Saturday Night: A Dinner Party for a Hot Day

Last night we had Jon and Cati over for the final dinner party in this place; we move on Wednesday. Since Friday was pretty hot, I figured Saturday would be as well so I planned a meal that didn't require too much stove/oven work.

We started with vichyssoise (from Bourdain), and then had the "sea bass and cucumber gravlax" (made with red snapper from the farmers' market fish guy) from JPFF, "raw beef with parsley, capers, and hard cheese" thing from License to Grill without the hard cheese (sirloin cut into 1/2" dice, diced red onion, parsley, EV olive oil, salt, pepper, marinaded in the fridge for a few hours; lemon juice and capers added just before serving), and "jicama-apple salad with orange-mustard dressing" from License to Grill. For dessert I just served orange segments with some whipped cream

Some notes:

1. Jon and Cati brought over a couple of bottles of French Rosé that went very well with the food.
2. The vichyssoise recipe is really good. It's quite odd to eat something that's so totally smooth but savory and flavorful, but it's calling to me right now and it's not even 8 a.m.
   
3. I played around and used a ring mold (i.e. chipotle can with top and bottom cut off) for the fish and beef. That's pretty minimal effort for a presentation that's much more impressive.
4. I was actually the only one who ate the beef raw, for the others I sauteed it over very high heat in a bit of olive oil for a couple minutes, then added the lemon juice and capers. I didn't try this form of it, but it got complements. The cooked beef can't be ring molded, so I just served that in lumps. :-) Those others are insane, the raw beef was just fantastic.
5. It's not the right time of year for proper tomatoes, so I used halved grape tomatoes for the fish's garnish; those worked just fine.
   
6. I never would have picked truffle oil as something to put over fish, but boy was it good.
7. Orange segments, membranes removed, are one of my new favorite things. Too bad navel orange season is pretty much over.
8. I have too many cookbooks full of fascinating recipes that I'd really like to try. I've done almost nothing with License to Grill or Let the Flames Begin, but every time I open them I find something that sounds great. I should make a list of "things that must be made" and work my way through it. (shyeah, right)