Dinners remembered

When I invite friends over for dinner, sometimes I can’t remember if I’ve made a certain dish for someone or not. So this year, one of my cooking resolutions was to start a dinner book. I’m embarrassed to say it’s already September and I’m just getting around to it.

Lidia Alciati, who started the acclaimed restaurant Guido in Piedmont with her husband, Guido, used to keep one. (The restaurant has since moved to the University of Gastronomic Sciences campus in Pollenzo outside Alba.) The original ristorante didn’t have an a la carte menu. Lidia, who was the chef, just sent out food to her guests. But not everybody got the same dishes.

Since the restaurant was by reservation only, she custom-tailored her menus to each table’s tastes. She could do that because she had a book in which she noted what she served guests each time they came. She could look up and see that the last time winemaker and national treasure Angelo Gaja came to dinner she served him cardoons with fonduta (a molten cheese sauce) and white truffles or baccalà (salt cod) with potatoes. That way she could be sure to give him something different this time. Or she’d remember that Barbaresco producer Bruno Giacosa particularly liked her agnolotti. But then everybody particularly liked her exquisite little bundles stuffed with roasted meats and greens and served in the roasts’ juices.

I haven’t started my dinner book because I want to either make a book or find a special journal for it. That involves deciding on the size, the paper, whether I’m going to put photographs, write out the menu by hand or by inkjet printer, etc., etc. So, let’s just say I’m looking to do it. Soon.
Meanwhile, the dinner parties are flying by. . .

Anybody else do this?

-- S. Irene Virbila

Comments

[Alli411]

At the beginning of 2008 I started a cooking journal, much for the same reason you did. It's an old fashioned one instead of a blog, a handwritten journal in a moleskin book with lined, blank pages now nearly filled with quick writing I do between cooking.
Most of the days that I cook I write an entry with the menu, my guests, notes and doodles. I might write how I tweaked a recipe, how it came out and what I would do differently next time. It has been a great tracking and learning tool, and a wonderful memory book.

[Susan C]

Irene, If I was lucky enough to have you cook for me, I would not object in the least if you made the same dish twice!

[Tableau Vivante]

I have a general menu book, which covers dinners, lunches, brunches, and teas, with guest lists and notes. Right now, it's mostly full of brunch menus, since people book up for dinner so quickly.

All the pages are handwritten, doodled on, and sometimes contributed to by the kids of the guests (usually without my immediate knowledge:)). I only started keeping it about a year ago, but it's getting full. I just grabbed the nearest blank journal and started scribbling.