Sharing the Table

We started Sharing the Table—dinner parties for charity—at the end of last winter as a way to explore ingredients, cook for old and new friends, and do it all for a good cause: everyone who comes makes a donation to a food charity. This past weekend saw the seventh and last of our dinners for 2011. As so often happens before any big party, there came that moment when we were completely in the thick of last-minute cooking and cleaning, and took one look at each other and said, Why? But somehow all the dinners proved exactly why. There’s the money raised: over $1200 for Montclair’s Human Needs Food Pantry. But something else—the fellowship, the conversations, the jokes, the dancing (yes, one night), the “sharing the table.” This Saturday was no exception. Eight guests came, few of whom we knew and none of whom we’d ever socialized with before; the whole dinner was booked by a friend’s in-law who neither of us had met. But by the time dinner broke up, around 1:00 in the morning, we felt as if we’d found a whole new group of friends.

The week before, we’d received our end-of-the-season stock-up share from our CSA, around 25 pounds of late fall vegetables, plus a similar size share of fruit from Tree-licious. It inspired the menu:

Spicy Cheddar Cheese Crackers • Marinated Green Olives • Marcona Almonds • Tears of the Prophet Cocktail

Roasted Beet Salad with Red Onions and Orange Slices

Short Rib Ragu with Roasted Fall Vegetables over Baked Polenta

Fresh Ginger Cake with Cognac Ice Cream and Apple and Pear Compote

Dr. Henderson’s Remedy

The main course was meant to be straight short ribs, but the ribs themselves were of such varied sizes, and so fall-off-the-bone tender, that an improvised ragu seemed the better choice. And for the fourth or fifth time we made a dessert that incorporated an ice cream from a favorite among this year’s cookbooks, Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams at Home.

There’s a link on the toolbar to Sharing the Table with entries about the previous dinners. The original idea was to start and maintain a separate blog within The Ingredients. Well, it’s difficult enough to keep up with The Ingredients…and as a knowledgeable guest said the other night, the average blog in this country has an average readership of one. Imagine that. So I thought perhaps it wasn’t wise to split my audience. There are also more photos of Saturday’s dinner here.

We’ll be announcing the next round of Sharing the Table at the beginning of January. If you’d like to join our email list, please get in touch via the contact link above.