Category Archives: Blog

Listening Is A Gift

The key to a successful a  party host or hostess is to make your guests feel welcomed and entertained. Some people are just good at it. One of the best is my mother. After spending a weekend at my mom’s a friend once said to me: “Your mom has a gift, she is both interested and interesting”.

My mom turned 100 in August and she is still going strong. Mom started college when she was just 16, took college classes till she was 97 and still wants to learn today. Past being smart, she is a secret weapon at dinner parties. Mom is one of those rare people that really listen to her guests. (Featured picture has mom 100  listening to her great grandson Declan 3) She has the ability to focus on what her guests are saying and play back an interesting insight to complement her guest’s point.

(Note: This is a picture of Mom Mom telling a story at Jennifer and Ethan’s wedding. Her “stories” have become a fixture at the family’s weddings. After her most recent performance, an investment banker friend recommended she start a business for weddings…”Rent a mom-mom for stories that will make you laugh and cry”.)

One of my largest complaints in life is that brains ran in my family, but when it came to me, they walked. Unlike my mom, I am not a great listener. Instead of focusing on what you are saying to me, I am thinking about what I am going to say.

Beyond being interested and interesting, mom is a great cook. She is famous for her Mom Mom’s Vinaigrette. She lived in Westhampton NY  for years and got a lot of visitors in the summer. The local produce out there in the summer is outstanding. Most of the meals mom serves center around a great salad. The cornerstone of her salad is her vinaigrette. She claims the origination is a recipe in the New York Times, but I believe the beauty of it comes form her herb garden and the fact that she never makes it the same way twice.

Mom Mom’s Salad

Mom’s Herb Garden

Mom enjoying her glass of wine under the arbor

Mom enjoying a glass of wine at her 100th birthday party

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then this vinaigrette is legendary. My daughter Jennifer once surveyed Mom-mom’s other grandchildren and their spouses and 8 out of 10 use mom’s vinaigrette as a culinary staple. One reason is that it tastes great. The other reason is that it reminds them of their youth spending summers with their amazing grandmother.

If you can make your guests feel welcomed and entertained you will be a success.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

Crostini Take 2

Note: This is a second go round for this blog. As I restart work on book number 2 about wine groups the concept of appetizer platforms will be key and Crostinis are a fantastic platform

 

Just about everyone loves a Crostini. They are perfect for a wine group gathering:

  • They taste great
  • You can have a wide variety
  • Pare wonderfully with a variety of wines
  • Range from sweet to savory with every combination in between
  • Can be delegated easily with each participant responsible for an offering
  • Easy to eat in a party setting
  • Fun and informal
  • Easy to make
  • Even leftovers are great.

Crostini (meaning “little crusts” in Italian; singular crostino) are an Italian appetizer   consisting of small slices of grilled or toasted bread and toppings. The toppings may include a variety of different cheese, meats, fruits and vegetables , or may be presented more simply with a brush of olive oil and herbs or a sauce.

Crostini make a wonderful theme for a wine group gathering. You can provide participants with a recipe or simply ask them to get creative. One can stick to store bought ingredients and with a little creativity can come across as a culinary genius.

Crostini Menu

  1. Smoked Salmon With Salmon Spread

  2. Seared Sea Scallop With Horseradish Cream Cheese 

  3. Smoked Salmon With Horseradish Cream Cheese

  4. Mortadella With Herbed Cream Cheese And Pepperoncino 

  5. Roast Beef With Horseradish Cream Cheese And Green Onion

  6. Bacon With Herbed Cream Cheese, Pesto and Sun Dried Tomato 

  7. Roasted Brussel Sprouts With Gorgonzola Cream Cheese 

  8. Roasted Grapes With Gorgonzola Cream Cheese And Red Onion 

  9. Walnut, Apricot and Brie Crostini

  10. Sweetened Strawberry With Herbed Cream Cheese And Balsamic

Clockwise: Bacon With Herbed Cream Cheese, Pesto and Sun Dried Tomato.Walnut, Apricot and Brie, Mortadella With Herbed Cream Cheese And Pepperoncino, Roasted Grapes With Gorgonzola Cream Cheese, Sweetened Strawberry With Cream Cheese, Seared Sea Scallop With Horseradish Cream Cheese, Smoked Salmon With Horseradish Cream Cheese, Roast Beef With Horseradish Cream Cheese, Roasted Brussel Sprouts With Gorgonzola Cream Cheese,

My history with Philadelphia cream cheese steps forward in the menu. In a previous life, I ran the cream cheese business for Kraft Food Ingredients. An old boss at General Foods once said to me that there is nothing more boring than a 5-minute conversation about the coffee business at a cocktail party. The same could probably be said about the cream cheese business. There are a few things I can tell you from my cream cheese experience:

  • It pares amazingly well with both sweet and savory applications. The sweet strawberry Crostini benefits from the rich creaminess of the cream cheese. The savory salmon spread delivers a perfect combination of flavors. Several times I have had salmon haters tell me they don’t like salmon, but they love this spread.
  • European cream cheese is really good as it is half cream and half milk. American cream cheeses have gone with 1/4 cream and the rest milk. Having sold Philadelphia Cream Cheese made both in the U.S. and in Europe I can tell you that product from Europe tastes better. Fat delivers flavor.

Cream cheese certainly helps these Crostinis.

Try a CROSTINI theme at your next wine group gathering.

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/wine group/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

A Good Excuse For a Party SECOND TEST

ONGOING APOLOGIES FOR THESE REPETITIVE BLOGS. WE ARE TRYING TO FIX THE BLOG DISTRIBUTION AND. NOTE THAT “JAY R” IS A DEVELOPER THAT IS ASSISTING ME. WE JUST NEED TO GET HIS NAME OFF THE DISTRIBUTION (?)

 

We have a tradition of buying very big (3 liter) bottles of Joseph Phelps wines for each of our grandchildren. We buy it in the vintage of their birth year and the plan is to have a party to celebrate their 16thbirthday.

Actually, my buddy Tom Julian started the tradition. Our daughter Jennifer was born in California in 1984. Tom came out to visit and we went to the Napa valley as part of his visit. The Phelps vineyard has always been one of our favorites. It is in a little sub-valley in the Napa valley and it produces some excellent wines. Tom bought Jennifer a 3 liter bottle and we enjoyed it at a wonderful party in 2000.

Originally, we had planned on having it to celebrate her 18thbirthday, but we got a little nervous about how well the wine would age. We kept it in the basement of Tom’s old house in Rye NY on Onondaga street. His basement was the perfect place to store wine. Fortunately, the wine held up very well. When we first opened it we were nervous. Older wines will change color slightly. This wine had a reddish tint versus the deep purple of newer wines. The taste of the wine was good at the start and as the evening progressed, it got better and better. Funny how that works…

(Tom Julian, Jennifer, Paul and Susan Kenny getting ready to open a 16 year old bottle of Phelps Cabernet in 2000)

Right now we have  a 5 bottle inventory of 3 liter bottles of Joseph Phelps Cabernet or Insignia. These bottles mark the birth years of  Max (2013)  Emma (2014), Dylan (2017) Declan (2018) and Hadley (2019).  This tradition will lead to some fantastic wine and great excuses for a succession of parties.

The good news as that I have parlayed the collection of large bottles into an excuse to buy a wine cellar. In Memphis we don’t have the luxury of cellars. My wine cellar is actually a large refrigerator. How large? All I can say is that when the truck delivered it on a pallet, it was too large to fit in our garage. With the help of my son Brian we were able to wrestle it into the house and our collection of large bottles of Phelps wines is aging comfortably. The tradition was a great excuse to buy the wine cellar. Lord knows that my wife Susan wouldn’t have let me buy it otherwise.

Again, there is nothing like a good excuse!

If you enjoyed this blog and similar other stories/supper club lessons follow me on Facebook and Twitter and subscribe to get future blogs at www.impromptufridaynights.com/blog and check out my book Impromptu Friday Nights a Guide to Supper Clubs. Published by Morgan James Publishing and available through most channels where books are sold.

Emma at age 3 with her bottle of Phelps Cabernet

Feature photo was taken at Christmas in 2021 with all 5 grandchildren and their bottles of Phelp’s wine