Spring Brunching

Let’s start with a Mimosa, shall we? We made ours for Easter with various citrus including Strawberry Orange from Eli’s Farm in San Diego; the fruit is very pretty; this will be good all spring, and through Mother’s Day~

Our mimosa bar included Blood Orange, mixed Tangerine/ Tangelo, and Strawberry Orange.  Strawberry Orange has a beautiful peach colored juice, and is not too acidic, but whatever citrus your local market has will be great!  I juiced all of the citrus right out of the fridge overnight, so everything was very cold & fresh, as the juice went in to the crystal decanters.  These are the same decanters you saw last Christmas for infused vodkas. 

Before I could put Easter brunch on the table though, I had an errand to run.  I went to the Rancho Santa Fe market, which was the only market open in Northern San Diego County.  As I am leaving next Friday for France, I sort of bribed the Market Manager Raquel to mind my booth as her “information booth” while I am gone, and let me scoot early Easter morning.  In return, Raquel got Easter Dinner; a whole leg of lamb dressed in an herb crust, fresh pasta I made for her early Easter morning, and chocolate lava cakes.   I also brought a little giveaway, guess how many eggs are in the basket~

The winner, this was a rather impromptu contest, won this basket of goodies~

Back at the ranch, I made a quick centerpiece from the best of the market, something that would please Monsieur Lapin~

I should say that there is a Monsieur Lapin who has taken up residence under a part of our house, and I have recently seen a few tiny babies; I leave them various snacks, and I know that they love the carrot greens first, then the carrots.

Remember those gnarly carrots I showed you from Santa Monica, the famed “best of the best?” 

Today at Sage Mountain at the Rancho Santa Fe market, they had the same obscure carrots, but this time, they were fresh and with tops and super baby.  I bought a bunch of them, along with a bunch of baby orange carrots~

Also in this centerpiece were pink radishes from Eli’s Corona del Mar, broccolini from Sage, and an XL goose egg I had on hand~

I made a separate Easter basket for my Bro in Law, a special kale, radicchio tardivo and more broccolini~

For breakfast, we had a buffet including eggs benedict with Julia’s Hollandaise sauce, a family favorite.  I bought the BEST loaf of braided brioche bread from Loic the French Baker in Rancho Santa Fe Market this morning, and that became French toast, the best my family has ever had, amazing because of that bread, which Loic makes from scratch~

For the place settings, I used XL dyed Metis dishtowels; though we had a sprit of rain, it later was sunny, and these covered the laps of my lovely  but rather sloppy family~

Before the leg of lamb, they got into the dessert table.  Patricia Wells’ Chocolate tarte with shortbread crust was very very good~

Easter Egg radishes in pink were pretty garnish~

And there was fait maison lemon tarte~

The aftermath~

Oh I forgot to mention, Sunday I found the most beautiful very tiny berries with stems at Sage, which I dipped in chocolate.  Remember the little fraise du bois I mentioned?  Buy what is good…..these were AMAZING~

Biscotti, coffee, tea etc rounded it out. 

This will do for any spring buffet; I will ramp this up for Mothers Day.