#11: Friday Night in Tunisia

Honeyed almond and orange cake for dessert.

Wow, I am REALLY behind on this one. It’s been a busy year and I am really happy to finally have some time to come back to this blog and to the food and people that make it meaningful to me. We kicked off the 2016 You Pick Two season in style with our event in February. As I have said previously, these events and this blog are all about bringing back the dinner party, but they are also exploring varied tastes and cuisines from around the world.  I used to watch a lot of shows dedicated to cooking and entertaining and while they seem to be in a state of retreat (does everything have to be a battle/throwdown/competition???), I still watch a few of them. And you can't talk dinner party and entertaining without mentioning Ina Garten.  One rule for entertaining she states over and over is that you should never try something new when hosting a dinner party. I hear that bit of advice from a lot of people actually. You Pick Two ignores that piece of advice. I cook a ton of food at these events that I have never done before - most work out great. I understand it can make people nervous, but there isn’t time to test out the dishes, so if something goes south then it makes a great story and I learned something. I also find that the recipes I get from the internet and from my collection of cookbooks have been pretty well tested and come together just fine.  Then again, I have been at this for a while.

Ground lamb and beef meatballs over stewed root vegetables.

For this event I turned to my favorite food writer, Nigella Lawson. Her book “Feast” focuses on just the kind of dinner parties that You Pick Two is all about. She includes starters, main courses, desserts, etc. with each one. It’s basically a cooking blueprint for the night. One feast that I always wanted to try was this Night in Tunisia one – partially because I loved the exoticism of it, but partially because I probably won’t ever make it to Tunisia and this is my attempt at understanding the country and its food history. So who did we invite?

We started with some new friends: Aaron and Youngkey. We are attending their wedding in early 2017 and I learned very early on that Aaron is a huge foodie. Not only does he know a lot about what is going on in the restaurant/chef scene, but he’s an excellent cook in his own right. He had us over for brunch where he whipped up homemade gravlax, assembled a waffle station, and made three kinds of quiche. He knows what he is doing, so to me it was an obvious choice to invite them. I also knew that I had to challenge myself and try something new – so the Tunisian feast idea made a lot of sense. Youngkey, or Yk, is his partner (fiance) and is currently a medical resident and works crazy hours. But I knew he had an adventurous palate and is willing to try different types of food.  Moreover, he is a fantastic planner and did what he had to do get them (and their Pick Two) set up and over for dinner. Like I said, they are relatively new friends of ours so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but we were really happy with who they brought.

The You Pick Two crew, selfie courtesy of Megan.

Megan and Philip are married with two kids and are long-standing friends of theirs, Aaron and Megan used to work together at a law firm (they are both attorneys by training, with Megan still practicing law). Kevin is also an attorney but we were thankful that the night’s conversation didn’t involve the law. Megan also has a really interesting second career in voiceovers/narration. She is the announcer for both the Webby awards and the Gotham Independent Film Awards.

One of the most interesting parts of the night was learning that not only is Philip a producer of TV and film, but he used to work on a lot of food shows while living in NYC – especially Bobby Flay shows. We talked a lot about current food programming and I was able to confirm something I always thought was true: on Iron Chef they know the ingredient ahead of time! However, they do actually make all those dishes in real time – something I didn’t know. I have also always been concerned what happens on these food competition shows in terms of waste, like what happens to all this stuff that is cooked? Philip assured me that all the food does in fact get eaten (there are enormous crews that film and make these shows). Philip left NYC to pursue his own film production business here in DC, which he says is a completely different market. I have no doubt he will succeed.

Harissa paste figured prominently in the cooking.

The food turned out great – everyone enjoyed it and, more importantly, the company and conversation. The brik appetizer was a revelation to me, I have never had that before. I used filo dough (which isn’t necessarily traditional) but what I found interesting is that you squeeze lemon over it after you bake it. Quite good. The brik recipe, from Jamie Oliver, can be found here: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/tunisian-brik/

The rest can be found in Nigella’s book, “Feast”. Enjoy!

MENU

Friday Night in Tunisia

February 6, 2016

Cocktail

Gentleman’s Fig

Fig infused vodka, bourbon, muddled blueberries, ginger ale

Appetizer

Tunisian Brik

Filo dough with mashed sweet potato, chile,

and spiced filling

Main

Aromatic meatballs

Ground lamb and beef, onion, cinnamon, allspice

Root vegetable stew

Rutabaga, carrots, parsnips, tomato, rose harissa

Cous-cous

Vegetable stock, cumin, coriander

Green lettuce and herb salad

Green leaf lettuce, flat leaf parsley,

lemon cumin vinaigrette

Sweet

Honeyed almond and orange cake

Ground almond and poached orange cake,

honeyed fig topping

Guests

Aaron Schwid and Youngkey Chung

Megan Mann and Philip Operé