The Family Dinner Buffet - Making Pizza

Made pizza with the family for Valentine's Day, and here were the toppings to choose from:

-Asiago cheese

-Fontina cheese

-Reggiano Parmesan

-Sliced mozzarella

-Smoked mussels

-Bacon

-Soojookh (Armenian homemade hot sausage)

-Marinated mushrooms

-Olives

-Basil

-Carmelized onions

-Grilled zucchini and grilled eggplant

-Roasted red peppers

10 people, 10 personalities, 10 pizzas... all very different.  Here was my approach:  After surveying the scene, I knew that I couldn't possibly take on all of those flavors on one pizza.  Here, like any good buffet, building the pizza was exactly the same as building the plate: go with complementary flavors, and pick a horse and run with it.  You have to get over the feeling of "loss" that you're not going to be able to eat every single flavor, and go with the one that will give you the most joy at the time.  For me, that was picking the foods I don't normally eat.  So I went "meat-lovers."

My pizza:

1. I sprinkled Asiago cheese around the outside of my dough, then dabbed water just inside that cheese line, and folded over the edge of the dough to make a "stuffed crust".... did I come up with that idea? No, fast food pizzerias did.  Did I crush it? Yessir.

2. Chunky pizza sauce (great job to my mother on an excellent sauce)

3. Carmelized onions (45% density)

4. Crumbled bacon (10% density)

5. Soojookh (5% density)

6. Marinated mushrooms (25% density)

7. Smoked mussels (10% density)

8. Reggiano parmesan (40% density)

9. Asiago cheese (30% density)

Gorgeous.  It was smokey, meaty, flavorful and well-balanced.  I'm not tooting my own horn, but I do feel my somewhat unhealthy obsession with thinking about and planning my buffet "attack" was perfect preparation for this pizza.

There were some other stellar pizzas that day, this was just one example.

Another road was to make multiple pizzas in one pie, if you couldn't make up your mind.   Now, this is like making multiple plates at a buffet, so you can't fault the approach, and a creative way to work the buffet from a different angle.  See "The Salad Bar" for tips on creating dividers like this person did with crust (yes, this person is a Mercedes driver... or a member of the Peace Corps, I can't remember which). 

So with the ingredients above, how would you do it?

Keeping a fork at the ready

Walking around my Super Bowl buffet it became apparent that I was going to need to attack in stages.  Here was my approach:

1. Bowl of chili; sprinkled shredded cheese in there and dropped in a piece of sweet cornbread... oh man.

-Immediately afterwards-

2. Veggies w/ a little bit of dip (cleanse the palette)

-Immediately afterward-

3. Grab a Miller High Life (pony size; didn't want to go full size yet)

-5 minutes-

4. Slice of bruscetta/pizza (wasn't worth it), broccoli rabe, sausage (definitely worth it)

-15 minutes-

5. Open face clam & bacon sandwich (oh god this was amazing... the bread soaked up the juice...)

-Grab a beer-

6. Soft pretzel dipped in the cheese/crab dip that was intended for veggies; then more veggies

-15 minutes-

7. Dessert: brownie, slice of apple cake, a few cookies, another brownie

So you'll notice that I was spacing out my eating (and touching multiple food groups).  Well, I didn't want to be wasteful, so even though I changed plates between foods that did particular damage to my eating surface, I kept the fork with me at all times.  In fact, I put it in the one place I knew I wouldn't lose it.....

See? Eating like an animal can be good for the earth too. 

MASTER CLASS: Holding a cup of soup and a dinner plate

Proper form for carrying a bowl of soup with your first dinner serving.

When to use: when the buffet is young and the lines are long; a quick cup of soup is hot now, enjoy it and Round 1 before your second trip.

How to do it: Get your soup and saucer, and place your fourth and fifth fingers under the saucer, in the center.  Move your third finger to the side of the saucer, still underneath it, for lateral support.  With your free hand, add the empty plate resting on top of the cup of soup, and supported laterally by your second finger.  Build your plate with your free hand (while impressing the other people in the buffet), then use your thumb as control for the plate not falling off the cup.

KEY: Doesn't work without the saucer

Degree of difficulty: 4 out of 5

Degree of security: 3 out of 5

Happy Hollandaise

A few rules as you approach the buffet this year:

1. Just eat.  Don't hurt yourself, but the holidays are not a time to be watching your weight, or counting your calories.  Enjoy the season for what it is: family, food and fun.

2. That world-famous pie/cookie/tart/etc. probably isn't going to taste like that forever; eventually your aunt will stop making it, and you'll be toast.  So eat as much as you can and savor the flavor.

3. Lamb is for Easter, beef is for Christmas.  And New Year's.  And about 349 other days a year.

4. Enjoy the Hollandaise... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollandaise_sauce

Thanksgiving, the ultimate buffet

So, I was hoping to write this before Thanksgiving, so you would have a chance to build your approach to the ultimate buffet ever: Thanksgiving dinner. If your Thanksgiving dinner is anything like my family's, it starts around 3:00 and ends when you pass out. Turkey is not really even the centerpiece, though you have the obligatory serving for tradition's sake.

This year, I ended up with two Thanksgivings, a brunch with my immediate family, and a dinner with my extended family. Both were remarkable spreads, and both required some thought... and both left me stuffed like a Tur-duck-en.

In the end, I'll confess I didn't really learn anything new about my buffet technique, or about my palatte, but I did reflect on the 3 F's that make Thanksgiving so special: Family, Food and Football (yes, in that order).

Happy Thanksgiving, from my stomach to yours.

"The People's Cheese"

I was recently part of a spirited debate on the following topic: "Agree or disagree: cream cheese really is the people's cheese." There were so many fine points, that even though this blog is about buffets, I had to re-live them here. The non-winners posted below:

• Nacho cheese: accessible, but ethnic - and some prefer their cheeses to be in solid form
• Roquefort: For the bourgeois only - doesn't even belong in the discussion
• American: With only 300+ million out of the 6 billion people worldwide, this is hardly universal
• Parmasean: isn't pasta universal?
• Mozzarella: one of few cheeses that goes well with meat (chicken parmasean anyone?), and on pizzas and TGI Friday's (in stick form) worldwide
• Marscapone: one of few cheeses that goes well with almost anything sweet, but a little exotic
• Cream cheese: works well for breakfast and dessert, but very limited in between
• EZ cheese: highest marks in the convenience factor, lowest in nutrition; also, may not actually be "cheese", so we can't count it

And the winner is: Kraft Mac 'n Cheese cheese. Why? Here was the winning submission, verbatim:

"We've left out the famous Kraft Mac 'n Cheese cheese. This nameless wonder is truly the people's cheese - sold in every local Mom and Pop store (read: Walmart) in America. It's as healthy as the average american, and probably made right here in China!"

Priceless. I think "healthy as the average american" was the clincher for me.

And if you don't think that's "global" enough, how's this for global: "Local Kraft managers say the plant makes so much macaroni and cheese in a year that if they lined up all the boxes, end to end, the line would wrap around the world 2.4 times." (from: http://www.news-gazette.com/special/cfcu/ind/kraft.cfm)

The Clam Bake

This was my first experience with a Clam Bake. It was an interesting trip.

Here's how the menu broke down:

1. Raw bar with clams, shrimp & oysters
2. Butlered fried shrimp
3. Hamburgers, hot dogs, lobster, salads (raw bar closed)
4. Dessert

I asked a server what we were having, and she gave me the line-up. Then I had a small choice in front of me: this was a clam bake (though none of the clams ended up being baked...), so it was seafood oriented. Should I plan for hamburger/hot dogs, allowing me seafood and Americana variety across the night, or should I go all seafood? How do you NOT have lobster? Given the fact that you spent the first part of the night eating seafood, are the lobster and hamburger/HD mutually exclusive?

These are all good questions, and to be honest, I normally have an answer for them. In this particular case, I used the brute force algorithm: eat it all.

The final tally looked something like this:

• A dozen shrimp
• 1 oyster (hate them, but was caught up in the spirit)
• 3 clams
• 1 basket fried shrimp
• 2 hamburgers
• 1 foot long hot dog (no bun... I'm watching my figure)
• 2 lobsters (no idea on weight; each was about 12-14" long)
• 2 servings of salad
• Dessert

I then slipped into a food coma and woke up 2 days later... hungry.