A Full Heart

I haven't written a post on my personal blog in a long while, so please bear with me if my prose isn't polished. I also haven't hosted (what used to be) my annual Valentine fondue dinner party since before the Coronavirus pandemic began, so I am way out of practice. 

But the timing seemed right this year as I finally felt confident that I would not be putting myself or others at risk of infection. So on the 18th of February, I welcomed esteemed guests into my home and hoped they would enjoy my hospitality. 

In a rare moment of extroversional courage, this year I invited not seasoned old friends that I felt completely at home with but, save for two of them, complete strangers -- a stretch for my introverted self. On the guest list besides my perennial companion, Jesse? Kim Cross, the founder and publisher of the internationally renowned (and absolutely gorgeous) quarterly print magazine,  Enchanted Living, and Kim's husband, Klaus. Also on the guest list? Steve Parke, the famed in-house art director for Prince who lived and worked for 13 years at Paisley Park in Minnesota, and Steve's bride, Kim Workman Sandberg. Both couples, it turns out, live not far from me. You should see Steve's new book Picturing Prince. It's a phenomenal pictorial of a phenomenal musician.

I have subscribed to Enchanted Living for many years now, and six years ago offered my ancient farmhouse on two acres as a potential site for a photo shoot if the magazine ever needed a rustic venue close by. Kim Cross and her editor-in-chief, Carolyn Turgeon, stopped by to have a look around in 2017. I treated them to homemade Caesar salad for lunch. We hit it off and have stayed in touch ever since.

A few weeks ago, Carolyn was in town for a photo shoot with the magazine's photography editor, Steve Parke. She stopped by my house afterward to introduce me to her friend, Marvin Lynch, a proprietor of Marvin's Confections in North Carolina who makes the most exquisite chocolates. I asked if she and Marvin, and Kim and Klaus, would be my guests at my annual Valentine fondue extravaganza. Alas, Carolyn's jam-packed travel schedule would not allow it, and Valentine season is the busiest time of year for a chocolatier, but Carolyn thought Steve Parke and his bride might like to come in their stead. I reached out to Kim Cross and her husband and Steve Parke and his wife and was thrilled when both couples said yes!

In the weeks leading up to the dinner, I busied myself with preparations. First on my to-do list was to make my guests a magic potion to take home -- a fabulous cold and flu remedy, courtesy of The Wondersmith, a frequent contributor to the magazine whose recipe for the glittery elixir was featured in the Fall 2017 issue. I assembled my ingredients: elderberry juice, bourbon, horehound, mullein, star anise and edible gold luster dust and went to work, setting intentions for the glimmering liquid as it simmered on my stove. I decanted the tincture into pretty bottles, decorated the corks with red satin flowers and stashed them in little gift bags for my dinner guests, in which I'd also stuffed a box of my toasted pumpkin seeds, a copy of the evening's menu, and the recipe for the elixir folded into an origami flower.

Then I got to work on party favors for my guests. I filled cute pierced tins from IKEA with chocolate kisses and deployed the candy-filled tins as placecard holders by tying on a card with each guest's name.

The week of the dinner, I took a couple of days off from work to concentrate on bringing everything together. First on my to-do list was to make a cinnamon simple syrup for a delicious champagne punch that would feature pear liqueur and other exotic ingredients. 

Next, I went to work preparing appetizers, cubing crusty bread and tender steak, halving tiny potatoes and mushrooms, slicing colorful citrus for champagne punch, and segmenting an assortment of fruits into bite-sized pieces for the various courses of my dinner. After that was accomplished, I prepared five of my very favorite dipping sauces for steak: my own sugar-free barbecue sauce, a balsamic blue cheese sauce, a mustard sauce, a garlic-paprika aioli, and a horseradish sauce.

On the day of the party, I started early. Setting the table for my three-course, all-fondue dinner is always a labor of love for me. I took my time (more than three hours) to create a tablescape I hoped would show my guests how much their presence and friendship meant to me. Faux sheepskins I'd purchased at IKEA years ago were spread across each chair. To counter the barren February landscape outside, I fastened a cascade of faux spring flowers to the back of each seat.

Each place setting was adorned with a red napkin expertly folded into a heart shape by Jesse and set upon my grandmother's gold china, which itself was laid upon a gold charger plate. Each course of this lavish meal would be accompanied by a different beverage, so I called all my glassware into play: shot glasses, beer pilsners, stemware for water, Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon, and tinted cordials for an after-dinner digestif.

Besides utensils for eating, I also needed fondue forks, a different fork for each of the three courses. Fortunately, I have lots of fondue forks! Each place setting was adorned with a metal fondue fork for cheese fondue, a wooden fondue fork for cooking chunks of filet mignon in hot oil for the main course, and another metal fondue fork with which to dip assorted fruit in luscious chocolate fondue for the dessert course.

Once the table was set with the basics we would need for eating, it was time to up the "wow" factor. I sprinkled pale pink and deep red silk rose petals all over the table and scattered pretty glass gems and sparkling hearts all around. I added some votive candles and a few nosegays of fresh flowers -- and voila! My romantic tablescape was complete. Earlier in the week, I'd climbed my six-foot ladder to hang an assortment of Valentine-themed decorations from my dining room ceiling. I'd also decorated my mantel with candles and flowers. Now I stepped back to take it all in. I was pleased with how everything looked.

As the time approached for my guests' arrival, I prepared my special Swiss fondue plates. In the individual wells that circle the perimeter of each plate, I spooned my five dipping sauces. On serving dishes I piled bite-sized chunks of the very best filet mignon, colorful baby potatoes that had been barely blanched, cute baby Bella mushrooms and an assortment of broccoli and cauliflower florets.

I took the concentrated cinnamon simple syrup I'd simmered earlier and added it to an heirloom punch bowl (a wedding gift to my parents in 1953), which I'd lined with colorful slices of blood orange, tangerine, lemon and lime. Into the punch bowl with the cinnamon simple syrup went a heady combination of pear liqueur, cognac, triple sec, lemon juice and lots of ice. I would add a bottle of champagne to complete the concoction once my guests arrived.

Finally, I got busy at my stove. In a ceramic fondue pot, I gently heated two cups of dry Sauvignon Blanc and minced fresh garlic into which, once it reached a rolling boil, I would eventually stir a combination of grated Emmenthaler, Gruyere and Vacherin Friborgeois cheeses seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg. In a large saucepan on another burner, I heated 32 ounces of peanut oil to almost 500 degrees Fahrenheit -- extremely hot. This would eventually be transferred to a metal fondue pot set over a Sterno can in the center of my dining room table for the meat course. And in a double boiler on the smallest burner, I slowly melted rich dark chocolate with half & half for the dessert course, into which I would splash 3 tablespoons of Gran Marnier just before bringing the pretty ceramic and copper pot to the table for the dessert course.

In my living room, I set out a variety of appetizers: dolmas, pickled Cipollini onions and Roquefort-stuffed olives, strips of Mozzarella around which thin slices of salami were wrapped, and a round of Camembert wrapped and baked in puff pastry dough formed in the shape of a heart with parsley-infused créme fraîche and crushed walnuts.

I wanted to make the outside of my home especially welcoming since, except for Jesse and Kim Cross, none of my Valentine guests had been to my house before. I lined my front porch railing with dozens of flickering red LED candles, lit candles in hanging lanterns and dressed my perpetual reindeer mascot in a Valentine scarf and a jaunty red beret. Everything was ready!

My guests arrived promptly at seven o'clock. After we'd had our fill of Anjou Champagne punch and appetizers, followed by a quick tour of my humble abode, dinner was served. With cubes of crusty bread on our plates, we took tiny sips of  Kirschwasser, a Swiss cherry liqueur, and chased them with swigs of Belgian pale ale and Riesling as we toasted the beginning of a fun evening together. With candles flickering and a fire crackling in my fireplace, we dipped the sourdough chunks into steaming fondue and enjoyed the subtle flavors in the melty cheese.

Once the cheese and bread course was cleared away, I brought out the boiling oil and replaced the simple candle warmer beneath the cheese fondue with a much hotter Sterno can. We proceeded to pierce chunks of the raw filet mignon, mushrooms, baby potatoes and crudités with our wooden tines and then nestled them into the sizzling oil: 15 seconds for rare meat, 20 seconds for medium, and 30 seconds for well done. As we cooked subsequent chunks of steak, we dipped the already cooked pieces into the sauces on each plate.

Between courses I regaled my guests with trivia questions about the legend of St. Valentine and also about Abraham Lincoln, whose birthday was February 12th. Steve's bride won the women's trivia prize, a chocolatey male figure dubbed the "perfect man" (always sweet with no baggage or agenda). Klaus won the man's trivia prize, a small but very practical flashlight.

We finished our dinner with fruit dipped in chocolate fondue, the rich, sweet liquid kept warm over a simple candle once again. Strawberries, blackberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, goldenberries, Maraschino cherries, mandarin oranges, chunks of pineapple and sliced bananas rounded out the fruit choices. I filled tiny glass bowls with crushed nuts in which to roll the chocolate-dipped fruit, one for each dinner guest.

From left to right: Steve Parke, Kim Workman Sandberg, me (standing),
Klaus Cross, Kim Cross and Jesse Turner

It was wonderful to get to know my guests. Steve and his bride were married just last fall at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. He enjoyed looking through a book of black and white photographs that my father had assembled while in photography school in Germany in the early 1930s, just before WWII broke out. Kim Cross still lives in the Baltimore neighborhood where she grew up and is a graduate of Johns Hopkins' famed Peabody Institute in Baltimore.

There is something so sublime about sharing a great meal and stimulating conversation while making new friends in a cozy environment. My rustic little farmhouse certainly fit that description on a cold winter's night. I was delighted to have created a special memory for my guests that I hope they will carry with them for many years. The evening made my heart very full.

Cheers,
Lynell

"But no matter what you do, participate, be there, full force, full heart, full steam ahead." 

~ Barbara Walters