last cooked dinner of 2007

You know, I've blogged a lot this week, gosh darn it. I'll keep this one brief. Besides, the shots don't really make the food look as appetizing as it really was. No, honestly.

Turkey breast is such a bland meat, you have to admit. Consequently, I partnered slices of breast with braised red cabbage and a squash puree - stronger flavours that could mix and be absorbed by the turkey. Also helpful was the sauce made of reduced liquid in which I'd oven-braised the breast.

Conrad and I polished off the glass of wine in each of two bottles. And that, essentially, was the last dinner I'm cooking this year. I wonder what kicks (vegetable purees, radishes, walnuts, feta), I'll be on in the year ahead.

Time for a walk, I think!

Frontera brunch

In past years, Conrad and I have had a tradition of sorts of joining my (now former) department head for brunch at his regular restaurant, Frontera Grill.

(and you know, if you're going to have a restaurant where you're a regular, then it's good to pick a James Beard Award winner!)

In fact, I simply love Frontera (and Topolobampo) in and of itself, not because of its star chef/owner. I've seen Rick Bayless there a number of times, and I've been introduced to him (and his wife and daughter and a number of other staff there - Conrad and I, as I think I've mentioned before, truly adore Jill, the sommelier), but I've liked the place since before ever I ate there.

A dozen years ago the owners of the restaurant in my home town where I worked for several years between degrees came back from a Chicago trip with stories of dining at Frontera. We already had a Bayless cookbook, and we used other ones as well in the wake of their trip. We were a putatively Mexican restaurant, after all, and while our menu changed daily and drew in ideas from all over the map, Mexican food was something I learned to love deeply. When I came to Chicago for a job interview in Summer 2000, I used the entire per diem amount on a meal at Frontera, and that confirmed it all for me.

Anyway, long-winded there, sorry. back to brunch with RAD. We got there just before him, and when he joined us (festive sweater in place!) at our table in a warm corner near the kitchen, we all ordered our customary margaritas (Topolo margaritas, no salt for him and Conrad, the special tamarind margarita rimmed with chipotle salt for me) and settled in to catch up on everything. RAD's birthday is Boxing Day, so ultimately Conrad and I treated him (well, Conrad did) to the meal.

A run down of what we had (with menu descriptions):

Entremés Surtido:appetizer platter of cheesy quesadillas (the little turnovers at the back end of the platter), crispy chicken taquitos with sour cream (almost hidden on the left side of the platter), tangy ceviche tostadas (on the right side of the platter), crunchy jícama salad (foreground, this time with the surprise of pineapple added), and guacamole (at the back end).

Conrad's Platillo del Día:Atlantic salmon with a tomatillo sauce and, in place of the mashed potatoes, some incredibly good green beans. Ever have a side dish/garnish that you think you could eat a ton of by itself? Yep, that's the beans!

My Papadzules Yucatecos:classic Yucatecan "enchiladas" of homemade tortillas bathed with savory, smooth pumpkinseed sauce, rolled around hardboiled egg, topped with habanero-sparked roasted tomato and pickled red onion; Frontera salad. An unctuous dish, but the sauce and onions cut the richness of it all. I was delighted with it (and it paired well with a glass of Pinot Noir rather than another margarita), but I think I'd have to be in a proper frame of mind to order it again. An unusual dish, yet utterly tasty.

Bob's Frontera "Chili":cubes of wood-grilled pork and lamb simmered with ancho chile, cumin, dark beer and red beans; topped with aged Vella Jack cheese and cilantro, served with house salad and warm tortillas for making soft tacos. I don't think he (or Conrad) ate one of the tortillas they were provided.

Not pictured are the Frijoles Charros (pinto beans simmered with bacon, poblanos, tomato and cilantro) that I ordered as a side for us to share. Bacon, of course, makes everything good.

We ate at a very leisurely pace. All of us had wine with our main course after a couple of margaritas before that. Unusual for us, we skipped dessert. The options were tempting, but we've been eating a lot of sweets this holiday season, and we're a bit worn out of them. Better, we thought to have another glass of wine (Patrón XO Café for RAD) or two each.

All in all, we were there for about three hours - when we brunch with RAD, it's a real commitment of time. Conrad and I were quite contented when we made our way over to Michigan Avenue for another venture through the post-Christmas sales. And we look forward to some weeks of good diet and exercise before we meet up at Frontera for another brunch with RAD!

taking the joke a step farther

Blame Conrad is all I can say....

Aloha bunnies?

You know that the day is ending well and that life overall is pretty good when you come to bed to find this scene:




Don't be freaked out. Conrad has a lot of work travel to Honolulu, after all, and next travels there in a few weeks. As for the other two characters, well....

comforting food (lamb shanks)

It's been a good and productive day of weeding out the closets and storage containers around the house. The Brown Elephant will get a good donation as will the building's recycle bins. The work continues tonight, but a few minutes stolen from it to blog dinner isn't out of line.

I seem to make lamb shanks a heck of a lot lately. They're not all that expensive a cut, and they have the further virtue of being something you can pop in the oven for a very long time and mostly ignore. Handy for a day when other things are on the go around the house.

In any case, given the wet, snowy weather today, some comforting food was suitable. I put each shank atop a bed of simply and lightly boiled Brussels sprouts and cauliflower and spooned over some of the reduced braising liquid.
Also on the table were a dish of olives, peppers, and walnuts as well as a plate with a couple of wedges of walnut cake and some slices of aged Mimolette cheese. As for the wine, I'm sitting here enjoying a second glass of a 2004 Montes Alpha Syrah (Chile) that someone brought to last weekend's party.

In short, I'm not too concerned about the somewhat miserable weather, and if I keep this up, I won't be too bothered with the cleaning/sorting for the rest of the night!

Christmas, sort of

Conrad and I will tease each other by imitating the Yooper accent he will occasionally slide into with his family. There are certain words that betray the accent especially well, and given where we were, the day (not that it was Christmas, but the day of the week), and the food at hand, well...



Toast on Tuesday. Or, said the Yooper way (yes, I exaggerate): toooohh-wust on Tuuuuu-wuzday.

Fine, enough gentle mocking for now (though given the number of times I get idiots trying out their best Ontario accent - what's that all aboat, eh? - on me when they learn I'm Canadian - no such thing as a single Canadian accent, people! - it is nice to have some payback, misdirected as it may be).

I left it up to Conrad to take photos of his family's celebration on Christmas day, and in the end, he didn't bother taking any. I have no shots of the ham for lunch, of the opening of presents, of his family. I managed to get a few shots in a quiet time late in the morning, though, of him and his Mom by the tree so at least some Yuletide souvenir makes it on to the blog.

Escanaba

This, friends, is a glimpse (and neither a fair nor flattering one, I admit) of the town where we spent Christmas: Escanaba.

Like my own hometown, it's small, isolated, resource-based, and kind of dying. Christmas Eve was a somber day in terms of weather, alas, so the appeal of the town is all the less apparent.




But there are good things about the place (see? I can be Canadian about these things!) such as the gorgeous old homes (adorned with Christmas lights - it made for pleasant evening drives), pasties, and a coffee shop where we didn't have the best coffee we'd ever had, but where the wireless worked real fine and freely!

Milwaukee/Kohler

Reaching all the way back to last Sunday for this posting, just to add some photos from Milwaukee and Kohler to the blog.

We dawdled a bit on the drive up north last weekend even after a later-than-expected start to our drive. It was 1:00 and still kind of sunny when we drove in to Milwaukee.





Nice city - I rather like the place. Lunch was at a coffee shop we like in the loft district, the Third Ward,
and we poked briefly in the nearby Market after that.

(The Market is a nice little place with some little treasures like the St. Paul Fish Company and the Spice House. We stopped in at the Fish company's oyster bar for some lunch on our return trip to Chicago and picked up a few things to replenish the seasonings and flavourings in my kitchen cupboard.)

Our stop in Kohler was much shorter: some fuel and a bit of fruit and water from the grocery store at Woodlake.




The weather, as you can see, was not as good by that point, and though we usually take our time in the little town, this time we got back on the road again quickly.

Boxing Day dinner (NoMI)

It's just gone midnight, no longer Boxing Day. The party photos from last weekend took some time to post, and I want to get tonight's dinner blogged before bed.

Conrad and I did have a nice time in the UP, all things considered. I was altogether anxious about the trip for various family reasons, but the dread I felt never lived up to the pleasant actuality of the time spent there. I'm not about to sing the praises of semi-rural northern Michigan on the street corners, but it was a nice Christmas all in all.

And yet, Conrad and I still wanted something special for ourselves. A handful of years ago we had a Boxing Day dinner at Seasons that ranks among the best meals I've ever had in Chicago (halibut on choucroute garni - YUM!), and tonight was a worthy successor to that first Boxing Day dinner.

We got in the door around 4:00. Unpacked, relaxed. Went for a brief swim, came home, unwrapped all the presents from friends. Got dressed. Caught a cab down to the Park Hyatt Hotel for dinner at NoMI.

It had been a couple of years since last we were there. The last time was the first annual splurge meal with CG, and the service was disappointing that night. The food was solid, not great, save for the quintet of quince desserts. I'm a sucker for quince.

This time we arrived early and settled into the lounge. Conrad had a French Pinot Noir, I had a French Chenin Blanc. Neither was remarkable, but each was fine for relaxing before dinner. Before too long the staff brought us to our table.

NoMI is a gorgeous room, and if most fortunate, one can get a table in the window, overlooking the Water Tower. Alas, though we've had that experience long ago, not tonight. No matter, though. Food was the important thing, until we saw the wine list, that is.

Unsurprisingly, the list is quite large. Happily, it includes a wide variety including several New Zealand reds. I spied 3 Otago Pinot Noirs on the list, all of them a little pricey but not horribly so for a celebratory dinner. One of them was familiar from a recent Wine Spectator "best of the year" list, and we took a chance on it. WOW. Smart move.The Amisfield 2005 Pinot Noir was a delight from the first sniff to the last taste in our glasses. I was sad to see it done.

The food? Excellent as well. We shared two starters:

Winter lettuce and chicories with roasted sunchoke purée and vegetables crudité
Jamon Iberico with toast and complimentary flavours (hilarious description for some cheese shavings plus a few other tidbits!)

The ham? Kicked serious butt. We've enjoyed jamon serrano a lot since our 2004 trip to Spain. This is a finer type of that ham, and the difference is notable.

Oh, before the appetizers came out we received an amuse-bouche of a lobster salad with an avocado mousse.Fine enough.

For our meal we each had the Four Story Hill Farm Pheasant with chestnuts, fall vegetables, and pheasant jus.The pheasant - and the thin slabs of squash anchoring the plate - were cooked sous-vide. The meal went very nicely with the wine.

We opened presents to each other in between courses and otherwise sat and were all mushy with each other. As usual!

:-)

No dessert for us, tempting as it was. Instead we opted to share the trio of cheeses (and I wish I could tell you what all three were) served with apple butter, pecans, and cherries poached in their own juice.And of course, all three went down too fast, too easily.

After that came a dish of sweets compliments of the kitchen:

coconut marshmallow
rosewater macaroons
a type of chocolate macaroon
Darjeeling tea caramel
fruit tart



And then, of course, the bill.

Service was terrific - just formal enough, just informal enough. We couldn't have asked for a better night, really.

Conrad is in bed, and I must soon be on my way there. It's great not to have to work tomorrow, I must confess. I think a sleep-in will be just the thing!

2-3 hour party people

Is it a sign of a good party when there's some mighty good shopping for coats on the bed?

If Allison sees this blog entry, she should get a chuckle from the title.

Okay, catching up here. It's 11:11 (hah!) on Boxing Day as I start this. We're well fed and soon will head to bed. Tomorrow there are sales to hit. We have gift cards, and we're not afraid to use them!

First up, more party photos! Conrad and I agree - it was a terrific mix of people (minus some good friends who could not make it). All in all, they were well worth the effort, and we were glad to have them come over.

So, many many people photos, but cute guys included!

;-)

Brad, a swim teammate, straight. Sorry. Heck of a good guy, though!

Daniel, another swim teammate.


Warren, a colleague of mine.

Luis, a swim teammate. Very sweet, and rather cute. Excitable - Jeph knows what I mean by this.

Lou, a teammate stretching back to the days of ACC in Montreal.


Gil, unofficial photographer and a friend from Yoshi's.

FXK and RAS, frequently faces on the blog.

Michael (a Yoshi's regular) and Carrie (a swim teammate).

Luc and Dan (a swim teammate).

Rakhael (Yoshi's regular, also Gil's wife) and Ron (swim teammate, also Carrie's husband).

Kathryn (library person and someone I think the absolute world of), me, and Conrad.

Dan and Medgar.

Me with Luis (hot hot hot!) and his partner Dan.

Ron.

Paul (good friend not from Yoshi's libraries, or swimming), Dan (good friend and financial advisor), Pia (colleague), Kim (good friend and wife of FXK), and Warren.

Laura (friend from Yoshi's and wife of Michael) and Rakhael.

(in foreround) FXK, Jenny (from libraries), Kathryn, and RAS.

Kim, Warren, Jim (Conrad's colleage and Dan's partner), Dan, and Pia.

Dan, Luc, and Dan ( we had 5 Dans/Daniels at the party!).

Me and Pia.

Paul and Allan (good friend, also an engineer, partner of Paul).

Rakhael and me.

FXK and Warren.

Conrad and Daniel.

Rakhael, Medgar, Brad, Ron, Michael, and Laura.

FXK, Kim, RAS, and Pia.

Paul, Allan, Warren, FXK, Kim, and Pia.

Luis and me.

Laura, Michael, and Conrad.

driving up Wisconsin

We left Chicago under somewhat sunny skies, but north of Milwaukee, after our lunch, we hit more snow. I took over driving between Kohler and our stop at Seguin's Cheese, and I got the benefit of some blowing wintry white to drive through. Happily, little of it was sticking to the road, and we made reasonable time.

I almost never drive in Chicago, and more than once friends have commented to me that they didn't even realize I have a license. It's more a case that I am not fond of city driving, but I don't at all mind doing the highway driving that Conrad rather dislikes.

more Christmas party food photos

Conrad and I are killing part of the afternoon, Christmas Eve, at a coffee shop on the main street of his hometown. I am truly thankful for wireless Internet - can I be thankful for things on this holiday as well?

The streets are wet with dirty, melting snow. The town's vitality is at the box stores and mall rather than its main street. The skies overhead are somber. But the coffee shop has an old radio broadcast of Dickens' A Christmas Carol playing, and we just shared a tasty, warm cinnamon roll. Our drive wasn't at all bad either.

Anyway, may as well take advantage of the wireless and the quiet times without having to visit with Conrad's family to post a few more photos. I still have a bunch of shots from the party to look through, but for now some shots that Gil took when he came along.

The walnut gateau breton. I really like this cake, but people tended toward the similar-seeming almond and lemon shortbread instead. None of that cookie left, but plenty of the cake in our freezer.

The cookie tray: two types of biscotti and the white chocolate chip cookies. People had started on eating the cookies by this time, which is kind of the point, right?

Rakhael and Rachel dig in.

Another shot of the table.

Conrad, Jim, and I. I'm helping myself to some really yummy, gooey coat's milk cheese that I think we were told was from Indiana.


Discussing the spread with Paul and Allan, no slouches at putting on a holiday party spread themselves!


Plus beverages: mostly people stuck to the two reads, one white, or pink sparkler we had for them. Kim, Paul, Jim, and Dan serve themselves.

Conrad uncorks another bottle as Daniel looks on.

Christmas party - teaser entry

The last four people left our Christmas party about 40 minutes ago, and clean-up has been fairly quick and painless thanks to some efficient and effective tidying throughout the night. I'm knackered and more than a little doubtful that we can get ourselves on the road to the UP at a decent time in the morning. No packing done, presents and more to get together, and we'll need a nice night of sleep.

Ah well. It's worth it when you get a good mix of friends from various spheres together, jumble them up with food and wine, and let them all interact enjoyably.

I have a bunch of photos, and Gil has shared many more, but it's too late to do a lengthy post. Accordingly, it may yet be some days before you get more party shots. For now, though, a few from set up
and one or two other shots of guests just chatting happily.



As for the food, well, I made

• white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies
• pistachio and dried apricot biscotti
• milk chocolate, almond, and orange biscotti
• walnut gateau breton (screw the diacritics tonight - I'm tired!)
• almond and lemon fregolata (shortbread)
• decorated cut out cookies
• roast boneless leg of lamb, served sliced and cold
• squash and blue cheese galette
• cilantro and pumpkinseed pesto dip for veggies

I'm missing something in there, I somehow suspect. I also put out olives, pickles (cornichons, peppers, onions), pate (again, screw the diacritics), 5 cheeses, hot-smoked salmon, and more.

Okay, must sleep now. Night!

more (yes, more!) cookies

Why do I do it?

We're having a small, intimate pre-Christmas get-together tomorrow night for some 3-dozen of our closest friends, so no sooner was I home tonight than it was into some grubby clothes, tied the apron round my waist, and off and running in the kitchen. By the time I go to bed shortly after midnight I will have a roast boneless leg of lamb (in the fridge awaiting slicing tomorrow), a walnut gâteau breton, and a lemon and almond fregolata all done as well as a simple dinner of turkey meatloaves served with Brussels sprouts. Done the Peter way, as my Dad curiously calls it. I call it tossed with butter and mustard, but oh well.

Oh, and then there are these things.



Whyohwhyohwhy? They're so bloody time-consuming. Ugh. Blame the NBF for sending me a new recipe with some new decorating ideas. I admit to not having nearly enough patience or care to have really gone to town on them, but they did turn out a little more nicely than the previous effort.

I'll be knackered come tomorrow night. I have cookie dough I made earlier this week pulled out of the freezer and left to thaw in the fridge, and I'll make one or two batches of biscotti tomorrow and perhaps some ginger cookies. The stand-by recipes, I know, but for a big group, shortcuts are a must!

finished shopping!

Well, sort of. A wee bit more to go, but we really knocked off the last major presents tonight! I met up with Conrad at his office at around 4:30, and we soon set off from there. The result? Gosh, but we're worn down, and those darn Macy's bags really cut into your hands after a while!

All of this was delightfully mitigated by dinner out at The Lobby in the Peninsula Hotel. A lovely space, and we've enjoyed it a number of times before. The menu has changed, but we made do just fine.

Conrad started with scallopsand a glass of a California Chardonnay.

I opted for the salad of arugula, Marcona almonds, roasted squash, and shavings of Manchego cheese.With this I had a glass of Naia Rueda.

We each had the pork loin for dinner,
and even better, shared a dish of Brussels sprouts roasted with smoked bacon.Mmmmm. Conrad opted for an Oregon Pinot Noir while I had a white Burgundy.

We could have been bad and eaten dessert, but we sort of behaved. Sort of. We each had a glass of a nice, lush California Zinfandel (Conrad finished mine for me). And when the bill came, it came with a dish of little cookies.Nice!

The Lobby is such a lovely space,

and it feels luxurious just sitting there, admiring the lights outside.
After that it was a moderately funny comedown to find our taxi trapped by fire engines right outside the hotel!No matter, we made it home, and once this blog is up, to bed I go!

chocolate dessert (crepes)

Conrad and I realized that with his work travel (and our holiday travel) and with the party and dinner plans that arise at this time of year, last night would be our only weekend night to stay in and be cozy together. We have a lovely tree up, but so little time to admire it. With that in mind, we set last night as a date-at-home night.

In retrospect, I should have photographed dinner. It was a good plate of food, a rare dinner where I like it and don't sit and think of what I should have done differently. We had back ribs with an orange and mustard glaze, Brussels sprouts tossed with coarse mustard and butter, and a squash purée. The portions were right, and the bottle of Wooing Tree Pinot Noir was a good pairing.

I was concerned about making it an easy evening, and just enjoying dinner. Conrad barely beat the winter weather to arrive home from Richmond, and I thought it best for us to sit down to hot food when I served it rather than trying to stage it for photos. Ah well.

When it came time for dessert, though, I asked him to take some shots.

It's a simple dessert, but it's very much geared toward Conrad's favourites: chocolate and raspberries. I made chocolate crepes, filled them with whipped cream (lightly sweetened and blended with a bit of cocoa powder) and fresh raspberries, and drizzled chocolate sauce over top.When Conrad came in the door, I was busy making the crepes, but he didn't cotton to what I was up to, so dessert was a delightful surprise for him in the end. Just the way it should be!

There's more chocolate sauce and whipped cream left over in the fridge. How bad of us would it be to make up some waffles, perhaps, and have a chocolatey breakfast? I think we'll behave!

wintry night

Jeph e-mailed me early yesterday to tell me how sorry he felt for me because it appeared Chicago was going to miss out on the snow passing through the middle of the country. Ha!

Conrad made it in while it was just a light snow dancing around in the dying afternoon light. By the time we settled down to dinner, it was blowing more, and the snow was whipping down. The rest of the night, as we sat sipping wine by the tree it sounded like a howler outside, and it made the evening all the more cozy inside.

Once we cleared the condensation from the windows, we got a few shots of the scene outside.



This morning? Looks lovely out there. I should go walk over to Starbucks and grab my morning fortification. Be nice to be outside - I wonder if Conrad will mind being moseyed out of bed....

North Pond (annual splurge)

CG, Conrad, and I have an annual tradition (3 years running now) of a splurge dinner right before Christmas. This year's selection was North Pond, a handsome and well-regarded restaurant in Lincoln Park. CG had never been there, so we were happy to be with her on her first go round.

A quietish night there, which was nice. I rather like being able to hear the conversation at my table! We all went for the tasting menu with wine pairings, and of course, photos ensued. Please note: other people apparently take food photos, not just us!

Before we got to our table, we each started with a glass of winey. A festive opener to the meal. CG and I each had a glass of a rosé sparkler. Conrad cares little for champagne-style wines, so it was a French Pinot Noir for him. And then out came the food....

An amuse-bouche (and a big one at that!) of a goat cheese terrine, quince, and pumpernickel croutons

Chilled stone crab claw and knuckles, fall aples, shaved fennel, cider syrup. Served with a NV Langlois-Chateau, Crémant de Loire sparkling Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley, France.

Butter-basted spot prawns, delicata squash purée (this was terrific!), sautéed spinach, knob onion, carrot foam. We all liked this course a lot. Served with a 2006 Château Pesquie Viognier from Mormoiron, France. A fragrant wine, but bone dry and with a surprising minerality, I thought.

An extra small course - a breather or a palate cleanser, perhaps? - of Jerusalem artichoke soup

Warm sheep's milk ricotta gnocchi, fresh pear, pear glace, mizuna, pecans. Served with a 2005 Macrostie Chardonnay, Monterey CA.

Slow roasted lamb saddle, buttercup squash, glazed beet, braised red cabbage, cipollini onion - we loved this one a great deal, and it was a nice treat to get a little piece of foie gras with compliments from the chef. Served with the 2004 Domaine d'Aupilhac "La Boda", a Mourvedre, Syrah, Carignane, Grenache blend from Côteaux du Languedoc, France.

The only sort-of disappointment for me for the night: dessert. Chocolate pudding cake (an unappealing glutinous texture and not all that chocolatey), hazelnut-brown butter emulsion, concord grape sorbet (this saved the plate), sablé cookie. Served with the Renardat-Fâche, Demi-Sec Rosé Cerdon, made from Gamay and Poulsard, from Bugey, France.

Dinner ended with a couple of treats, a salty peanut brittle (too salty for CG, I think, but I liked the play of salt and sweet) and little chocolate mint squares.

I wish we'd had a table by the front windows so that we could have admired a view similar to what we took from the bar of the restaurant. No such luck, though we had a good view of the interior of the restaurant, which wasn't too bad. A little tucked away, but nice enough.


Where will we dine next year, then? So many good restaurants to get to. Ah well, another fine meal with CG in any case. Cheers!

swim team Christmas party

Reaching way back to the busy days of last weekend now....

The second party last Saturday night was at Dan's place (and the only shot I got of him was too blurry to post - why don't I get more photos of our hosts??) right around the corner. A convenient walk, so we parked the car back at home and strolled over, arriving to find the party in full swing and some of our teammates rather well lubricated, socially speaking.

No need for too much commentary. We stayed until almost midnight, I nursed one glass of wine because I knew I had a big day of baking ahead of me, and walked home on sidewalks dangerously slick with wet ice.

So then, the team:

Rudy and Steve

Allison, Brad, and Tina

Deep in conversation with Daniel

Dave

With Daniel and John

Conrad and Max

Newly-minted co-president Dana

Newly minted co-president Anthony, enjoying other goings-on, I guess....

Dana and Anthony

Mike (a Smelt spouse) and Heidi

Lee, Carl (a Smelt spouse) caught in a not-flattering expressions, and Steve

With Allison, Brad, and Tina

Carl and Romel

Patrick, Romel, Steve

Mike and Medgar

One of these people is rather inebriated. Oh, why be coy? Tina, wow, stay away from Dan's martinis!



As for the bunny, well, nevermind. Conrad likes it.

holiday party, the first

A handful of photos from Allan and Paul's party this past Saturday. When I saw the photos the next day, I was struck by two things:

1. No shots of Paul. We did say hello to him, but he was in the kitchen a lot of the time, keeping the people there entertained and working away at the food that are the hallmark of Allan and Paul's parties.
2. Not many shots overall. We knew only a very small cluster of people at the party, and though there were some other familiar faces, we didn't chat with too many people outside that small little cluster. Our loss, truly, and if we'd not had a second party to make it to, we might have loosened up, enjoyed another glass of wine, and met some new people.

In any case, Allan and Paul are great hosts, and at least we can do them the honour of a blog entry and some photos!

Jim and Conrad

Conrad and Dan

Allan and me and the shirt that so rocks!

Dan and Allan

Jim

tree trimming

Normally we take care of the tree on the day after Thanksgiving, and had we been planning to spend Christmas in Vancouver (ah, now there's a dream), it could have been so. Not this year, however, and so the trimming was later in the season (weeks after I started playing Christmas music almost non-stop).

Frank came over, as did Tim and Corinne. I fed them all some split pea soup and soda bread and let them graze among the cookies as they wished. And in the end, come 3:00, we were all done, sipping a bit of wine, and glad to see all the ornaments on the tree. All in all, a lovely afternoon.

annual cookie baking binge

You know, somehow I wasn't utterly sickened and repulsed by the sight of cookies today. Hmmm. Funny.

Taking the weekend in reverse, let's go with the cookie photos first. It's an annual thing for me, the weekend of the 100 100s (though we haven't yet done that work out this year) to meet up with Bradley and spend several hours baking. Bradley had to back out of it this year, but Conrad and I both have voracious colleagues. Cookies it was.

The darn thing was, after all the attempts at new recipes this fall, so far I've gone with good old standbys. Hmmm.

The biscotti:

Milk chocolate, almond, and orange

Citrus, anise, and almond

Dried apricot and pistachio with saffron

Triple ginger

The non-biscotti:

Ginger cookies, Mum's recipe. I don't know why it's not working for me well these days. Ah well. These ones were fine - nicely chewy.

White chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies. Reliable!

The empire cookies - the ones Jeph thinks look like breasts. Um, Jeph, aren't you supposed to be, um, kinda gay?


And then there were the cut out cookies, the decorated ones. In truth, I don't care to eat them. I find them plain and bland, and the decorating goes from fun to tedious before you know it. Ah well. Conrad likes them, and they can be pretty. Quite an undertaking, even with only a single batch of dough.









Some of the final product from the decorating. A few of them are kind of cute. Nowhere as good as Jeph's mind you. That boy has mad skillz.



The final tally. Ignore the hockey pucks in the Silver Jubilee tin. I tossed them out rather than allow them into any of the tins we put together for friends/colleagues.

tease 3: cookies

The annual baking binge, sans Bradley. A loss of his company, but I soldiered on. An how! Lotta tins full of cookies sitting in the kitchen at this time. Oh well, if there's one thing I've learned it's that library staff will NEVER pass up free food.

Conrad snapped a good number of photos of the cookies once they were done, but for now, I'll just post one image of the empire cookies (a pair of basic sugar cookies sandwiched around a raspberry preserves filling, topped with almond icing and a piece of candied cherry) and get my tired self to bed.

tease 2: the tree

I'll break today's activities into two parts and deal with the baking second. For now, a shot of the tree decorating: Frank, Tim, and Corinne came by and we put them to work. We're slowly but surely getting ready for Christmas, Just please, do not try to go into our second bedroom/staging area. A shambles, littered with things still needing doing.

The tree, however, withstood quite an onslaught of ornaments. I believe this photo was taking partway through unpacking all the ornaments from their storage boxes.

tease 1: weekend parties

It's almost 11 and I'm knackered from a long day in the kitchen. But I cannot disappoint the 4 people who read this blog (on a good day, as many as 6!!), and yet I cannot post at length. Thus, I offer you three teases.

First up, the weekend parties. Starting at Allan and Paul's and headed to Dan's to finish the night. Good times, lots of friends, but most of all, my shirt was an object of admiration, delight, and envy. Sartorially speaking, I rocked.

Yes, that is multi-coloured embroidered velvet/velour, shimmering in the light. And BTW, one out of two of us in the photo was massively drunk, and I'll give you a hint: she's not hydrating nearly as well as the photo implies.

Chuck and Sam

A brief post (well, not many photos) from a meal last night. Conrad is not yet back from the Bay Area, though he will be home in time for the parties tonight. Meanwhile, I have much work to do around the house after I get home from swim practice. Given all that, just a brief post on dinner with Chuck and Sam.

Chuck is an absolute sweetheart of a man, a southern gentleman, a lawyer newly admitted to the bar, a Smelt, and really very handsome. I've not known Sam as well since they've been together a little under a year, but he's very charming and quite easy to have conversation with, and no less handsome. It was good to catch up with them last night. They made the dinner great.

We ate at Uncommon Ground, a place I've known mostly for (kind of pricey) breakfast/brunches. The dinner menu surprised me in that it had some really interesting choices and some very good prices. We shared a bottle of a Lebanese red wine - nicely drinkable - and ate not badly. I say that because I think Sam (shortribs) and Chuck (duo of duck - I should have gone with that) seemed to have better meals than mine. I had the cassoulet, and while the pork belly was fine, the beans were undercooked a bit and the duck sausage was a little too sweet somehow. In fact, the whole dish had an odd sweetness I couldn't put my finger on. Most of all, though, it didn't come across as something that had baked for a long time together. it had the taste of a dish of undercooked navy beans and sausage served with pork belly on top. I have no clear photo of it, but it wasn't memorable for good reasons anyway. I was okay eating it, but I secretly wished I'd ordered either of their meals instead.

Photos:

Sam tries scooting out the way after I tell him to stay still.

Chuck and duck.

The duck duo.

I'm dreaming of a white...

...well, pick your holiday but make mine Christmas. 3 weeks today, and while we had a dusting of snow on Saturday, washed away by rain within one day, tonight we're getting a heavier, pristine coat of the stuff. Pristine for a little while at least. So, then, Jeph is right: it IS beginning to look a lot like Christmas!


I am so very glad I don't need to drive in the stuff or park our vehicle outdoors overnight!

60 trips around the sun

Happy birthday Kathryn!

Conrad and I went out to the suburbs last night with Francis and Kim so that we could be part of Kathryn's birthday celebration. A fine dinner (she cooked it all for us!!!) and good company, but best of all was celebrating such a birthday with someone we adore. And I'm totally stealing FXK's photos!

A toast to her, then!

And while I'm at it (Kathryn's birthday is today, in fact), a happy birthday (today) to Mustang. I hope we meet up again someday soon in Vancouver!

back in the kitchen

No, that heading is a little misleading. I have been in the kitchen a decent amount lately, though I've not made anything of note, or anything I felt like photographing and blogging. It happens. Even the two batches of cookies I made a week ago I was content just to make and not bore you all with. Ah well.

Today was a bit different, though. A wintry day outside (snow right after lunch, rain freezing as it hit the trees later on - pretty, all covered with icicles, but prone to breaking branches). A teammate/friend and her husband have had quite a week, what with their infant son requiring some pretty major surgery. We dropped by the hospital on Thursday for a visit with some cookies, and tonight was our assigned turn to provide dinner. Yes, assigned. Another teammate set up a schedule for Smelts to bring food. We lucked out, really, getting to bring the meal to them at home rather than the hospital. On the other hand, it was a long afternoon in the kitchen.

Our friends are vegetarian, so that made things a wee bit more challenging. Still, I'm up for a challenge once in while, and armed with a load of groceries picked up from Whole Foods after swimming, I set to work.

The outcome, as photographed by Conrad:

A big pot of a Greek red lentil soup. I served it with feta crumbled with rosemary and chile flakes.

Bread sticks studded with chopped walnuts to go along with the soup.

Squash and blue cheese galettes. Think of them as free-form tarts. I served them with a saffron-scented cauliflower purée and a romaine salad with a simple garlic and sherry vinegar dressing.

Pear gingerbread upside down cakes. These, I confess, are rather tasty.

Gâteau breton, already wrapped up and put in a tin. I served wedges of this at the end with a lovely little goat cheese.

Not pictured are the mixed olives we picked up and the tetra-pack of a French Pinot Noir that we've been using lately as our "house" wine.

All in all, a nice dinner. I'm a little rusty at this cooking for others thing, but the cakes really did kick some butt!