Groom's Dinner

It has been a "screaming busy" Summer so far and I have been woefully lacking in the new post department so I apologize for the lack of attention to this blog.
This past Friday night our gourmet dinner group did a Groom's Dinner for the wedding of one of our owns Son. Casey and Mark LaCore's son Jon was married to Kelly Norri on Saturday, July 2nd and we did the dinner after the practice. It began about a week ago with a brainstorming session at Bruce and Lisa Reeves' house where we talked about the menu. She said it would be simple thing, just some easy stuff to snack on, nothing fancy: Ha! It was a 5 course Italian dinner! She just can't help herself! After all, she had just come back from a trip to Italy to take part in a Culinary School.
Anyway, as a result we decided to do the same format for the dinner using some of her recipes from the school and a few other items based on requests from the wedding couple and some things we shouldn't serve. We settled on an Antipasti course of Caprese Salad and Prosecco.
Next was the Primi course of Pasta, a sort of lasagna made with Eggplant, Zuchini, Marinara sauce, cheeses, etc., served with a nice Placido 2008 Chianti. The next course was the meat, which consisted of a Chicken Salad with Roasted Red Peppers, Olives, Red Onion, Crushed Red Pepper and Gorgonzola cheese served in a toast cup along with A Walleye dish braised in milk and olive oil and stuffed with sweated onions, garlec, parsley and anchovies also served with the Chianti. Both of these were most excellent! I will be adding these to my go-to repertoire. The next course was the Formaggi, or cheese course. We did a variety of hard Italian cheeses along with a couple of requested other types.
We also did a roasted vegetable course and I apologize for not remembering the Italian names for all of these but I don't have the menu in front of me and I am afraid I will butcher the spelling of those names. The vegetables were Red Onions, Zuchini, Asparagus, etc.. The final course of Dessert, or Dolce was four kinds of Fresh Berry Cobbler prepared by Anita Barr and served with some good Colombian Coffee. Then, of course there must be the Digestivo of Limoncello to cap the evening. We started serving at about 7:00 pm and I think we finished around 10:00 or 10:30. It was an absolute blast to do and It was actually our second Groom's Dinner for this family; the LaCores' son Brian was married a few years ago and we served that one on the shore of Schultz Lake at the home of Lisa's parents, the Jeronimuses.
During the course of our cooking and prepping we continued to kick around the idea of doing a once monthly dinner like a Chef's Table sort of theme and invite our friends and acquaintances to make a donation to offset the food and wine costs and we would like to bless them with great food and we will enjoy the process of cooking it and sharing it with them as well as develop some great relationships along the way. I would like to hear from any of you that read these food wanderings and let me know what you think and if you would be interested in participating with us.
Good eating,
Tim