When you don’t really plan in advance, you have to make do with what’s on hand. And when what’s on hand fails you, you have to improvise. This was never clearer than it was at 6:30 AM Saturday morning, when the alarm went off and I made the decision not to make a trip to the grocery store. (Don’t we all long for the day when it feels safe to go to a supermarket anytime after 8:00 AM?)
So while the resulting menu — in my usual whimsical French — isn’t a very innovative one, it was still quite a good dinner.
Colony Special martini
Saumon fumé Olives farcies au fromage bleu
Côtelettes de porc à la sauce aux câpres Carottes et pommes de terre braisées
Salade vert, amandes et bleuets
Framboises à la crème
Merlot, Château Indifférent
But before dinner, let’s light the candles in the dining room.
This dinner came together from tag ends of stuff in my larder. I knew from the beginning that I had all the ingredients needed for an Old Reliable, pork chops in caper sauce. Rifling through the vegetable bin I found a couple carrots and four tiny potatoes, which led me to discover in The New York Times Cookbook a recipe for braised carrots and potatoes that was so simple even I could cook it without incident. Leftover toasted almonds and blueberries from other recipes augmented the salad. I almost gave up on dessert, but then found a half pint of raspberries that pinch hit well.
Dessert in a pinch.
A friend gave me J.M. Hirsch’s Shake, Strain, Done: Craft Cocktails at Home for Christmas, and in the afternoon I hit on a recipe that might work, the Russian Hotel, which included pineapple. Alas, the elderly and ill-sealed container of pineapple in the fridge had “gone off,” which meant a last-minute reversion to Etiquetteer’s signature cocktail, the Colony Special martini — so fresh and Perfectly Proper for the vernal equinox.
Why not?
I didn’t even realize it was the vernal equinox until a few hours before dinner, which made me regret not having gotten any fresh flowers. Instead, I used my Mad Hatter’s hat with popup cuckoo bird for a table centerpiece — something springing forth! But the other big surprise was learning via Instagram from @emilypost that March 20 was National Placecard Day thanks to The Punctilious Mr. P’s Place Card Company*. While I don’t have any of their table stationery in house — yet! — it prompted me to get out an exuberantly avian placecard from a long-ago dinner. And it inspired today’s column on placecards and seating, so please do take a look.
The floral note did at least appear with a favorite bow tie from Beau Ties, Ltd. Dressing up is still an important part of Dress Dinner Challenge.
And the moral of the story is, advance menu planning and shopping helps guarantee a Perfectly Proper dinner. Time to start thinking about next week . . . and Easter Weekend the week after!
*This company’s product lines are Perfectly Delightful, but the website requires navigating a lot of popup windows promoting a playlist and offers of personal assistance, which I find rather intimidating.