Fooding frenzy!

Chock-full of food days. I will just brag a little - I haven't had time to cook crazily all semester, so I got a little wack for the dinner party. Monday I started the sponge for the sourdough, made the gingerbread cake, stuffed and marinated the pork loin. Tuesday day I baked the baguettes, made the cranberry coulis and cranberry ice cream, roasted the brussels sprouts and the sweet potatoes. AND I found a fabulous new wine that I loved and Robert hated, that I drank alone while cooking (Robert was in the studio all day.) It was a Spanish rose cava - called Loxarel 999 cava rosat. It was brilliant - really subtle and kind of coy - definitely not begging for your love, definitely the pretty girl at the party - a little indifferent yet endlessly fascinating. (Sorry - that was bad.) It's like a sparkling pinot - not sweet at all. LOVED it - I got it at Whole Foods for $12.99/bottle. (And this was not your pussy kind of blanc de noirs - it was full on pinot-red.) I can't find very many web references to it in english, so I'll let you google that one for yourself.

Planning ahead made this dinner party so easy! I've never been so relaxed day-of. Everything was fabulous (the brussels sprouts were my favorite) - except the cranberry ice cream with the gingerbread thing was a little too much. (although the ice cream was fabulous on its own - it was just too many flavors going on at once with all the other stuff.)

We took a few pictures (Robert did - his pictures always come out better than mine.) I'll try to learn how to post them tomorrow, along with a recipe for the pork loin (because it kicked major ass.)

Today I worked on Christmas present stuff - finished the limoncello (not finished it, just finished making it.) It made 12 quarts!! Also made 30 eggs worth of lemon curd (that was a lot of stirring, let me tell you) and started 10 pints of lime marmalade (zested the limes, ribboned the peels, juiced the limes, stripped out the pulp and seeds, and started it marinating till tomorrow.) And made a double batch of cookie dough for decorating tomorrow - it was such a big batch that it didn't fit in my KitchenAid's bowl and I had to hold my biggest mixing bowl under the beater my own self. THAT was annoying as hell. The dough is all chilling in the fridge (you know, just hanging out rapping with its homies) until tomorrow's cutouts and baking. I'm TRYING to replicate lex culinaria's knockout cookies - I'll take pictures, come success or come failure. All the gel colors and icing tips and bags are out on the table waiting with the cookie cutters.

Wish me luck!