Kumquat Coulis

I had a good food weekend. Come Monday morning, when you’re begrudgingly reacquainting yourself with your 5-ft by 5-ft cube and nodding hello to your neighbors’ heads as they pop up and down from their cube walls, the question “What'd you do this weekend?” inevitably arises.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the answers. The kid weekend: “Oh, I was team mom and my kids had three basketball games.” The house project weekend: “I re-tiled my bathroom.” The errands-only weekend: “I did sixteen loads of laundry.” The banana slug weekend: “I rented ten DVDs and stayed home.” But the good food weekend is close to the top of my list of favorites.

Friday night, my friend C hosted a “girls’ night in”. It was obvious C had put some time and consideration into making M and I feel at home. We had three courses with two different wines. The cheese course included a selection of French cheeses (and a Spaniard): double-cream brie with green peppercorns, camembert, roquefort, chevre and manchego with sweet baguette, walnut levain and water crackers. C made Boeuf Bourguignon that took four hours to braise. Oh, it’s pronounced “buff” not “beef”, you philistine. And coconut sorbet with kumquat coulis for dessert. Fresh kumquats have only just recently made it into my fruit repertoire but never in its coulis incarnation all tangy and sweet…sublime!

C’s home did not present the cool, modern aesthetic you may associate with a woman of her sophisticated taste. Bold yet warm colors dominated her walls; every piece of furniture and art had a story that started with, “a woman I met in Singapore…” or “my brother and I took those photos…” Large floor pillows beckoned guests to stretch out, lay down and prop their heads up with a bent arm. As we lingered over a bottle of Bordeaux, our conversation flowed languorously. The evening’s flow chart of topics sprung with spokes of conversation that surprised even me. Each time I get together with C and M, they manage to nudge my perspective just a little bit wider than it was before. That night, we covered some serious girl-talk ground. It was nearly midnight by the time M and I slipped out of C’s comfy cocoon. I drove back to Oakland with the heater blasting, sadly aware of the delicious wine buzz slowly dissipating from my system.

I love good food. I have been known to bookmark certain restaurant’s websites just to track when my favorite dessert (chocolate budino with vanilla ice cream) makes it on their rotating menu. I can sit for hours leafing through beautifully photographed cookbooks, imagining what small miracles I can produce in the kitchen. I can keep a circle of dark chocolate between the roof of my mouth and my tongue for a good two minutes, savoring its crazy-good mouthfeel. I look forward to an evening’s promise of gastronomical adventures almost as much as the company I am about to keep.

Almost. In the case of C and M, the company will always be the main course.