A few years ago we celebrated Richmond's 65th Birthday Dinner with a feast that might have been served at Boston's legendary Locke-Ober Restaurant on the day of his birth.
Annette has always been more partial to the restaurant at the glamorous Ritz-Carlton Hotel, so for her birthday Richmond and I created a dinner from The Ritz-Carlton Cookbook.
Here's how we did it:
We opened with a Winnemere cheese from Vermont's Jasper Hill. Winnemere is a Vacherin-style washed-rind cheese wrapped in spruce bark. It is full of rich, earthy flavors and it was at peak ripeness. The cheese course was accompanied by a fine Pauillac Bordeaux from the Talbot cellar. It had been brought back from a trip to France some years earlier.
Next we had a delicious Scallop and Saffron Bisque.
Our friends the Halls came to dinner in early December. I had worked with Jim for years, and he has heard a lot of our adventures, so I made a special Best of New England dinner for them. I ended up including fine food and drink from five New England states, and I only missed Rhode Island because we hadn't been there recently. 
We opened in the living room with a 
Our usual Saturday adventure was almost entirely displaced today by the very important matter of replacing our backup conveyance. After 13 years of Chevy Malibus, your earnest and hard-working Pilgrims will be exploring New England in a Chevy Impala. Friends and relations of your ever-lovin' Pilgrim know how terribly conservative we are, but time marches on and there was no Malibu to meet our needs. This week's Saturday will be on Sunday, in the Impala!
The Jews, the schools, and the auto companies all have the right idea. The year begins in the fall. The cooling of the weather puts you in the mood to restart your life. Naturally I'm making resolutions. One is that I'll keep the freezer and refrigerator full of material for good homemade soups. 
I am not sure how many of you have children. Some of the "Finer" things in children's lives are connecting with their parents on any level. As much as they may rebel against us, like we did with our parents, they love us as we do our parents. What better way to connect with our children than getting down to the most basic of life's requirements? Social eating is as old as caves. Cooking with children is about that old. 
We had an excellent feast to welcome autumn 2012! This year was a real surprise - our discoveries hit home runs on every front. That is not hyperbole; this was a really great dinner. 
I have been 
For the longest time I always thought sausage came in two ways - either cased like a "sausage" or else in a patty. You could mix it with tomatoes to create nice gravy for your spaghetti, grill it to enjoy with peppers and onions, pan sear it for breakfast, or whatever. It was not until about a year and a half ago that I discovered Sausage Fatty. Google it, it is a real thing that can inspire much cooking creativity. 
It was a year ago that the rains of Hurricane Irene began and didn't stop. The roads and homes of Vermont were pounded and flooded and just plain wrecked. The people weren't. 
I took a vacation day on a late summer Friday and spent it exploring 
We left the Sunday rain behind us and took the interstate highways to 
There is a big complex at Quechee that includes a Cabot store, a huge antiques coop, a winery, and some other shops. Now there is a brand new building there: the new distillery for 
On a hot August night, we joined Richmond and Annette at their beach cottage for a light dinner.
So we went out to the cottage for a light summer dinner:
We started with a nice French Chablis, but all good things come to an end. When the wine ran out we were forced to open up the Rangpur for 
In July 2012 we explored the 
There are photos that show the whole ensemble. In most cases I am drinking from my favorite blue stein so you can't see the color, but I do like that funny German mug! I think a favorite glass or stein can be an important part of enjoying a fine ale, nearly as important as seeing the color of the beer.
While