Last weekend I attended a wedding. The thing is, I didn't know a single person there. Now, I wish this could be a tale of Wedding Crashers-esque shenanigans, but alas, it was merely because it was a childhood friend of my girlfriend's. As I'm sure you can surmise, this was quite the experience. Since this blog is about food, I'll spare you the details of the wedding, and we'll head over to the reception.
The reception was held at the Lake San Marcos Country Club (a place in northern San Diego county). The venue was nice, if not a little small. Since we were all instructed to head to the reception well ahead of the wedding party (so that they could take pictures), there was a lot of people just sort of sitting/standing around. After finding our seats (and by that I mean we all just sat wherever the hell we wanted to), I noticed something pretty cool. Each table had it's own mini-cake. But I'll get back to that later.
After 15 minutes or so, I noticed a line forming for what I can only assume was food. After waiting and sort of spying on what people were carrying, I noticed it was sort of a snack tray area. They had simple things like assorted cheeses and crackers, fresh fruit, and mango salsa (which ran out very quickly). Not wanting to wait in a long line for crackers, I just sort of surveyed the area and one of the servers of the event brought me a drink.
Did I mention they had an open bar?
First time I've ever actually encountered that. It wasn't a huge variety or anything (domestic beers, "well" liquors), but still, it was free, son. So I nursed my scotch and soda while I waited for the line to die down. Once it seemed relatively short, I got up to grab some snackage and I realized... it was all gone. They assured us more would be coming soon and indeed it did.
After snack time, they announced the new couple... and said the wrong names, which was pretty hilarious. After everyone was seated, dinner began:
Wedding food, how I love thee not. Now, while I can't complain since it was free, I will say that this wasn't the most refined or imaginative meal I've ever consumed. Still, I am a man of artistic integrity and honesty, so I feel it is my duty to recount all of the many culinary nuances.
First course (of 3) was a salad course. Caesar salad. Soggy, overdressed Caesar salad. A girl at my table had probably dozen croutons. I had zero. Not the best way to start out a meal.
Did I mention they had free booze?
The entree came next, which was chicken. Oven-roasted chicken breast, with a sort of "piccata" sauce. At least that's what I assumed it was trying to be. It had lemon and butter and capers. So I'm gonna go with piccata. There were steamed, mixed vegetables (that were actually cooked quite well, if not actually seasoned. I added a lot of salt to this entire dish). The final component of the dish was mashed potatoes... from a box. Delicious and classy.
Once again: free. booze.
Alright, remember those cakes I mentioned? Those were actually pretty bad ass. Each table had a cake that was probably about a foot by a foot by a foot and to up the cool factor, each cake was different, in both outward appearance and filling. There was probably a good 20 tables and I can't remember seeing any duplicates. That was a nice touch. Here's ours:
And instead of a big wedding cake, the bride and groom had a cake similar to the others, except slightly larger with bride and groom toppers.
They went with the whole "ball and chain" theme.
I'm not quite sure what their cake was (flavor-wise), but I'm assuming it was probably some sort of a neutral/vanilla white cake, judging from when they smashed it all over each others face. Ours was a strawberry cream, which was outstanding. Talking to some other guests there, there was mocha, more than 1 kind of chocolate, and some mixes involved as well. I tried to find out who made the cakes for about 15 minutes to no avail and I didn't think it was all that classy to ask the bride and groom while they were carrying on with their wedding business.
Cake was eaten, toasts were given, and then came the dancing portion of the evening, which brings me to the title of this post. These people really, really liked country music. A lot. They played nothing else. It was not the highlight of the evening in my opinion. Still though, free booze.
Next up: a cooking demonstration I did for 18 female lawyers. Stay Tuned.
The reception was held at the Lake San Marcos Country Club (a place in northern San Diego county). The venue was nice, if not a little small. Since we were all instructed to head to the reception well ahead of the wedding party (so that they could take pictures), there was a lot of people just sort of sitting/standing around. After finding our seats (and by that I mean we all just sat wherever the hell we wanted to), I noticed something pretty cool. Each table had it's own mini-cake. But I'll get back to that later.
After 15 minutes or so, I noticed a line forming for what I can only assume was food. After waiting and sort of spying on what people were carrying, I noticed it was sort of a snack tray area. They had simple things like assorted cheeses and crackers, fresh fruit, and mango salsa (which ran out very quickly). Not wanting to wait in a long line for crackers, I just sort of surveyed the area and one of the servers of the event brought me a drink.
Did I mention they had an open bar?
First time I've ever actually encountered that. It wasn't a huge variety or anything (domestic beers, "well" liquors), but still, it was free, son. So I nursed my scotch and soda while I waited for the line to die down. Once it seemed relatively short, I got up to grab some snackage and I realized... it was all gone. They assured us more would be coming soon and indeed it did.
After snack time, they announced the new couple... and said the wrong names, which was pretty hilarious. After everyone was seated, dinner began:
Wedding food, how I love thee not. Now, while I can't complain since it was free, I will say that this wasn't the most refined or imaginative meal I've ever consumed. Still, I am a man of artistic integrity and honesty, so I feel it is my duty to recount all of the many culinary nuances.
First course (of 3) was a salad course. Caesar salad. Soggy, overdressed Caesar salad. A girl at my table had probably dozen croutons. I had zero. Not the best way to start out a meal.
Did I mention they had free booze?
The entree came next, which was chicken. Oven-roasted chicken breast, with a sort of "piccata" sauce. At least that's what I assumed it was trying to be. It had lemon and butter and capers. So I'm gonna go with piccata. There were steamed, mixed vegetables (that were actually cooked quite well, if not actually seasoned. I added a lot of salt to this entire dish). The final component of the dish was mashed potatoes... from a box. Delicious and classy.
Once again: free. booze.
Alright, remember those cakes I mentioned? Those were actually pretty bad ass. Each table had a cake that was probably about a foot by a foot by a foot and to up the cool factor, each cake was different, in both outward appearance and filling. There was probably a good 20 tables and I can't remember seeing any duplicates. That was a nice touch. Here's ours:
And instead of a big wedding cake, the bride and groom had a cake similar to the others, except slightly larger with bride and groom toppers.
They went with the whole "ball and chain" theme.
I'm not quite sure what their cake was (flavor-wise), but I'm assuming it was probably some sort of a neutral/vanilla white cake, judging from when they smashed it all over each others face. Ours was a strawberry cream, which was outstanding. Talking to some other guests there, there was mocha, more than 1 kind of chocolate, and some mixes involved as well. I tried to find out who made the cakes for about 15 minutes to no avail and I didn't think it was all that classy to ask the bride and groom while they were carrying on with their wedding business.
Cake was eaten, toasts were given, and then came the dancing portion of the evening, which brings me to the title of this post. These people really, really liked country music. A lot. They played nothing else. It was not the highlight of the evening in my opinion. Still though, free booze.
Next up: a cooking demonstration I did for 18 female lawyers. Stay Tuned.
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