New Year's Eve Feast

So it's turned out to be a really eventful year for us. We made three trips to New Zealand and Australia in the last 12 months, and on the last trip we came back with new jobs! That's right, Foodie Calls is moving to Melbourne, Australia. Well, not for another year or so, but we are really excited about exploring what will be our new city.

The food scene in Melbourne is fantastic -- see our previous post for our report on a meal at one of the city's best restaurants. Our goal is to live within walking distance of Queen Victoria Market, where one can buy loads of fresh produce, meats, seafood, cheeses, etc. Such easy access to quality fresh food is truly a gastronome's dream. This is also only a short walk away from the medical institute where we will run our research lab.

To kick off what promises to be another momentous year as we prepare to move house to the other side of the Earth, we had a group of friends around for a seven-course meal. We started off tasting some of Etienne's latest homebrew while he busied himself preparing the first dish -- a beautiful salmon tartar.

With this dish we served up the bottle of aged semillon (Cassegrain Wineries, 2000) that we brought back from Australia last September. This dry, concentrated white was a perfect complement to the buttery, briny and herby flavors of fresh salmon, capers and dill. It was an unusual wine with its combination of bell pepper, citrus zest and honey flavors. We really enjoyed sharing it with friends that appreciated its uniqueness.

Melissa's salad course was a combination of recent favorites in our household -- oven-roasted beets and goat cheese on field greens with a simple balsamic vinaigrette. We had the tail end of that semillon and then opened up the chardonnay we planned to have with the next course.

Melissa made a beautiful chicken roulade stuffed with arugula, goat cheese, parmesan and polenta. The roulades were wrapped up in proscuitto and served with steamed arugula and the cooking juices from the chicken. For this course we pulled out the last bottle of "The Ascent" Reserve Chardonnay (Ascension Wine Estate, NZ, 2006) that we picked up in 2007 from the vineyard where we were married. A very nice wine with even better memories attached to it. A bottle of Bogle Vineyards 2008 chardonnay filled in the gaps while we awaited the meat course.

The peppered beef tenderloin roast was done perfectly, as you can see from the picture. The mushrooms were halved and set in the roasting pan next to the beef with a little salt and pepper, and the flavor was of intense, unadulterated mushroom. The starch was a rutabaga/swede puree (boiled rutabaga done with milk, butter, salt and pepper using a hand blender), and the steamed broccolini rabe provided a bitter counterpoint to the rest of the dish. We pulled out a big, lush cabernet for this course: Groth Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon (2006, Napa Valley). Got this bottle for a great price at $35 when we were out at a recent local tasting with Etienne and Angelique.

After a nice break to sip our wine and rest our bellies, we had the first of two dessert courses: brandy poached pears with gorgonzola ice cream. Pears and blue cheese are a classic combo, and this dessert never disappoints. Even people who say they don't like blue cheese tend to come around when you blend it into a rich, creamy vanilla ice cream. We had a bit of a surprise when the pyrex casserole dish the pears had been done in exploded on the stovetop. Fortunately we had already served up the goods, but we did lose a lot of the precious butter, brown sugar and brandy syrup that remained in the dish.

Bill made a welcome contribution to the evening with his ambrosia-inspired strawberry trifle. He made it with fresh whipped cream and an incredibly tasty homemade pound cake, which Mel and I finished off for breakfast the morning after -- could have been an inauspicious start to the year if we had made any silly diet-related resolutions...

With the dessert courses, the bubbles came out; it was nearing midnight and with all the culinary distractions we almost missed it! We had a good selection of standards to ring in the new decade, including Korbel, Barefoot and a nice crisp prosecco.

This brings us to the final course of the evening, compliments of Evan: black-eyed peas and collard greens. We southerners couldn't resist, and I hadn't partaken of this special dish in quite a while. Traditionally consumed on New Year's Day, the black-eyed peas are for good luck and prosperity, the collard greens for wealth and money. Melissa added some prosciutto and cornmeal for color, and voila!

We wish you all a fantastic new year!