Working in a test kitchen is relatively low stress. Unless you decide one day to walk into Ruth Reichl’s office and tell her you’d like to cater Gourmet’s annual holiday party. Her dark eyebrows lift with surprise at your willingness to lay your reputation on the chopping block, and without pause she says, "Okay, you got it." That’s what I did four years ago. Since then, the job’s been mine. And the pressure is high. I cook and plan a party for close to 100 guests, all of whom are hard to please. These people go to the best parties around. They eat at the best restaurants. They are not afraid to give me their opinions. This year, word is out that they’re in for a real treat.
I’ve seen a refreshing trend at high-end cocktail hours, the renaissance of the one and only pigs in blankets. The pigs have never really left us, but they’ve never had top-billing, either. So why now? The answer is not so much in the classic flaky pastry or the juicy sausage, but in what the pigs represent: the comfort of American food. So this year, instead of truffles in phyllo dough (2004) or morel mushrooms stuffed with chanterelle cream in a porcini gelee (2005), we’ll be popping pigs and stomping our feet to the mad fiddling of Laura Cortese and her Appalachian folk band, the Fox Run.
- The Full Menu:
- Panko-Fried Mac-and-Cheese Bites
- Pigs in Blankets
- Smoke-Salted Pretzels Stuffed with Smoked Vermont Cheddar
- Crisp Little Tuna Tacos
- Bite-Size Mini Hamburgers and Cheeseburgers
- Individual Caviar Pies
- Dessert:
- S’mores Pops
- Peanut Butter Fudge with Pate des Fruits
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