Menus, Decor for a Royal Salute to Spring

Ah, spring. Ah, spring parties.

And if you need inspiration to get you going on the season’s parties, let’s take a look at some springlike menus and table decorations for luncheons and dinners.

Some of the brightest ideas for spring come from luncheons and dinners held in honor of the Duke and Duchess of York during their visit to Los Angeles.

The Office of the Mayor co-hosted the first Los Angeles dinner event in honor of the Duke and Duchess of York at the Tower in the TransAmerica Center. “Since this was to be their first meal in Los Angeles, we chose the Tower restaurant because of its magnificent backdrop view of the city,” said Bee Lavery, chief of protocol for the city of Los Angeles. The emphasis was on California regional cuisine, but the floral arrangements created by California Floral Assn. brought a touch of English garden appeal to the table. The bouquets were kept low to prevent them from competing with the view.

“The Mayor and Mrs. Bradley don’t like having tall bouquets on tables obstructing cross-table conversation, so we never order them,” Lavery said. A toast by the Duke (with prompting from Fergie, who was humorously reminded by her husband that “This is my speech, thank you”) was with an extra-dry sparkling wine by Christian Brothers.

As a starter: Consomme with smoked quail topped with a pastry crust. (You can do the same using any consomme in an oven-proof crock and covering it with pie-pastry dough to bake for 20 minutes before serving. Or you can reheat the fully assembled soup in the oven.)

Grilled Pacific Salmon was served with a lemon butter-chervil sauce and assorted California vegetables. White chocolate ice cream was teamed with assorted berries and topped with a splash of white creme de cacao. It’s a nice touch and an easy one to adopt.

Among the dishes served at a UCLA luncheon was a first course of California cucumber soup with a creme fraiche and American Golden caviar, followed by mesquite-grilled Pacific swordfish steak. There was also a bouquet of spring vegetables and a basket of herbed muffins.

Dessert was a chocolate truffle “solitaire,” an individual torte served in a pool of creme brule, topped with raspberry sauce.

Spring was definitely in the air when it came to decorations: Tables were covered with forest-green moire fabric and tall centerpieces of full-blossoming quince branches erupting from grasses and spring-flowering bulbs.

The menu at the County Museum of Art was slightly more daring. Sauteed asparagus was served in a taco shaped like a leaf and laced with pecan hollandaise sauce, an innovation you could easily adapt by cutting tortillas into leaf shapes and frying them. Lime-marinated grilled chicken breasts were presented on a pool of red pepper sauce with corn and green chile timbales.

Both menus are relatively simple to adapt to your personal specifications. You can modify the timbales to include other vegetables or cheeses, using a basic non-sweet custard recipe taken from any basic cookbook, such as “The Joy of Cooking” or the “New Doubleday Cookbook.” Rice is easy to shape in ring molds while it’s still warm. Or you can mold it in oven- or microwave-safe molds and reheat before serving.

The Bel Age Hotel gave a rather elaborate dinner reminiscent of the opulent age of the British Empire. The idea was to pay tribute to British humor and celebrate British comedy (Dudley Moore and Anjelica Huston made the presentations at dinner). Despite the limitations on the menu set by the Duke and Duchess (they “required” no shellfish, avocado or Sherry and the Duchess did not drink alcohol, possibly due to her pregnancy), the Duke did enjoy Champagne, which was offered along with California wines.

Because the hotel has a Russian cuisine, Russian appetizers called zachuski were served (one was artichoke hearts with a brunoise of vegetables, caviar and foie gras in aspic). The fish entree was a combination of three fish fillets--Dover sole, wrapped around Norwegian salmon and orange roughy--for a three-tone effect when cut in half.