westside cooking society inaugural dinner

westside cooking society inaugural dinner
Originally uploaded by bluepupae.

the westside cooking society convened for our first dinner last sunday at george's home in culver city. susan goin's sunday suppers at lucques served as inspiration for our dinner. menu consisted of...

broccoli salad w/ pine nuts & burrata (tresa)
cassoulet soup w/ herb pesto (george)
cathy's blood orange granita (george)
dungeness crab salad w/ avocado, watercress, roasted beets, creme fraiche (me)
seared halibut w/ meyer lemon salsa, fingerling potato, pea and pea shoot smash (george)
boeuf nicoise with mushrooms & pearl onions, buttered noodles (george)
meyer lemon chocolate tart (sue)

everything was delicious. i stressed myself out somewhat making what i thought would be a simple salad, but took a bit longer than expected due to picking fresh crab meat and peeling a lot of beets.

our next dinner will feature authentic interior mexican a la rick bayless. i'm a little worried since there's a lot of preparation involved in his recipes, and i don't have a lot of experience cooking real mexican food, but it should be fun to learn. i may have to finally splurge and get a cast iron grill to roast chiles.