The table was set, it must've been fancy...

To recap, we spent a week in Tahoe for a short summer vacation.  Some of the highlights were 2 days spent backpacking, and one day painting preschool equipment.  We also cooked my parents a fancy-ish dinner as a birthday present!

Both of their birthdays happened over the summer and since we hadn't seen them until our recent trip to Tahoe we thought it would be a good time to take advantage and do something nice for them.  Luckily, Rob is a very good cook, and I am very good at telling him what to do.  So we I decided we he should cook this really great dinner for the main course, something including buttercream for dessert, and I had my eye on a few different appetizer recipes.  I also thought it would be nice to have a wine to pair with each course.

For the appetizer I decided to use this recipe for a blue cheese and leek bruschetta.  Rob was skeptical because he has a problem with serving something we've never cooked for ourselves.  But I knew my superior cooking skills would come through, and they did!

mmm...bruschetta

We paired this course with a Sonoma cab from Mutt Lynch Winery, Canis Major.  These were an overall hit, and very simple to make.

For the main course Rob cooked this wonderful Julia Child's recipe again.  He poached sole in a dry white wine and then covered it in a parisienne sauce (not really sure what this is, but it tasted good!).  This was served with a side of asparagus and multicolored carrots.

I was so excited to eat that I almost forgot to take a picture

We paired this course with a dry white wine (that was also used to cook the fish in) that was on sale at Whole Foods (although we'd recommend just using two buck chuck, that's what we did last time).

For dessert we made shortbread and buttercream.  Using the buttercream skills he learned we made the most simple one.  It normally uses Cointreau to give it an orangy flavor, but I wanted to try and use Chambord since I love raspberry and chocolate together.  We compromised and did half with Cointreau and half with Chambord.  For the shortbread we used my grandma's secret recipe (Ok not really secret, I just don't know it, but I'm sure Rob could tell you).  We paired the dessert with a red port from Kaz Winery.  We had made waaaay too much dessert (probably enough for 8 people), luckily we had friends coming into town that night and they finished most of it!

I think my parents really enjoyed it, we really tried to make it a nice atmosphere, too.  It's normal for us just to cook them dinner so actually setting the table and using nice place settings and glassware made a difference.  Eating on my parent's back deck with a great view of Lake Tahoe is a perfect backdrop for a nice summer dinner.

Fancy table

nice view