F3. Friends. Food. Farming.: Food for 40

There's nothing I enjoy more than hanging out with my friends, working at my farm, and creating wonderful food. The Jew asked me for some help planning a dinner party for some of his friends and what was supposed to be a "simple" meal exploded into a feast.

The meal was supposed to be a pork tenderloin, ceviche, things from the garden, and paella. The boys went to the store and came back with 4-5lb of shrimp, 2lb scallops, 2lb cuttlefish and squid, mussels, clams, 8cups of uncooked rice for the paella, and enough wine to make sangria to drown a small whale. I was able to harvest a huge bag of arugula, black kale, broccoli rabe, turnips, giant red radishes (which I thought were beets the whole time they were growing), and SIX fresh eggs.

The beauty of having fresh ingredients available at your disposable is that you're able to create something wonderful. I strive to utilize the fresh flavors of my ingredients as the focus of my food.

I blackened the kale by flash frying it in a tiny amount of canola oil. It has such a great nutty flavor I forgot to salt it, and no one complained. The turnips were a real treat. I normally roast them, but these were a bit older than I'd prefer so I ended up boiling them and making a mash. I wasn't too sure about it, but my friend Dior was right. They were FABULOUS! (She's been giving me suggestions about what I should do with my vegetables.) I was expecting a fibrous, bitter mash. But it was sweet, moist, and creamy. No extra salt or oil was needed.

The fun one for me was using the broccoli rabe. I wanted to make a mayo based broccoli salad with homemade mayo. I took some of my fresh eggs and whipped up a batch of mayo using olive oil and red wine vinegar I've been aging with all the left over bottles of red wine. I grated some cabbage and carrots (cough cough I grew...) and made a cold slaw. (Totally seasonal) I tossed in some dried cranberries left over from Thanksgiving and garnished it with slices of the beautiful radish. It was so light and flavorful people were asking if there was actually any mayo in it. (Forgot to salt it came out wonderfully.)

An old member of the Surf Club donated some mahi mahi and salmon steaks for dinner. It wasn't enough to cook and serve as an entree... so I took the risk of making ceviche. Everyone knows that ceviche should be made with fresh fish. These had been vacuum sealed and frozen. But I took the risk of defrosting them and curing them in lemon juice and vinegar for several hours before consuming it. While the fish was curing I tossed together diced hot house tomatoes, sliced onions, fresh cilantro from the garden, minced garlic and whole lima beans with a bit of oil and lemon juice and let the flavors merge. The result was a beautiful mixture with fresh flavors and a mixture of several great textures.

I marinated the pork tenderloin in a simple rub of rosemary, salt, pepper, and olive oil for several hours. Seared it on the grill, then tossed it in the oven to finish baking on a cedar plank. When it was finished I sliced it up and laid it accross a bed of arugula tossed in olive oil. I drizzled the entire thing with a bit of balsamic oil and a dash of salt.

But of course the star dinner table was the paella. (The Spaniard's a 25 year old lawyer from Spain who's visiting and living at the Surf Club. He's been talking about making paella from day one that he arrived. I've made paella before, and have a pretty good idea of how its made. But he swore he was going to teach me how to make a real Spanish paella.) Making paella for a large group without a proper paella pan has always been a challenge for me. The rice must be cooked in a thin layer so that they can all bounce and not stick together. I ended up boiling the rice al dente in a large pot of water, straining it and rinsing it in cold water to stop the cooking process.

The Spaniard fried all the sea food (in small batches) before adding it to the rice. Then browned the onion and garlic in the oil. Added half a can of diced tomatoes, saffron, and water to the rice and baked it for 15 minutes. The result was a perfect paelle that was light and fluffy with a lot of flavor.