I recently hosted a disaster when I'd intended to put on a dinner party.
It was the result of a visit to Santa Fe in February by Niloufer Ichaporia King, the Parsi cook from San Francisco whose My Bombay Kitchen won the James Beard award for best Asian cookbook this summer.

I had asked my friend Carol Thomas if Niloufer could stay in her guesthouse while she was in town signing books and doing cooking demonstrations. In addition, I had asked Carol if the Slow Foods folks in Santa Fe could hold a brunch at her house that Niloufer would prepare. Carol agreed to both requests.

While she was in Santa Fe, Niloufer asked Carol if I had ever cooked for her at my house. No, Carol said. "Niloufer was shocked," Carol later reported to me, strongly emphasizing the word shocked. And my friend demanded I cook a meal for her at my house.

Let me explain: At the time, I had known Carol slightly less than a year, perhaps enough time for most people to prepare a meal for a friend. But I work at The New Mexican from 4 p.m. until past midnight Tuesdays through Saturdays. That means I can't cook dinner for anybody most nights of the week.

I enjoy writing about food — particularly its history and anthropology — but I'm nobody's idea of a great cook. The last meal I cooked for people other than myself had occurred 16 months earlier.

Nevertheless, I agreed to cook dinner for Carol. I also invited her boyfriend, Guy Stanke; my neighbors Polly Eliason and Tom Cirolia; and Emily Swantner (my cooking/writing partner for some of the food stories in this newspaper) and her husband, George Haddad.

I decided I was going to fix a meze, a Greek-Middle Eastern meal of small dishes, things I could prepare early in the day.

Invitation to disaster

I may not be much of a cook, but I have a large collection of cookbooks, and I spent days thumbing through the collection before I came up with the menu:

* Marinated green and black olives.

* Marcona almonds from Spain.

* Manchego cheese, produced in Spain, with membrillo, a quince paste.

* Parmesan cheese soccas (chickpea crêpes from Nice, France) with a carrot-cumin purée and dukkah, an Egyptian nut and seed mixture.

* Caramelized onion turnovers with bacon and dates.

* Spinach and feta cheese pies.

* An Egyptian-style potato and green bean salad.

* A sliced beet salad with pistachio sauce.

* A macaroni salad with yogurt and pine nuts that Emily, to whom I had once loaned the cookbook, had marked with a yellow Post-It on which she had scribbled, "YUM!!"

* Emily's version of a chickpea salad with walnuts and pomegranate seeds, adapted from a Paula Wolfert cookbook.

* Pita bread.

* Lamb meatballs with sour cherry sauce.

* Beef meatballs with tomato-béchamel sauce.

* Chicken kebobs marinated in pomegranate sauce.

* Lamb kebobs marinated in lemon juice, paprika and cumin.

* Beef kebobs with sumac onions and parsley butter.

* Lentils with pork sausages and figs.

* A chocolate-orange torte with orange and cashew ice cream.

A casual look at my menu — 18 items! — would tell most cooks I was headed for trouble. I, however, was totally oblivious.

I could buy the olives, almonds, Manchego cheese and membrillo in Santa Fe. I had made the socca and the Egyptian potato salad the week before and found both to be delicious and easy to make. While I have not prepared a lot of meals in my lifetime, I have baked a fair number of cakes. I thought the chocolate-orange torte would be simple, and Santa Fe's Tara was making the ice cream.

A problem with prongs

I hadn't made bread for 20 years or more, so I wanted to work on the pita early the morning of the dinner party. If I succeeded, I'd triple the recipe, put the dough in the refrigerator and bake the bread as the guests arrived.

The recipe told me to mix 2 teaspoons of yeast in 2-1/2 cups of lukewarm water, mix in three cups of flour, and stir. The sponge rested for a while before I sprinkled it with a little salt and olive oil. I added the three additional cups of flour the recipe called for, one at a time, but didn't get to the desired consistency: a dough too thick to stir. So I added another cup, and another cup, and another cup. I stopped counting at six extra cups. Finally, I kneaded the bread and let it double in size.

I punched down the dough and rolled out a pita bread — its shape was, unfortunately, remarkable for a pita. But I baked it anyway. It ballooned up, sort of. I tasted it. It wasn't bad, but I realized I had no idea what a home-baked pita should taste like. Was it too floury? I had no idea. I tossed out the dough and wrote a note on my to-do list: "Buy pita bread at Trader Joe's."

The chocolate-orange torte was next. The recipe was from a Spanish-Moroccan cookbook that measures ingredients in grams, not cups. I pulled out my kitchen scale, and while trying to switch it from ounces to grams, I totally destroyed it.

This was going to be a big problem, I realized, because most of the recipes I was preparing were from European cookbooks, all with measurements in grams. But the cake was my current problem. Switch to an American recipe, I advised myself. I found an easy one for a chocolate-almond torta, ground the chocolate and almonds in the food processor and added the sugar. All I needed to do was beat seven egg whites, add orange zest and put the cake in the oven. I pulled out my stand mixer to plug it into the wall outlet. It had a three-prong plug, and all my outlets were two prong. Obviously, I had not used the mixer since I had moved into the house two years earlier. I had adapters, but they were with my laptop computer at the office.

Restaurant to the rescue

I had no idea what to do, so I set the table, which I had placed outdoors. It looked great: brown-and-green place mats. Green-and-white napkins of a fabric that looked like it was from Provence. Terra cotta-colored plates. Green wine glasses from Spain. Green candle holders lining the table.

I finished the table, and then I panicked: Even if I had had recipes I could use, it was too late to cook dinner.

I called Emily. "I'm taking everyone to Counter Culture for dinner tonight," I said.

"Uh, Pat," Emily said, "Counter Culture is closed tonight." She said Ferragamo's on West Alameda made the best pizza in town and fixed a great eggplant dish. "But call them to be sure they're open," she advised. Of course, Ferragamo's was also closed.

I called Emily back. I'm going to order takeout from Los Potrillos on Cerrillos Road, I said.

"Get the pork with pineapple," she instructed.

I did, along with beans, guacamole and flan. I told the restaurant I'd pick up the order at 6:45. After I bought bags of ice at the nearby Smith's, it began to rain as I headed for home. An incredible amount of water poured from the sky. And my beautiful table was soaked.

I called Los Potrillos to cancel my order. I'll bring my guests to the restaurant, I said.

None of the couples I had invited knew each other. But after they arrived at my house, they discovered they had a lot in common. Two were or had been professional chefs — Emily and Tom, who had been sous-chef at Santacafé, when it was the best restaurant in town. Most built or remodeled houses, faux painted them or managed properties.

"We're eating here," Carol announced firmly after drinking dry rosé and nibbling on olives and almonds.

"No, no," I said. "I canceled the takeout order." But Carol insisted and I called Los Potrillos back.

As the evening ended, Emily offered advice. "Stick to writing," she said. "I'll do the recipes."

That's a great idea, but it would mean I still haven't cooked for Carol.


Fresh mint and green onions do wonders to lift the flavor of cooked vegetable salads like this one. A diced carrot provides bright color and a pleasant sweetness to balance the tart garlic-lemon dressing. You can garnish this salad with quartered hard-boiled eggs and black or green olives, following the custom of the region.

EGYPTIAN-STYLE POTATO AND GREEN BEAN SALAD
(Serves 4)

2 pounds new potatoes, unpeeled, halved if large
Kosher salt
Freshly milled black pepper
2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup strained fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon dried mint (optional)
Large pinch cayenne pepper or Aleppo pepper, or to taste
1 large carrot, peeled and diced small
1/2 pound green beans, ends trimmed, cut into 3-inch pieces
1/2 cup thinly chopped green onions
1/2 cup roasted red peppers
1/4 cup chopped fresh mint
2 tablespoons chopped Italian parsley
2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
1/2 cup pitted black or green olives, or a mixture, sliced

Bring a pot of water to a boil, add 1 teaspoon salt and the carrots. Simmer for 3 minutes, then add the green beans and cook over medium-high heat for 4 to 5 minutes or until the vegetables are just tender. Scoop out the vegetables with a slotted spoon and rinse with cold water. Drain thoroughly in a colander.

Add the potatoes to the same pot of water. Bring back to a boil. Lower heat, cover and simmer over medium-low heat until a knife can pierce the center of a large potato easily, about 25 minutes.

Combine the minced garlic with a pinch of salt in a mortar and mash with the pestle. Transfer to a medium bowl and add the lemon juice, 1/4 cup olive oil, black pepper, dried mint, if using, and cayenne chile or Aleppo pepper; whisk to combine.

Drain the potatoes in a colander, rinse under cold water and leave just until cool enough to handle. Peel them, if you like, and cut them in half, then slice about 1/2-inch thick. Put them in a large bowl and add 1/4 cup salad dressing and a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Fold together gently but thoroughly.

Add the green beans and carrots to the potatoes. Whisk the remaining salad dressing, pour over the salad and gently combine. Add the green onions, roasted red peppers, mint and parsley and toss lightly. Taste, adjust seasoning, and add more lemon juice or olive oil, if needed.

To serve, turn out onto a serving platter and garnish with quartered hard-boiled eggs and olives. Serve at room temperature.

(Recipe as printed adapted by Emily Swantner from Fran Levy's Feast from the Mideast: 250 Sun-Drenched Dishes from the Lands of the Bible.)

Pat's changes: I used small new potatoes, which I quartered rather than sliced. I like dill better than mint, so I added dried dill to the dressing and chopped fresh dill to the salad. I also made more salad dressing than the recipe calls for. I used the two garlic cloves and Aleppo pepper to taste but increased the lemon juice and olive oil to 1/3 cup each. What makes this salad exceptional is the lemon-olive oil dressing, and I thought — correctly — that the salad would improve with the additional dressing.


OK, I thought the chocolate-orange torte from Sam and Sam Clark's Moro East cookbook would be a breeze to make. Well, it was easy to make. But baking it turned out to be a major problem. I made it four times, and, thanks to Santa Fe's altitude, each time I removed the torte from the oven, it deflated. However, it tasted great, sort of like chocolate-orange fudge. So I turned to Claudia Roden's recipe for Gâteau au Chocolat in The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York. She calls the cake a family favorite. It's almost as simple as the chocolate-orange torte, and, when adjusted for altitude, which I have done here, it doesn't fall when removed from the oven.

GATEAU AU CHOCOLAT

1/2 pound bittersweet chocolate, at least 70 percent cocoa solids*
1 stick (4 ounces) of butter
6 extra large eggs, separated
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup ground almonds
Butter and flour for cake pan

Grease a 9-inch cake pan (either nonstick or plain is fine) with butter and line the bottom with a parchment circle. Butter the parchment circle. Dust the pan and parchment with flour. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Melt the chocolate disks and butter together in a double boiler or a small pan placed in a larger pan of boiling water.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar till pale. Add the ground almonds and the melted chocolate and butter, and mix well.

In a separate large bowl, beat the egg whites until they are just barely stiff enough to fold in half. (If you beat them until they are truly stiff, your cake will fall after you take it out of the oven.) Fold the egg whites into the chocolate/butter/sugar/almond mixture.

Pour the mixture into the cake pan and bake for 30 to
40 minutes. A knife stuck in the cake should come out with a little melted chocolate on it.

*Whole Foods Market has El Rey's small, thin chocolate disks that work well here. If you don't use the disks, chop the chocolate into small pieces.