Posted by Rod Weatherbie in beverages, books, spirits on November 30, 2008 at 8:32 am

Entertaining with Booze: Designer Drinks, Fabulous Food & Inspired Ideas for your Next Party
By Ryan Jennings & David Steele
Whitecap Books, 2008

A straight-ahead cookbook, this ain't.

Oh, it has recipes in it but this is really a guide to impressing your friends. Your drunken friends if you follow the advice contained therein and we all know soused friends are easily impressed. That's not to say Entertaining with Booze is for the dilettante.

Ryan Jennings, a food writer and stylist, and David Steele, a food writer and event planner, have put together a collection of recipes that include dishes accessible to the novice home cook and some more challenging recipes for the experienced gastronome. There is even a couple of bottling recipes.

The recipes are laid out in themed menus for occasions running from a football night with the guys to a romantic dinner for two. Each menu starts with cocktails and suggested drink pairings for each course. Most of the cocktails are easily managed, no need to take a mixology program, although some of the ingredients may prove elusive. Everybody can find a bottle of rum but even the Summerhill LCBO may be out of cachaca, a distillation of fermented sugarcane juice from Brazil, needed for the caipirinha (p.63). Still part of the fun here may be in searching out some of these liquors.

The food ingredients tend to be less rare with pretty much everything being available at St. Lawrence Market or a local supermarket.

The menus also include suggestions on house rules (allow guests to keep there shoes on), atmosphere (no GNR on the iPod) [These guys sound like they don't know how to party at ALL! - Rocker Ed.] and what may be needed to serve guests efficiently. The host can take care of most of the menus solo including the bartending duties, but some are more involved and may require a separate bartender or the rental of stemware and plates. But for the ambitious even those could be attempted unassisted (good luck).

Each menu is also illustrated by some truly beautiful photography. The overall design of the book, while not making a difference to the outcome of the recipes, is well executed. In the world of cookbooks as coffee table books this one could find space next to the Outhouses of Newfoundland.

The authors have also included some quick and dirty guides to cheese, wine, whisky and beer. Just enough information to get the novice started.

The recipes are written in a casual and easily followed style with ingredients listed in the sidebar.

Testing out the recipes proved to be interesting and my primary test subject is currently unable to drink booze (it is Entertaining with Booze remember) and due to some orthodontics is having issues eating meat; and this book is heavy on meat. The authors do suggest occasional veggie substitutions, but do so reluctantly.

The perfect Romantic Dinner (p. 73) was nominated. It consists of soup (butternut squash bisque with lobster and cognac) and a main. Thank god lobster is so cheap right now (although my fishermen friends aren't too bloody happy with it) because the soup asks for a half pound of cooked lobster or crab. Really though, once lobster is mentioned is crab really an option? At St. Lawrence Market recently live lobster were going for $12.99 a pound. Cooked, frozen in a tin for $22. Even the frozen stuff is good, but home cooked is best. And there’s nothing like lobster races on the kitchen floor before consigning them to the pot. Lobsters are fun.

The soup (p. 74) is pretty straightforward. A simple pureed squash soup. The zing comes from the lobster which is marinated in a bit of cognac (or not for those on the wagon), placed in a bowl, with the soup ladled around it. The cognac enhances the sweetness of the meat, which contrasts nicely with the hint of heat in the soup provided by some cayenne. Easy dish, looks good, makes a clumsy cook look like a proper chef. If this is the only dish made for friends from this book they would be impressed. This can't be screwed up.

The main course for the romantic dinner is chateaubriand with béarnaise (p. 76) and a side of haricot verts with almonds and white wine (p. 75). Haricots vert. You can dress em up, but they're still green beans. These are good green beans but come on. Still the addition of a couple of almonds and some orange zest does raise the bar making them a good match for the creamy béarnaise and medium well tenderloin.

The only problem run into here was one of timing. Not the timing for the sauce, beans and meat getting to the table at the same time, that worked out - sort of. The hitch may have been my stove or the size of the roast. The recipe recommended searing the roast - done. It then said for medium rare one-pound roast 10 minutes in a 450 oven would suffice. Uh-uh. Twenty minutes-ish was needed. Kinda messed up the whole getting it to the table in time. In the end it worked out. The dinner was successful and I love béarnaise.

Other recipes attempted willy-nilly: Potatoes Lyonnaise (p. 205), roasted carrots and beets (p.57), sticky breakfast bangers (p.174). All came out as promised.

I've since used some of the cocktail recipes for a couple of other events with friends and they've gone over just as well. Although by the fourth Manhattan anything tastes good, or rather tastes like "more." The Manhattan, the Bronx (this was for a New York theme party in case you're wondering), beer drinks like shandies and black and tans are again laid out in a straight forward way. Little is needed in the way of special equipment, but a shaker is mandatory.

All-in-all not a bad little book. Not for teetotalers or vegans, that's for sure, and some knowledge of the kitchen isn't amiss. One warning: don't drink before cooking. Prepping veg after having a few, not a good idea. Mandolines and Manhattans don't mix. The results won't impress friends.

Rod Weatherbie is a Toronto-based journalist and poet. He is also partly responsible for Gadzooks! an online arts zine.