Text 30106, 89 rader
Skriven 2015-08-18 03:09:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Annie's 99
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Off to Annie's.

It's about a 3 1/2 hr drive, mostly Interstate, pretty
painless, especially with Dale and Gail sharing the duties
(as you know, I don't pull my weight in this department but
hope I do elsewhere). We got to Williamsport mid-afternoon
and relaxed a while before prepping for dinner, which was
gumbo of two sorts - sausage, shrimp, crabmeat for those
who don't eat oysters or okra, and shrimp, crabmeat, oysters,
and okra for those who do. Our friends Mike and Jill from
across the river came over - they had called to invite Annie
for strawberry shortcake, and she had counterinvited. The
two separate dishes came from a misunderstanding regarding
the guests' food preferences, but everything turned out fine,
except that despite long cooking, the roux we made for the
dishes never turned above a light blond color - the flavors
were fine, but both dishes looked kind of washed out - more
like a la king than gumbo. Speaking of misunderstandings,
Annie had pulled out a package of two 12-oz sirloin strips
from the freezer in case Jill didn't find anything she could
eat (turned out she was fine).

Prosciutto and cantaloupe for starters (Gail, despite not
liking cantaloupe, heroically prepared this and even ate
some of it) along with Wegmans brand dry-roasted macadamia
nuts; pound cake (made literally, a pound of this, a pound
of that) for starters.

Voga Pinot Grigio (pleasantly neutral) went well with the
seafood, but I had a Yuengling summer wheat (nasty, in the
Hefeweizen style) before mending my ways with a Yuengling
Black & Tan.

--

Annie had leftover shrimp fried rice for breakfast. I don't
know why she makes an exception to her no-leftovers rule for
cheap Chinese food, but she does. In this case she had made
the fried rice, a luxurious version using jumbo shrimp. I
disapproved for two reasons - the use of purpose-sourced
jumbo shrimp for a dish that was designed for leftovers and
bite-size ones at that, well, that's wasteful as heck; plus
Annie persists in putting beansprouts in her fried rice, and
to me that just doesn't go. I had a taste of her handiwork
and cooked up one of those steaks, which was somewhat over
the hill but pretty okay.

A lazy day. We went to Wegmans for a preliminary shopping
for the picnic, watched a bunch of cooking shows on the tv,
and just hung around until dinner, which was at Cloud 9 in
the airport in Montoursville. This is an offshoot of what
is supposed to be the premier Italian restaurant in town,
Franco's - it's run by Frank, one of two sons of the
founder, with the pastries and breads supplied by Maria,
their sister.

We started with the fried squid appetizer, which as always
was rings only but pretty good - not quite as crisp as it
could have been, but tender and well seasoned.

Dale got the Jagerschnitzel with garlic mash, made of pork,
a generous and tasty serving. Gail had chicken parm, a
classic Italo-American version, two enormous breasts, brined
and tender, served over somewhat overcooked angel hair.

Annie's fried haddock, half a couple-pound fish, was certainly
big enough, fresh, tender, and tasty, sided also with the
garlic mash.

I was the big loser - linguini with white clam sauce, which
is one of the most loved dishes at Franco's, is totally
lackluster here - a half dozen tiny Manilas, extremely small
baby clams from a can, not enough garlic, butter and not
olive oil. The pasta (I had ordered fettuccine) was, however,
al dente. I ate all the clams, a couple ounces of protein,
a few strands of pasta, and consoled myself with small
tributes from the others.

We got Death by Chocolate ice cream (from the Penn State
dairy) for dessert, which I sided with a Yuengling.

When we got back, I pulled the other steak, distinctly over
the hill by now. I cooked half of it anyway and ate it; it
was a lot better than dinner. In the middle of the night I
ate the other half.

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