Joel and Sue's Holiday Party Buffet

It's that time of year again, when SueF and I go insane preparing 12 dishes for a holiday party. This year, December is our 33 1/3 wedding anniversary, so we chose the theme of LP records. Each dish is inspired by one or more albums, most of which we regularly listen to, but a few chosen specifically for the dish.

Planning was complicated by a business trip the week of the party, and low airfare that encouraged Sue to accompany me. We packed our freezers to capacity with many of the dishes below. Our planning for time was good: we weren't too badly slammed on the day of the party, but our buffet layout was challenged by the need for another warming tray, and both crock pots, two pastas that had to be cooked in batches, and only one oven-finished dish.

The Menu:


Ghostly Deviled Egg on Daikon Slice: A Ghost is Born, Wilco
This was inspired by the egg on the cover, and perhaps the song "Impossible Germany, Unlikely Japan". By inverting the eggs and using sliced almonds as eyes, and togarashi, kewpie mayo, a little mustard, soy, mirin and rice vinegar, we got a little ghost. The daikon slice made it able to be picked up. Recipe was on the fly.


Shrimp Lumpia: Sticky Fingers, The Rolling Stones
After rejecting Goat's Head Soup and Beggars Banquet, Sticky Fingers seemed like a natural, either using wings or, as we eventually decided, lumpia. Frying these in our little fryer took a lot more time than we expected. We used just shrimp (and some veg) for filling because our menu already had a couple pork items. Sauces are soy/vinegar/red pepper and bottled sweet chilli. Recipe adapted from several sources. These were rolled Thanksgiving weekend and frozen.


Chestnut Ravioli in Truffled Cream Sauce: Room for Squares, John Mayer
Recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook. This is an incredibly rich dish, with chestnuts and mascarpone in the filling, an all-yolk pasta dough, truffle oil (real stuff) in the filling and sauce, and the sauce is a little potato and celeriac to thicken cream and a whole lot of butter. Ravioli made and frozen ahead of time.


Esquites Corn Salad: Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen
OK, esquites aren't particularly Nebraskan, but corn is. Recipe found online needed more lime juice. Very tasty, the cheese kind of melted in though -- most cotija is very grainy, dry like parmesan, but the only one I could find on our shopping day (at Fresh Farms) was softer, more like a provolone.


Pork Belly on Pumpkin Pancakes with Apple Salsa: Breakfast in America, Supertramp
Recipe from NOPI by Ottolenghi, with pancake developed by Sue. Fantastic pork belly, a slightly savory pancake, and a salsa with apple, fresh and pickled walnut and tarragon. Pork belly roasted ahead of time, broiled to try to crisp it up a little day-of.


Roasted Carrots and Parsnips with Herbs: Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, Simon and Garfunkel
Also from NOPI, adding more herbs than just the thyme (and honey) in the book. I wanted to use multicolor carrots, but not when they cost as much as the beef roast below.


Potato and Cheese-Stuffed Peppers: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
One of the first inspirations, and an appropriate recipe was found in 1000 Recipe Indian Cookbook. Unfortunately, the process of cooking freezing and thawing meant that a lot of the filling ended up in the sauce. It's a very good makhani sauce that I will use again.


Pork, Apple and Sage Hand-Pies: American Pie, Don McLean
Another of our early inspirations, and a great recipe from the Hoosier Mama Book of Pie, adapting their Pork Supper Pie and the hand pie crust. Mariano's bulk pork sausage, grainy mustard, sage from my garden and granny smith apples make for a great pie. Hoosier Mama's crusts are designed to be baked from frozen and come out fantastic.


Moroccan-Inspired Meatballs with Citrus Cream Sauce: Oranges and Lemons, XTC; The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, Genesis
The sign lies: No orange blossom water or preserved lemons ended up in this, just a lot of juice and zest from both citrus. A little spicy, with lamb, beef, zest and pine nuts in the meatballs, and ginger, garlic, cream, stock, zest and juice in the sauce. Meatballs cooked and frozen early, sauce made day of party. Recipes were adapted from several sources.


Cheeses: Look Sharp, Joe Jackson; Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd; Cream, Cream
Two of the cheeses (a cave-aged cheddar and an umami-bomb sheep's milk blue) came from our London trip, with the goat and the alpine cheeses purchased locally. Marcona almonds and fig jam (also purchased in London) as accompaniments.


Sichuan Ragu over Lo Mein: Chinatown, Thin Lizzy
Not the strongest album by Thin Lizzy, but a great dish, very close to a Dan Dan Noodle. Lots of sichuan peppercorn in the ragu which was frozen early with bok choy added on the party day. Noodles were not hand-made, sorry. Recipe from Lucky Peach 101 Easy Asian Recipes


Roast Strip Loin with Chimmichurri Sauce: Gaucho, Steely Dan; Atom Heart Mother, Pink Floyd
Bon Appetit's sauce (which showed lemon zest but didn't include in the recipe, so I used it anyway), and Barbara Kafka's Roasting for the beef. Prime whole strip loin from Costco -- they had a special when I went in, $25 off, which made it very close to the choice price. Great piece of beef.


As usual, I forgot to take pictures of all the cookies.

You and Sue are so creative! Looks great, Joel.

Very nice job this year!

Beautiful!!! You did a great job...interesting food.

Everything was amazing! I loved the hand pies, the beef and chimichurri sauce, and the little pancakes with pork belly. But it all was so good. Thank you again!