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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uring the ski season, night life at Squaw Valley starts around four o'clock when the lifts close and people start to relax with a drink. There are cozy bars and
wonderful restaurants that we really enjoy. It is all very casual, friendly, and there are no strangers, only great skiers. People are not reluctant to
relate the days adventures and a glass or two of
Crinella Sauvignon Blanc reminds us how we were all heroes on the mountain that day.
Sometimes, for a change, I like to have friends over for dinner at my tiny condominium in Squaw Valley Lodge. It
is only 540 square feet but what it lacks in size, is made up by the sweeping views of Shirley Canyon and the fact that
I can just walk outside to the KT-22 ski lift.
I have always liked to entertain. I have planned elegant balls, cocktail parties for hundreds of people, dinners, lunches, picnics, sporting event refreshments, and museum openings. Yet, I learned the most about entertaining at Squaw valley.
Entertaining at my Squaw Valley Lodge unit is quite a challenge. There are only 2 electric burners with which to cook and no oven, in fact, there is almost no kitchen. The refrigerator is a tiny under the counter little box with no freezer. Counter space is exactly 2 feet. I have to plan ahead,
not only because of the kitchen limitations, but also because I always want to be a guest at my own parties, that is, to sit
down and enjoy my friends rather than doing last minute things at the stove or sink. I mostly spend the day skiing so I have
to consider that I won't have much time for last minute preparations, either.
Entertaining at Squaw Valley became a valuable learning experience for me that was very useful when applied to my Santa Rosa house
where I have 5 gas burners, 2 ovens, and 2 gas grills. The best procedure, I learned, for either place or anywhere else for that matter, is always the same. that is, to think and plan well ahead. Doing that, also enabled me to have many more impromptu gatherings as well and
sometimes they are the most fun.
Guests, Their Number and Comfort
I can have sit down dinners or buffet dinners, but never any more than a total of 8 guests to dine at Squaw Valley. Why? That is the number of my dinner plates. If my guests come right after skiing to watch something such as a football game on television, I just lay the food out and let the guests help themselves.
I can serve four people at my regular table which is small and holds just four place settings. The table is not large enough for
flowers or to hold large serving dishes, so I use small votive candles and sometimes add a whimsical antique toy for decoration. If
I have six or eight people coming, I have a table brought up from downstairs and remove my table. For the downstairs table, I keep
a blue sheet that exactly matches the color of my walls, and use that for a table cloth. I can make a very attractive presentation on the larger table
with the addition of flowers, candles and colorful dishes or interesting antique toys.
There is almost no room for storage at Squaw Valley so everything has to serve a very useful purpose. I have no "special occasion"
dishes or linens, so that makes every occasion special. I collected some antique linens for four table settings and sewed some for eight
table settings. Having so little space has made me ruthless about keeping only things I love and use daily.
Impromptu gatherings I have down to a science, now, because I am always thinking of places where I could entertain. If I have invited a lot of
people at Squaw Valley we gather downstairs around the fireplace at the Lodge. I serve wine and a little something to eat. People stop by to chat and we always have a lot of fun. Now, in Santa Rosa, as I move around my house and garden, I think, "This is another good place to enjoy the view, I could put a table and two chairs here and we could have a glass of wine, here." or, "The rhododendron's are blooming, we can see them better from this window. We'll have lunch here." I try to imagine new places to entertain to suit the changing of the seasons. I think about what I would do, what kinds of glasses or
dishes I would need or use. I make notes of these things. I will often ask friends to stop by for a glass of wine on their way home from work and this is a pleasant interlude of an hour and a half or so after a long day, especially in the summer when the garden is in full bloom. Sometimes we have picnics
on the hillside at Crinella Estate Vineyard
which are famous for the fun everyone has. We bring a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese to the Plaza
in Sonoma to spend a pleasant hour or two when we are showing people around.
I think spur of the moment things can be a lot of fun, if you have planned ahead of time and know where and about how many people can
be comfortable in a certain place and what you will use for serving. Keep everything in a state of readiness and invite people over often.
You will have a lot more fun in life.
Food and Drink
At the beginning of the fall, winter, spring and summer seasons, try to think of the things for which you will need special recipes for the next three months such as appetizers, dinners, bar-b-ques, picnics, lunches, Fourth of July and so forth. Consider what foods will be in season. Get the recipes together, then, it will save you a lot of time later on when you are under the gun. You can go through the
Crinella family cookbook, for example, and download different recipes you want to try for the season. I keep a three ring binder in which I put the possible recipes I am thinking about using, also entertaining ideas, and a big calendar. Leafing through the recipes from time to time really keeps them in my mind and this seems to work a lot better than just bookmarking them on my computer.
If I were really more organized I would list the colors, numbers and kinds of linens and dishes I have and put that in the binder, also. I might even have pictures of them. I have trouble remembering what I have tucked in the cupboards and closets of Santa Rosa. In fact I think I will go ahead and do this. If I knew by looking at my binder that I had 8 gray linen napkins instead on the 10 napkins I will need for a certain lunch, it would save me the trouble of having to go into the dining room and count them. My binder would probably also tell me where the gray linen napkins actually are stored, instead of me having to look in five different places to find them. In the binder, I also put pictures of flower arrangements I want to try for flowers I know will be blooming in my garden that season. I make notes about people I would like to see, menus I would like to use. When I select the seasons recipes my own choices are based on ease of preparation (no 45 ingredient dishes for me, ) everything must be fresh, and also somewhat low in calories. In the summer we grill a lot. In the winter I use the slow cooker.
For appetizers, I try to find things that people will actually
eat.............this leaves out things with anchovies, pate's, squid, and rattlesnake meat. I also don't want to be fussing with something
at the last minute either. I like to be sitting and having a glass of wine with everybody. If you are just having friends over for a quick drink, you only have to do something that will tide them over until dinner, in which case a nice cheese, some bread and good olives will do.
The main courses are also something I plan out at the beginning of each season, that is, I will assemble about twenty or so recipes that I think guests
might like. (When my family comes for dinner, it is an entirely different matter, there are 86 food items I am not allowed to serve, so I stick
to the basics.) At Squaw Valley, I have no oven and only 2 electric burners so cooking is a real challenge. I have adapted a lot of great recipes to the slow
cooker which I put on early in the day and serve about 10 or 11 hours later. Nothing could be easier and I am a guest at my own party. I like to serve a selection of roasted vegetables made in the toaster oven.
I collect recipes for desserts but more and more I serve fruit, often poached in white wine, with cookies. It is easy to do and not so filling after
a big dinner.
Once I know who is coming to dinner, I plan the menu as soon as possible. Next, I make the grocery list and decide on wines. I go through my cupboards and check or list every item I will need. I make another list of all the things I will need to do. Usually I shop the day before. I do all the things I can do the day before, such as clean vegetables, poach pears, check linens and so on. On the day of the event, I set the table, and do the cooking whenever it needs to be done which is almost always well before the guests arrive, except if we are grilling. I write a timetable as to when I am supposed to do things such as put the rolls in the oven, or roast vegetables. I got into this habit because at Squaw if I forget to do something, there is a big hole in the menu and it is irretrievable.
Of course, I keep a supply of good wine on hand as well as other beers and liquors. I always read how it is a good idea to keep a shelf with a lot of
goodies in it for unexpected guests and so forth. The only problem is that I am the sort of person that will eat right through the goodie shelf in
about three hours so that does not work for me. I have to buy everything as needed.
In this page, I will be posting recipes for you to try from our collection, that are simple, easy to do and are well liked by our friends and family.
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Sincerely,
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Suggested Recipes
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