Chris toasts Maurice: Maurice J Minnifield, our generous host, friend, and employer. I'm sure I join everyone in saying thank you for these very fine eats and drinks. You are a real American. You're an ex-marine and astronaut, you are America. You're rich, you're rapacious, you're progress without a conscience, paving everything in its path. You're 5% of the earth's population, yet consuming 25% of the earth's natural resources. You pay a lot of taxes, you do a lot of charity work--most of it is tax deductible, but your heart is in the right place. One thing's for certain, you have impeccable taste in the booze.

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Minnifield Communications, Maurice plans an extremely elaborate party; Adam and Eve (guest stars Adam Arkin and Valerie Mahaffey) return to Cicely with their new baby.

Maurice imports the world's top chefs to create an extraordinary meal that includes exceptional wines and rare foods. To ensure the celebration's success, he enlists the aid of Ron and Erick, the owners of the local bed-and-breakfast, to provide the floral arrangements, hires a world class violinist for entertainment, and has elegant silver invitations delivered to all of the townspeople -- except Joel.

At the party, Marilyn becomes violently ill after eating a fish appetizer. Maurice instantly fires the head chef and Adam takes over for his old colleague to save the evening.

Eve brings their six-month-old son, Aldrich, to Joel for an examination. Already imposing her hypochondriac ways on the baby, she is worried he is suffering from an overactive adrenal gland, Cushing's disease, and a dislocated femural head, rather than accepting that her child is perfectly healthy.

Shelly breaks Maurice's rare and extremely costly prized bottle of wine. After Shelly spends several sleepless nights worrying about it, Eve shows her how to correct the situation.

Eric is called away to San Francisco by an ex-lover who is selling his casa in the Castro. Read: the actor who plays him was unavailable. [MC Note: I think Don McManus was filming a movie then?]

It takes forty cows to make demi-glace (totally insignificant, but kind of cool anyway).

This isn't the first shindig Maurice has thrown. He had one on his fifteeth birthday, and on the anniversary of his first space flight.

Adam is incensed to encounter one of his former students, Eddie (French) who he claims stole his recipe for Pommes Anglaise [MC Note: translates to English Apples.]

Adam and Eve's baby is named Aldrich.

Eve gave birth at the Zurich Obstretric Center.

Maurice's grandfather had a slaughterhouse back in Tulsa (aren't we finding out just a little too much about Maurice's past?)

Maurice has a momental wine collection in his cellar.

Adam - Adam Arkin
Eddie (Frenchie) - Dave Hurtubise
Eve - Valerie Mahaffey
Ron - Doug Ballard
Assistant Chef - Jillian Armenante

Music:
(Note music listed is from the original TV airings. The DVD may differ.)

[Note: need song names for this episode]

Violin Concerto? [At the feast.]

Silver Mailboxes [Shelly, Holling and Joel discuss the invitations.]
Apple cores? [Shelly talks to Joel in the Brick.]
Wine Bottles [Shelly and Eve put the Chateau Le Tour back together.]
Dangles - blue and silver [Party.]

*This is a new list I am starting. Please email me additions.

+Airdate was reported incorrectly as March 24, 1993 in the Revised NE Bible. Director Rob Thompson - reported by the Revised NE Bible / Listed incorrectly as Winn Phelps in the The Northern Exposure Book.

From fan Udaman: in Maurice's wine cellar, Maurice mentions the Bordeaux wine from the region of Pomerol, called Chateau Petrus (pronounced 'Pay-truce'). Petrus is a rarer, wine collector type wine, as such sells for the most at auction, of all Bordeaux wines.

Fan Erik says he looked up recipes for demi-glace, and none actually use 40 cows, but he did find one that says to make it properly, it takes about 25 hours.

Fan Eddie has uploaded several scenes from raw filming footage for this episode to YouTube. You can find the footage (and more NX related items) here.