A Lot to be Thankful For

We certainly had a nice Thanksgiving. Andrew, Connie and Alex were able to join Nancy and me, and we had a great time over the entire long weekend, enhanced by some fabulous weather.

The kids all came home on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning we set the table and gathered around for a group shot.

While Nancy worked on the finishing touches of our meal with a just a bit of assistance...

... the rest of us broke out Wii Resort and generally entertained ourselves.

To improve our appetites we took a hike up the Morning Sun Trail into the Marin Headlands. Although it was a nice day, it was a bit hazy and the views from the top of the trail were not great as can be seen from this video and the below photo of Connie looking out over Mt. Tam.

Back home we broke out some cheese (Brillat Savarin, Abbey de Belloc, Comtè and Cabot Clothbound Cheddar) from our favorite cheese store, Cheese Plus, which we enjoyed while we watched some football, and then moved on to our Thanksgiving dinner which was great. Nancy’s brined turkey turned out exceptionally well and after a few years of experimentation, I think I finally have perfected a stuffing recipe I like. We also had a couple of wines that went very well with the meal. Pumpkin and chocolate/coffee pecan pies rounded out the day.

On Friday, after an emergency run to Best Buy for a replacement TV (our former set having suddenly taken on a decidedly greenish hue), we went to see “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”, then were off for dinner at Sociale in San Francisco where we were well cared for by our friends Cornelia and Melissa (fabulous braised pork shank!).

On Saturday we hopped on a ferry in Tiburon for the short trip across Raccoon Straits to Angel Island where we hiked around the island and enjoyed the panoramic views of the bay.

On our way home we stopped by the Farley Bar in the Cavallo Point Resort at Fort Baker, happily early enough to catch dusk falling over the Golden Gate.

It was a wonderful holiday.

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Drawn by Lamb Necks - A Dinner at Sociale

At my “Butchery for Adults” class at Avedano’s last week, the instructor, Tia Harrison, who is also the chef at Sociale, mentioned that she was going to be adding braised lamb necks to the Sociale menu the very next day. I really enjoy a good lamb’s neck and it was not too hard to convince Nancy, Alex and Cass to join me for a dinner at Sociale last night.

Our friend, Cornelia, works at Sociale on the weekends and happily we were seated in her section on Saturday night. In addition to the things the four of us ordered, both Cornelia and Tia gave us a few additional things to sample (marked with a "#" below – which was a good thing since they ended up being some of our favorite dishes of the evening.

ANTIPASTI

~ Olives, stuffed with Fontina cheese, breaded and fried #
~ Lamb meatballs with pancetta #

PRIMI

~ Ravioli stuffed with wild boar and cinnamon braised in brown sage butter
~ Papparedelle with braised duck, peas and porcini mushrooms with truffle oil
~ Pici with pork, veal and venison Bolognese ragú #

SECONDI

~ Nancy: Pan-seared petrale sole with creamed corn and wilted spinach
~ Alex & Cass: Pan-roasted Berkshire pork chop with apple and endive
~ Mike: Braised lamb neck with Anson Mills polenta and oyster mushrooms
~ Arugula with pine nuts and lemon

DOLCI

~ Goat cheese cheesecake with lemon curd
~ Mini-beignets with chocolate sauce #

VINI

~ Prosecco Col Vetoraz #
~ Vino Nobile di Montepulciano Riserva – Fanetti - 2001
~ Moscato d’Asti “La Caudrina” – Dogliotti

My lamb neck was fantastic. I found a blog with a recipe for braised lamb necks which I hope to try sometime, especially since Tia allocated me the lamb neck (not to mention the pig's head) at our class at Avedano's (I think she has me figured out!).

However, in my view the most outstanding dish of the evening was the pici with the bolognese sauce. Pici are a rolled pasta which Nancy and I had last enjoyed during our trip to Italy in 2006 when we had them for the first and last time at a wonderful dinner at a small restaurant named Osteria La Porta in the small town of Monticchiello in central Toscana, between Montepulciano and Montalcino. We had been staying at Pamela Sheldon-Brown's Poggio Etrusco just outside of Montepulciano and she had highly recommended the restaurant.

Pici is a pasta similar to a fat spaghetti which is formed by rolling long strips of pasta dough. In the hand-rolled version the pasta is not uniform in size and has variations of thickness along its length which is part of its charm.


At our dinner at Osteria La Porta, Daria Cappelli, the owner, told us that an older woman came in to the restaurant every morning to make the pici for the day. I am not sure whether or not the pici we had at Sociale on Saturday night were hand-rolled, but they were certainly tasty and well cooked - just the right degree of chewy al dente-ness.

However, it was the sugo bolognese which was the real star of the dish at Sociale. It had a wonderful flavor as well as an excellent texture and maintained the integrity of each ingredient.

It was a great meal in a cozy spot with good company and surrounded by friends. We are already looking forward to our next visit.

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