Sorbet? You Bet!

So every time we have a TFS dinner, CB makes a sorbet.  But not just any run-of-the-mill fruit flavor, oh no.  For our latest tapas-themed dinner, he made an outstanding fresh strawberry and smoked paprika sorbet.  For our sweet/savory dish switch dinner, he made a beef consommé sorbet.  For our dinner based on puns, he made “beet it” sorbet.  He has made raspberry/hot pepper and shitake/oolong tea sorbets.  I’m pretty sure he could make a sorbet from any ingredients we could suggest.   I’m totally looking forward to our next gathering, which will feature grilled foods.  We decided that every dish has to have at least one component that will be grilled – including the sorbet.  CB has tentatively planned on making a grilled watermelon and aleppo pepper version.  It will be amazing.

The Tin Foil Swan Name

I have the good fortune to hang out with people who share my rabid interest in food.  Some time ago while enjoying the last of the wine that went with an exceptionally jovial dinner, we decided that we needed to gather on a regular basis to eat and drink.  And so we needed a name.  A name that would convey our purpose, a name that would sound good as an acronym.  Strangely, what we wound up with was “Tin Foil Swans ” (TFS).  The regular attendees are yours truly, my Aussie husband, the couple who like renovating houses, the Lawyers, and the Communist Bastard and his lovely wife.  I’m pretty sure he isn’t a Communist, and he is certainly not a bastard, but as he insists upon being referred to as that, we’ll call him “CB”. 

We always have a theme for our dinners, and the more those themes push our modest abilities, the better they are.  I should clarify that most of us are of modest ability; CB is not.  He cranks out restaurant-quality food for his family on a weeknight.  I have made it my life’s work to try to top his presentations.  I have succeeded once, during our “everything has to start with the letter  ”L” dinner.  I made lobster 3 ways – Mornay, ceviche, and a mousse, topped with a truffle juice “caviar” and served in oyster shells.  It took everything I had and looked like this:

I have not been able to plate to that standard again, but I keep trying!