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A visit from Natalie and Eddie

Or, 22 eggs, 10 gins, 4 vermouths and a few Bloody Marys.

After months of pleading, Friday night my wife's aunt and her SO came for a visit. Long time readers may recollect that we hung nary a piece of artwork until Natalie came to visit six months after we moved in, and then she hung everything. We'd hung a few things since then, but we had a jam-up of about a dozen pieces of artwork (several of which I brought back from my father's store before he sold it) that needed a home. But first we entertained them...

We started the night with a tasting of the ten gins in the house:

• Bombay Sapphire
• Hendricks
• Boodles
• Brokers
• Old Raj
• No 209
• Junipero
• Plymouth
• Martin Miller
• Bluecoat

Surprisingly (to me at least) Brokers was one of the favorites. I'd always thought of Brokers as safe if somewhat boring. Natalie picked up on a pleasant peppery flavor that I never noticed before. She also found Martin Miller to be cucumber-y. Hendricks is supposed to be the "cucumber gin" but indeed next to Martin Miller, Hendricks' rose flavor is more pronounced. We moved on to sample the four types of sweet vermouth I have on hand: Martini & Rossi (blah), Noilly Pratt (fine), Punt e Mes (crucial for an official Negroni) and Carpano Antica. The last was hard to find but worth the effort -- this stuff is amazingly good.

We also tried a few homemade gin concoctions -- I've had three attempts at kumquat-infused gin stewing for a few months. The first two were not very exciting. The third however was pretty good: In addition to kumquats, I had added black peppercorns, grains of paradise and coriander. Neat flavor. Maybe I'll make a bigger batch and come up with a house cocktail.

On to dinner:

• French Onion Soup
• Golden Beet and Blood Orange Salad with pistachios
• Meyer Lemon-Tarragon Sorbet
• Filet Mignon au Poivre with Bernaise, asparagus and pommes anna with gorgonzola
• Apricot-Almond Creme Brulee

The soup came out great... probably the best French Onion I've made, which is ironic since I was totally off-book. I've tried many recipes but they always seem to be lacking in flavor. This night's magic recipe was: one each red, yellow and sweet onion; 2 garlic cloves; splash of amontillado sherry; 1/2 c white wine; 4 c beef broth; sourdough baguette croutons and real Gruyere.

The pommes anna were also the best in a while. Natalie and Eddie were in charge of layering. While not as geometrically rigorous as my father-in-law, they seemed to have the touch for just the right amount of "flair" (shallots, butter, cheese, salt & pepper) between layers. That, plus the gorgonzola. Need to remember to always use a little bleu cheese from now on, even though technically I'm not a fan. But it's good in the potatoes.

With dessert, we had some Mondavi Botrytis dessert wine, which was a good pairing with the apricot in the creme brulee. We listened to some music, sang along with some musicals (one of us), talked about watching a movie (some of us), broke the DVD player (one of us), talked about family members (only the ones that don't read the blog) and finally watched a little Robot Chicken before bed.

On to breakfast... Eggs Benedict (scrambled) with homefries and Bloody Marys. It was while scrambling up the eggs my wife suddenly pointed out our carton was empty... which was surprised me considering I had just bought 2 dozen. Then I did the math: bernaise (3), creme brulee (8), hollandaise (3), scrambled eggs (8)... ugh that's a lotta yolks. They say oatmeal lowers cholesterol right? For the Bloody Marys we used this great local mix we discovered at an Artichokes wine tasting: Bloody's by Buz (he's got a great cucumber soup recipe too).

After brunch, Natty re-arranged the pictures in our house and found homes for the new additions, while Eddie somehow fixed the DVD player with his magic touch (he took it apart, poked at it, and put it back together), before they hit the road for their next night's adventure with friends in Dover.