Such a Beautiful Disease

New York City. The only real place to be. Right now I am sitting in a beautiful aparment on the Upper West Side, courtesy of Susan and David- my dads friends-typing and watching the sun go down. There is nothing like it in the world.
One of the benefits of having your entire fathers family on the greatest island in the world is that you can go to the greatest island in the world. The downside is that when they hear that you cook, they want to be fed. I more then happily obliged when asked to cook a meal for my small Manahatten family, them being just six people all told. Indeed, the opportunity to cook and have a dinner party in a gorgeous New York apartment sounded fanatastic right? The result, yes. The execution, very wrong. Enter the stress zone.
First off, my menu was rather ambitious, considering the fact that I had no recipes, and shoddy internet. I went with my old standby of goat cheese and caramalized onion tart, scallops in white wine sauce over pasta and some sort of nutty dessert. Along the way I picked up an idea from my friend Robert Pincus (a blogger for Gourmet) for poached quince. His wife Tara suggested a caramel sauce for the mixed nuts and then baking the whole gooey mess in a pie shell. All very well till it rolled around three o'clock and I started my dinner. Thats where the trouble started.
A list of things I have learned from this whole experience would probably go like this:
1. Never should anyone in their right mind try to shop for anything at Fairway the day before New Years Eve if they like their limbs to be intact.
2. Make sure you have a comprehesive list of ingrediants with enough food for everyone. Take into consideration that these people want to be fed and satiated, not just impressed with the sublime presentation of two tiny seared scallops.
3. Have recipe, so your not scrambling around trying to remember something about hot things that could burn you, and or combust.
4. Learn your kitchen. Never cook a big meal in a space you dont know anything about. It makes trying to find the teaspoons a nightmare.
5. Cutting boards are an invaluable tool, in the absence of which can make cooking most demoralizing.
Yes, I had neither cutting board for anything, rolling pin for tart, no experience making caramel, and no recipies except a crappily copied David Lebowitz blog post for poaching quince.
And somehow, it all came together.
With a good deal of credit going to my little brother, I managed to cook the f@#%!ing caramel into a creamy sauce (adding heavy cream at the end) so the dessert turned into a vaguely candy like pecan confection. I lost one of the tart doughs to lack of rolling pin and attempted pizza tossing (bad idea) but the survivor turned out very well, nothing a little fresh farm goat cheese cant smooth over. The quince turned out spectacularly weird. My brother ended up just mashing it up into a sugary quincesauce paste thing. And as the piece de resistance, the scallops were very yummy indeed, a simple butter-wine sauce with shallots is always a good idea. Yet again I must commend whomever invented butter. All tasty things stem from butter, sugar, and olives.

Credit must go to several people. Robert Pincus, Tara Q. Thomas, their beautiful baby Laila, my sue chef brother and my family, for being so kind and providing wine to relax my shattered nerves. New York City, that you for yet again, teaching me something about living, and living well.
Happy New Year All!