Derby Day at the Hays Household, pileing on to May 2

As you may remember, our family enjoys some Louisville, KY heritage, and we've taken to celebrating that on Derby Day. Last year, we serendipitously discovered that nr706 not only shares this heritage, but that his Mom was a food writer/editor for the Louisville Courier-Journal - whose cookbooks are followed faithfully by true Derby partygoers. (A birdie told me that chances are good we'll have a "celebrity guest" in that vein.) This year, I thought I would open my very tiny home up to the board and invite you to enjoy some country ham, (courtesy of nr706,) Derby Pie, and other traditional Derby Day foods and drinks at Chez Hays. The fun will start at 4pm on May 2.

This being a family-friendly event, the open slots are limited to 8 adults and 4 kids (babies not included in the count, they don't eat much .) Please post below with the number of adults/kids in your party, I will send you a PM with specifics and location.

Although I grew up in the Cincinnati area, my only connection to the Derby is the fact that my sister's family (who still lives in Cincinnati) goes every year....

So please sign me up for 1 (adult, although that's open for discussion), and I can join my sister's party in absentia.

Thanks, Michele!

Sounds great.

Sign me up for 2 adults and a kid, please!

We would be delighted to come. Catherine and Robert

A request via PM to hold spots for 2 adults and 2 kids.

This leaves us with 1 adult slot and 1 kid slot...

May I come, if I bring a ham, and an old relic from Louisville? (She taught Cissy Gregg everything she knew.)

You're already figured in, since you volunteered to both bring a ham and be one!

I may be borrowing your "we can't call it Derby Pie" pie recipe for a Derby Party we are going to on May 2nd--looking back at the link you have in your post from last year...I have to know...how do you scallop the edges of your pie crust for the "we can't call it Derby Pie" pie.

Thanks! I've previously admitted, I suck at pie-crimping, so I came up with a couple options that I find easier - for that one, I cut circles of piecrust with a small-diameter circular cookie cutter, cut those in half, and then, gluing each one with a bit of water, layered them around the edge. We've come to the conclusion that the pie is best with walnuts.

This one I use on pecan pies works even better - I used a spice jar as a cookie cutter and put the whole circles, glued with a bit of water and slightly bent, around the pie - you can see the result in the raw version here. The end result is something like a sunflower - just be careful not to burn the outside edges (you can cover them with aluminum foil.)

Bump! Like the last cookie on a plate, we still have space for 1 adult and 1 child, could probably make that 2 adults...

Highlights from the menu include:

Mint Juleps
Minted lemonade
Radish and butter sandwiches
Benedictine Dip
Asparagus viniagrette
Ida Cooke's Kentucky Spoonbread with Ramps and Bacon (no, I didn't make this up - this is my friend's grandmother's recipe, story forthcoming)
Beef tri-tip with Henry Bain Sauce (or, as the 'spouse calls it, a condiment kamikaze)
Hot Browns

Not-Derby-Pie (interesting blog linked)
Sparky's Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp
Other desserts TBA

LMK by PM if you're interested in joining us...

Very interested in the spoonbread w/ ramps & bacon recipe (though I could probably fake it). I currently have plenty of both.

No discussion of wagering, yet? Me, I'm assuming mud so I'm betting on Frisean Fire or Desert Party to win (separate bets on both), with a boxed exacta for Westside Bernie/Mr. Hot Stuff. Subject to modification pending weather changes at Churchill Downs.

Looks like it will be a beautiful day at Arlington Park.

And I should add, I'll be bring a walking (well maybe it's more like shuffling), talking relic of Old Louisville, who can even explain who Henry Bain was. That, plus a Kentucky Counry Ham, and Bourbon Balls.

Many thanks to the Hays clan for such a convivial, fun party. It was great to meet elakin (and especially the little Ms. elakin), as well as seeing other LTHers and neighbors.

Jason's Mint Juleps were classic, as were the Louisville-signature Hot Browns (this, according to my Mom, who knows a thing or two about classic Louisville cooking). The Tri-Tip with Henry Bain Sauce (named after the chef at the Pendennis Club) was another highlight.

Clearly, Michele Jason and Sparky put a lot of thought into the day, which was made only better by watching a long shot win the Derby. I have pix; I'll add them later.

Ditto. It was great to meet nr706, tarte tatin, and chapulin, and see Mike G. and MHays and their families again, and the food was all awesome, especially the desserts! We loved the juleps, the derby pie(s), sparky's rhubarb crisp, mike's biscuits, and the corn pudding.

Thanks, Michelle, for hosting such a nice event. Oh, and I hear there was some sort of horse race as well? Whatever...

The great thing about rediscovering some of these midcentury recipes is that while many are simply out of fashion, and many are hmm, interesting, don't need that again, every once in a while you hit some wow that you think, how did that fall out of the rotation of standard dishes? Of course, with Southern dishes, there are probably plenty of families for whom it never did fall out, but in any case, great to rediscover them.

In this case it was the spoonbread, incredibly homey and savory, and a great receptacle for seasonal vegetables which, in this case, meant ramps. (And bacon, the best vegetable of all.) There were runners up for the prize, though, in the country ham and gravy, the surprisingly decent ketchup-A1-Tabasco sauce for the roast beef, and the Derby pie.

A lot of fun, thank you Michelle and Jason for inviting us for a 3-hour party to watch a 2-minute race.

Thanks for the kind words - and thanks to everyone who came with smiles and sometimes drinks and enjoyed the afternoon with us: the fates conspired to give us a beautiful day - even my garden was cooperating for once, and the long-shot underdog horse won! It was particularly fun to hear nr706's Mom talk about her tribulations creating a recipe for a newfangled dish she'd only heard about: pizza (the Courier-Journal finally sent her here to Pizzeria Uno to try some.) After noshing all day, one bite stood out: one of Mike G's biscuits simply dressed with a thin slice of nr706's ham. Delicious. Thanks also to Mike for bringing one of his famous pies - I enjoyed the sound the lattice top made when you hit it with a fork, you'd expect you were cutting into a crisp slice of bacon!

I did a bit of experimenting with the Courier-Journal cookbooks this year and we had some hits and misses: a roquefort-bourbon dip for apples was a definite miss, while the Henry Bain sauce (what the spouse called a "condiment kamakaze") wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be. The spoon bread, recipe and back story here, was spectacular, and will most assuredly be finding its way into other celebrations. Stack Cake, a famous old Kentucky recipe that was apparently a pioneer wedding cake, has gone out of favor IMO for good reason: it was basically four giant soft gingerbread cookies with, in this case, home-canned apples and home-canned pear butter in between - but it came out a bit dry and plain (the recipe conveniently forgot to mention how many layers it made, or how thick they were supposed to be, which may or may not be the problem.) Our tri-tip roast, from Bossy II, is not a cut that shows off our grass-fed, corn-finished quarter cow (so perhaps it was a good thing that we had the strong sauce,) but then the kids all seemed to enjoy the goopy Hot Brown sandwiches with the extremely complex mornay sauce, though that may have been just because they were topped with bacon . Sparky was very proud he got so many kind compliments on the Strawberry-Rhubarb crisp he made entirely on his own (next time, I won't have him cook the rhubarb so much, but it tasted just fine.)

Most fun of all, I made two walnut based Derby Pies with one slight variation: in one, I loosely broke up two 3.5 oz Valrhona bittersweet chocolate bars, in the other, I used my standard cup of bittersweet Ghiradelli chips. I was expecting the chocolate bar to pool together and melt - but the chocolate held its shape, resulting in a beautifully chunky pie with more distinct separation between the custard, nuts and chocolate. Definitely a winner.

while the Henry Bain sauce (what the spouse called a "condiment kamakaze") wasn't near as bad as I thought it would be.

I thought this was actually quite good. It was like a Top Chef challenge-- design a condiment out of store-bought ingredients. And it was really nicely balanced and savory, and worked well with meat. Maybe a little too much corn syrup sweetness, but really, not bad at all and definitely authentic to the era.

This great food event started with a nice assortment of crudites. Michele said she wasn't especially happy with the roquertfort dip (upper of the two dips), but I liked it a lot.

The heart of the meal, but before a number of items had been brought out (like MikeG's biscuits and great pie).

Clockwise, starting from lower right corner: Mhays Challah bread, Kentucky Country Ham, boiled in RC Cola, asparagus vinagrette, roasted cauliflower, a fresh green sauce I don't remember, Tri-Tip roast, from the Hays family cow, and (almost out of frame, top right) the bowl containing the infamous Henry Bain sauce.

Radish and butter sandwiches on dark rye, one of many pies in the background.


More pies, with Sparky's rhubard (minus the crumble topping) in the background.


Please correct me if I've mis-identified anything and if you can tell me which pie is which.

Overall, a horse race made a great excuse for a wonderful party at Chez Hays.

Nice shots, Nr706, great to have it documented (I completely forgot, myself) The green sauce with the cauliflower is the Watercress sauce (which I seemed to like better last year, but can't figure out what's different about it.)

The dessert table is as follows: in the far rear is Mike G's Mutsu apple pie, next closest is the filling for Sparky's crumble (we topped and broiled it just before dinner) behind it, next to the roses, you can just see the stack cake. The Chess pie is directly in front of the roses, next to it is the Valrhona Derby pie (my favorite version thus far,) and on the pedestal is the Ghirardelli Derby Pie.