Wine, wine and more wine

Friday night I went to a wine dinner that was purchased by some friends last year at our Art Auction fundraiser for United Way, a first for that event.

The dinner was cooked by Joe (the Eagle's food guy) and his wife Carrie (the Eagle's business columnist). Wines, cheeses and dessert were provided by The Good Life Guy and his wife, Beth.

First course: assorted appetizers consisting of jerk chicken, grilled pineapple, sweet potato chips, flaming cheese (double yum) with fresh bread and a surprisingly tasty champagne. (I'm not generally a big fan of champagne, but this stuff was really good!)

Second course: a ceasar salad and melon with a spritzing of lime juice and chili powder. I swear the fruit with the chili powder was one of my favorite courses. It doesn't sound good, but was so wonderful. I didn't get a picture of it, but I was helping to dish up the fruit and dropped a chunk of watermelon into my glass of sauvignon blanc. That piece was the best :-)

Entree (pictured above): seared salmon with mango salsa and saffron rice. So good. We had both a white and a red wine with the entree, an un-oaked chardonnay and a pinot noir.

We had a cheese course after dinner! I've never been to such a fancy dinner where there's cheese after the meal (unless someone has forgotten to bring it out). The cheeses were fab, but I don't remember their names -- I had wine, remember?

The dessert course was made by chef Damian Lehman, executive chef of the Wichita Country Club. It was "hazelnut white chocolate mousse pyramids with fried cinnamon angel hair" and was served with a cream sherry. The bottle is pictured next to the dessert. Just a little with dessert was perfect.


I think everyone had a really good time. Here's a picture of all of us after we'd enjoyed dinner:

Nancy, Jim, Terri, Brett (he didn't actually eat and drink with us, he was downstairs with little Libby and the nanny), Joyce, Monty, Pepe, me, Laurie and Debbie. Thanks to Shelly, the nanny, for taking this picture!