Text 18554, 135 rader
Skriven 2008-12-27 07:59:00 av Michael Loo (1:18/200.0)
Ärende: Christmas day 436
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1225 2V 161 BBY KIN 0945 1041

The fare is 20 bucks, with no advance purchase discount, as I
discovered; for business class on an hour train, 10 more, which
I decided not to pay. Instead I plopped down in the cafe car,
which has two electric outlets at each table for four, and spent
the 10 bucks on a Sam Adams, a cheesy (figuratively, not literally)
snack, and a big Christmas tip for the bartender. Tapped happily
away on the computer.

The train ripped through the sunny New England countryside at a
rapid rate, and I'm glad I vacated the bar area a little early,
as we got to Kingston a little early. On the way out the
conductor expressed envy at where I was getting off (a quite
affluent college town), and when I agreed that it was pretty
nice, he corrected me ... VERY nice, he said.

My friend Rosie picked me up anon, and we discussed the Christmas
menu on the way to Jamestown. I was to be responsible for cutting
the cheese (har) and that's about it; her grandson John had
decided that he was going to do the cooking, which was fine with
me, as there are good cooking genes in the family. The centerpiece
was to be an 11.8 lb rib roast, enough for me and maybe 6 others.

There were 7 at table.

Cheese

Ile de France Brie - quite nondescript, industrial; properly
runny, though

Red Leaf Canadian Cheddar - a fairly attractive cheese, obviously
aged, relatively dry; an attractive bite

Hors d'oeuvres

prosciutto and provolone-stuffed vinegar peppers - not my thing

mozzarella-tomato-basil canape on baguette rounds - dead easy and
yummy. Slice a ball of mozzarella. Slice a tomato. Slice a baguette
pretty thin. Bring a quarter cup of olive oil to the simmer; add a
chopped garlic clove and a shake of dried basil (would have preferred
the real thing, but this was what was available). Off heat, let
infuse ad lib. Assembly. Dip baguette rounds in oil. Sprinkle on a
little salt. Put a tomato slice and a cheese slice on. That's it; you
could bake these briefly if you felt like it; I served them cold.
I made a few without cheese for me.

Main

roast ribs of beef, Barbara Kafka's high-low-high method - the
11.8 lb roast looks to have shrunk to maybe 10 lb after cooking.
You start this procedure by putting the roast (previously rubbed
with salt, pepper, herbs, and minced garlic if you like the smell
of burning garlic) in a 500F oven for I think 45 min. Then you
lower the thermostat to 325 and cook 3 min a pound. Finally, you
raise it to 425 for a varying amount of time based on how rare
you want the meat. Okay. This makes no sense for a well insulated
oven, whose interior will not even get down to 325 in half an
hour. Might as well turn the darn thing off, which is what I would
do. And the 425 finish seems superfluous as well. Anyhow, the
hostess/boss Rosie and her sous John decided to fulfill the recipe
to the letter, over my protests - I wanted to take the roast out
at least 20-25 minutes earlier. When the roast came out, it was
deeply browned, which is good, essentially fat free, which is bad
(most of the fat got transformed into greasy smoke and soot), and
medium-rare-to-medium, which none of us wanted (me least of all).
The guests liked it, as the middle was nicely pink but with too much
grain for my taste, and the outer slices were kind of pot-roasty,
which can be good for a change. What I like about this method,
when sort of performed by me, is that you get the cap all crusty
and brown and pot-roasty and a bright red interior, the grain
developed in the outer slices, and just a bit jiggly in the middle.
The 7 people ate about 5 lb, 3 lb went back in doggy bags, and 2
lb remain for today's brunch (8-10 guests, main dish will be
frittata).

By the way, the fat in the pan was way brown, and the juices were
burned. Nonetheless, I showed John what deglazing meant and produced
a rather bitter, very dark sauce, which some of the guests really
liked - Debbie, who is from Alabama, particularly enjoyed it, but
I guess she's accustomed to red-eye gravy.

roast seasonal vegetables - parsnips, red bliss potatoes, white
potatoes, pearl onions, butternut squash - these were done vegetarian,
without the blessing of a spoonful of dripping, just in case a
vegetarian might show up to nosh on the leftovers. They were fine.

Yorkshire pudding - cooked in the brown fat. Rosie made this and was
a bit overenthusiastic with the batter, so that even though the result
was nicely puffed, the bottom was thick and pancakelike. It was also
quite brown-tasting. People liked it.

Salad

green salad with goat cheese and sunflower seeds - not my thing at
all. I had only the tiniest serving, trying not-quite-successfully
to avoid the cheese, which had been crumbled in. Yecch.

Alky

Rogue oatmeal stout and Dead Guy ale - I tried the latter, which
was fairly brown, fairly hoppy, fairly rich, and fairly nice. A
bit sweet for me, though.

Lucky Penny 05 and Blackstone 06 Cabernets - both cheapish wines
that tasted cheap. Both were kind of unconcentrated, with more
cherry than bramble, a little low tannin. The former had a bit
of raisin-prune overcooked taste. Both were a bit too sweet.

Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc (NZ) 07 - okay, good tropical fruit
flavors, just a hint of that SB urinary aspect. When the bottle
of red was empty, I made a kir-type thing by adding poached pear
juice to this, and it actually kind of tasted okay.

Monkey Bay SB (nv) - slightly too sweet, citrusy, not particularly
characterful, okay minus.

Dessert

red-wine poached pears and ice cream - Rosie made this the night
before using Barbara Kafka's recipe. I thought them slightly
underdone (the recipe says not to take the stems off, but this
made a stringy center piece to each pear half) but pleasant.

The ice cream was provided by the famous Rachel and her friend
(just friends, I'm told) Rob: they're in their early 20s. It was
Cumberland Farms deluxe vanilla ice cream. It tasted rather like
vanilla-flavored nonfat dry milk. The vanilla scent was okay, the
milkiness left something to be desired.

___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30

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