Salmon/chocolate

Another fine evening, another dinner on the balcony. We stopped by Whole Foods (now THERE'S a surprise! Fourth time in the one week it's been open!) and picked up some sockeye salmon for dinner. I crusted it with some seasoned cornmeal and fried it up nicely, serving it on a bed of seared zucchini, peppers, and onions.
The veggies then became the sauce when I dished it on to the plates. Wow, check out the biceps on that guy!

;-)

With a simple salad (here's a fast and tasty dressing - plain yogurt, salt, pepper) and bottle of the 2004 Domaine Chandon Pinot Noir (but not too much for me - I have 7 miles to run in the morning), we were set.


Dessert? Nothing baked or cooked or even cut up. Just a box of Vosges truffles to open.We didn't devour them all, mind you. Fun as that may be....

guess the flavour

Go on, guess. It's a toughie, this one!

Trout

Not much explanation needed on this one. A warm evening, a post-practice dinner of trout, crusted in cornmeal and fried. Served with some fava bean, radish, and ricotta salata salad. San Pellegrino to drink. Grapes and cherries for dessert. Well, until I ate far too much cookie dough while baking after dinner, that is....

seafood (lots of it) at Dave's

Wow.

As if we haven't already eaten quite well, thank you very much, this whole weekend, we spent the late afternoon with a small group of friends over at Dave's place, demolishing a generous amount of seafood. An almost incomprehensibly generous amount. Scroll through the photos and be blown away.

We got there a little later than intended - the vagaries of laundry. We weren't the last to arrive, but Dave already had the table laid with paper and a platter of freshly cooked crabs awaiting.Dave, our very generous host, does a superb job with parties like this - we've enjoyed a couple before, and we were glad he could make it to the Drink Pink party last night.

Also there were Brad (a teammate and someone not eating ANY seafood at all - Dave grilled a pork tenderloin for him), Tina (a teammate, Brad's girlfriend as well), Dan (see, it's all Smelts, almost!), Daniel (lane 2, to be exact), Becky (nope, not a Smelt, but a good friend of Dave's we've met a few times before), Christopher (not eating the seafood boil, but he did love the marinated mushrooms, and he was thrilled with the grilled portabello and the grilled fish Dave made him), me, and the handsome Conrad (who made a joyous mess, right along with the rest of us).

A boil then. Or three of them. Dave cooked two big batches of blue crabs, both very flavourful, a bit spicy and zippy, messy as all get out, and a lot of fun. We dug in enthusiastically.
Brad declined but did shuck corn for the Low Country boil still to come out. He also (awwwwwwww, what a good boyfriend he is) helped keep Tina's hair out of the way of the mess of crabs, shells, and juices on the table.

The crabs were wonderful. The boil blew us away. We rolled up the mess from the two batches of crabs, laid out more paper, and Dave dumped out a steaming hot pot of more crab, clams, shrimp, onions, potatoes, garlic, and corn (plus bunch of seasonings).

It steamed enticingly, and then we got down to it again.





Nothing pretty about it once we got into it, believe me, but did we relish it! We did a good job, too, as can be seen by the remnants.

First the macaroons came out for dessert. Though Tina and Christopher were the only two to really ham it up with them,
we all enjoyed them immensely. Not pictured are the mixed berries Becky had brought to be eaten with the sweetened ricotta and cream she had made. Oooooh, now that was nice.

A busy weekend of eating, then. I don't feel overfull, but I've certainly had a lot. The cold is still coming on, though while we were out in the sun and fresh air, having a good time with friends, it bothered me only slightly. The evening is starting to fade, though, and I'll be glad of a nice rest to cap my birthday weekend.

Drink Pink

It was sort of a birthday thing, sort of not. Conrad and I had about a dozen and a half or so friends over last night for a wine tasting party. The theme? Rosés. Pink wine. More like "pink" since some were gorgeous shades of cranberry or ruby. One, a German wine, was the palest orange in the evening light, also belying the theme.

A fun time, with a challenge issued to all to guess the country of origin for each wine. 11 countries in total, and the winner, with 6 correct guesses, was Dan. Nicely done!

Neither Conrad nor I took photos during the party. We did get a few shots before it all started, though, including a shot of CG in a gorgeous party dress and a good view of the splendid cheese and sundries tray we had Pastoral put together. Ahhhh, cheese...

37th birthday dinner

"On the downward slope toward 40." So says my profile, and the slope is now steeper.

37 as of Friday past, and we celebrated it with our friends Gil and Rakhael at Yoshi's.Of course at Yoshi's. Where else would we have fine food in such comfortable, friendly surroundings.

It was a lovely evening, and I'm very pleased we went there.

I had to run 14 miles quite early the next morning (ugh, not a great run, but not horrible), so I kept my dinner moderate. A little wine, not too much. Plenty of water. Fish for dinner as I find that's a good thing to eat the night before a big run.

Conrad and I shared some tuna tartare to start with. No photos, sorry. We had lapsed and forgotten we even had a camera with us. No matter. Rakhael hadn't yet arrived, so it was something to hold us until she did.

We followed one fish with another: king salmon in this case. Good and fatty under the skin, and put with some mango and cucumber salad, heirloom tomatoes, couscous, fresh herbs, and a mustard sauce.All of it blended marvellously with each forkful. I enjoyed a glass of a Sauvignon Blanc (yes, again), and ate up every bit. Gil was taking photos throughout the evening, as were we, so the dinner is well documented!

But Yoshi and Nobuko were not done there. Out came a lovely cake that we were able to share and even offer to some of the others at the bar and in the restaurant. A white cake with some lovely fresh raspberries between the layers. A fine traditional thing to have.







And finally there was a bit of champagne. I took only a little, mindful of my training run. It was generous of Yoshi and Nobuko, though, and a good cap to an utterly fine evening there.



But gee, now I'm 37. Well, life's not going too badly so far, is it?

Le Colonial (birthday lunch)

It's been a busy busy pair of days just completed. I'm knackered, and my body is telling me so through the inconvenient onslaught of a bad cold. Yay. I LOVE growing older!

Back to Friday: Conrad and I took the day off, and after a lazy morning of sleeping in and a few busy and not so busy things done, we met CG for lunch at Le Colonial. A French-Vietnamese restaurant down near a part of town known as (I'm not making this up) the Viagra Triangle (well, realtors and the city of Chicago don't call it that, but...). I'd never been before, so this really was a treat for me. Conrad looked very handsome, and CG was no less lovely. We ordered a bottle of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and started on a leisurely lunch.

Sharing dishes was the idea, and so we had two appetizers between us: a salad with beef tenderloin (this was, I think, my favourite) and some monkfish with sesame crackers.

Similarly, we shared a dish of chicken in yellow curryand a mixed seafood dish(and I was delighted by how the seafood was NOT overcooked, a danger in a dish like this) along with rice and a plate of sauteed pea shoots. Tasty tasty pea shoots.

All was good, and we kept picking at it, waving away the staff trying to clear our plates from time to time.

Eventually we moved on to dessert, at which point CG tried predicting what I would have based on her past dining experience with me. Conrad is easy - there was a chocolate and raspberry dessert, so that would have to be it. CG nailed me with her second choice - she knows I'm very fond of custards and puddings, so it would be the crème brûlée or possibly the tapioca with banana. Tapioca it was.Which makes me giggle in hindsight because it makes me think of the episode of Friends wherein Monica makes birthday flan. Truly, I'd be quite pleased with that! CG, by the way, had the lemon tart.

And then it was off to see Harry Potter 5. Kind of a Harry Potter weekend with the various gifts of books and DVDs, plus I finished the final book. But a heck of a good way to spend my birthday, thanks very much to CG and Conrad treating me to a great lunch!

making me cry

I won't get into details, nor will I explain any in-jokes that Conrad and I share. Some of you will understand this entry, others will just see stuffed animals and cake - NOT mixed together. It's my birthday tomorrow, though, and Conrad had a lovely treat for after dinner tonight. His presentation, moreover, was enough to reduce me to tears.

In other words, I love him immensely.

:-)

Whole Foods comes closer

A monumental day in our happy Chicago gaybourhood: Whole Foods is open and doing business. And what business it is! So many samples to snack on tonight. It's a wonder we even bothered with dinner!

Yes, I know some of the criticisms of Whole Foods. Expensive. Anti-union. And more. But I gave up on Treasure Island's meat a long time ago because of the smell in that area of the store, and the night I bought salmon from Jewel and had to sauce it heavily to mask the odor I swore off all but chicken from that store. And barely that. We've been buying produce and meat from Whole Food for some time now. Add in cheese and dried goods and even wine, and, well, there's not a lot we need from other grocery stores.

Whole Foods was a bit of an expedition for us, however. A trip there required a car. Now I can get off the Red Line at Addison or the Halsted bus at Graceland and just walk over to the new GLBT community center. The store - and all credit to them for this - anchors the new center.




Ah yes, Whole Foods knows of the power of the gay dollar. Smart.

It opened this morning, and we made plans with Rachel
to stroll over, buy our dinner, and eat on the deck at her apartment building. This was a good decision. The evening was so pleasantly warm, and it was easy to put things on plates and dine. Some turkey meatloaf; a baguette and a wedge of Cocoa Cardona cheese; a little antipasti selection of garlic marinated olives, cornichons, roasted red pepper, and an artichoke spread with little balls of mozzarella; Marcona almonds; something of a Greek salad. We sipped a Babich Pinot Noir and capped the evening with Rainier cherries and a Vosges Barcelona bar (my favourite!).





So, no more big journeys for groceries every couple of weeks. Now it will be stopping in to buy some meat and veg for dinner, maybe a bit of fun cheese or some other treat. The neighbourhood will change and adapt because of the new Whole Foods, but I, for one, am delighted! As is Conrad!

;-)

Hey, look! We're having dinner on the balcony again!

For a couple of weeks there I kind of went on strike against myself. It happens periodically - I decide that it's nicer to sit down and eat the hot/warm dinner when I set it on the table rather than photograph it so much that I'm eating lukewarm or frankly cold food nightly. Shocking, I know.

Still, I have an obligation to the three people who read the blog more than once a week, and I am a little vain about providing Conradwith nice dinners, so...

Some salmon tonight.Seared, simply. A topping of capers, shallots, and parsley in plenty of butter. And if that wasn't rich enough, then there's the nice thin wedge of Ossau-Iraty cheese we picked up earlier this evening at Pastoral.
Ahhhh, now there's a fine store. We went in to place an order for a customized tray to be served at our wine tasting party on Saturday. Six cheeses, plus some other fun things, and a bit of fun stuff to bring home for ourselves as well.

Smelts BBQ, 2007 edition

I'd point anyone reading this blog entry back to 2006 photos of the annual barbecue at Liz and Adrian's, but I wasn't there. I can't quite believe I missed it. I am sorry. These events are always quite fun, and this year was no exception. In fact, it was a more intimate group than usual, and I think that the food contributions were especially good.

Curiously enough, though, I took no photos of the spread of food. Oh sure, photos of people and their plates, but none of the tables laden with bowls and platters. I didn't even photograph the chicken wings I made, or the brown butter mango tart. Ah well.

Lots of teammate photos, though. Names included where I can think of them:


I can pick out Rudy in the pale blue, Joe in white just to Rudy's left, and Anthony blocking the view of Joe. Ross is in back with the printed shirt, and that's Heidi's hair colour and jacket. The other guy is Anthony's BF, I would guess.


Chris, Ross, Stuart, and a glimpse of Corinne.


Another pre-dinner knot of chatting Smelts. Michael, Scot, and Hal are gathered while Paul is in the background.

Some individual shots:

Tim. Too cool for school?


Scot.


Steve. Nice to see him back from a year in Argentina!


Steve. A different Steve. Too many Steves and Dans on this team, I sometimes think, though hardly as problematic as the overabundance of Andrés and Jean-Hyphenates on ACC.


Daniel. We got lots of shots of him tonight, and Tim and Corinne for that matter. The people I found myself chatting with most, I suppose.


Romel

But this was about recent birthd on the team, the families. It was a shower of sorts for Amber and Bill, and for Ron and Carrie.
Bill, Kate, and Amber.


Ron, Why am I blanking on the name of his son?, and Ross.


Steve, Deborah (visiting us from Minnesota), Channing, and Kate.

Dinnertime, and there was no shortage of food. Or wine, for that matter.
Deborah, again. Delightful to see her!


Heidi


You all know who this guy is.


Tim


Stuart


Heidi and Barry.


Michael


Steve


Scot


Conrad. It was a smart thing to pack a sweater - a wonderful temperature out for running!


Carl and Romel. Brad is in the background.

The team had gifts for the new parents. As you can see, Liz is in line for a shower at some point soon as well. Channing co-presents the gists with her.




After dinner, more chit chat and snacking on the food still laid out.
Romel and Deborah.


Corinne and Tim. Cute couple.


Look, I'm in a photo. Or in many. With Rudy in this one.


With Corinne.


With Tim.


Tim and Corinne again. I chatted with them a good bit, though not just with them. We'll work on the ANTM poses when next they come for dinner.


Daniel, Tim, and Corinne.


John, Michael, and Paul. A miniature gathering of apostles?


A terrific shot of Conrad and Daniel.

And finally, two photos of Conrad and me. We have thousands of photos on our hard drive, yet so few of us together since one of us is usually taking the shots.




I expect that next year we'll be doing a bigger event of some sort to mark the team's 20th anniversary, and I hope that we'll have a substantial turn out. But no complaints about the missing folk tonight. There were others at the dinner whose photos did not turn out so well and so are not shown here. A very pleasant evening.

Now then, to bed. Up since 4:55 makes for a long and tiring day, as you might expect.

Labour Day weekend plans

Two weeks since my last post? There truly are only so many balcony dinners I can photograph and post. Ah well.

It's storming up mightily out there. Impressive. Things will be mucky on the lakefront when I do my three miles in the morning.

And speaking of miles, here's an idea of a potential training run in Vancouver on Labour Day weekend. I'll start in the vicinity of Marie's place, and see a bunch of the city. In fact, I'll likely have to tag on an extra 3-4 mile loop. Fun!

2007.07.21. ETA: In order to get the map in here, I have to do some funky things with the settings that does not sit well with all the postings that have photos. To see the map, take a look here: http://www.mapmyrun.com/run/canada/bc/vancouver/615525782

balcony dinner (again) (salads)

Wow, was I wiped out by the time dinnertime rolled around. I napped a little after I got home from work (and finished rereading a good little book called Perfect Agreement I'd read several years back). When Conrad got home, I persuaded him that a long, late night at Yoshi's would not be good with how tired we were. I love Yoshi's truly, but I really wanted to stay close to home. Besides, I knew I could put together a reasonable dinner from the contents of the fridge.

A green salad drizzled with the Seresin lime-infused olive oil. Smoked salmon with fried capers, dill, and red onion. A caprese salad. A plate of fresh strawberries, and the remains of the lime cake from the other night. A bottle of a Lang Vineyards Grand Pinot. The evening was comfortably warm, so it ended up being a nice, casual dinner out on the balcony.
I suspect Conrad may have really wanted to go to Yoshi's after all, though, given the dreadful photo of me that he took (and in all fairness to friends whose photos have landed on this blog, I am posting it here).
5 miles in the AM!

obscenity (pancakes in the suburbs)

I guess when I say "obscenity", I mean my own greed and appetite. In my defense, though, I didn't finish my pancake. On the other hand, maybe if I hadn't eaten any bacon...

Breakfast at Walker Brothers' Original Pancake House in Wilmette. Yes, the suburbs. Funny how easily one assumes a snobbishness toward them even after only a short time in the city, and yet breakfast this morning was far far better than any of the generally mediocre offerings in Boystown. It was served up hot and in ample portions. John and Bryan joined us, with Bryan taking the plunge with me into the apple pancake for which the restaurant is justifiably renowned.

John also had a baked pancake, though his was a savoury version with vegetables and cheese.
Conrad? A "healthier" breakfast of a huge spinach and Swiss omelettewith bacon and pancakes on the side.
The rest of the day shall be spent, prone, clutching my belly.