Text 11011, 107 rader
Skriven 2014-03-18 06:33:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: St. Paddy's 337
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We were planning on a nice small sedate St. Paddy's day
involving roast leg of lamb, peas, butternut squash, and
mash, plus lots of beer, but Debbie asked if her daughter
and nearly-son-in-law and their best friend could come
over, too, so I made a couple extra dishes, lamb pilaf and
colcannon, heathen and Irish respectively. The lamb leg
and the chops in the pilaf were from Wild Harmony Farms,
which Debbie's Rachael and her boy Ben run. Free-range
very gamy lamb, pretty good. In the end, Rachael and Ben
couldn't come, but Rachael's best friend Rachel could, so
we were six at table only. Lots of extra food. I planned
lots of gluten-free (Connie, Rachel, Rachael, Ben) and
lactose-free (Ben and myself).

Rosemary's oven, always temperamental, was heating probably
50 degrees cool, so dinner was delayed by quite a bit, and
the pilaf was underdone. Colcannon was helped by the nuke.

For starters we had Cabot extra-sharp Cheddar (good) and a
pate that there wasn't any Cognac in the house for, so I
substituted a glugg of Myers' dark rum and one of Josh
Pinot Noir (pretty mediocre by itself). The result was
delicious.

Rosemary picked up Arnold sandwich thins at the store under
the impression that they were pita breads to go with the
(perfectly respectable) Cedars hummus. These are sort of
English muffiny things only stale, flat, and profitable.
Please do not buy! The real selling point, a bogus one I
think, is that each pair of halves yield but 100 Calories.
This feat is accomplished by their being smaller than the
average piece of bread. They have an objectionable gummy
texture unless toasted, at which they become hard and
inflexible but at least more like pita.

For the gluten-free we got Popcorners butter-flavored
popped corn snacks, which look like Doritos but are soft,
something that our guest Connie liked as they don't cut up
her delicate mouth. The taste, though, is something else -
the butter flavoring tasted rather like cheese gone bad.

The main meal was gluten-free and lactose-free.

The roast lamb, done exactly according to book timing for
medium-rare, came out blue rare, which was good for me and
Rosemary, but we put the rest back in the oven for the
regular folks. Peas and butternut were the standard thing.

The lamb pilaf was delicious, if I say so myself, but a
bit on the al dente side. I was glad to have cooked the
lamb separately beforehand.

Rosemary really liked the colcannon. Nobody else did, as
kale is not nearly the same thing as real cabbage. I
could have doubled the butter again; then maybe everyone,
including me, would have liked it.

The wine of the day was Josh Pinot Noir, which is a rather
flat but inoffensive version, low in Pinot Noir flavor but
recognizable nonetheless. I thought it a little too sweet
and a little too sour, not enough tannin by a long shot.
Rosemary was convinced by the local store to get 3 cases
for an extra 10% discount. I wouldn't have done it, but
she actually rather likes this stuff.

Desserts were aside from my secret stash wafers gluten-free.

Sweet Scoops ginger with Madagascar vanilla yogurt -
surprisingly good, a well-rounded ginger-vanilla taste and
a very nice creamy texture; a little too sweet.

Whole Fruit mango sorbet - I was about to joke that you
can't trust a mango confection made in New Jersey, but
this was better than acceptable, though also a bit too
sweet and the texture was kind of gummy. Still, powerful
and mouth-filling mango flavor made up for a multitude of
sins, and I rather enjoyed this.

Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie is a disappointingly
standard dark chocolate ice cream with blobs of (not gluten-
free) brownie mixed in. It was okay, also dead sweet.

Tate's ginger zingers are a favorite of mine, crisp bordering
on glassy gluten-free cookies with nice big chunks of candied
ginger mixed in. The texture that works in the ginger cookies
seems odd in the chocolate chip cookies, though, which are
strongly brown sugared with big blobs of decent chocolate.

Dagoba 74% dark chocolate seemed waxy and untasty but with
an interesting floral aroma. Not worth the price, which was
$1 an ounce.

I got Loacker Quadratini vanilla wafers for me. I have a
soft spot for these as they bring me back to a forbidden
fruit of my youth, those pink, brown, and white sugar
wafers that I think Nabisco used to make and that my
mother wouldn't allow in the house as an instrument of
Satan or something. Also these wafers are made with
substantial amounts of real vanilla, a good thing indeed.
I really like the soft dry crunch with the release of
vanilla scent followed by the cooling melt of the layers
of creamy (and lactose-ridden) filling. An infantile pleasure.

Decaf coffee all round.
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