Yeah, I guess I have been a little delinquent on my blog posts. What are you gonna do? Anyway, at least I am writing now and will try to be better about documenting our dinners – whether they be just for us or for guests.

While we only did our formal Dining on the Rocks dinners over the summer, we still did eat quite well throughout the fall and into the winter. We dined a fair amount on pork since we purchased a hog in July. And obviously lobster has been a key staple of our diet. Here’s a pic of some regular-sized lobbies and then a big boy!

The one on the right weighed in at five pounds. He was unexpected.

One of our neighbors dropped him off one evening when I was in the middle of cooking chicken.

I had to make a quick adjustment to get my lobster pot boiling so I could steam this guy. I hate letting them sit too long once they’re over at the house. Since they are being sacrificed for a meal, I like to get  the deed over with for them quickly.

Another key component of the fall was oysters! I know the west coast has some real winners, but from what I can tell over the last few months, the ones from Maine – especially Damariscotta – are somethine else. We have been buying the selects (with deep cups) and loving them. They are easy to find around here and if you know where to go, you can get some very nice oysters for $1 a pop. However, you often see them in restaurants for $3 a piece, so I have been doing a lot of home shucking this year. And that is fine by me!

Over the holidays we dined on mid-coast Maine oysters, clams from Harpswell (wanted to eat them raw but couldn’t figure out how to bust into their shells so they were steamed), made a nice lobster dip (I know you don’t hear about lobster dip too often, but this was a hit), lobster rolls, and I think the best of the bunch was lobster deviled eggs. Wow, those guys were good. I just wish it wasn’t so hard to shell pasture-raised eggs.

We also did some year-end granderavioli (that was actually just earlier today). Here are the before and after.

We had a fair amount leftover of ricotta-mozzarella mix from manicotti I made earlier in the week, and I couldn’t very well let it go to waste. So I whipped up some homemade pasta sheets and turned the mix into some yummy ravioli. That and a glad of vino rosso is a nice end-of-the-year lunch.

Taking a few steps back, on Christmas day we cooked a lamb shoulder. Lamb has been hard to come by in mid-coast Maine this year, so when we spotted a lamb vendor at the Brunswick Farmers Market a couple weeks back, we snatched it up. We bought the shoulder and a rack of lamb. Had the rack soon thereafter and it was dreamy.

For the Xmas day dinner, I marinated the shoulder for several hours in a tasty mix of olive oil, sherry vinegar, rosemary, garlic and a few other secret items. After that, it was cooked low and slow for a few hours. While it ended up coming out a little too rare for our guests, it was just right for yours truly. See what you think.

We served the lamb with some wonderful mashed potatoes and some pan-fried Brussels sprouts. It was all very much a local dinner. From the lobster starters, to the potatoes and sprouts and then the lamb. It’s certainly wonderful to have such a bounty of well-raised meats and veggies to buy.

Wishing you all a wonderful 2012. Talk to you soon.

Well we did it. Even without the able assistance of Tom and Sandy, who partner with us on the supper club in Silver Spring, we still were able to pull it off without screwing everything up. Hooray for small miracles.

We served a party of six last week and from all appearances things went well. There were no tears and more importantly, no complaints!

Our guests arrived on a rainy evening at 7pm. We had to run outside with an umbrella so folks would not get doused before making it into the house. And fortunately since the dogs were occupied with chewies at the time, they were not any trouble.

We started everyone off with an apertivo – one of my faves, an Aperol sour. It’s a very straightforward drink with about 2 oz of Aperol, and then about 1/2 oz each of fresh lemon juice and simple syrup, garnished with a slice of orange. I thought it was a nice way to start the evening and introduce them to the Dining on the Rocks supper club.

Once the drinks were done, folks made their way to the table and started munching on my homemade baguettes. This was only my second effort at making bread, but it was well received. We opened wine soon thereafter and then began the meal. The first course was my smoky gazpacho.

This is a very fine gazpacho (fine as in the opposite of chunky, not in the sense of, man, she is fine). The gazpacho had plenty of fresh tomatoes, a cucumber, half an onion, along with additional herbs and of course pimenton (to make it smoky) and sherry vinegar. This dish never misses. And as you can see, there was also a bit of lobster to accompany the soup. I purchased a nice soft-shell lobster earlier in the day. I then steamed it, and prior to adding it to the soup, I sautéed it in olive oil. Nice combo.

Next up was homemade grande ravioli stuffed with ricotta and fresh mozzarella. We topped the ravioli with a basil and garlic scape pesto. We obviously couldn’t go with a tomato sauce after the gazpacho and didn’t want anything that would overpower the delicate ravioli. And luckily there was still some bread left after the pasta for the requisite ‘scarpetta.’

For the main course we served lamb. We were lucky enough to secure a lamb shoulder from Bridge Farm in Dresden, Maine. It was a four-pound bone-in shoulder. I marinated the shoulder for most of the day (rosemary, herbs, olive oil and few other ingredients) and then cooked it about 2 hours or so at 325. It was juicy and medium-rare. We plated the lamb on top of polenta and then served family style a big bowl of sautéed kale, along with a  bowl of Maine beans; we cooked Jacob’s Cattle beans. Needless to say, it was a lot of food.

To end the meal, we did a peach-blueberry upside down cake. Not a low-fat dessert for sure given the amount of butter that went into it. It was rich, no doubt. And even with all the savory courses we served, folks still made room for the dessert. I know I made room later that night for it and the next day.

So I am happy to report things worked out quite well. Our guests did BYOB on the vino and we supplied everything else. Next dinner is scheduled in less than a week. All right, time to think about the menu.

Maybe I spoke to soon. While we are settling into our cottage in Georgetown, we are not quite ready to serve any guests yet. We’re shooting for the end of the month. I think by then our dining room and kitchen will be ready for prime-time. I was getting ahead of myself a bit on the last post.

But that certainly has not stopped us from thinking about the menu and practicing on a few dishes while we get DOTR prepared for the public. While not sticking with our usual Mediterranean theme, I did prepare a nice batch of lobster miso soup for some friends who paid us a visit earlier in the week. Obviously the lobster was local (some shedders courtesy of Jimbo) and the scallions were too. I can’t really say that about the miso paste, bonito flakes or the seaweed. However I do use a liberal amount of stock whenever I prepare miso soup – in this case a few cups of Georgetown lobster stock.

I think the results were quite tasty.

It is unlikely this dish will make it onto a DOTR menu – unless we experiment with an Asian night at some point – but we will undoubtedly have some savory soups on tap. Once tomatoes come into high season here I’ll be ready to do my spicy gazpacho – topped with a little lobster of course.

One last note, we met the folks who won the bid for the DOTR dinner at the Historical Society auction. We’re excited about having them as our first real diners and they have already requested to expand the dinner from four to six people. No problem there. Now to come up with a top-notch menu; I need to find my thinking cap. Let’s hope I didn’t leave it behind.

Well, come next week we’ll be moving up to Georgetown for 6 months. We’re quite excited and the house is almost ready for prime time. A lot of work has been done on the cottage over the past 8 months and it’s looking good – at least the downstairs.

And since the kitchen and dining room are downstairs that’s what’s really important for Dining on the Rocks. We have a new kitchen and it’s ready to be broken in serving guests (and friends too). We’ve been thinking up a lot of creative lobster dishes and well as other meals highlighting local seafood, veggies and meat – pork in particular. Pork will definitely be on our menu often since we’re buying a local hog from Three Little Pigs Family Farm in Woolwich. We also signed on for the CSA at Goranson Farm in Dresden, so we’ll be highlighting a lot of their products.

But I guess I am getting ahead of myself since you don’t have a clue what I am talking about. So, DOTR is an underground supper club. We prepare Mediterranean-inspired feasts for 4-8 people that are served in our cottage in Georgetown. Our menu changes with the season and is inspired by my Italian (Abruzzese to be specific) heritage and as I mentioned above by the wonderful products available in mid-coast Maine.

You can visit DOTR on Facebook – search for “Dining on the Rocks Georgetown” – or subscribe to the blog here to find out when our next event is scheduled and to request a reservation. Once we confirm your reservation we will tell you how to find us. When you arrive, you pay a fee of $35-$50 per person (depending on the menu) to “join” the supper club for the night.  You bring your own beverages unless other arrangements have been made in advance. In addition to dining at the cottage, we are also trying to figure out if we can take the supper club to you for the evening. More on that later when we have a little better sense of things.

Our first venture into the local community will take place this weekend. We’ve donated a dinner for four to the Georgetown Historical Society for their auction taking place on Saturday. We’ve been members for a while (and my spouse was a historian in a previous life) so I’m glad we could do something on this.

And even though we’ve yet to officially launch the supper club in Georgetown, you can find out more about our past at Dining Under the Table. We’ve done this supper club in Silver Spring, MD since last fall. Here, you can see previous menus and read what some of our diners have thought about their evenings. We’ve really enjoyed running the supper club in MD and look forward to heading north and trying it in ME. That seems like a logical next step, right? I mean we are moving from MD to ME.

Anyway, you’ll be hearing more from me later and we look forward to joining the Georgetown community and serving both locals and vacationers.

Ciao for now.