- Hi, I'm Jacques Pepin.

- And I'm Claudine Pepin.

I have some great news.

My best friend's getting married and I have to throw her a wedding shower.

- It's a great gift to give a friend.

- I know it is, but I've never done it before and I can't spend a fortune.

- Well, I think together if we put our mind together we can come up with a couple of good ideas.

- Oh, good, bailed out again.

We'll do a wedding shower buffet, next on "Jacques Pepin's Kitchen."

- "Cooking with Claudine."

(train horn blaring) (light upbeat music) So, you figured out what you're going to do for Hildy's shower?

- No, I really don't know what I'm gonna do for her wedding shower.

And I'm a bit troubled by all of this because I don't wanna spend too much money.

And I want it to be easy so that I have time to, you know, hang out with everybody and make a nice dining room and all of that.

So, I would love to just do sandwiches.

- Sandwiches?

You mean for the main course?

- Yeah, because I don't know what I'm gonna do?

What do you think?

- Have you any idea in those books?

- No.

I've been looking at your books.

First time, right?

- First time looking at my books.

- Hanging out, reading the books but- - Sandwiches is not a bad idea.

But, I mean, you know, sandwiches... Maybe we do open-face sandwiches?

- That would be more elegant.

- Yeah, I mean, if you have different colors to look at.

Otherwise don't you think a big sandwich- - It'll be hard to eat and it'll get all over the floor and I don't want a big clean up either.

- So you want small sandwich- - Small sandwich.

- Open-face stuff?

- Yeah.

- We'll empty all your refrigerator left overs?

- That would be great.

And anything that's not eaten, everybody has to take home.

- Great.

- Okay.

I had an idea of what we could do as a first course and as a desert.

I'm gonna show you- - Oh, that would be great.

- The first course.

- Okay.

- I think we'll start with a very simple, summer, like, tomato soup.

You like tomato soup?

You don't want too much calories either, right?

So, you know, we do the gazpacho at home with cucumber and all that?

- Yeah.

- We can do the same type of soup, but only with tomato.

You know, a kind of raw tomato soup if you want.

Or it's a kind of raw tomato sauce, also.

You could probably put that right on top of pasta.

- If I have any leftovers I will.

- Yeah.

So, but you will have some leftover and I know you like pasta and- - Yeah.

- You gotta do it this way.

So you know what we'll do?

Let me cut a couple of those.

We cut it it very coarsely like this.

- Okay.

- And we have garlic here.

I have a bunch of garlic.

Four or five cloves of garlic.

- Love garlic.

- Just start it in there.

- Just the garlic or with the tomatoes?

- It's better to start the garlic first for a second.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

(machine whirring) Yeah, that's it.

(machine whirring) Good.

And then we put the rest of it.

That's the lot, now we can put all of the seasoning with it.

Let me put some Tabasco.

- Oh!

- I like Tabasco.

Do they like it very spicy?

- [Claudine] Yeah.

My friend Theresa loves spicy foods.

- Okay, good, that's it.

- She'll be psyched.

- And then a little bit of vinegar, you know?

White vinegar is fine.

I mean, this one is actually a white wine vinegar.

- [Claudine] Oh, and olive oil of course.

- A little bit of olive oil.

And I give you some salt and you need- - I love cooking like this.

- No, it's done very fast.

And a bit of pepper.

Even with the Tabasco, you wanna put paper.

- Okay.

- Go ahead.

We put that, you're gonna liquefy that.

(machine whirring) That's gonna go pretty fast, you know?

And with this.

(machine whirring) - Should I turn it off?

- Should be fine now, yes.

So you could serve it this way, but I think it'd be a good idea if we put it through the food mill, otherwise you have little pieces of the skin, you know?

- Okay.

- Of the stuff and we put it through the food mill, I think that's going to help, don't you think so?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- Alright, so?

- So let's- - Hold this so I don't make a mess.

- Okay, I'll hold this.

Put the whole thing.

- [Claudine] Is this gonna take out the seeds, too?

- Yeah, well most of the seeds, yes.

- Okay.

- Hold the blade.

- Holding the blade.

- Okay, you don't want to have anything left over here.

- Whoa.

- It's running underneath.

See, I'm not the one making the mess in the kitchen.

You're the one making the mess.

You see that- - I'll clean up today.

- This is the fine blade here.

You go this way, you have to be able to go back the other way and then continue it.

It's practically finished now.

And I'm going to do a garnish of basil on top, of course.

- Oh that'll be so nice.

- So we'll do a chiffonade.

You know what we call the chiffonade, which is just the basil leaf that you gather together and cut into a fine julienne, you know?

We call that a chiffonade.

It come from the word "chiffon," you know?

- Is that good?

- Yeah, that's pretty good.

Just clean up the bottom.

And maybe what you could do, you have a spoon here, you can taste it, but then you can add more seasoning if need be, you know?

That should be about all right, but- - I want to taste it.

- And watch out when you put that, because you can do that ahead, but you would not want to put your shredded basil on top of it, just when you're ready to serve it, right?

Another thing, too, when you're ready to serve it- - Oh, this is great.

- It's good?

When you're ready to serve it, you know what you do, you have to be very careful to stir it because all the liquid is going to go to the bottom there.

- Okay, so when it's out on the table right before you serve, you stir it?

- You stir it, yeah.

- Okay.

- Okay, that's good there.

And we put a little bit of shredded basil on top.

- Oh, that looks so pretty.

- And that's it.

We let it incorporate.

- This is really easy.

My kind of food.

And that's going to be our first course.

Easy to do, you can have it on the buffet and people can help themselves.

- Sounds good.

- And now I'm gonna show you the dessert.

- Oh, right.

- A bit of the same idea.

What we have here- - I love watermelon.

- You love watermelon, I know.

- And it's inexpensive.

- It's inexpensive, and a big watermelon.

You know, this one is medium-sized.

You have some very large ones.

I cut a piece of the bottom to do that because you don't have to serve it into the watermelon, but it's a good idea to serve it inside.

So if you want to serve it inside, you know what we have to do.

I'm kind of cutting free-hand here at the top to do like a basket, you know, if you want.

So you can come around.

Making it pointed here.

And around here, making it pointed there.

You remove both sides like this.

- Wow.

I didn't think it would lift off that easily.

- And you do the same one here.

That makes a basket.

And what we wanna do after, you see on the side here, you can cut a little strip all around.

You follow the strip and then you cut again.

This way, you know, taking your time so that you have a strip of white showing, you know?

All around like this.

And that's very effective to have that at the border.

- Oh, wow.

- Now this is great.

And all you have to do now is to scoop the stuff.

We're gonna put that in the food processor.

Now you have to be very careful.

Of course, when you scoop those type of thing, you have to remove those black seeds- - Okay.

- You know?

If you really think you are going to have problems, again, do the same thing, you know?

Cut those things in pieces and put it through the food mill.

- Oh, all right.

- You know, to take the seed out of it.

- Should I put these in here?

- Maybe not quite all of it, but like half of it maybe.

This is a fairly large food processor, but, okay.

You don't want it to go all over the place.

Alright, because I have some which is already done here.

Okay, so you want to process it, but wait a minute.

First, what else do you put in there?

- Oh, we should put some sugar.

- I put sugar and lemon juice in there.

So I have sugar and lemon juice.

Well, sugar because it needs, we are going to do a kind of a sherbet with it or sherbet or granite.

- Oh, okay.

- I mean, if you want to avoid- - All of this or?

- [Jacques] Well, three quarters, yeah.

- That's about three quarters.

- And a bit of lemon juice.

- Is the lemon juice just for taste or does it- - For taste and it gives some acidity.

No, no, it's great.

So go that.

Process it and, look, I have this one which is finished here.

(machine whirring) You see the way this one look here?

- Oh, wow.

- So we cut the border here the same way we did the other one.

And you can keep that as a lid, you know, to put it on the side.

- [Claudine] Oh, that is so great.

- Or leave it like that, you know?

So that's it.

- I think so.

- Okay, that's good.

Yeah, you see it's quite liquid, huh?

- Definitely.

- Now either at that point, you can strain it or if you don't think there is any seeds we put it directly in there.

Okay.

Maybe a couple of seeds here.

So what we want to do here, we wanna freeze that.

- Okay.

- You know?

There is a couple of different way.

First you freeze it, you can do it a couple of days ahead.

You freeze it, it become hard like a block, you know?

When you're ready to use it, you cannot take it out of the freezer and use it this way because it's a kind of snow.

You know, when you were a kid, you were using snow, what do you call it?

- Snow cones.

- Snow cone, that's it.

So it's the same idea.

If you want, you put it in the refrigerator for a couple of hours at least and it gets slightly softer and then you kind of make a slush out of it and you serve it this way.

- Okay.

- So you can put that into the freezer first and bring the other one from the refrigerator.

Okay.

So this one, yeah, this one has been defrosting for a while.

I can see that.

It's still hard, but exactly, that's what you do here.

You see, you do a slush.

So it starts to be to a certain extent, you know, it has to be at that temperature to do that type of texture, you know?

- Oh, that looks really- - That type of texture.

Yes, you can taste it here.

You see it's quite nice, like the ice, you know?

- Mm, it's better than a snow cone.

- It's better than a snow cone?

Okay, good.

- Yeah.

- So I have more done over there in the refrigerator, which I have shaved already.

- Oh, okay.

Let me go get it.

- Get the other one.

So we want to fill that up.

And you know what, you don't really have to do this strictly into the watermelon, you can also do it individually in glasses.

- Oh.

- It is good in the watermelon for a large party.

It is also good from the fact that you fill up your watermelon.

Okay, you can let it go.

And when you have half empty, then you go get some more and fill it up and put a bit of vodka on top of it.

- Well, I don't know about that.

(laughs) - But, I mean, for me... Why don't you get me, I have a glass.

- Okay.

- We can serve an individual portion, you know?

- Here's some mint, too, we can put on top.

I think that would look really pretty.

- Yeah, it would, yeah.

Okay.

So, you know, you could serve, yeah, just a glass of that type of slush for a party like this, you know?

Look at that, it's pretty nice.

- [Claudine] This is so beautiful.

- Yeah.

- Like this or would you put it in the middle?

- Well, however you want it.

It looks good this way.

This one here, you could leave those on the side.

That's a good idea with the mint.

So, you know, if you wanna present on your buffet, why don't you put a couple of pieces of mint right here and there?

- Mm, it smells great, too.

- And it smells good, too.

It goes well with it.

So we'll put that right on our buffet.

You can have this on the side to present it, because you have the little heart here that we did on top.

- Oh.

- And this will be a great dessert for your buffet.

She'll love it, yeah.

(light upbeat music) - Usually when I throw a party, it's a buffet.

It's just a lot easier.

I don't wanna impose that much food on people so they can take what they want.

I inevitably make way too much food.

Not to my father's credit, that's to my mother's credit.

We, you know, cook for an army of three.

- I think actually Claudine's idea of sandwiches for a party, main course, I think was a great idea.

So we're going to do open-face sandwich and, I mean, you clean up your refrigerator.

- You open your refrigerator and just dump everything out.

- There's a lot of stuff, you know?

Sardines, tuna, to what is that stuff here?

- [Claudine] We have smoked mussels, and capers, and butter and onions, and radishes - Yeah, smoked mussel, and, you know- - Everything.

- That's important to realize the type of bread we're going to put it in, because you see, if you have something like your smoked mussels or if you put a bit of sour cream, if it get mushy, you know, if it's an hour on the buffet, an hour and a half, what you do you put a piece of bread and you put a piece of lettuce in between and the lettuce will prevent the... If you put a slice of tomato, for example, it would get soggy.

- Right.

- Choose your bread.

We have pumpernickel bread here.

We have regular toast, you know, toast done with baguette like this.

Then we have rye and those are- - Water crackers.

- Water crackers.

- Melba toast.

- Melba toast.

- And- - Five grain.

- Five grain something, so, I mean, what are you going to start with anyway?

- I think I'm gonna do mussels first.

- Mussels, great.

- The smoked mussels.

Okay, so that it doesn't get soggy, I'll get some radicchio.

- [Jacques] I was going to use it, so you took it.

- It's mine now.

You snooze, you lose.

- Okay.

And what are you going to put, sour cream on top of that?

- Yes.

- A little bit of sour cream.

- Okay.

- Your smoked mussels.

- [Claudine] Not too much because everybody, of course.

is always on a diet.

- [Jacques] Well, tell me what you're doing.

I'm gonna start mine.

- Okay.

- I'm going to do- - I'm gonna put some radishes on here, too.

- Yes, those water crackers, I think are going to be good.

So the same thing, too.

I think I'm going to put... Well, I'm gonna put a little bit of lettuce leaves, too.

That I put there.

- [Claudine] What are you putting on there?

- Don't copy anything that- - No, I'm not copying anything.

- Okay.

Now I'm doing like you.

A dash of sour cream, because I have herrings.

Those herrings, you know, they come in jars, you know?

Pickled herring like this.

- [Claudine] So you always have some in the- - [Jacques] Yeah.

Put red onion on top.

I love the red onion.

- Okay, I'm gonna put some pepper on here.

- Well, I put chives on mine.

You know the beauty of those is that it's going to have so many different colors, you know?

You know what I'm going to do next?

I'm going to do some scrambled eggs.

I have two eggs here, but with two eggs we can do, like, a dozen.

(fork thumping) - I'm gonna do- - Two eggs.

A dash of salt and pepper.

And I'm gonna put a little dash of butter into my pan here and scramble my eggs.

- I'm gonna do smoked salmon.

- You're going to do smoked salmon.

- Which I shouldn't do next, because I'll end up eating it.

But hopefully I'll be able to save some.

(fork thumping) Some butter on here.

- Well, I have eggs and I see that I have ham here.

I'm going to do a little julienne of ham to put on top of my scrambled eggs, I think.

- I'm gonna use cucumber.

Hildy will love this, she's half British.

- Oh, yeah?

- So this is very tea-like.

- Oh, yeah, that's right.

She's- - Yeah.

British and Hungarian.

So, lovely combination.

- Well, the both of you, you spoke half a dozen languages.

- Yeah.

- You can travel together.

- Whenever we travel, we do good.

(fork thumping) Some capers.

- You know, when you do a a thing like that, I think we are going to have like 12, 15 different types of sandwiches.

- That'll be nice.

- So you cannot do like one sandwich or two or three sandwich per person or small one, at least one, but you cannot do like a dozen- - [Claudine] No.

- You have to calculate that if you do those type of sandwich- - My friends eat really well though.

- Oh, they do, huh?

You know the thing also that you have to realize is that some of it are vegetarian.

- Yeah, yeah.

I do have some vegetarian friends.

- You see my scrambled eggs as you like them.

I take them out when they are three quarters of the way cooked because there is so much heat in that pan, you know?

So I continue cooking them in the pan until they start getting solid.

And I use a whisk so that they are very creamy and then they still continue cooking and getting harder.

So to stop the cooking, I put a little bit of milk.

That stops the cooking.

- And they'll say just the way you- - [Jacques] And they're going to stay creamy like this, you know?

- Oh, I always wondered how you did that, and why your scrambled eggs always came out better than mine.

- Well, all the recipes, you know, I stole from you.

- No, your scrambled eggs still come out better than mine.

I'm gonna finish my sandwich.

I'm gonna make one more.

I'm gonna do Brie.

- Oh, you are?

- Yeah.

- Well, for me, I'm thinking I'm going to do pumpernickel with this.

You know, the pumpernickel- - [Claudine] Oh, that would be really good.

- [Jacques] I could even put a bit of lettuce but I think it's going to be fine this way.

- Yeah, because- - Yeah, the lettuce maybe not with the- - Might not make it to the table.

- They're going to be nice.

As you say, you know, you do like four of those with one egg and then maybe a little bit of the ham on top.

- [Claudine] Well, I'm gonna do lettuce and tomato.

- Sliced ham like this.

And for color, maybe I have chives here, look at that.

- [Claudine] Oh, that looks really, really pretty.

- I know.

The first one you're going to eat is this one.

Okay.

Oh, you have three already.

- Hey, I'm speedy.

- [Jacques] Okay, what else are you going to put on top of this?

- [Claudine] Put some pepper.

- You wanna put some onion on top of this?

- Yeah.

I put onions on everything.

- So we can add that to the rest of our sandwich.

- I'm gonna use this.

- The other one that we've done.

You see, the beauty of it, it's all of the color, you know, of the different things that we have here.

Here is the scrambled eggs.

- [Claudine] Here's the Brie.

- [Jacques] Here is the herring.

- [Claudine] Here's Brie.

- [Jacques] Here is scrambled eggs.

- I think mine will fit.

Put this here.

- Yeah, this one there.

- Smoked mussels.

- Smoked mussels again.

- And here, you can just eat this one.

(laughs) - No, those are beautiful.

Let's put them in the corner.

We can squeeze a little bit.

See, if you do five or six trays like that, I think this is really going to be terrific.

- Oh, that's perfect.

- And they're really going to be impressed with your imagination, how well you cook.

- Yes.

- And now we have to take that to the dining room and do what?

- No, now we have to figure out... Well, I have to figure out what we're gonna do with the dining room- - Oh, okay.

- To make it look nice.

- Great.

- Okay.

- What you wanna do in that menu, you have a lot of different color sandwiches and all that.

I know you don't wanna spend too much money, that's the whole idea of the menu.

Either cut flowers or then you can buy a plant really, and the plant may grow, like, for 15, $20.

- [Claudine] Or maybe I can give them away or something at the end?

Okay, great.

- Okay.

We look around.

- [Claudine] These are really pretty over here.

- [Jacques] The cyclamen there, yeah.

- I like those.

- Yes.

- What about the roses?

- Well, the roses are nice, you know, they are not expensive.

Those can be planted, you know?

- Oh, I like that.

- Plant them.

- [Claudine] Okay.

- [Jacques] Look at those, I love those tall ones.

- These are beautiful.

- Kind of daisies.

Look at the big one here.

- The begonias are gorgeous.

Well, I like baskets because they're lower, so you can see people over the table instead of a big vase where you can't see who you're talking to.

I think one of these would be pretty.

- [Jacques] Look, well, this is $30.

- [Claudine] Okay, that's over budget.

(laughs) - Well, yeah.

Look at those here.

Those are nice.

I mean, look, this is $16.

- Oh, wow.

Oh, this would be perfect, 'cause you can still talk to people over the flowers, but you still have the flower.

- We go for that?

- Yeah.

- We're in budget.

- Okay, so far so good.

- [Jacques] Okay, you can carry it there.

- [Claudine] Oh, thanks.

- Well, Hildy has a lot of friends.

- Yes, she does.

And we all saved a lot of money putting the buffet together.

- Oh, yes.

- So.

- I think you did a terrific job there.

- Thank you, and thank you so much for your help.

- It's great, it looks great.

I mean, we have that beautiful raw tomato soup and those open-face sandwich, you know, in the style of Sweden.

You know, they do that.

And of course that frozen watermelon slush.

You know what's important in a buffet, and you did very well here, setting up the table, there is a certain flow.

I mean, you start with the soup and you have the plate next to it, you know, to serve it.

All of that is ready.

And all of those beautiful little sandwiches, I'm sure your friend are going to have a ball.

And then you pick up your thing at the beginning, you finish with your dessert there, the slush.

You can have it in a glass or in those bowls.

Come around, you know, you could add nuts.

I see you have some nuts there.

You can have nuts, you could have a bowl of fruit, these are the types of different things you can buy on the buffet, you know?

I mean, the planning is essential to that, and I think you did a good job planning it.

It was very important, right?

- Yes.

Thank you very much, and thanks again for all your help.

This I could not have done without you.

So Hildy's just gonna be very, very excited.

- How many are we waiting for?

- Eight - All girls?

- Yes.

- Oh.

- No boys allowed, sorry.

- You have some vegetarian friends?

- Yeah, I do.

And so the tomato soup will be good for them.

We also have this great iced tea, my favorite iced tea that you make for me in the sun.

- Yes.

- Which I really, really like.

- Yeah.

Remember that in a gallon of water, we put like tea from the garden.

I mean, the mint from the garden, it's free in summer and a couple of package of tea and what a good day in the sun, right?

We leave it.

- Yeah.

- Strain it, put a bit of honey in it, a bit of lemon juice.

It's really refreshing, it's good.

We also have wine.

- Which is good.

- Yes.

You like wine, right?

- Yes, I do, very much.

- Well, but, you know, a lot of people like to have no alcoholic beverage.

In addition to that I'm sure you have... What you have, soda in your refrigerator?

- I have soda, I have seltzer, juice and everything, so.

- So anyway, we pick up that one.

This is a Pinot Noir from Santa Maria Valley.

It's very fruity, nice.

People are going really to like this one.

And of course a white wine.

And the white wine, we have a Gewurztraminer here from Alsace, a very fruity, spicy type of wine.

I know you like that wine.

And for that type of buffet, those sandwiches, it's spicy.

It goes with a lot of different type of food.

It's going to be ideal.

So what we are going to do is to give a toast to Hildy.

- And her wedding.

- I hope you enjoyed the wedding shower buffet today.

I have to get out of here.

- I have to go change.

- Happy cooking.

- Happy cooking.

(light upbeat music)