The Italian feast

Last night we went to a friend's house for dinner. He and his wife are moving to the US for a year or so, so they are inviting everyone round for dinner, lunch, parties and whatnot like crazy. This particular guy fancies himself as a bit of a culinary whiz, borderline arrogant amateur chef. Not that it isn't well-deserved, but when you are good in the kitchen and you know it, and moreover, you want everyone else to know it too, the casual dinner with friends tends to become a bit fraught, a bit tense, with everyone feeling bound to ooh and aah over your forty courses of awesomeness with matching wine decanter. It was like watching a cooking show in the flesh. He had us all perched round the bench on stools while we watched the magic take place: the flourishes, the little moves, the demanding of implements from his adoring fans, ("Nurse! Scalpel!") the explanations in Italian, and then the condescending translations (gee, thanks.)
Anyway, all that aside, he seems to be a very nice guy. Good on him for being a great cook. I'll just be sure never to discuss my own culinary adventures with him- he tends to shoot them down and go one better every time. I talked about roasting my first ham: he told that he just did a 10-kilo stuffed, boned and glazed turkey in the Weber. "Which butcher did the boning for you?" I asked. Silly me...of course he boned it HIMSELF. Makes my piano cake and so on look like baby toys in the big boys' sandpit. He said that he just whipped all this up that afternoon. The dinner was not unpleasant, but it was definitely a showpiece. I felt pointless and talentless. And don't even start me on how it felt being the ONLY person there (out of six) without a PhD. I'll just crawl off and die now.
Here's what we ate:

• Home-brewed German wheat beer
• Homemade grissini sticks, painted with roasted fig paste and wrapped in proscuitto
• Mini egg custards, baked in mini teacups in a bain-marie, topped with truffle oil and button mushroom slices
• Pressed tomato water in a shot glass, with a circle of basil oil (home-pressed) floating on top and a few tiny bits of fresh tomato at the bottom
• Freshly-made individual ravioli, one per person. Each raviolo was filled with spinach and ricotta and an egg yolk. We watched him make these, and they were served with a sage butter sauce on top.
• Lemon and asparagus risotto
• Quail wrapped in proscuitto, stuffed with vegetables, cranberries and pine nuts
• Some beautiful panacotta made with vanilla, limoncello and white chocolate, served with balsamic roast strawberries

Well done. I can only aspire to this level of greatness.