Boofus and Food
Last night was the Ben Folds and Rufus Wainwright concert (which we dubbed Boofus) out at Ravinia Park. I’ve never been a huge fan of Rufus, but you can’t live in or near Chapel Hill without becoming somewhat of a Ben Folds fan so a few friends and I went out to the park.
The fantastic thing about Ravinia is they allow you to bring any food/wine/beer/whatever with you, it’s like a giant picnic with 10,000 total strangers.
Since I fancy myself an amateur chef I made the spread:
Appetizer:
Champagne crackers
Brie
Fresh green seedless grapes
Soup:
Chilled tomato soup with crab salad & pesto
Salad:
Baby greens salad with balsamic vinegarette infused with thyme
Entree:
Poached salmon with watercress mayonnaise
Dessert:
Far Breton
Wine:
Cheap Italian Pinot Grigio
Cheap Cali. Riesling
My thoughts:
The soup was fantastic although far more difficult than necessary to prepare. Next time I’ll either skip the corn or just steam it, heck I could probably use frozen corn– I doubt I’d notice the taste difference with everything else that’s going on in this dish. I also substituted a mix of hothouse and plum tomatoes for the heirloom tomatoes because I couldn’t find any. I’ve never cooked with good quality sea salt before it really makes things pop, quite tasty!
The Salmon was good although the sauce, which sounds pretty exotic, tasted like a run of the will tartar sauce that someone chopped up watercress into.
The Far Breton was fantastic and extremely easy. The one thing I might experiment with is the fruit, I bet it would have been better with some fresh fruit instead of plums and raisins, maybe rainer cherrys and peaches or something like that. I bet you could do something with an almond/walnut/chocolate thing as well.
I really regret that I didn’t get any pictures. Maybe next time 
August 12th, 2005 at 10:44 am
so, the food sounds lovely - but how was the actual concert??
-b
August 12th, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Oh right.. the concert. It was great, we really couldn’t see very well but it sounded pretty good. I did fight my way up to the edge of the pavilion seats for a few Ben songs so I could watch him perform. This sounds weird, but the concert seemed very secondary to the food, friends, and wine.
-I
August 14th, 2005 at 1:38 pm
Sounds like despite a bit of controversy over the corn, you had a blast, Ian. Always good to know that My friends, though seperated by hundreds of Miles are having fun, moving along, and generally growing past the nearsighted and introverted clique that we were in High School
Good on ya, Ian! Give Me a call some time, and next time you’re down in this area, you’ll have to stop by 
Best Wishes, and a Long overdue BearHug,
Andrew