Today one of our dearest friends, Terri, celebrated her birthday. We have a MN tradition of celebrating each of our birthdays with Randy and Terri and the birthday person gets to choose the restaurant. This year Terri requested that Ed prepare her a vegetarian dinner. After confiming that he could use his homemade stocks, Edwin took on this challenge happily and spent all day in the kitchen preparing a feast utilizing his recently acquired pastry skills and his long-held knowledge of taste and texture relative to food.
Through the main course, a puff pastry stuffed with portabello and shitake mushrooms, cippolini onions, ripe olives, cream and a little mesquite meal, he treated us to umami – in this case, a vegetarian dish with a hearty meaty and savory flavor. It is hours later and I can still vividly recall my first bite. I love mushrooms and yet this was more than that, it was an absolute surprise played on our palates.
What a delight and a gift as well – to bring the trickster to a birthday dinner.