Day Three Ninety Seven : Of family and non-cheese like adventures

Today was about family, more specifically the celebration of my grandmother's 94th birthday but also a great opportunity to bring family together. Do you ever have those moments where you step back and think gosh I'm so proud that these people I'm surrounded by are my family? That's how I felt today and it's nice in situations like that to reflect and pause for a moment and say internally or out loud how thankful you are. If you are not close with your family, maybe reading the past few lines will make you reach out to that long lost relative or that person who lives nearby but you haven't communicated with recently? So here's to our mothers and fathers and grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins that make the little things in life brighter!

Moving on to a more specific focus on the dairy free meal my mother prepared in honor of my grandmother today. I know you are thinking, gosh this is a blog about cheese, where is all the cheese? Yes there was cheese, the three cheeses we discussed from Michigan, but today the cheese wasn't the culinary star, yes it was fabulous, but the out-of-the-box creativity my mother lent to today's meal needs to be documented...

Our first dish was a base of a celeriac, parsnip, potato, and chervil puree that had one sauteed scallop and spring green melody of peas and asparagus sprinkled on top served with homemade popovers. Gorgeous, seasonal, light, vegetal and flavorful! Next up was the salad and cheese course -- a simple mixed green salad was paired with our three Michigan cheeses and a duxelle balsamic gelee along with homemade rice flour bread and Irish soda bread. The duxelle balsamic gelee was the most unique pairing for the salad greens and cheeses and breads but boy was it the perfect tangy twangy savory accompaniment! Lastly we had avocado panna cotta with an avocado cream on top and a basil whip cream and homemade strawberry jam. It was the sort of meal that was a demonstration of love from a daughter to a mother, the sort of meal that symbolized each woman involved -- creative, dynamic, unique, artistic, intelligent, quirky, all around fantastic and of course with their own special je ne sais quoi. I felt lucky to be able to enjoy the meal and to be able to call the chef my mother and the meal's honoree, my grandmother.