fried pockets

In the old days at the restaurants, we would make empanadas from time to time. Not often, as I recall - they can be time-consuming to produce. Make the fillings. Make the dough. Press the dough. Fill the empanadas and seal them. Fry. Many steps for something that really is kind of a snack food deep down inside.

Still, they satisfy two very fundamental likes of mine:

1. they are Mexican food.
2. they are fried

Fried pockets of goodness, depending what you put in them, of course.

I had made some for Conrad, Martin, Carrie, and me last Saturday, and they turned out well. The next day, a client/friend of Conrad's was in town, and Conrad - still not 100% - wanted to have a casual dinner to entertain him. Happily, the dough is a quick task, and I had plenty of leftover fillings.

Two batches, then. This time I caught a few photos, both from the cooking process
and the final product, plus the table all set. I don't think it was too awful to serve sort-of leftovers for dinner to Conrad's friend JJ last Sunday. I mean, I look at that plate of little fried pockets, and I remember how warm and tender they were with a bit of crispness to the crust. Mmmmm....

this is what 5:55 AM looks like

Frankly, I will not be unhappy when it looks a whole lot lighter. And leafier. I don't mind the getting up around 4:40 in the morning to be down at the rec centre on campus for its 6:00 opening, but I will embrace it all the more when it's daylight out and I can see green leaves and flowers around.

Still, for those of you for whom times before 8:00 AM are abstract concepts, here's what it actually looks like...

Silver Fox

There is a long list of men in my life with whom I'm a tiny bit smitten. I don't mean in love with in the Conrad way, no. But there are some sweet, cute, hot, funny guys whom I just once in a while think, hmmmm.... And then I shake my head and remember how happy and well off I am.

Let's see (in alphabetical order), some examples:

Brett

David

Greg

Luis

(with apologies to all the other handsome men I know who I did not add to this particular list - some of you very definitely know who you are!)

And then there's the Silver Fox in all his silvery foxiness. Ah Dale. Handsome and charming. Snarky as all get out. Southern. Did I mention silvery and foxy?

Dale came to town last weekend for a few days of courses. I ended up backing out of Tuesday dinner with him and Max, but I did get a Sunday afternoon to enjoy his fine company.

We shopped.


We went to Bin 36 for drinks and a very late lunch/snack.

And the whole while I basked in his foxiness
and was content. Well, the service was a little off at Bin 36, but the cheeses were fine.

Sadly, I will not see him on my quick jaunt to Baltimore next month, but I will get to meet up with him (and his partner, Steven) in DC in June. Small delights to look forward to...

vegetarian non-garlic dinner: addendum

This photo reminds me that our other roomie was missing. We'll look forward to having TK with us in DC (and conferences beyond). And one day, I hope, he'll be dining here in our home in Chicago.

But really, any time I can see Martin or Todd or both WITHOUT any bloody committee meetings or conference activities to schedule around is very much a small victory.

even though it was a vegetarian (non-garlic, too!) dinner...

... there was plenty of ham in the kitchen last night!



Martin and Carrie came to dinner last night.
Martin, you may recall, is the super-awesome conference roomie and friend about whom it's impossible for me to say the least thing bad. Rather the opposite. He may blush when he reads that, but ah well. Carrie is NOT his wife, nor mine. She is, however, not only a lovely person but also a real heavy-hitter in the world of libraries and intellectual freedom.

If only Gail and Bowie had made it over. We would then have had a full Moonbats contingent!

I didn't take a lot of photos last night beyond ones of us when Martin and Carrie arrived. In truth, it was an unusual evening in that Conrad was barely part of it. He's been not 100% since Wednesday night, and though he rallied enough yesterday morning to want to have our friends over for a casual meal, just before they arrived he was in bed, shivering, feeling horrid. Poor guy. He did make it out to sit and have dinner (he has his appetite) though no dessert. For the most part, it was the three of us, and with that slightly odd circumstance and all the ALA gossip to catch up on, photos weren't in the cards.

Martin is a recent convert to vegetarianism, and I thought it very sweet and considerate that he gave me a lot of warnings and escape possibilities. But really, I may eat meat (though a little less red meat these days), but I am capable with a vegetable or two in hand. There had been another guest coming, one allergic to garlic. She had to back out, but by that point I had most of dinner made. Ah well. No garlic is a little trickier if you stop and think of all the dishes we season somehow with it. Still, I'm always up for a challenge!

The two arrived a little after seven, and I whisked a plate of tortilla chips out of the oven and dolloped a generous amount of homemade guacamole in the center. We all shoveled it up and sipped cocktails or wine. Chat continued, and I got the empanadas in the oil. Two kinds: one had a cream cheese, toasted pecan, charred scallion, and chipotle powder mixture for a filling; the others were filled with yellow summer squash, zucchini, red pepper, and red chard. I passed re-fried beans around at the table along with more guacamole, a pico de gallo, and a simple romaine salad with a toasted pumpkinseed and cilantro dressing.

Not a bad dinner. We sipped more wine and water. Conrad went back to bed and was asleep when Carrie and Martin, stuffed from dinner and the cake that followed, headed out.

But friends, that ham was mighty good!

Cake

I suspect there are still people back home, people from my past, who shake their heads and wonder why I wasted such a brilliant high school career on several years of restaurant work after my undergrad. I didn't stop to analyze why I was doing it, I just did it and enjoyed it.

Besides, friends in Montreal, then Halifax, and now Chicago have no familiarity with Don Diego's beyond what they may have heard from me. That gives me the huge convenience of being able to resort to restaurant recipes from the old days - things I know how to cook (even if I do need a recipe) but are new to non-Terraceites. Makes for a relatively easy time for me.

The other thing that strikes me is that people don't make cake - well, layer cake - too often these days. It's an old-fashioned dessert, or a regional thing. But really, when was the last time you went to a restaurant or someone's home for dinner and a wedge of a layer cake came your way for dessert. It just doesn't happen often.

I love cake. Well, I love most any dessert, frankly - I have a sweet tooth, I cop to it. And while I'm guilty of foisting cookies/crisps/tarts/cheeses on my guests, once in a while I try and wheel out something a little more classic.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying: Black Magic Chocolate Cake!



It was always my step-father's favourite dessert at Don Diego's, and I rather like it, too. I prevailed on Helen a year or so ago to get the recipe to me so I could make it for my chocolate-loving husband, but it made for a good dessert for friends last night, too.

Of course, the thing about cake is you really do need enough people over to eat it. Three of us had a piece each last night (Conrad, sick since Thursday) dined briefly with us but went back to bed before dessert), and I took a fourth piece down to the doorman. That leaves 3/5 of a cake in the fridge awaiting our forks. Tough assignment ahead!

An Education

In honour of our first movie together at a theatre since some time in 2008 (and I can't recall what one it was we saw then, but I think it may have been the 3D U2 concert movie, on Navy Pier, with CG), I present you with my recent education.

(Oh, and An Education? Good movie. Good performances, lovely visually. Great soundtrack - I bought it when I got home late that night).

Things I learned this past weekend:

This is too much sushi for two people to eat. Thank goodness we didn't have wine with it.

Daniel and I have a real chemistry between us that must remain unrequited.

Brian is fun to hang out with in Vancouver AND in Chicago.

The mustards were the best thing on the cheese/salami plate at Firefly, but I was peckish, and it all went down well.

Urbanbelly makes some good noodles (ramen with slow roast pork, cilantro, and kim chi). We'll be back.

Tomato sauce scented with saffron kicks serious butt - cod at Yoshi's last night.

This man is so adorable, and I was so very glad when he got home Friday night. We now have a few weeks in town together, and that thrills me.

Even after the Olympics are over, this Team Canada sweater looks great on me. Or is it that I look great in it. Both.

popping in

Conrad is getting changed, and then we'll head to Yoshi's. Meanwhile, a shot from last night, post-movie. Brian and Conrad do convincing work at NOT posing for the camera while we were all (Daniel, too) at Firefly for drinks.



Thoughts on the movie and the weekend that was to come, but for now, it's off to Sunday dinner!

Austin shots

A dreary day out there. Fog, drizzle. Not yet spring, though I suppose we should be grateful for no snow and for a day wherein staying inside and doing the daunting amount of housework doesn't seem too too bad.

So we've done laundry, picked up many of the piles, dusted, vacuumed, swept, mopped, cleaned the bathrooms, thrown things away and recycled others. Time for a break. Until tomorrow. And while on pause, an opportunity to post some last photos from last weekend in Austin. No particular stories to tell, just shots of a great city to visit and a very very relaxing weekend.

vanity, part 387,296

Oh, I am vain. I know. But I cannot help it. I mean look. Just look:



Is that not a cute hoodie that I picked up at this store in Austin this past weekend? And wait until the weather is right for me to wear the short sleeve shirts I got. Size small, I will add. No longer being an enormous tub of goo is kind of nice.

(yes, yes, someone smack me for being so bloody self-involved)

a fine evening indeed

I met AJ on a plane a handful of years ago. We were on our way back from ALA Midwinter in Philadelphia, and he and a friend were connecting through Chicago. We struck up conversation over the poor weather anticipated and over the His Dark Materials trilogy AJ recommended to me.

Since then he and I have had meals together at conferences and in Austin, where he and his wife and children live. Holly was through Chicago last fall, in fact, and she, Conrad, and I had a very enjoyable lunch at the Art Institute.

Good people, and they like food. Our kind of people.

Conrad and I didn't have many set plans at all for this past weekend in Austin. We'd talked - not seriously - about an escape out to the Hill Country, but Austin is such an enjoyable city that I wanted to stay put in town. So we did, and the only thing we arranged was meeting up with AJ and Holly. How delightfully serendipitous that Holly's parents were in town, too, that weekend. Babysitters! We planned a full dinner night out.

We got off to an early start, happy hour at a place called Parkside. Cocktails (great choices, but I chose not too well, and while the first of my two cocktails was fine, it wasn't really what I thought it would be), ceviche, and some calamari. Pacing ourselves. Catching up on what's been going on, toasting all the good events in our lives. A fun start to the evening.




The main event was La Condesa. As soon as AJ suggested good Mexican, I was soooo there. I didn't even consult Conrad, just said yes, we're going.

The restaurant is a higher end Mexican with dishes all over the map. We could have opted for some great main courses (the description of the chiles rellenos was oh-so-seductive, but not quite seductive enough). Instead, we got a pitcher of margaritas and ordered two small plates each plus three vegetable sides. Sharing it all, we got a great taste of a wide range of very good food.

My favourites? The elote was a huge winner. One cob for each couple. We could have had only that, and we would have been more than thrilled. The huaraches with mushrooms including huitlacoche were also a hit. I will order that fungus whenever I can, I think. The pork belly (not pictured) stuffed with quail was also a small miracle.

And the dessert. I'm glad I left it up to AJ and Holly to decide because I generally don't bother with chocolate desserts in restaurants. I live chocolate, but often it bores me in restaurants. Oh, not this. A layer of caramel hidden under that dark chocolate, and the edge of sea salt to lift it all higher. Mmmmm. So good!



We had such an exceptional night. Somewhere around 10ish, well over 4 hours after we started out, we hopped in pedi-cabs to head back to the hotel (blurry, nighttime iPhone shots while en route).





The night came to and end, but it just means - I hope - that we have to make another visit back and dine out with AJ and Holly again!