Seabirdskitchen joins the culinary underground

Dave Gilbert and I met a few months back and just plain hit it off. We had promised ourselves a day together doing our favorite things. Sunday was that day. We got together at Dave's house having raided the farmers' market, Rex's Seafood Market, and our herb/veg gardens for stuff that might come in handy.

I hied myself off to his house at around 11 on Sunday armed with Rex's smoked salmon, some marjoram, mint, rosemary, and various hot peppers from the garden. Oh and some delicious New Zealand honeycomb (thanks sis and nephews), some margarita/salt cookies, the vacuum sealer for the sous vide and, of course the guanciale (cured pork jowls).

The main point was the cooking, but we managed to press-gang some friends into coming to eat. Yes there were nine of us in total. The dinner stretched for about 3 1/2 hours as we ate, discussed, ate some more, tried the wines, got to know each other better and just had a terrific time. The clean up was rather excessive, but somehow that isn't the abiding memory. The memory is of working under pressure with a good friend, making innovative and exciting food, and serving it to friends and strangers - all becoming friends by evening's end.

Dave has done such a wonderful job of documenting this here that I don't have any need to elaborate.

Recipes? What recipes? I am sure we will document better next time, but the wine and rum took their toll.

My parting comment is simply, "let's do this again, soon"