Text 8431, 83 rader
Skriven 2014-01-02 04:00:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: NYE 9
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I finally met Ciara, who has a bad case of the sniffles as
well as that ear infection: she's in isolation for the week
and all visitors must wash their hands after contact, vet's
orders. Jupiter tried to make nicely-nicely with her, but
we shooed him off.

New year's eve was a more sedate affair than even planned.
Anne and Kathy were the only invited guests. Pretty much
all of our acquaintances were going to the fancier
restaurant in Montoursville (I guess the Franco's places
and the Herdic were either closed or booked up), but Dan
and Charlie had neglected to invite their mother, so Annie
picked up the slack, even though we were invited elsewhere
- she cleverly doesn't want to go out and play bumper cars
(her term) with all the drunks.

Kathy came over first thing in the morning to do her usual
weekly cleanup (it's funny - the night before, Annie goes
around frantically tidying things in anticipation of Kathy's
arrival, especial attention paid to the northside kitchen,
as I cook hot and fast and messy, and my own cleanup
apparently doesn't pass muster).

She managed to get most of the scorch off the grits pot and
performed other salutary services before going home with
the promise to return in four hours.

At which I took a 2+-hour nap.

Annie had differing ideas from me on the menu - I wanted
to do something with the beef (make stroganoff or similar),
but she had her heart set on schnitzel and spaetzle, and
again when I wasn't looking packed away the beef. Luckily,
she'd tasted it and found it good, so it didn't go down the
pig but into a freezer bag.

Anyhow, I woke up refreshed and ready to pound a few cutlets,
but Annie said don't bother, they're not coming. Kathy's
house is at elevation, and there was just enough of that and
just enough drizzle that when it came time to drive down the
hill, she was snowed in - down here in the lowlands there was
no sign of that, just a bit of wet on the ground. And Anne
had decided that it was too much trouble for all of us to take,
so she stayed home alone and we stayed home alone.

We watched part of Chowdown Countdown, which is 101 short bits
chunked from other shows and threaded together by a really
obnoxious-voiced and otherwise objectionable narrative,
spread out over 5 hours and purporting to showcase the best
restaurant experiences in the country. Guess what #1 is,
spoiler alert. Louis' Lunch, the New Haven birthplace of the
hamburger sandwich. I can attest that the food there is pretty
respectable in a retro sort of way (the burgers are served on
toast, because buns apparently hadn't been invented back when
the place started serving), but the best in the country? I
can only shrug. They passed up Al's Italian Beef and Salt Lick
for this? And Black's was #91? Madness. Even Burt's haunt
Dinosaur, admittedly not my absolute first choice for BBQ,
ranked at 61, and I find its entire gestalt more satisfying
than Louis'. Ah, well. I note that I have been to 30 of these
top 101, and in fact at most of them the food is pretty good.

We had gotten a package of 5 cutlets from a very large chicken
breast, and I pounded them thin and did a multiple dip of
egg, Progresso seasoned crumbs (not my favorite, too dark,
too seasoned), and repeat. Fried them in a mixture of lard and
vegetable oil until nicely brown on both sides, nothing else.
I'd have liked a lemon, but we'd long since run out of lemons.
She made rather big spaetzle that were to me more gnocchi than
German, buttered them, and tossed them with more of those crumbs.
Panko, which I had bought to top the mac and cheese with and of
which there remained way enough, would have been my choice.
For me, leftover pulled pork - I'd found the debris left there
in the roasting pan and had entreated her not to dump it, so
it had sat there in the mud room for a couple days just getting
deliciouser and deliciouser. Annie said her cutlet was the best
thing she had eaten in the whole two weeks. I almost could have
said the same of my food, but both the beef and the mushroom
mac and cheese (both now inaccessible) appealed to me even more.

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