Mad Men 40th Birthday Party

A classic, manly, red meat and martini vibe felt like the right backdrop for our friend Richard's 40th birthday party. For the cigar aficionado, Amy customized match books and made all of her arrangements in an array of wooden cigar boxes. Keeping in theme, we did a martini bar, all shaken, not stirred (I'm suddenly a big fan of 'signature names' for 'signature cocktails'). I went traditional steak house with the menu, loving an excuse to serve iceberg wedges with buttermilk blue cheese dressing. And, instead of bananas foster or cherries jubilee, we did our own version of a theatrical dessert: individual tabletop roasted s'mores. We simply lined terra cotta pots with tin foil and filled them with hot charcoals. Seeing as how s'mores are my all-time favorite dessert, I'd call this a home run. And while I considered using fancy chocolate and homemade marshmallows, some things are best left in their original form, as a classic is a classic for good reason.

The Menu

martini bar

"the richard"

vodka, dirty sue premium olive juice, olive

"40/40"

vodka, apple liqueur, house sour

"XL"

vodka, lemon twist

passed

caprese crostini

artichoke, green olive, arugula, lemon crostini

lamb meatballs with minted yogurt dip

plated

iceberg wedge with buttermilk blue cheese dressing & chives

family style

grilled flank steak

horseradish cream & chimichurri sauce

wilted spinach, wild mushrooms & green garlic

roasted truffled fingerling potatoes

grilled asparagus, lemon, parmigiano reggiano

dessert

roasted s'mores

Steak Frites

A classic American steak house dinner with house-made condiments and all the fries you can eat! We rented a commercial fryer, along with a six foot commercial grill, and the two provided a restaurant quality meal with all of the perks of our cozy patio. It is worth noting that people just love shrimp cocktail. They can't get enough. I like to roast jumbo shrimp and serve them hot: crowd pleaser. Plus, the meal was made extra special with my latest discovery: bruised fruit deals at the farmer's market! Barely squashed heirloom tomatoes, for eighty cents a pound, yielded fresh curried ketchup, and soon-to-be-tossed peaches became a peach bourbon bbq sauce. These, in addition to a rosemary aioli, were lovely dates for our fries. Amy and I (both huge lovers of condiments and dips) loaded them all into jars, which she labeled, and each guest got their own set...sort of like heaven. Greg was the master fryer and fries kept a coming, packaged in parchment cones that Amy (show off that she is) neatly sewed. The rib-eyes, creamed spinach and wild mushrooms all became somewhat of afterthoughts to those piping hot fries! Rounding out the dinner, banana cream pie, inspired by my friend Deirdre. On her suggestion, I made Magnolia Bakery's banana pudding as the filling for my vanilla wafer pie crust: perfection (and I didn't even know I liked banana cream pie!) For her musings on the recipe, click here.

The Menu

libations

ginger mint martinis

manhattans with fresh california bing cherries

passed

roasted shrimp cocktail

oysters on the half shell

first

heirloom tomatoes with sweet and purple basil, and crater lake blue cheese

second

grilled rib-eyes with herbed butter

creamed spinach

wild mushrooms with melted onions and thyme

french fries

curried heirloom ketchup

rosemary aioli

peach bourbon bbq sauce

final

banana cream pie

brownie sundaes featuring sweet rose creamery's ice creams....

chocolate with caramel sauce

vanilla with blackberry sauce

mint chip with chocolate sauce

and a glob of whipped cream