Golden Globe Stars to Dine on Golden Desserts

Lauren Torrisi

A trio of chocolate delice almond crunch terrine with acacia honey, caramel, and fresh berries dusted with gold flakes, is seen during a preview of the upcoming 69th annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 5, 2012. Matt Sayles/AP Photo

What would you expect to eat this Sunday, if you were seated in between George Clooney and Ryan Gosling at the Golden Globes? (I can only dream about those seating arrangements.)

Gold-flecked desserts and ingredients from around the world are to be served this year at the Golden Globes.  The theme of the menu of this year's award show is "Global Food Harmony."  Executive chef Suki Sugiura of the Beverly Hills Hilton selected regional ingredients from around the world to include in his menu.  Sugiura's vast culinary background has taken him around the world and likely influenced his cooking.

The first course represents the United States and the ingredients come from California.  This dish is composed of field greens with white asparagus, apricot dill goat cheese in phyllo, and poached pear.  The second course contains both a piece of Pacific sea bass and a braised short rib.  The plate is garnished with miso, porcini mushrooms from Italy and a Spanish sherry wine.  Although they are serving 1,300 people at the dinner, with the six or seven after parties, Sugiura estimates that they will be serving anywhere from 6,000-7,000 meals.  "We want to see empty plates, returned from the guests," Sugiura said in a press conference January 6.

For dessert, executive pastry chef Thomas Henzi created a chocolate almond crunch terrine with acacia honey caramel and a lemon hazelnut crunch base.  The plate is garnished with fresh berries from the European region.  For the finishing touch, the plate is dusted with flecks of edible gold.  (Edible gold flakes are sold for $135 per gram on the site ediblegold.com.)

With 1,300 guests, Henzi said at the press conference "our challenges are that the dessert is going to have to be made the day before, and then we get up, obviously early in the morning and plate up and are ready to go."

Should the star-studded guests be worried about calories?  "We generally don't measure calorie counts, especially on a day like this, the ladies are already in their dresses so we don't have to worry about it," said Henzi.