decorate my home with plants before every gathering, but I keep all my houseplants in the greenhouse, where they can be maintained properly, especially during winter and times when I am traveling.

: I like to decorate with a wide assortment of interesting specimens. Ryan always brings in more than two dozen plants – it’s such an easy way to liven up any space.

: Sansevieria cylindrica or the cylindrical snake plant is a succulent native to Angola. It has striped, rounded leaves that are smooth and green to gray in color.

: This colorful houseplant is a Calathea lancifolia, or rattlesnake plant. It’s a great indoor ornamental houseplant with long, medium green leaves and dark green spots. The undersides of the leaves are a deep shade of purple.

: In between my kitchen and smaller dining room is my servery, a room from which meals are served – I often prepare and serve cocktails and other drinks from this space. On the center island is a “slipper orchid” – one of my favorites. The key to growing these plants is to keep the root systems strong and healthy. These plants have no bulbs or stems to store moisture and nutrients, so it is important to maintain their roots.

: Inside the Flower Room kitchen, Chef Pierre charred onions straight on the flame – these onions add an intense smoky flavor to any dish.

: All the vegetables were prepared early in the morning as part of the “mis-en-place” meaning “set in place”. It refers to having all the ingredients prepped and ready to go before cooking. The main course includes leeks, celeriac, carrots, turnips, fingerling potatoes and horseradish.

: Several meats are used for this pot-au-feu including veal shanks, beef shanks, short ribs, Italian sausage and marrow bones. The meats are slowly braised to cook the meat and melt the marrow.

: For pot-au-feu, the vegetables and meats are simmered together, creating a very rich and flavorful broth.

: Chef Pierre ties a bunch of leeks before placing them into the pot.

: Chef Pierre makes one of the sauces for the pot-au-feu – sauce verte with capers and cornichons, those delicious mini gherkin cucumbers that are harvested before reaching full maturity for an extra-tart bite.

: These are maitake mushrooms, Grifola frondosa. I harvested them myself during a visit to Phillips Mushroom Farms in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. I will share more photos from this amazing farm in an upcoming blog. http://www.phillipsmushroomfarms.com/

: Here is Pierre holding the white truffles with the risotto. Known as the white Alba truffle, Tuber magnatum pico is famous for its distinct aroma and intense, earthy flavor.

: Chef Pierre’s sous chef, Oscar, taps the back of the pomegranate to get out all the clusters of juicy, gem-like seeds from the inside. These pomegranates come from our friends at POM Wonderful. https://www.pomwonderful.com/

: The pomegranates are used to make this gorgeous bright colored sorbet.

: And to accompany the sorbet – brown butter shortbread cookies.

: Guests arrive promptly for dinner. Here’s Chef Pierre preparing the endive salad.

: These are some of the condiments that accompany the boiled meats – assorted mustards, sauce verte, coarse sea salt, and white horseradish I made earlier in the day from horseradish grown in my garden. I’ll show you how easy it is to make in another blog.