StephanieL

I'm really, really sorry I never got to a PDQ Bach concert.

Copenhagen! Heading there at the end of June for World Coffee Fest Europe. N will join me after the fest and then we'll do a couple of days of sightseeing. She's going to be visiting family in the UK either before or after, and possibly heading to SA too, but she'll be making those visits on her own.

Ooh, which place is this?

There's always Gary Danko. N and I had a very nice anniversary dinner there.

I take it you've already been to Kin Khao, but I don't think their even fancier sister establishment, Nari, was open when you were here last. I've been hearing good things about it. I'm not so up on the high-end SF dining scene, alas.

When my kosher-keeping grandparents found themselves in similar situations, they'd use the "don't ask, don't tell" workaround: go to an all-night diner and only order dairy.

Chalk it up to laziness, I guess. 🙂 It was unusual in that N lined the bottom of the pan with potato slices, because that's supposed to facilitate whatever the equivalent of a socarrat in a biryani is. Didn't work, sad to say. It might have been the pan; I suggested using a paella pan next time, but ours is too small for that recipe.

Needing an allergy skin test means not being able to take antihistamines for several days beforehand. My nose and eyes are not happy.

Goat biryani.

She says thank you, and is pleased that you remember it.

It's rainy and blah out, so I'm taking over kitchen duties tonight and making RG's polenta and beans, using the Borlotti Magnificos.

The Tipperary: 1 1/2 oz. Irish whiskey 1 oz. sweet vermouth 1/2 oz. green Chartreuse 1/2 oz. chilled water 1/2 oz. simple syrup 2 dashes orange bitters Stir in a mixing glass with ice and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with an orange peel.

A using-up-ingredients dinner: Pork tenderloin with piperade (red and yellow peppers that needed to be cooked), over spaghetti N turned the remaining puff pastry from the chicken pot pie dinner and frozen berries from last year's garden harvest into a small tart. She added cinnamon, brown sugar, and cornstarch to the berries and folded cinnamon sugar into the dough.

The "Cotton-Eyed Joe" song that was a staple of Yankees 7th-inning stretches was recorded by a novelty act from Sweden.

Enjoy. It's worth it for the history lessons alone.

Me three. I also saw him in Tommy, and at least one Shakespeare in the Park production.

I feel honored to be quoted by Wilfrid. 😉

N used the last of the New Year's Day roast chicken to make a single-crust chicken pot pie with mushrooms and leeks.

I had to Google her, because my first thought was the actress Alexis Smith.

Repurposing the leftover roast chicken into sandwiches. Yesterday, it was chicken salad; today, it was sliced chicken on sprouted wheat bread with the leftover sweet mustard ham glaze as a sandwich spread.

Where the leg lamp in A Christmas Story came from.

Just throw some Doritos in a bottle of Everclear.

Oh, now I get the references to this song in the Hernandez Brothers comic "Love and Rockets".

Today's dinner will be roast chicken with sausage stuffing, Marcus Samuelsson's black-eyed peas (from an old RG Bean Club newsletter), and collard greens.

The Rowan Family Black Bean Chili recipe found on the RG website. I used the Midnight Blacks and halved the recipe, making it beef-only. N is growing a pepper similar to jalapenos, but not as spicy--two of them went into the chili. I also made a simple cornmeal mush to soak up some of the liquid, and topped things off with some avocado.