Replicas in the kitchen

On the topic of replicas and affordable luxury, I thought I'd chat about fine dining at home. I love dining out at fine restaurants where you're served escargot, bone marrow, caviar, oysters (the list can go on) but we can't afford to eat like that all of the time. Luckily, I also love to cook and I like trying to replicate the food I so enjoy when we are blessed to experience fine dining. 

The easiest thing to replicate are hors d'oeuvres, of course, because you can buy everything pretty much ready made with only need for assembly. I normally go to D'Arcy's Meat Market for marrow bones, which they canoe for you, and their prices are pretty decent ($11.00 online). Just season them up with some salt and pepper and any other dressings that suit you and throw them into the oven at 450. About 20 minutes later you can serve bone marrow with baguette. 

If I'm planning fancy appetizers or hors d'oeuvres, or an amuse-bouche as I did the last time we had friends over, I go to Paddy's International Cheese. Don't let the name fool you as the store has more to offer than just cheese! They have the only pate I can stomach and am willing to eat mouthfuls of. It's not actually a pate in the true sense, but a sort of pate called duck rillettes. I love it. I'll spread it over anything and gobble it up! Mind you, a friend described the smell akin to cat food, so proceed with caution. 

I especially like Paddy's International Cheese (PIC) because at the beginning of the pandemic the store owner helped me find all the ingredients I would need for my after wedding brunch, which we decided to have at our home, for obvious reasons. I created a french menu (see below) which delighted us and our guests, and would not have been possible without PIC. 

I referred to the hors d'oeuvres as an amuse bouche (which is typically a single bite), but this was during the budding of my career as an internationally acclaimed french chef.  ;-) Rookie mistake!