A Little Taste

(Photo credit: The New York Times)

We're going to be designing our menu and doing our tasting later this week, because this is the last time I'll be able to get to Charlottesville before August, and by then it will be too late.  So it's slightly early to do a menu tasting, but that's okay.

Designing the tasting was full of delicious--and difficult--decisions.  Clifton, probably to help us narrow down our options and to keep us from eating them out of house and home, said we could try two appetizers, two entrees, two desserts, and two flavors of wedding cake.  How do we pick just two of each?  Well, we knew we wanted a choice of meat or fish entree, so basically we just decided what kind of ingredient we wanted and we'll let the chef figure out its preparation. 

I had wanted bison because there used to be a bison farm in Charlottesville.  That's gone out of business, unfortunately, but I still think it would be mighty cool to serve bison at our wedding. Not everybody likes meat, though, so we're having a fish option as well--halibut.

Last time I had dinner at Clifton, I had an amazing duck prosciutto, and they were kind enough to source it again for us for our appetizers.  

Desserts were easy.  I didn't want chocolate because I thought it would be too heavy, so we're trying two fruit-based desserts.

The chocolate is coming in the wedding cakes we're tasting--one's fruit based and the other is chocolate mint.

We've also got some vegan guests coming and the chef has promised to make special meals for them.  I have to admit I'm excited to see what he comes up with.  Vegan meals aren't easy, but he says he can do it.

Lastly, we get to pick out and taste hors d'oeuvres for our cocktail hour.  One of the options?  Deep fried pickles.

(photo credit: Lists Galore)

I don't think it gets much cooler than that.  

I'll let you know how the tasting goes and what the chef has in mind for us.