So Much Good Food....and wine!!

Ok, so I can bring food back into the picture of things here. I had my second AIWF event that I organized this week on Tuesday. It was at one of my accounts called Avila. It's a sister restaurant to Davios, but they have a little more of a Meditterranean flare. Large menu, great wines, and I've become pretty good friends with the chef there. So him and I put the menu together about a month ago and it was really cool to be a part of that. We advertised on our website and on a Boston chef website and had a great turnout of 30 people! Even my friend Bill and his fiancee Judi made it to the event!

So we started the dinner off with some Serrano ham (Spanish prosciutto), manchego cheese and lavender honey. I totally requested this when we put the menu together because I always get it when I'm at the bar there snacking! Then we moved onto the chilled tomato-lemon soup with Maine lobster and avocado. After that, we got a "complimentary" course (from the chef) which was about 1 bite big. It was a strawberry marinated in balsamic vinegar over a passionfruit creme fraiche. Delicious!!!! An unexpected treat is always nice.

So. Moving on...We then had gnocchi with grilled peaches and toasted hazelnuts with a light, cream sauce. The sauce was a nice compliment to everything on the plate...kinda light, kinda lemon-y! :-)

Then we had grilled striped bass with a truffle corn salad. Probably one of my favorite courses of this whole meal. Here's what it looked like.



After that, we had a piece of top sirloin with oyster mushrooms and foie gras jus. This was another good one, but I think I liked the fish better. Here's a picture of that one too...



Believe it or not, after that we had dessert. Vanilla bean panna cotta with assorted fresh berries. It was good, but I didn't touch the panna cotta, just the berries. I mean, we had a lot to eat and I was very surprised that they paired each course with a wine! We didn't get full glasses, but it was enough that everyone was talking up a storm by the end of dinner. The chef came out and said hello and treated everyone so nice. One woman asked for a recipe and he came right back with it in an envelope for her. It was awesome! Everyone had such a good time, so many people were very impressed with the place and just loved the food!

After that, I went to another one of my accounts just to say hello. The chefs were all excited that they created popcorn ice cream so they brought me a sample to taste at the bar. They covered it in their burnt white chocolate crumbles. Yeah, it was pretty good. But I told them they stole the white chocolate popcorn idea from me...which I actually stole from Kelli's mom. But it was good so I told them I approved and that they could put it on their dessert menu. Then I headed out to meet a couple other industry people. It was a long night, but pretty fun...and filling!

My golf league ended last night and I'm pretty bummed about it. I know I'll still be playing until it's cold, but I'm not ready to go back indoors for volleyball yet. These chilly mornings are making me feel like Summer is ending too quickly, but I am enjoying them. Until next time, Chow!

KK