Text 35546, 111 rader
Skriven 2013-04-02 20:08:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: easter eater 351
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Eaater breakfast, the paschal lamb

I was feeling sort of tired, having got to bed just after
0530, and when Annie called upstairs, you want to get up
for breakfast, I sort of grumbled. But I recalled that
breakfast had been scheduled for 9, so I reluctantly got
up and was corraled into cooking sausage (loose, from the
butcher) and lamb chops. Annie made these weird things where
you cut a hole in a slice of bread, put it in the frying pan,
then fill the hole with an egg. After a minute, you flip the
bread and egg and cook until done. I thought that a strange
idea, and as it combined two of my favorite things, bread
and overcooked eggs, I gave this specialty a pass.

I made patties of the sausage and sauteed them, deglazing
the pan with the nasty Starborough Sauvignon Blanc that had
been opened for Linda and that she had found wanting; the
lamb, a tiny 12-oz 8-rib rack, was browned on all sides,
then cut into chops and then browned on the cut sides. A
little salt and pepper, and they were super delicious. I
made 4 of them a little thicker and rare, the rest medium-rare
so Annie could eat them, which she didn't do. Robbie ate only
half of a chop, which irritated me, as he loves lamb; the
rest of us ate the rest, so things were looking up. There
was also bacon, which Ann cooked really hard, which isn't
so bad except that all the delicious bacon fat went away.

Silk Light chocolate soymilk was dreadful, so I went with
Wegmans nonlight chocolate soymilk, which is superior to
Silk regular and so far beyond the Light product that I
have a hard time describing the magnitude. I found a use
for the Light stuff - combine it half and half with rum
(at least that much rum), and it's okay.

Easter lunch

I had some leftover rib roast while watching Bourdain tour
Istanbul with his mad taxi driver guide Ihsan and eating
and seeing most of the same things as I did back a few
years ago with Lilli and some other friends and our mad
taxi driver guide Ihsan. The Sodaro wine had mellowed out
quite nicely.

Easter dinner, the paschal ham

Annie had ordered a bunch of boneless hams from Harrington's,
which she gave away for birthday gifts and so on, and one was
left for us. She asked how I wanted it done, and I said tented
with foil and warmed up at 200F for an hour. She heated it
untented for 2 hours at 250F. It was kind of dry but not bad.
Funny thing - it was sliced only about a half inch in - deeper
than a score, but no way a slice, so that the spirally offset
thing was totally useless. No matter: the ham was nicely
smoked, not salty at all, of firm hammy texture, not bad though
trimmed almostly totally fatless, which strikes me as a bit of
a perversion.

I parboiled some green beans and tossed them with butter, and
they were sweet as corn and went over pretty well. Annie made
twice-baked potatoes - baked, the insides taken out and mashed
with lots of butter and stuffed back into the shells, and the
whole topped with grated Wegmans lowfat Cheddar, than which I
can think of little nastier: it tasted like plastic and didn't
melt properly even after being baked half an hour at 350, and
when that didn't work, Annie asked me what to do, so I turned
on the broiler to 550 and tried in vain for another 10. Truly
awful, and I am glad that my potato was spared that ignominy.

Dessert was the light and simple strawberries in Grand Marnier
that I'd fixed the day before. I fed the others strawberries
and myself drank a cup of marinade for my portion. Vanilla ice
cream was offered but there were no takers.

We sat around with coffee and such until it was time to go
off to Steve and Dorothy's for dessert. Linda and JJ had to
work Monday, and it was a 4-hour drive back, so we said
goodbye to them and went out into the rain and fog for the
20-minute ride up into the mountains.

Easter dessert

Steve greeted me at the door with the sad news that his dinner
guests had drunk all his Scotch, so I said, okay, I've brought
this bottle of Cuvee Napa (Mumm), so that was that - pretty
decent, a little sweet for my taste although labeled brut, but
that was okay with a chocolate mousse cake and a mixed berries
and kiwi custard tart. Though there were other favorite people
to talk to, including the wealthy and attractive widow Kathy,
and Steve and Dorothy's amazingly hot daughter Elise, my time
was mostly occupied by Dorothy's brother-in-law Joe, who wanted
to tell me how Obama was the devil incarnate and how he'd rather
have Kennedy or Roosevelt, assistant imps of Hotzeplotz, as
president instead. I agreed that I wasn't impressed with the
quality of our senior politicians, but my own disdain didn't
discriminate by party and my own rankings would be quite
different from his. Much fun, and I was consoled by Annie coming
over periodically and bringing me beer. At the end of the
evening Joe's grandson or something admitted that he wanted to
pick my brain about Nepal but he was too cowed by his elder to
butt in. In the few minutes granted to us before the party
folded up I pointed him in the right direction for detailed
info about his quest and gave him a couple terse pointers.

At long length it was time to return through the eerie fog and
park in the sitting room at home with another bit of leftover
roast and a final beer.


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