Dave Wood

One of my favorite fictional movie characters is the not so dashing Lord Peter Wimsey, best performed by Ian Carmichael. He’s often portrayed dining at the Savoy and consuming an inordinate amount of dry martinis, which often gets him into all manner of trouble, while his loyal manservant Jeeves unfailingly gets him out of trouble. In short Lord Peter is the model of a post-Edwardian fop, a fellow with whom I wouldn’t mind keeping company.

Unfortunately, Ian isn’t available to travel from Mayfair to River Falls, so I’ll take Ian’s place and with my B.W., who is totally responsible for our current garden and the goodies that we enjoy; she also supplies a large portion of the following imaginary dinner party with Lord Peter.

In our prime, being the rubes we were born to be, we often tried hard to imitate the splendor of such parties, thinking it would add stature to our standing, when all it really did was give us painful headaches. Nevertheless, it’s fun trying!

Let’s start with Lord Peter’s favorite cocktail, the dry Martini: Pour into a large crystal pitcher the contents of one liter of Gordon’s dry gin (please don’t get fancy with Tanqueray), 2 ounces of Martini & Rossi dry vermouth (don’t scrimp with Tribuno or show off with Noily Pratt). Finally add a teaspoon of Black Label scotch (which will make the mixture even drier.) Fill pitcher with those clear square almost unmeltable ice cubes of the sort used at Tattersall’s, the best thing about our new supper club along with its trout bisque. You can make your own cubes by purchasing the new rubber trays, in which cubes don’t melt as fast as the Tattersall cubes. Serve in tiny 2-ounce bell-shaped stemmed martini glasses, garnish with jumbo capers (available through Zingerman’s gourmet catalog). The ala Lord Peter mix supplies several servings, each garnished with a jumbo caper.

This Martini recipe is thanks to the advice of the late martini master, musician, prof, poet and gourmet Bob Samarotto whose back porch once graced former presidential candidate, senator and Bob’s fellow poet Eugene McCarthy, who pronounced the “Samartini” as “more exciting than a run for president.”

On to the hors d’oeuvres, which should be very elegant but restrained. Buy a loaf of sturdy white sandwich bread, decrust it, spread it with softened butter and garnish with finely chopped chives. Prepare another bowl with butter and minced dill fronds. Chill buttered bread, and slice thinly 1 bunch of Burpee’s French Breakfast radishes, and unpeeled Persian mini cukes, both lightly salted. Dry sliced and salted veggies with paper towels.  Then place slices of radish and cukes artistically on 2/3 of a tray covered in fresh chives from garden, plus a few lavender-hued chive blossom flowers for garnish.

For the piece de resistance go to your nearest Trader Joe’s and buy a small sheet of delicately smoked salmon, cut into squares and triangles and place on remaining bread pieces and top with a small dill frond. Oh! And while you’re at Trader Joe’s pick up the MAIN course! Lord Peter would never forget Britain’s former far-flung colonies, including the Raj, so pick up some packages of Trader’ Joe’s frozen Lamb Vindaloo. B.W. always made her own curry dishes, until Trader Joe moved into Woodbury and we’ve switched to “boughten,” because lamb is incredibly difficult to find in River Falls. We serve this English style with sides of chopped redskin peanuts, toasted coconut, cubed bananas, orange slices, extra basmati rice cooked in coconut milk, and in another nod to Britannia, a big blob of B.W.s homemade chutney full of GREEN tomatoes, of which she still has a garden full! And let yourself pretend for an evening that you’re really classy!