On the 3rd of June I held my first clandestine dinner in Paris. Never to be one to do just a ’simple’ dinner party I had make it more of a culinary event and decided upon doing something fun with the 80s and French food. The 80s are not one of the decades to be known for it’s culinary delights which I discovered after hunting down some beautifully food styled (the more food or props they could fit in one photo the better) 80s recipe books.

The menu kicked off with a Tom Cruise inspired shaken cocktails (red berries, limonchello and gin) which fit perfectly with the summer evening and was accompanied by some 80s coloured savoury macaron (cream cheese & wasabi and green olive tapenade – Pierre Hermé started his macaron experimenting in the 80s).
First course was edible pacman with pâté powerballs and confit cherries. I had wasted considerable amount of time playing pacman in the name of research. Second course was twisted bacon and a two toned tartiflette, a kind of deconstructed version with the use of sweet potatoes and some peppery roquette to balance the Reblochon. Tartiflette was created in the 80s by the Reblochon producers to promote their cheese.

Homage to 80s power dressing and those big shoulder pads: main course of Power puff pastry shoulder pad with a boeuf printanier (slow cooked spring beef stew).
A cold war soup: communism watermelon gazpacho and cucumber capitalism sorbet was served as a palate cleanser. And to finish off a 80s Paris Brest (the 8 was filled with a praline pastry cream and the 0 with a salted butter caramel cream).
The first 4 dishes were accompanied by red wines recommended by my great local caviste who matches all my wines for me as I’m hopeless. He also recommended a lovely caramel/light Irish whisky to go with the dessert.

Special thanks to myprivatedinner for providing the apartment, Jay-P for an awesome 80s music mix, my lovely culinary assistant Bernadette, Sten Pittet for taking some pictures for me and my lovely guests for coming!

Tags: 80s, clandestine, foodie, fun, myprivatedinner.com, Paris, theme

Like every blogger I check my stats regularly. I’m less bothered about it, then when I first started. It’s a hobby not a career (hence me not always blogging, if I don’t feel like doing it, I just don’t). My no. 1 search engine term seems to be 80s. I think it’s because I mentioned it a few times and even made 80s biscuits a while ago. Anyway, this got me thinking about what 80s food I could eat today without having to wear a shellsuit.

Keep reading…

Tags: 80s, cheese & pineapple, retro