Saucy 30th Birthday Celebration

John and I think everyone needs a little sauce, and when it is a special celebration, sometimes you need a lot of sauce. Well, sauce was the theme of Nicole's 30th Birthday celebration. We had some celebratory sauce in the form of champagne and one of our super bomb wines, but mostly we had sauce accompanying John's delicious culinary creations.

We started out the evening with some munchies and champagne. The appetizer was a crostini topped with brie and truffled honey. I picked up the honey on a trip to San Francisco to the Ferry Building that included a mushroom store. It was fun to share this souvenir with my family.

We moved to the table to start the saucy adventure with the first course, chilled pea soup. I was inspired by the fact that we were celebrating on the weekend that kicked off summer and wanted to bring the flavors and textures of summer. The pea soup was accompanied by a cream sauce that John decorated into a flower and presented in chilled martini glasses. We served the soup with pea crisps (my favorite new TJ find) that Madeline enjoyed using to eat the soup (so much more fun than a spoon!).

Once we started on the second course, the menu was all John and all sauces. We were served a seared scallop on a red pepper coulis with an avocado sauce. The two sauces were beautiful looking and delicate enough so that the scallop was the star of the show. The Beckman Marsanne wine allowed us to remember our special trip to Santa Barbara that we took last year. We have been waiting to share a Beckman bottle with Marc and Nicole, and now that Abigail is here we can all share in the fun of drinking this special sauce!

The main course also had two inventive sauces that enhanced the wonderful offerings. The entree centered on the lamb tenderloin encrusted with pepper and juniper berries resting on a sauce of blackberry demi. Almost as delicious was the parmesan sauce drizzled on the broccolini. This was served with a cloud of garlic mashed potatoes. For the main course, we dipped into our wine cellar and pulled out my favorite bottle (thanks, Merv!), the Insignia to share for this important celebration. Finally, the dinner was capped off by croissant bread pudding with a raspberry schnapps sauce. The tangy and tart sauce worked perfectly with the sweet rich pudding. As you can see below, Nicole was pretty impressed!