After months of careful planning, collecting menus, locating the right producers, organic growers and artisanal bakers, hiring furniture, ordering flowers and choosing a selection of locally grown and produced wines I am now, happy and satisfied, recollecting my thoughts and recharging my batteries.It was my mother's 70th Birthday and we thought this feat was worthy of a get together for the closest circle of family, friends and colleagues.
I decided to take upon myself the role of the catering service and what started out as a light buffet with a cheese platter and bread, a fruit basket and fine wine ended up as a lavish brunch table covered with an explosive and colorful cornucopia; the best in local and seasonal produce.
The Cheese and salumi platters were sourced from a nearby self sustained farm and pieces of schmaltz herring were laid out on a plate, interlaced with red onion slices and crushed black peppercorns. Organic goat's milk butter and a 2Kg specially made feta cheese complimented the selection of breads from a nearby artisanal bakery. Fluorescent carrot cubes lit a French lentil salad, and lima beans were lightly fried in olive oil, seasoned with fresh rosemary, oregano and thyme, finished off with roughly diced succulent Medjool dates.
Brunch wouldn't be complete without Kedgeree, a traditional British rice breakfast dish from colonial India with a poached smoked Mackerel, hard boiled egg, fresh ginger and parsley, served with sheep's milk yogurt dotted with sumac.
The Freekeh salad combined smoked green wheat kernels with sauteed leeks, toasted walnuts, and brown butter, topped with aged Tzfatit cheese, a salty, tangy white cheese originating in Tzfat, a city in Northern Israel.
I also baked several Savory cakes speckled with dates, nuts, aged sheep's cheese and herbs grown on my window sill.
For Dessert my mother baked traditional Hungarian cakes and in addition to a queen sized bowl of Scottish Cranachan I had also sourced the finest Rugelach in the whole of the land from a pastry shop famous for its succulent and juicy little pastries. Exploding with melting chocolate, these miniature pastries burst of goo, dripping to the floor leaving a trail of comfort. I found myself enjoying them above the kitchen sink.
This was an architectural construct combined with a military operation and it all came together as I had envisioned, choreographed and executed meticulously and precisely, like the satisfying 'click' of a car door slammed shut.
Coincidentally the event took place during the thanksgiving day for the fruit harvest and I cannot think of a better way to celebrate 70 years of a life well lived with family & friends surrounded by the finest produce from the land of plenty.
Its Carnevale in Italy; the two weeks celebration period that take place prior to Ash Wednesday and the somber lent period. A Valentines Day Latino Fiesta, for which I prepared the not so Latino Rugelach posed a challenge: carrying baked goods while simultaneously attempting to walk in high heels on the uneven, confetti clad, cobbled streets of Parma is not as easy at it sounds.
The Latino connection to the Ashkenazi Jewish pastry may seem random, but had it not been for the discovery of the cocoa beans, this bundle of comfort and joy would not have reached its mythological stature. I prepared the traditional, chocolate filled, sugar glazed, moist and chewy version, like the ones I buy on a Friday morning, hoping they'd last the entire weekend this time, but instead are devoured while reading the weekend papers. 
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