Amazing still it seems,
I'll be 23.
I won't always love what I'll never have;
I won't always live in my regrets.

Simply Another Pedant

I found this fabulous book in the library. It is titled The Pedant In The Kitchen by Julian Barnes. I feel like his attitude toward cooking reflects mine exactly, including the dogmatic following of recipes, complete lack of truly creative cooking power, and just plain cursing in the damn kitchen when things go wrong. Here's an exciting excerpt:

Consider: you start with 2 tablespoons of oil, plus butter; you have added a glass of wine; there is the fat from the chops and the juice from the chicory. What do you get after fifteen minutes on a low heat with the lid on? You get about half a pint of something looking like pale veal stock. You're not told to reduce it; yet Nigel's third picture, on forensic examination, reveals the black splatter of heavy reduction.

I set the chops aside, left the chicory in the pan, and boiled the shit out of it. Thus did this 'thirty-minute supper' become a forty-minute one. From time to time, I would scrape at the squeak-clean bottom of the pan with a wooden spatula, growling 'Goeey bits, gooey bits' in a tone some might judge filled with wise yet fierce irony and others might find barking mad. Eventually the dish was deilvered to the table. and the following lessons were absorbed..

using the cross light at the den, from the beds :)

a looming sort of comfort..

the colors of apex

more mt. vernon at night. cross light effect is pretty coool!

jealous? they were so good, and so were the cheese fries! lovely way to end a horrible race in philly.

mt. vernon by night.. super coool!

guac and red corn tortilla chips, yum

Success!

It was great! We however, made a small modification to the menu. Added bruschetta appetizers with grilled italian bread, mozarella, basil, and a cherry tomato topping. Rachel made a dried fruit couscous that went well with everything. Emily brought an awesome avocado, mango, black bean salad. For dessert, we had fruit skewers, grilled, and topped with cream. And grilled, halved bananas. And Rachel's blueberry-peach cobbler as well.

Things to remember for next time, bring more charcoal if you plan on grilling for 5 hours straight, and the corn takes freakin' forever! Otherwise, it was one of the easiest things ever, just a lot of prep work that was totally worth it in the end. Rachel and Jeremiah were there with me from the way beginning, and so were Emily and Pete. Helena and her friend Ellen stopped by for a good while, Nana came by with some quick entertainment from Morty, and finally Becca showed up with the hebrew nationals :)

Then, went to the harbor to see fireworks... who knew that the barge closer to the inner harbor would only have fireworks every 5 minutes?