Entertaining and Celebrating Book Review - Beautiful, Engaging, Elegant
- Details
- Category: Books
- Published on Wednesday, 26 June 2019 16:24
- Written by Janet Walker
Entertaining and Celebrating: An Elegant Feast for Every Season, from author Kristal Damron, features fifty pages of seasonal menus, from festive holiday meals to spring and summer al fresco dining complete with luxury table settings and wine pairings.
Published by Reward Your Appetite Catering, the condensed Entertaining and Celebrating book features glossy images, with close-up images of an array of menu items that are pleasing to view and promising to the palate. Each entry is accompanied by an elegant, complete, luxury table setting.
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Damron, a former finance executive, explains “It is the classic invitation that stimulates the imagination and entices guests to attend. It is the careful selection of decorations that satisfies the senses and captures gracefulness and beauty. Cultivating elegance encourages friends and family to enjoy the moment you create for them.”
With that said, Entertaining and Celebrating: An Elegant Feast for Every Season, takes the reader through a calendar year of monthly holidays and occasion dining. Grouped seasonally, Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.
She begins in Spring with Easter Brunch, Springtime Brunch and a Mother’s Day Brunch. Summer includes a Romantic Dinner at the Beach, Fourth of July Lunch, Picnic in the Park. Fall includes Labor Day cocktail Hour, Fall Harvest Dinner, Thanksgiving Dinner. Winter presents Christmas Day Dinner, New Year’s Day Dinner, and a Traditional Sunday Dinner.
Each of the holiday menus are A la Carte, allowing guests to choose. Damron presents a dining service style indicating which items should be table served and which courses should be arranged on serving tables. She also includes for Family Style with server assistance and action stations with culinary specialist.
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Her table settings are themed also, with large spring bouquets, pastel colors, with coordinating settings and colors. For the Fourth of July she utilizes a unique patriotic stars and strips chair back, that is immediately eye catching, and creates a perfect accompaniment.
With an appetizer, she also adds First, Second and Third course. The menu choices include elegant five-star dining items such as Roasted Cornish Hens with Mushroom Duxelles Stuffing, Citrus Glazed Stuffed Corned Ham, First Cut Boneless Ribeye Roast Marchand de Vin Sauce, Grilled ribeye Steak with Butternut Squash White Truffle Butter.
A cornucopia of seasonal salads and vegetables of ones choosing as well as Desserts add flavor to each menu.
The upcoming Fourth of July menu offers Firecracker Shrimp, as the Amuse-bouche paired with Margaritas. The First course offers Braised Pork Belly with Spicy Asian BBQ Sauce, Cole Slaw, and a Strawberry salad with Goat Cheese Croutons.
For a Second Course Entrée Potatoes Salad, Sliced Hard-Boiled Egg, Baked beans, Crispy Pancetta, Wild and Brown Rice Medley, Baby corn, Dried Fruit, tri-Colored Asparagus, Balsamic Vinegar. She add Grilled Chicken Satay, Teriyaki Sauce, Grilled Spicy Pork Kebabs, Green Chilies, Cilantro, Grilled Lamb Kebabs, Sweet Onion, Red Peppers, and Pan Seared Sea Scallops, with Peaches Pineapple.
For her Third Course she serves banana Pudding, Vanilla Shortbread Cookies, Peach Buckle Cake, Lemon Hazelnut Ice Cream.
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For the major holidays, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, I expected at least two additional side by side pages. I can understand the reason for keeping the page count and style and still felt as I thumbed through the pages the additional pages highlighting these holiday ideas were an obvious omission.
The Lenox China highlighted in the book is featured, per item, across four pages in the Appendix. Each month is entered and in rows the design name, stemware and table settings along with any unique serving items are included.
Following she has included a two-page Wine Appendix. The wine pairings were recommended by a wine expert and descriptions inspired by various wine distributors and wine publications.
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Entertaining and Celebrating: An Elegant Feast for Every Season is a visual extravaganza with elegant, beautiful, place settings and menu’s which invites and engages readers.
For more information and recipes: https://rewardyourappetite.com/
