01/21/2014--We don't do an excessive amount of entertaining at our house. We have entertained my family for many holiday meals and occasionally we have had friends over for meals. But most of our entertaining takes place outside in the summer around the pool. And the food consists of salads that I make and meat that my husband grills. I tend to be a little overambitious when cooking for guests and end up trying dishes that I've never made before. This does not always equal success. I mean, I can always learn from the mistakes I made with that meal and modify and improve it for the next time we have it, but that doesn't help our guests who unknowingly served as the guinea pigs in my little experiment.
That's just a little anecdote to explain why cooking for guests is a little nervous making for me. Because we just had guests last night. We, with a group of former students/now friends having been meeting once monthly on a Sunday evening to read through Shakespeare's plays. It all sounds very high-brow, but it's mostly just great fun. There's a theme, there's food based on that theme, and alcohol. The alcohol helps with the fun. And Shakespeare, the bawdy old bard, just gets sassier and more innuendo-filled as the night progresses.
But this isn't about the Shakespeare; it's about the food. This isn't the first event that I've cooked a vegan offering for. I've done it on at least one other occasion. And I've always offered a vegetarian option. But this was the first time, I've cooked AS a vegan. It felt different. Also, it was the first time, I tried to mimic a meat based food. Let me explain. My husband was cooking crab cakes to go along with the theme, so I decided that I would offer chickpea "crab" cakes. I found a recipe that offered the taste of crabcakes (mostly due to Old Bay seasoning) without the crab. I started this venture as I start most of my cooking adventures with a great deal of excitement and optimism. I love Old Bay seasoning. I love chickpeas. I hate onions so I left them out (that may have been a mistake). I must say that my enthusiasm waned considerably as I worked my way through the preparation. I cannot blame this on the recipe. I tried to take several shortcuts, which why? Why would I take shortcuts with an untried, untested recipe? This is impulsive behavior that seems to only show up in cooking tasks. So it could have been that I didn't soak the beans long enough, or put the mixture in the refrigerator long enough (who am I kidding? I stuck it in the freezer to make it get cold faster. It made sense to me at the time). Or it may have been the missing onions that would have made the cakes hold together. I don't know. But it was kind of disaster.
I will say that they didn't taste bad. At least to me. But they just had no structural integrity. They were supposed to be pretty little cake shaped alternatives to the pretty crabcakes my husband had cooked. But instead they looked liked sandy balls, with loose sand around them. People bravely tried them. At least the vegetarian and the person allergic to shellfish did. And of course me. Only, I inhaled part of chickpea and ended up coughing so hard that I had to excuse myself to the upstairs bathroom where I lost not only the part of the cake I had eaten but also most of lunch. Good times. I don't remember hearing any compliments on how surprisingly good they were, although like I said I thought they tasted okay. And I will try to make them again. Probably following the recipe more closely this time. Although still without the onions. But my Shakespeare friends will not benefit from my hard won knowledge. And so I feel like I've failed vegan entertaining. At least this time. After all, there is always another play next month.
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