A few weeks ago, my friend Cheryl assembled a group of fifteen friends at Simone's Plain and Simple, http://www.simoneplainandsimple.com/index.html , in Wellman, Iowa for dinner. It was Cheryl's birthday, and the guests brought lots of wine and good cheer. Simone made us a traditional French meal from mostly local fresh ingredients.
We started off with an appetizer course, with Simone bringing each item out one at a time over the period of about an hour. Cold crab legs with a mayonnaise dipping sauce, a platter of hors d'ouevres such as cherry tomato halves and slices of cucumber topped with chevre and chives. There was bowl of olives Nicoise with oil and fresh garlic, and a fabulous platter of Simone's famous Fougasse made with walnuts and herbs. Simone explained that in France, Fougasse is a symbol of friendship, a perfect appetizer for the group--all of whom knew Cheryl, but not necessarily each other. My favorite appetizer was the fresh morels, sauteed slightly in butter, lots of butter, and served on a thin round of crisp bread. The morels tasted like spring--fresh and earthly--like the garden smells when you first turn it over after winter.
The first seated course was fresh asparagus for Simone's garden. It was cooked with fresh ginger and butter. Ginger and asparagus are made to go together, and several people at the table commented that it was a perfect pairing. I used a piece of bread from the passed basket to make sure I got all the butter off my plate. More wine went around.
The entree was next: grass fed beef with rhubarb sauce, and roasted new potatoes. The beef was from local Wallace Farms, the rhubarb from Simone's garden. Before we sampled the slices of beef, Simone explained that it was grass fed and that we would be able to taste the difference from the beef we usually ate. She was right--a kind of an earthly flavor highlighted the buttery beef. It was served with a wonderful horseradish sauce served straight out of the jar, made locally by the Amish in Stringtown.
The next course violated the local food rule: Simone passed a cheese board of French cheeses served with yet more of her fabulous bread--a buttery Brie, a gorgeous veiny blue cheese, a nice goat cheese--and crisp pear slices: "What can I say? French cheese are the best!" Everyone assumed it was desert and ate up. The cheese board went around the table twice.
Then Simone served the real dessert: chocolate hazelnut cake with whipped cream. With all the bottles of wine that had been opened all evening, I only wished we had had coffee with the cake. By that point, I felt a bit woozy.
The food was fabulous, the company funny and entertaining. And we drank all of Cheryl's bottles of birthday wine. But the thing I noticed most about the evening was the portion sizes. Had my mother cooked the same sort of meal for fifteen guests, the platter of buttered asparagus would have been heaped with several bunches worth of green spears. She would have cooked an entire side of beef (only a slight exaggeration). Simone's portions were plenty, but not bountiful by American standards. I certainly did not want for food, but I noticed that having the food served in courses made a difference in the way I ate and appreciated it.
With the different servings of appetizers, I could taste and notice each one. That one piece of crisp French bread with the sauteed, buttered morel on top, was bite of heaven. I was lucky enough--barely--to get a second one. The platter of asparagus went around the table twice, each time I savored several spears with their ginger and butter. The service was a far cry from my last dinner party, where the food was served "family style''--all on the table at once--and everyone heaped their plates with food, more than once.
No wonder so many Americans are overweight.
