Monday, September 8, 2008

Free Food!

So one of the fun things about planning a wedding is free food. Free cake, free snacks, free dinners! Last week Dad, Amy, Mike and I went down to the Puritan for a tasting. Yum-o.

I don't know what the policy is here - do I share the menu? Do I not? Do I tell everyone reading this blog (Hi Leah, Hi... ummm... me...) everything there possibly is to know about the wedding before it happens so it's not even remotely surprising or interesting by the time September 19th comes? Am I really trying to void the entire point of this blog with this babbling little entry?

*deep breath*

Hi there! Sorry about that. :-) Back to the tasting.

Mike and I knew going into the tasting a few things we HAD to have. We had to have scallops wrapped in bacon, they're his favorite. And we had to have prime rib, cause well, I wanted it. And it's generally pretty hard to mess up and is yummy and delicious. But mostly because I wanted it. We brought Dad and Amy along because my palette isn't exactly refined... While I like a bunch of food and read way too many food blogs, there are certain things that I still don't like all that much....
I know, what red-blooded American doesn't like ketchup?? That'd be me. Mike and I wanted a better perspective, and Amy and Dad like food, so they were happy to join us for some of the free variety!

We met with Barbara, the facilities manager at the Puritan and she was excited to show us the food. Since we already knew we wanted scallops, we didn't need to taste them. So for appetizers, we started with asparagus spears wrapped in phyllo dough with asiago cheese and then mushroom puffs. While I didn't really like the asparagus part, the phyllo dough and cheese was yummy, and I was hungry enough to pop it right in my mouth. Something those who know my eating habits are quite impressed about. Though I wasn't the biggest fan, both Dad and Amy agreed they were pretty tasty.

The mushroom puffs on the other hand - huge hit. They were flaky and gooey and tasty all around. Instead of stuffed mushrooms, they were mushrooms stuffed inside phyllo. They were awesome. They immediately made it on the menu. The asparagus, while pretty good, didn't make the cut. And we ended up going with a not-tasted spinach and cheese spanakopita. I'm sure they'll be delicious!

After appetizers, we moved on to chicken. I knew in advance that I wanted to do a beef and chicken choice (with the understanding that any dietary restrictions would be easily managed) so we needed to try some chickens! Barbara had ordered us a stuffed chicken, a chicken cordon blue, and a grilled chicken with special sauce. I know, creepy name, but that's one of the most famous dishes at the Puritan.


The chicken tasting was very Goldilocks. The first one was too dry (the stuffed chicken), the second one was too tangy (the 'special sauce') but the third one was juuuust right (the chicken cordon blue).

Barbara had tried to warn us that the stuffed chicken was, as she put it, "generic wedding food" but I like stuffing, so I asked to try it anyway. Well she didn't steer us wrong - it was kinda bland and boring and definitely not their best offering. The Special Sauce chicken was certainly yummy, but there was a pretty strong terriaki sauce flavor to it that I just thought was too tangy and too... terriaki-y. Amy agreed. But the chicken cordon blue was awesome. It used the same special sauce as the grilled chicken, but the ham and the cheese of the chicken really helped to mellow out the sauce and give it some nice extra flavor. All four of us were big fans.

And with that, it was settled! We officially have a menu!

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey you! I totally read this! It's even on my google reader thingy! And what is the first picture suppsoed to be? I can't see it on the actaul blog or in the reader. Love you!!

Kristin Marie said...

It's supposed to be broccoli - I substituted it for another picture. Let me know if you still can't see it!

Rock on with the Google Reader. I love it!

leeapeea said...

Hi to you too! And you now know I'm totally NOT the only person reading your blog. Even ex-LHS peers of yours read it!

Katie said...

So this is my first comment, thought it'd be good to let you know that i am reading out here in the ether... who knew that google and blogger were connected? I sure didn't, but swell!

Any who, my usual reading pattern in case you're curious is to not read for a while and then read from most recent to the last time I read... now that I have the link again we'll see how that goes! Glad the plans are going swimmingly! Excited to see you Friday! Hey... if you aren't doing anything tonight do you want to hang out? with or without your fiancee, either is fine to me! :)