Text 8399, 103 rader
Skriven 2013-12-31 22:44:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: roundTheChuckWagon 4
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Around the chuck wagon.

People had been told that the party was starting at noon, and
in fact, the doorbell started ringing at about 11:59, with a
pretty brunette who turns out to be Annie's beer distributor
and her mom, who used to run the neighborhood pharmacy. And
so it went; at the beginning I tried to cook and host both
but gave up shortly, as we ended up having over 30 of the 40
or so invited guests show up, and there were several dishes
that needed some attention, especially as I had planned for
the maximum number of people. Plus gabbing with people takes
for me more energy than cooking.

The drinks.

Soft: Coke, Diet Coke, root beer (Anne the matriarch of the
neighborhood, who lives down the street, loves root beer),
ginger ale.

Less soft: Yuengling premium (Annie loves Yuengling), black
and tan, and Lord Chesterfield ale;

Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau 13 - more sour and harsh
than the stuff at Anne's house the other day, strong peppery
flavor. This stuff has become such a big seller that you
can't expect consistency. The bottle in question skirted 
nastiness by just a little and a way too tartness by even less;

Martini and Rossi Asti Spumante nv - strong Moscato nose and
flavor, semi-sweet, bought to go with orange juice, quite
successful at that, not bad by itself if you like sweet bubbly;

Piper Sonoma brut nv - very neutral Chardonnay, somewhat
lemony, a little toasty, textbook sparkler, not bad.

Even less soft: Johnnie Walker Black; Rebel Yell Bourbon.
Other things were available but not particularly offered.

The food.

Our meats were two: braised beef, quite excellent if I may say
so myself - it was cooked with onions for about 20 hours to
an internal temperature of 205F, then chopped with the onions
and served with sauce on the side. I used deboned 7-bone chuck
rather than brisket, as there weren't any of the cheap fatty
delicious point cuts available, just the finicky underflavored
flats for twice as much as the chuck, which I thought pretty
outrageous; and pulled pork butt cooked just a bit less as
it's a naturally tender cut - this was tossed with spices and
cider vinegar. We had bought a sandwich roll per person (Annie
insisted on getting full-size ones, and only a handful were
actually used). I made my own barbecue sauce from about the
same things as the big factories, only I didn't add sugar; I
admit to using a few drops of liquid smoke, though.

Annie made a couple more trays of chicken enchiladas, because
Sydney and Kathy don't eat red meat. These were said to be good,
even with canned sauce. I did notice people using my bbq sauce
on the enchiladas, which I guess might have been a decent combo.

We also had shrimp and grits for the same reason, plus more
people eat shrimp than don't eat red meat. The shrimp were made
at the last minute - I didn't start them until Charlie arrived
half an hour late (we knew this, he was off delivering more
babies) - with the trinity, thyme, a fair amount of wine, a
tad of garlic, and a can of diced tomatoes. It came out soupier
than I'd anticipated, but Charlie socialized longer than usual
before dinnertime (why the meal was planned around the doc's
schedule I don't know). Turns out Kathy doesn't eat shellfish;
but others do, so all was well. Annie made the grits with milk
and butter and burned heck out of the bottom of the pot, like
two days' soak with baking soda didn't work. People spoke well
of the grits, saying things like these aren't like the tasteless
wallpaper paste I've had before; I don't know if it's the
abundant addition of butter and full milk or the subtly smoky
aspect from the pot burn that caused this reaction.

Two kinds of mac and cheese - with bacon and with mushrooms.
I didn't get a chance at the former but tasted the latter in
the kitchen, as I had to adjust the salt for it, and found it
really nice, some of the best I've ever done. Two half-size
steam table trays totally disappeared.

I did a riff on dirty rice that involved both chicken liver
as it should have and pork sausage as many people expect it
to have. Also sherry and a spoonful of premade trinity mixture.
The rice cooked unevenly, so there were al dente bits, which I
don't like much, but on the whole it was okay.

Collards with chicken broth and onions came out well, but the
pot liquor was even better. Both needed a shake of hot sauce:
I deliberately underseasoned everything, as I was in the biz
of pleasing folks rather than burning their mouths off.

I made a wild card dish - lima beans with sherry and butter,
using 2 lb of frozen beans, a cup of butter, and half a cup
of sherry. Several people, mostly named Annie, said that
nobody would touch this, but at the end of the meal only a
couple cups remained. I was going to salvage these, but as
soon as I turned my back somehow they had been fed to the pig.
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