Ruske Perfects the Dinner Party

Crisp autumn evening . . . the typically dreaded Sunday night . . . but tonight leaves swirling in a chilly wind, Clinton Hill brownstones decorated with cobwebs, witches and fluttering ghosts made from sheets. Enter Casa Ruske and move to the darkened back patio, sitting amidst late-flowering rose bushes and happily ensconced with Gimlets brightened from hand-pressed lime juice and smoking cigarettes and feasting on Vermont blue cheese and sweet purple globe grapes. Slowly move back into the warmth of a hard-working kitchen and hear the celebratory POP! of a bottle of bubbles. Sit in splendor and dive into a dinner of pan-seared skate wings dressed with brown butter sauce, potatoes prepared en papillote, cauliflower gratin with hints of mustard and horseradish, grilled Belgian endive and bowls of tangy lemon-caper-parsley sauce. Finish - after second helpings - with a digestif of Haitian 7-yr aged rum. What more can we say? What more needs to be spoken?