QUICK FOOD TIP: PATE

A lot of us are entertaining this month, which can be stressful. In addition to making sure our houses are clean and decorated with the appropriate amount of festive cheer, we have to make sure that WE look good and that we have good food & drink to serve our guests which can be difficult if we're focusing on everything else. I'm a big fan of serving meats & cheeses as an appetizer course because it allows people to choose what they want, how much they want, and I find that it can actually be a discussion point. There are a few staples that we serve, but we recently found a new-to-us item at Whole Foods that I definitely plan on serving as an appetizer the next time I host a dinner party: I'm talking about Alexian Pheasant & Rosemary Pate.

We picked up a package of it at the store last week, having had a really great pheasant pate at the Granville Public Market last September. As you can imagine, we don't eat a lot of pheasant (not that I'm opposed to it; it's just not widely available) so I didn't know what to think about this pate, but I definitely wanted to give it a try. We got home Sunday night from a weekend away at a friend's beach house up north to find our kitchen completely devoid of anything for dinner. Being the resourceful kids that we are, we pulled out some cheese, cornichons, very thinly sliced Acme bread, and the pate. It was, in a word, delicious. The flavors were interesting enough to be an unexpected treat for your guests, but not too unexpected. I could definitely taste the rosemary and pecans, which I associate with warm kitchens and fragrant meals.