Fall Dinner Menu
Mesclun Salad with Basic Vinaigrette
In October John and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary – not with a bucket-list overseas trip or a huge party, but with a cozy and relaxing weekend getaway to one of our favorite places on earth, Lake George. We had let our passports expire during the pandemic, and big parties aren’t our style, so the magical mountains quilted with colorful foliage and the quiet misty lakes of the Adirondacks suited us just fine.
We stayed at the beautiful Sagamore Hotel in Bolton Landing.
The forecast for the weekend was bleak – it rained on Friday during the drive up, and the prediction for Saturday was a 100% chance of rain, with the possibility of violent thunderstorms. But the lake gave us a gift, the bad weather holding off long enough for us to take a short cruise on Saturday morning. The sun even came out for a while, and gave us some dramatic skies.
After the boat ride, the good weather lasted long enough for us to stroll around the grounds of Fort Ticonderoga, enjoy the sweeping views of the lake and mountains, and take in some Revolutionary War history.
We had just settled down for a late, lakeside lunch – outdoors, but thankfully under a tent – when the skies opened up and the promised deluge began.
Sunday morning we awoke to another gift, this gorgeous sunrise over the lake, viewed from the balcony outside our room.
The foliage season peaks late on the shores of Lake George – some kind of microclimate thing that causes the colors to develop slowly, and linger. In mid-October the season was just ramping up there, whereas next door in Southern Vermont it was already well along. We had clouds for most of the drive home, which muted the colors, but it was still beautiful. The perfect soundtrack for the drive was this new Folk for Fall Volume 2 playlist I created just for the trip, another in my favorite blend of mellow folk, indie and country. Listen on Spotify – and find last year’s fall folk playlist and many others there, too, in all kinds of styles and genres.
The following weekend we continued the celebration at home with a special Saturday night dinner for two. I pulled a couple of recipes out of the Saturdays with Frank archives for this Italian-themed fall dinner menu starring a rustic yet gorgeous Spinach Crostata, with layers of spinach, cheese and mushrooms encased in a buttery pastry shell.
For dessert, Caramel Budino: caramel pudding topped with a bourbon-laced caramel sauce, a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, a pouf of whipped cream and a shower of chocolate cookie crumbs. The combination of flavors (salty, sweet, smoky) and textures (creamy, silky, crumbly) is positively to die for – and while this impressive dessert does have several components that have to be made separately, it’s actually quite easy to make.
Fall Dinner Menu: The Game Plan
- Some of the prep for the Spinach Crostata and the Caramel Budino can be started as early as the day before, or early in the day of the dinner (at least 5 hours ahead to give the pudding layer of the budino time to chill.)
- An hour and a half before dinner, get the crostata in the oven, make salad dressing, and prep the remaining components of the dessert.
- Just before dinner, toss the salad.
- After dinner, take 5 minutes to finish assembling the dessert.
- For a complete game plan with timing and sequencing for all steps in this menu, click on the image below.
