Pink party!

Pink dinner party
A few months ago I participated in a wine tasting at Château Capitoul in nearby Gruissan. Of the many wines they produce, there was one that stood out: Rive, their signature rosé. This is notable for two reasons: one is that I don’t generally drink rosé, and the other is that this is definitely a unique wine. I tasted roses, which seems apt if a little unusual.

I enjoyed talking with the fellow who did the tasting for our group, and we spoke a lot about the foods that might accompany the wines. When we tasted the Rive rosé, he said something that stuck in my head: it would be fun to feature this wine at an entirely pink dinner party.

So we did just that, last week, and it was a lovely pink evening on my terrace. Here’s the evidence:

If you think you’d like to do something similar, you can start by making a list of pink foods, and then use that to build a menu. We did our best to stick with seasonal foods, so watermelon was off the menu, but it would be a great addition.

For appetizers (entrée in French) we drank pink champagne and nibbled on red radishes with butter and sea salt. We also had small cups of puréed tomato gazpacho with crème fraîche. (Purée is itself a French word, but puréed soup is called velouté in France, meaning velvety.)

We served the Rive rosé with the main course (plat in French), which consisted of two protein dishes, salmon and ham. We kept them both fairly simple, making a sauce that worked for both. We also had a salad made of purple endive and red oak leaf lettuce, with grapefruit, avocado and pomegranate seeds. The salad dressing was made with a raspberry coulis. At the grocery store, we happened to find some edible flowers in a medley of pink hues, and those went into the salad and also decorated the serving dish for the ham.

For dessert we had a lovely raspberry sorbet topped with fresh berries, and a delightful box of Mon Chéri candy.

The color theme was continued when we found some pink Himalayan salt and bright reddish-pink peppercorns. A vase of pink peonies and roses completed the picture.

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Parting shot
I was driving along a country road and spotted the sign below, an amusing bit of street art that’s similar to the work of an artist I’ve met, Clet Abraham. Clet has altered many street signs in his home city of Florence, Italy, and more of his work is found around the world. I have no idea who helped this deer to fly, but it’s fun!

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