That's a wrap

I took some pictures and never uploaded them, so we'll just cut to the chase here.   The dinner went well!  There were a couple dishes I was nervous about,  but everything tasted so good. Thomas Keller is a genius.

For our first appetizer,  the only dish I've made before, were these little "shrimp with avocado salsa" bites.  They were a big bite,  but a bite nonetheless.

Next,  we had "warm fruitwood smoked salmon with potato gnocchi and balsamic glaze. "  This might have been my favorite dish.  There are leftovers of this that I cannot wait to eat. The only thing is,  it could have been prettier.  The salad greens were a little too big,  so they kind of covered the rest of it.  But it still tasted delightful.

For the 3rd course we had "pickled oysters with English cucumber "capellini" and dill." This was the dish I was most nervous about, and the most surprised by.  I don't like oysters.  Actually to my knowledge none of the people at the dinner were fans.  This was a trust moment between me and TK, and he did not disappoint.  It also featured caviar on top. I'm not sure if I've eaten caviar before,  but I've certainly never bought it.  I was supposed to use black caviar,  but it's about $100 an ounce more than the red stuff..... So we went with the red stuff. Thanks,  Dessa,  for delivering it all the way from Augusta.    Y'all,   this was so good we even chewed up the oysters! I have to admit that one of our guests was the brave soul to eat his first and thus pave the way for the rest of us.

For the main course we had "saddle of rabbit in Applewood smoked bacon with caramelized fennel and fennel oil." The bacon.  Need I say more. This dish did include a kidney,  which I was also slightly nervous about,  but tasted really good.  I think I'll start saving more of those instead of feeding them to my chickens.  There was no picture of this dish plated in the cookbook.  So we tried a couple different ways. Let me know what you think... choice #1:

Choice #2

Notice that we decided to use the oyster shells as table decorations for the rest of the dinner.  It was particularly exciting when we realized a couple barnacles were still alive.  Meet Barney.  

For the cheese course,  we had a good old "Grilled Farmhouse cheddar, tomato consomme,  and butter fried chips" TK's interpretation of tomato soup and grilled cheese.  The brioche.  It's also good with a fried egg on it for breakfast the next morning.  

Finally,  for dessert we had "chocolate cakes with red beet ice cream and toasted walnut sauce." Making this ice cream brought back some fond memories of a certain high schooler who thought I had made red velvet ice cream.  I can't remember now why I made only the ice cream for this dessert,  but it tastes exactly like beets, and so I have put off making this dessert for about 5 years because even though I knew it would taste good if I made the entire dessert,  I just didn't want to take the risk.  But after oysters and kidney,  a little beet was not going to scare me this year.  So it made the menu.  And the ice cream still tastes exactly like beets BUT, as I've said before TK is a genius and I just trusted in that and when you make the whole dessert, it's divine.  Right down to the salted beet chips.

There's more of this, too. 

Excuse me while I go eat the leftovers.