Fan Girl Wannabe

This is the fb part of the post:

‎5. I'm thankful I don't have to get up at 0400 every day to clean up dog vomit (tx Cosmo) like I had to today.

4. I'm thankful I still have my challenging and interesting job, even though we went through lay-offs and restructuring earlier this year.

3. I'm thankful for our trip to Kennedy Space Center this year, even though the Rocket Garden made me cry (or is that because?).

2. I'm thankful for the time, energy and funds to finish my 6-yr kitchen remodel, plus do a little needed re-decorating.

1. Most of all, I'm thankful for all the wonderful people in my life who love me and let me love them right back.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

And because this is my fandom happy space, you get all the thanks for helping me survive real life by giving me regular and excellent escapes when I need them, plus the laughter and tears and deep thoughts and sexy feels that go with all your wonderful stories and posts about other things you care about on a daily basis. I love my little corner of fandom with all my heart, and hope you all have a lovely day no matter where you are or what you are planning.

My Plans:
+ Watch the Macy's Parade with DH, and maybe eat some waffles with fruity salsa (if we feel ambitious enough)
+ Take advantage of unseasonably warm weather to hang our outdoor xmas lights and decorate the entrances
+ Watch football while partaking of yummy charcuterie, cheese and beer
+ Bake pumpkin pie and oyster dressing
+ Sit downwith DH and the boy (we're just 3 this year) for a dinner of Bacon-wrapped Turkey Breast with Pear Hash (a revival of last year's success), Oyster Dressing & Turkey Gravy, Famous Southern Jelled Cranberry Salad, Roasted Broccoli & Cauliflower with French-fried Onions, and Pumpkin Pie.  We're still debating if we should open the Pinot Noir or the Late Harvest Riesling for dinner. (I don't know why we couldn't find Beaujolais Nouveau anywhere in this town. Buehler?).
+ Go to bed when I feel like it, and get up for a 9:00 salon appointment Friday.  No shopping trips anywhere!
+ We might join friends at Old Sugar Distillery for Friday happy hour and mosey on to fish fry later
+ Saturday - rearrange some furniture in preparation for the girl's return next week
+ Sunday -the local products expo at the Arboretum, where we'll pick up Mad Urban Bees' gift packs for gifting out-of-state friends.

That was awesome, you guys!

I made borscht from these garden ingredients: beets, beet greens, carrots, fennel, garlic, thyme, and whole frozen tomatoes from last year.
These were the pantry ingredients: frozen homemade chicken broth, red wine vinegar, celery, vidalia onion, sweet paprika, balsamic vinegar, plain greek yogurt, black pepper and sea salt.
When it was done cooking, I pureed with a stick blender, blended in the yogurt, and then DH used an ice water bath to quickly cool enough for tonight's servings.
Served in a soup plate with a dollop of yogurt and a sprinkle of thyme.  Accompanied by fresh sourdough and a dipping plate of EVOO, cracked black pepper and dots of balsamic-pomegranite glaze, and a glass of white wine.
The rest is still chilling before being put away for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, it's a rack of ribs we discovered while cleaning out the freezer today, later in the week will be a summery pasta with sauce (summer squash, tomatoes, garlic, onions), and Thursday is a traditional steak cook-out with all the kids, natural and fostered.  I love summer cooking!

I did my usual weekend chores early this week, starting the laundry on Friday, and making sure it was done well before noon today.  I worked some yesterday (4-5 hrs) on the stupid stuff that never gets done, so it won't be cluttering my to-do list in the coming week.  I felt all smug about this until I realized I didn't have a whole lot to do *today* (I still have to balance the checkbook and pay the 1st of the month bills though).

So we went to Target to pick up Moneyball - I can't believe it's on DVD already, we totally meant to see it in the theater.  B & I read Moneyball a few years ago, on a rec from a non-baseball-obsessed friend, and absolutely loved it.  We've recommended the book to so many people; we were pleasantly surprised to see it become a movie.  We'll probably watch that tonight in lieu of the Who the Hell Cares Pro Bowl. 

While there, I found the entire Firefly series for $15! It includes 3 unaired eps! I am excite!

Then I decided I should get a tension rod to try out a really neat organizational idea a friend turned me onto.  You put a tension rod in your kitchen cabinet and hang all your spray bottles on it.  We had two baskets corralling all that stuff under the sink, and it wasn't too bad, but this is much better.  I swapped out the baskets for a turntable/lazy susan also.  Everything fits, and you can see exactly what's in there.  I chose the oval shape rod because it seemed sturdier than the round ones, and I also made sure not to pick the size that was at the upper limit of the rod's range.  For a 36" cabinet, getting a rod sized for 22-36" seemed risky.  I opted for the 36-60" rod.  I wanted to double up the rod for strength, so the weight of the bottles won't pull it down or cause it to sag in the middle.  However, now I know that you want the lower end of the range to be something smaller than the nominal cabinet dimension.  We got it in there, but it was a near thing.  The lazy susan was repurposed from another cabinet where it was being underutilized.  I traded one of the under-cabinet baskets for the tray, and I'm thinking it will work much better this way.  So I re-organized two cabinets for the price of one tension rod. \o/

We also needed a few things from the grocery, and I don't know about you, but that always seems to double up on me.  Today, fresh asparagus was on sale for $1.99/lb. That's a great price even "in season" so I got a pound.  When we came home, we worked up next week's menu:

White Chili with Sourdough Baguette
Cornish Hen, Asparagus and Pilaf
Spaghetti with yesterday's marinara, Spinach Salad
Tilapia Filets, Yellow Squash - just have to decide how these will be prepared
Broccoli and Onion Frittata

We'd already invited our friends over for the football game next Sunday, but we suspect we'll be watching more for the new crop of commercials than the outcome.  Even so, we've decided the main dishes on the buffet will be a Souper Bowl of sorts:  New England Clam Chowder vs. Manhattan Clam Chowder.  It will be interesting to see who wins that battle ;)
 

Friday was sasha_feather  's birthday celebration, and I was finally able to go socialize with the girrlz.  It's been probably a year since I've been to bookclub, and although we've all run into each other at various other events in that time, I've really really missed those regular gatherings.  I haven't read any of the bookclub choices in that time either.  But this isn't about all the crazy in my RL that prevents me from getting my girl fix.

This is about getting that fix. DH had a terrible week, and I was expecting to have to skip the gathering, or for him to attempt to attend and us staying for maybe an hour before having to give it up for a bad job. But he said go, and I *didn't* say "are you sure?" I went.

So I got to give a fabulous Star Wars card to sasha, which made everyone howl with laughter, and I met more of her friends than I had before, in addition to the bookclub regulars.  We were at the bookclub's fave place (Argus), with the hardest working owner/bartender I've ever seen.  Gwen is amazing.  She's seriously a pro.  I got to dance to Adam Lambert with happy, tipsy girls. We talked about beer and brewing, tattoos, drinking, work/careers, and politics.  Sasha's new girlfriend seems lovely and more than able to hold her own in the melee.  were_duck  was as adorable as usual, with an added side of kittenish and snuggly. Her girl was a lot more talkative than usual, and it turns out that we have some similar tastes in music.  I got to make up a lot of touch deficit, and giggling deficit, and general fullygoldy  deficit.  The weather sucked, but I waited for it to calm down a bit before hitting the road.  Even though it was only 4 hrs out it was heavenly.

Then for the rest of the weekend I read approximately 175,000 words of Adam Lambert fanfiction (mostly schmoopy), with a side of Merlin.  I've also got another long AL bookmarked, because were_duck  recommends mistresscurvy  quite highly.  I did manage to wash all the laundry, and do the grocery shopping, but the weekend was also dominated by my stupid PMS, which made the reading the only thing I was seriously interested in accomplishing.  DH wanted to go to the protests/rallies, and I wanted to too, but I totally needed the sofa days, and he needed a bit more recovery time.

Dinner tonight was a delight, prepared by the multi-talented DH.  We had crabcakes with greek yogurt remoulade, roasted corn and tomato compote and a spinach salad gazpacho.  The menu was designed around our newest acquisition - a Wisconsin made vodka,"Referent" which is infused with horseradish.  I liked it fresh from the freezer with lemon wedges, and DH liked it straight with a tomato juice sidecar.  It is going to be fabulous with oysters on the half shell.  I can only assume it will also be great with bloodys, but they're not MY drink.

Okay, I've got to get some sleep so I can be at work on time tomorrow.  Better go neaten up the kitchen, fold the last load and hit the hay.

It all started last November or so, when bzdchrisand busman1994decided to purchase 4(!) pounds of frozen foie gras from D'Artangan because it was on sale.  Once faced with the 4 lbs of excess in hand, it became clear that a steady diet of seared foie gras atop everything would soon lose its lustre, so bzdchris decided the best way to handle the "problem" would be to plan a dinner party that featured the beloved foie in every course.  Several months of planning and recipe gathering later, we finally celebrated Foie Fest last night in our lovely backyard dining room.

bzdchris and busman1994arrived around noon to finish their prep, and I was in the middle of prep for my course, which was planned to be 4th.  I still have trouble with the digital oven timer though, and somehow didn't get it set.  When I realized this, I panicked and started looking in the oven every 5 minutes.  Finally, after all 4 of us conferred, we decided the flans were finished, and removed them to cool until the appointed time.  They were nicely set and a beautiful golden color.

Around 4, our sommelier arrived, bearing gallons of water, ice and the ingredients for a campari fruit punch, which was tart like a pink grapefruit - yum.  We all started in with our first drinks of the day (not counting the half of an organic beer I'd had with lunch).  One of our party of eight had to drop out, but when all 7 of us were finally gathered, we were delighted to find the outdoor temp had suddenly dropped perfectly into the realm of comfortable.

Under a canvas gazebo and against a backdrop of white lace, green linen, crystal glasses and pink roses, we began.  First, we toasted the ducks who gave their lives for our decadent repast, then we toasted all fowl, everywhere.

Hors d'oevres were an artichoke-caper spread and roasted heads of garlic to spread on fire-toasted french bread rounds.  The sparkly Cristalino Brut put us all in a festive mood.
 
Next up was a miniaturized version of nicoise salad with fois gras "cracklins."  The red potatoes were the tiniest I've seen, there were fresh green beans and baby beets cooked and sliced.  Instead of croutons, we had tiny cubes of pan seared foie gras scattered amongst the greens.  The whole dish was lightly dressed with a dijon-champagne vinaigrette flavored with tarragon.  Delicious!  More sparkly Cristalino was poured.
 
The pasta course cosisted of foie gras and white bean ravioli, presented with pesto and cherry tomatoes.  Two large, hand-made ravioli were filled with a puddle of white bean puree and slivers of foie gras and a flat parsley leaf.  The pesto drizzle was nearly chunky and the tomatoes were obviously vine-ripened.  We finished the open bottle of Cristalino.

Finally, it was my turn to serve.  The truffle flavored foie gras flan on a bed of wild mushroom fricassee looked and sounded wonderful in the Foie Gras: A Passion cookbook, but the recipe wasn't written for people who don't cook with amazing ingredients every day.  My earlier confusion with the oven timer resulted in only half-cooked flans.  Thank goddess there was an extra, so that when I turned it out onto the plate and saw half the custard slosh over the sides, I still had enough servings to rescue.  Back in the oven they went.  bzdchriswas gracious enough to move the next course up so our guests wouldn't be twiddling their thumbs waiting for the flan.  The mushroom fricassee went back in a bowl to stay warm, we rinsed the plates and turned our attention to the Tournedos Rossini.

Tournedos Rossini is ta traditional presentation of tenderloin served with seared foie gras and port wine sauce.  bzdchristoasted slices of semolina bread as the base, layered them with rare tenderloin slices and the seared foie.  The port wine sauce was painted artfully over the plate by busman1994.  They served a 2005 beaujolais that paired nicely.  We all took great delight in making sure we tried every combination of foie, tenderloin and bread available during this course.

Back to the flan!  I pulled them out of the oven after determining that a knife stuck between the side of the ramekin and the edge of the flan no longer resulted in pure cream welling up.  They were also puffed up, pulled away from the sides and quite dark brown on top.  I started plating the mushroom fricasse again, when bzdchrislooked at me and said "oh no! I forgot the palate cleanser!"  Okay, my flans were supposed to sit for 15 minutes anyway, after they came out, so I dumped the mushrooms back in the bowl, laughing hysterically by this point, since I now had to wash my plates again, and we still hadn't eaten any flan.

The palate cleanser of Ambrosius blood orange sorbet was so intense!  YU-UM.  Seriously.

Back to the kitchen with me and the flans.  With barley52and the sommelier's help, I managed to unmold them finally.  They were still slightly runny, so that a puddle of custard developed on the plates, and we had to scrape the bottoms of the ramekins out onto the tops because that was where all the minced truffle and cracked black pepper had settled.  Once the ramekins were empty, barley52created a ring of mushrooms around each flan and garnished each with a sprig of fresh sage.  The sommelier poured our Luzon Jumilla and we finally, finally got to business.  Oh. My. God.  The flan was some kind of silken foie and truffled heaven! Seriously - I was so full already, but this was fantastic.  I felt it was at this point in the evening, maybe a little too large of a serving (even though I'd used only 3/4 cup ramekins), but no plate went unlicked.  If someone was incapable of finishing theirs, another was there to volunteer.  "I now know that clouds are not made of ice water, they are made of truffled foie gras flan" was the best quote of the course.

Time for another palate cleanser:  peach sorbet served with fresh peach slices.  So light and lovely.  So refreshing.  So thankfully tiny. LOL

The final frontier, the savory dessert was served.  Foie gras-onion-leek-apple streudel with toasted almonds and caramel-madeira sauce.  The phylo sheets had been brushed with rendered duck fat during the layering, and then sauteed onions, leeks and apples were the stuffing with small cubes of foie gras sprinkled along the length before rolling up and baking.  The streudel was crispy and warm, and so so so fantastic!  The caramel was just enough sweet counterpoint to the savory.  Even better, the wine was a Viu Manent Late Harvest Semillon.  It was deeply sweet and perfect for dessert.
 
Finally, amongst groans and mmmmgasms, home  made chocolate truffles flavored with cointreau, amaretto or chili and marzipan fruit were savored with a final bottle of Cristalino. ::sigh::

When it was all said and done, we'd run the dishwasher 4 times in the course of 11 hours!  A personal best, I think.  Also, we used the crystal glasses, the old-fashioneds, the water glasses, the red wine goblets and the white wine glasses.  The table was a riot of glass sparkling in the candlelight by the end of the night.  Hopefully soon, I'll be able to link to the pics taken by drstarbuckand mc_beth

Can you believe we were all in bed by 11:30 pm?!  I am so glad we started early.

Well, the Mothers' Day edition of the Arrogant Bastards Dining Club was a rousing success.  We don't always do a dinner party, so this month we did a luncheon.

At 11:30, the guests began arriving.  Unfortunately, the newest members of ABDC were unable to attend at the last moment, so we were down to 7 adults, 2 teens and 3 kids.

First course:  Guwumpke (apparently the spelling of this Polish dish is totally up to the speller), which are stuffed cabbage rolls.  These came in two flavors:  veal and pork stuffed for the carnivores and wild rice and morel stuffed for the vegetarians (or whoever wanted those flavors).  They were both sauced with a homemade tomato sauce.  The accompanying beverage was Paulaner Pilsner and/or a Polish mead of indeterminate age.  Both were yummy, but not as yummy as the Guwumpke.  Thank you,  busman1994for insisting, and bzdchrisfor introducing this polish delicacy (to honor chris's mom).

Main course:  barley52and I split this course.  The aforementioned "Soup with No Water" was made with a base of sauteed leeks, green onions, diced carrots, and minced garlic.  Next, add a whole bottle of wine (my mom always uses riesling, but I went with the Ironstone Obsession) and diced potatoes, and top up the liquid quantity with broth (vegetable today, but mom uses chicken).  I also added two sprigs of fresh thyme to be fished out later.  Boil until the potatoes are done and you're pretty sure the alcohol has evaporated.  Then add a pound each of tiny scallops, peeled medium shrimp and mussels.  In less than 5 min, the seafood will be done and you can serve.  I checked the mussels to make sure noone got a sealed one, and sprinkled the bowls with chopped cilantro.  Of course you serve the same wine as you use for the soup.  

B's dish was served alongside:  it was a spring-inspired dish of puff pastry rectangle "parks", spread with an herbed, roasted tomato, artichoke and garbanzo bean puree, topped with a layer of shelled edamame.  In the center of the field of green was a morel "tree."  This was stuffed with herbed cream cheese, then broiled after a dousing with balsamic vinegar.  The little parks were decorated with sprigs of fresh oregano, parsley and thyme.  The vegetarians got entree sized parks and the rest of us got appetizer sized parks alongside their soup.  I was a dork though.  I intended to pull out appetizer sized portions of soup base for the veg folks so they could taste the broth, but I dumped in all the seafood right before remembering that little fact. Doh!  Anyway, bzdchris said she'd like to serve the soup to her mom, and emorogsaid his mom would love it, so my mom will be happy when she hears this.  It's her all time favorite soup.  nayadwas making moany noises the whole time she was eating her large park, and Rupert asked for a second park.

Dessert was up next:  nayadand Wil produced a 4-layer torte with raspberry preserve filling and buttercream frosting topped with fresh raspberries.  It was delish!  We spent the majority of that course disecting why the crumb was a little larger and drier than she would have liked, and determined it was a combination of elderly baking powder and overmixing.  A similar thing happened to my Guinness cake back in March.  Wil poured two bottles of Menage A Trois rose, which was light and fruity and went smashingly with the cake.

Mavis says we stopped eating around 2, but we didn't leave the table until 3-ish.  By 4 everyone was gone, and we finished loading the dishwasher.  At 4:30, I headed out for a nap.  I awoke at 6:45!! LOL.  And now, it's time for dinner - the last of the soup as requested by barley52and Rupert, plus an herbed foccacia topped with both the cream cheese and artichoke-tomato spread.  :)

Boy, did we feast during the season!

I love this time of year!  So many reasons to gather with loved ones and revel in each other, sharing tasks and food and memories...

Rupert hasn't really decided what he wants to do for a kid-type celebration, but we did the family tradition tonight.  Since DH was discharged from the hospital yesterday, he was present for the birthday dinner, but we were not able to go to "the restaurant of choice" so we had to create a birthday dinner here.  We did the same thing for Mavis last Feb, and she enjoyed hers, so we figured it would go okay for Rupert too.

After a few days of contemplation, he finally decided this morning that he wanted "crab! Lots of crab!" for dinner.  And soup to go with.  We discussed the merits of various soups, and settled on a corn chowder (the recipe actually called for crab to be added at the last minute).  We decided to make the chowder sans crab, because we'd be serving the crab as the main dish.  The chowder consists of onion, garlic and frozen corn kernels sauteed in EVOO, but I added a healthy dollop of bacon grease for the flavor on Rupert's suggestion.  Then chicken broth is added and the pot boils about 10 minutes, and then a cup of heavy cream is added and it simmers while another pot of diced potatoes, frozen corn and red peppers boils.  Then the creamy pot is blended smooth, and the chunky pot is drained and stirred into the creamy broth.  At this point, you may or may not garnish with crab, red pepper strips, cracked black pepper... you choose.  It's rich but mild and very yuummy.

For the crab, I got 3 King Crab legs (one for each of us eating - DH can't have crustaceans right now, and his tummy wouldn't let him anyway), plus a Snow Crab cluster for each of us.  I roasted it in the oven over a pan of crab boil because the King Crab was too big for steaming over a pot.

Rupert made me a lemon martini, Mavis had "green tea wine," Rupert had egg nog, and DH had an orange gatorade "martini."  DH's plate consisted of baked tilapia (thumbs down tonight), orange jello, and corn chowder (both thumbs up).

It was a lovely, lingering meal with lots of conversation, and very reminiscent of our best family meals.  What a great beginning to DH's homecoming.  Rupert also seems pleased with the portable DVD player he scored as a bday present.  Next weekend, he'll take a couple of friends to Ultra Zone or to a movie,a nd that will be that.

Yesterday's dinner guests kind of surprised me with their enthusiasm and appreciation of a fairly simple meal.  See, they've been our dinner guests quite frequently over the past 7 years, so I guess I thought they'd just get used to our style, and stop commenting on it.  I still remember some of those first meals we served to busman1994, because his orgasmic delight was apparent throughout the meals.  See, I've always held that food = love, but not in that unhealthy way that produces 200-lb middle schoolers.  barley52 calls it "food of love," which is by no means a phrase original to him, but it does express where I'm coming from more precisely.

So yesterday, bzdchris and busman1994 came for dinner, bearing 10 ears of fresh corn and dessert fixin's.  barley52 peeled and grilled 2 lbs of medium shrimp, and bzdchris shucked and grilled her corn right alongside him.  busman1994 and I assembled the dinner plates in the kitchen.  Starting with the large glass fish-shaped platters I got for a buck apiece several years ago, for each person, I mounded about 3 cups of freshly harvested and washed, tender young lettuces in the center.  Topped those with grape tomatoes, cucumber slices, garden-fresh radishes and baby carrots, and slices of yellow bell pepper.  Scattered on top were several edible pansies, I had purchased because Mavis loves them.  My helper then grated parmesan over top of that.  At the tail-end of the platter, a generous cup of 3-cheese tortellini salad leftover from earlier in the week.  At the head, about a half cup of homemade hummus (also a leftover), thinned with some fresh lemon juice, decorated with kalamata olives and drizzled with olive oil.  Nestled between the hummus and the salad bed were some home-marinated mushrooms.  Arranged along the "back" were fins made from pita triangles.  When the plates were brought to the table, we topped our salads with the grilled shrimp, and dressed them with a vidalia onion vinaigrette.  I buy it in a big ol bottle from Sam's Club - it's the only place I've ever seen it, and it is lightly sweet and creamy, but not thick.  We used traditional salad plates to house our corn cobs, dripping with butter.

The thing is, this was just salad and leftovers on a big plate.  It wasn't hard to do, and the only thing we picked up "special" for dinner was the shrimp, but we always do at least one seafood dinner each week, so we usually have shrimp, scallops or tilapia on hand.  I use the fish plates so rarely, that it was a special treat to haul them out (they're too big to wash in the dishwasher, so I don't use them all that often, and usually only with seafood), but the dinner would have been just as yummy and lovely on my plain white china.  It's just what we do around here, and it's not at all difficult.

For dessert, bzdchris brought fresh meringues, chocolate ice cream, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and freshly picked black raspberries from her yard.  We put the ice creams on top of the meringues, and the black raspberries in the glasses of prosecco we had with our dessert.  De-Lish!  This dessert wasn't any more or less difficult than dinner - she had the meringues on hand because she's a pastry chef.  Store-bought, high quality ice cream on top.  Done.  You could do the same thing with cookies or bars or fruit.  

The only thing a meal like this really takes is intent.  You just have to pay attention to what you're doing.  Will this look better on a plain plate, or in a bowl?  Is there a way to punch up the flavor of this? (I am the queen of condiments - among other things).  Which colors will look nicer next to each other?  Do the wine glasses match the wine?  Do they match the other dishes?  Or is the table setting more eclectic this evening?  Are we serving wine, beer or cocktails?  Sure, at some point you have to make a conscious decision to approach your meals this way.  You have to give yourself permission to use cloth napkins and fresh garlic and the pretty glasses, and to light those decorative candles you keep on the table.  Is it any harder to put on the music channel than it is to leave "the Simpsons" blaring through dinner?  Is it really so inconvenient to carry the meal to the outdoor table when the weather is nice?  Improving the view or the atmosphere automatically improves the meal.  Honest.  Put that mac n' cheese in a pretty bowl, carry it outside to a table with a placemat and a cloth napkin, pour a nice glass of wine, and tell me it still feels like you're eating Kraft dinner.  The intent is to make the meal a pleasant respite from the rest of the day, or even the week.  I think it's easier to do than get in a walk every day, or take time out for a bubble bath, or drive to a gym for a workout.  And I'm convinced the mental benefit is the same.  Of course, if you're not careful, you'll really need those walks and workouts ::g::  

So now you know my biggest secret of culinary success.  I don't make really complicated dishes very often.  Three to five ingredients and less than an hour of effort are my typical parameters for trying out recipes.  I love slow cooking (not necessarily crock-pot cooking), but I tend to save that for wintry sundays.  I also really love things like spring rolls and dolmades, but sheesh, I've got to be in the mood to invest the time in those. 

Go forth!  Spread the love!

barley52 & I made a raid on Whole Foods yesterday, so today's snack went something like this:

Country style pork pate' with peppercorns
Van Gogh (Wisconsin) Aged Gouda
Comte le trois semi-hard cheese - it's hard to describe other than sin melting in your mouth
Green olives marinated in sea fennel
Oven-roasted tomatoes in olive oil
Breton crackers
Sourdough bread
New Glarus "Naked" beer

I know feel ready to enter the kitchen and begin working on the roasted garlic aioli for the potatoes I'm making for dinner.  The ribs are on the grill for at least the next 2 hours... Margaritas are in the offing.  Just in case you don't realize it, the "snack" was our 2nd meal of the day, so it's not as bad as it sounds.  Although we just realized we've been going through some sort of pork renaissance this week/end.  Pork shish kebob with peppers and fresh pineapple on Thurs.  Andouille Sausage on Sat.  Breakfast links and bacon this morning.  Ribs tonight.  Pork fat rules, babyees!!  We also stuck 3 very large and meaty ham hocks in the freezer. hmmmm.

OTOH, I can't wait for tomatoes to start ripening in the garden.  I'm totally learning to roast my own this year.

And a warning - We ate at the Cousin's Subs on Odana for a quick lunch Friday.  I'd had a poor service experience there a while back, but thought it would be fair to give them a second try.  We were the first of the mini-rush they had while we were there. The service was better, but the table I picked was quite sticky, so DH wanted to move down one.  That one wasn't as bad, but I offered him a Wet Wipe anyway, thinking he'd use it to clean his hands (we don't go anywhere without wipes and hand sanitizer anymore).  He used the wipe to clean the table, and came up with an almost totally green wipe.  Can you say "fungal?"  So he went up to the counter and said to the manager, "I don't mean to be critical, but I just wiped this off my table."  The manager promptly sent a young lady out to clean our table for us.  I said, "this one is clean now, but that one is really sticky."  She cleaned it and decided to do all of the tables.  I was watching surreptitiously, and every table she sprayed down returned a very black paper towel.  She kept balling them up in her other hand, so you couldn't really see how bad they were unless you were watching.  Then DH observed her wiping down the soda machine and napkin dispensers.  Everytime she'd wipe something off, she'd make a disgusted face at the paper towel.  In light of all this, I won't be patronizing that location again. 

oh hell.

I just lost my entire post - menus and recipes from the weekend.  I'm too disgusted to type them out again.

I will say that we've started harvesting lettuce from the garden, and I'm looking forward to all the rest that will be coming.  I'm not so much about the garden planning and planting, but I'll do weeding and harvesting, and cooking.  As much cooking as I do to freshly picked garden stuff, anyway.

The abbreviated version:

Grilled burgers, fries, cold beer
Chicken fajitas and steak fajitas, pineapple salsa, margaritas, sangria-style iced tea, ice cream cake, mahogany cake
Spaghetti with red clam sauce, garden fresh salad, red wine
Spicy chicken salad with garden lettuce, more margaritas

I've never been a consistent journaler. LJ has helped me get better, and I even find myself composing posts throughout the days, but when I get home and sit down, the act of typing out my thoughts just doesn't seem to be able to get past my usual non-journaling inertia.

I am over a week behind in my project journal as well, and that's dangerous, because documentation is everything in this day and age.

Last week's brunch was crispy cornmeal waffles with a strawberry/jalapeno topping, and a side dish of shrimp gazpacho. But today, we had to go more traditional, as Rupert has been pining for bacon. So we had half a pound of bacon, scrambled eggs, cheddar biscuits from DH, and chunked up cantaloupe and strawberries. There is a vase of wilted lilacs on the table, and while they are very lovely when freshly picked and fragrant, there is something beautiful about fading blooms. I didn't believe Martha the first time I heard her say it, but I've come around to her way of seeing on this one.

I'm looking forward to heading out in a few minutes to a girly get-together. A tea party!! Mavis is coming with, and she's wearing a white & pink sundress, and we both have on our white sandals. It's actually a clothing swap, which could be really interesting. I'm afraid no one is going to have much use for my clothes. Besides the size issue, there's the style thing. The only stuff I keep around is very traditional or preppy. So I'm taking these dresses that I'll never get back into, which are perfect for spring and summer weddings, or church functions, but don't really have any other reason for being. I've got several pairs of pants that are fairly new and too large thanks to the fall/winter dieting. But you know, nothing really stylish and fun that anyone is going to want. Oh yeah, and two very expensive bras that are just too big now, and were never really my style to begin with.

Friday night we went up to Casa de Lara for the Cinco de Mayo celebration, and it was packed out. I guess the weather being too chilly for the deck added to the crush. We met several very fun and nice folks, who danced with us and drank with us, and best of all, flirted with us. One guy was an alum of my old school, just a year behind me, so we also did a lot of reminiscing about that wonderful college town. We didn't even stay out all that late, home by 11:30, but we're old now, so we were all day Saturday recovering. Not really hung over, just tired-as-hell. LOL