Text 4620, 100 rader
Skriven 2013-09-13 22:01:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: IPT 150
===============
My last full day.

Annie made bacon and toast - she did a whole pound, less
crispy than she usually does, saying who knows, maybe I
would want some too (I like bacon less done than she
does). I kiped a raw slice (this was good dry-cured and
well smoked stuff from Tony's), and that was enough, as
there were many things left to eat during the day.

The last of the sirloin strips was very good, not having
suffered at all from its long confinement in Cry-o-Vac.
Steaks are so much better done on a griddle than a grill.
Why? Because open flame gets rid of too much of the fat.
I find that I've become a two minute per inch person and
less addicted to raw blood than before. Back then, it
didn't matter, as cooking for a minute or less doesn't
render the fat.

There remain four burger patties from the place where Liz
had gotten the eyes of round; these were courtesy of Robbie
from the cookout last week. These are Cry-o-Vacced and
thus probably good until 2015 or so*, but Annie wanted to
toss them.

* exaggeration for effect. Literally, end of the month. Have
you seen the news article that Merriam now has a new definition
entry for "literally," that is to say "figuratively."

There remained two ample servings of chili made from those
leftover burgers and sausages; still pretty good. Also three
pounds of chile colorado - Annie had thawed all this precooked
pork loin and asked me to Mexicanize it, as she had tortillas,
and I had wanted to Chineseize it, but she insisted, so so it
was. And so it sat.

Mike and Jill, who didn't come to the fundraiser (Mike is Tea
Party through and through, Jill pretty Bircher), wanted to see
us, and I thought, here's a good use for all that pork stew,
but Annie vetoed this - I'm all entertained out, she said. So
three pounds of chile colorado ended up going down the pig.
Instead, we arranged to meet them at 6:30 at the Bullfrog to
eat worse food than my chile and drink worse beer than what
was in the house as well.

Bullfrog, which has decent beer if you like Belgian-style beer,
which I do not, and decent food if you like goonishly overdressed
oversalted messily plated swill, which I do not, is actually
much beloved by local beeries, getting a 93 or 94 on beeradvocate,
which to me says something about beeradvocate. I prayed that there
was something potable on tap besides the Billtown Blonde, my
mediocre fallback.

The eggplant fries are edible, and I almost always get them,
sometimes for an appetizer, sometimes for my meal. I got them, and
they were saltier than usual, to the point that three of us could
hardly choke the order down (Mike doesn't like eggplant).

An Alt was nice and rich and dark but bore little resemblance to a
real Altbier; the Blonde was as expected.

Mike made a meal, so-called, of the Buffalo wing appetizer. I once
tried this tack and nearly died of salt poisoning, but he seemed
to enjoy it okay, all the more surprising as he was drinking one
pf those high-alcohol Belgoid monstrosities.

Kielbasa with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut looked pretty decent
on Jill's plate, if one likes starchy goo and sour leaves. This
came with a carrot-dill soup that she claimed was better than
edible.

Annie loves the fish and chips here; it was an enormous serving
made to look even bigger by the puffy batter the fish (looked
like catfish) was coated in. She ate all her fish, yay, and almost
none of the sea of fries that came with.

In a deviation from the norm, I got onion soup: this was mostly
stale croutons (as in all the liquid had been soaked up), some
undercooked onion, very little stock, and what there was of it
was bizarrely salty; over this mess was a slice of partially
melted white cheesish substance that makes Provel look like
Camembert. After that I got an order of pasta with beef shoulder
filet, whatever that is, in cream sauce. The pasta, thick and
tortellini-shaped, was unfilled (it looks as though it is designed
to deceive by looking stuffed) and very starchy, though not
unpalatable; the sauce was essentially melted Boursin - garlic
upon garlic and lots of white dairy moo. The meat - well, if you
take a shoulder clod and cut out the big muscle in the middle
(no doubt making burgers out of the rest), that's what this was.
Close grained, reasonably tender, and with most of the flavor I
love about chuck. About a quarter pound of it, and I ate that
and left almost all the pasta and sauce. The meat had been
marinated in rosemary, which I tire of rapidly, so it wasn't
nearly so enjoyable as it could have been.

Dessert: Mike had chocolate fudge cake, Jill carrot cake, and I
another Alt. Annie passed.

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