Crinella Family Cookbook
Our Grandparents' Favorites
Anti Pasti
Soups
Salads
Pasta
Vegetables
Fish
Poultry
Meat
Wild Game
Sweets
Brunch or Luncheon Dishes
Odds & Ends
Sour Dough
Other Breads ETC
Entertaining Ideas
Table of Contents
People
Family Photos
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| Entertaining Ideas
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Winter Thoughts
In the winter I do a lot of entertaining at my place at Squaw Valley Lodge. Skiers are almost perfect guests. They arrive promptly,
eat anything you serve enthusiastically because they are so hungry and leave at a decent hour since they are worn out
from skiing. I always try to have things that are well prepared and attractive to look at and I give a lot of thought to the
vegetables I serve.
I prefer my vegetables to be fresh and so I buy what is in season. During the winter I serve beets, carrots, onions, leeks, and squash. I like greens such as beet, chard or spinach, steamed and dressed with an excellent balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sea salt and perhaps a wisp of garlic. Even people who don't like greens love them that way. I think if you have prepared vegetables properly you don't have to add calorie laden dressings or sauces which to my mind defeats the whole purpose of eating vegetables.
It is a great shame that the fruits and vegetables in our modern day supermarkets are almost devoid of taste and flavor. The produce
is picked green and ripens somewhere out of the sun and is sent to market. I am always amazed in the late summer when I travel
down through central California near Modesto and see truck and truck filled with tomatoes which are green and yellow, never red
or fully ripened. Why would anybody eat such a tomato? What do they do with them?
I have one exception to my fresh vegetable rule. I don't like the flavor or texture of the fresh tomatoes sold during the winter months, so I will use canned tomatoes. Recently I served this wonderful dish to guests at Squaw Valley Lodge. It is very easy to do and a very pretty
to look at. In the summer you can make this with fresh tomatoes and serve it either hot or cold.
Leeks Nicoise
I am not particularly fond of most salad greens that we get in the winter either. Here is a beautiful
salad that everyone really likes and that is also low calorie.
Winter Salad
Because I don't have an oven at Squaw Valley, I use a collection of small appliances, the toaster oven and slow cooker being my
favorites. I have come to really appreciate the slow cooker as an appliance that makes entertaining very easy. I recently
served a wonderful Carbonnades to Boeuf which happily cooked itself when I was out skiing that day instead of having
to stir and check on the meat. i had a wonderful day on the mountain and when I got back to my condo just had a few
minute things to do before I served dinner.
Carbonade de Boeuf
When I am having guests, I usually serve fruit of some sort for dessert. This was a very simple recipe and it disappeared
in a flash.
Winter Dessert
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