Dreaming of lime gerbils in a cheese sauce

I took a friend to brunch at The Georgian Room in the Fairmont Olympaian Hotel, one of the swankier places downtown. The price matched the swank but the quality and assortment were closer to Holiday Inn. Disappointing, won't be back. :-(

I am loving this snow. It is pretty.

I will be hating it tomorrow, though, if it means I can't make it to Whole Foods to pick up the 24-26lb turkey I ordered for Thanksgiving.

Just in case, I stopped off at Safeway on my walk home (the buses couldn't get through, the roads over the hills are too icy) and picked up an emergency turkey. It's only 14.8 lbs, though.

I would love to know why I felt that I *had to* bake two pies today (pumpkin & apple). I mean, I'm supposed to be reducing my food intake and it isn't like I have anyone else to feed them to.

Yesterday's feast went off with a lot of hitches but it still went off well. The 22 guests (plus me) all seemed to have enough to eat despite my worrying, The pork roast didn't happen (a recipe I'm developing, I didn't give enough time in my estimate from scaling up from 1.5lbs of roast to 5lbs of roast) so will be served at tonight's leftovers potluck.

Just about everyone who came decided to bring a dish. This lead to the largest spread (not surprising, since 23 people is also the largest group) I've ever done. I had to press more folding tables into service just to put all the food out - and we still forgot one cranberry relish (sorry). We had tradition (turkey, stuffing, etc) and more "radical" dishes like a pork-sausage-in-red-sauce. Among other fantastic dishes we had 2 soups, an "accidentally vegan" squash soup and a wild chantrel soup with a hint (hit?) of red pepper. The dessert table was equally well provisioned. We had crepes, pumpkin custard (served out of pumpkins) tiermesu, an espresso chocolate cheesecake, and a pumpkin cheesecake with bourbon.

The biggest problem, IMHO, was the temperature probe I used in the turkey. I'll be replacing it at first opportunity. It read 154 in the breast (the temperature I wanted to pull the bird so carryover cooking would have time to do its magic without ruining the bird) but when I did spot checks with my insta-read the breast was reading closer to 170 and the thigh a terrifying 191. No amount of brining is going to protect from that kind of overcooking. The bird was tasty but distressingly (to me, anyway) dry. I would throw myself on my chef's knife but then who'd clean up the kitchen? The other note I need to make for myself is not to push to make so many dishes, no matter how many people are coming. I just couldn't stay organized enough to get it all done right.

I have wonderful friends and the party was a huge success because so many of them came! Lets do it again next year, same time!

1. Turkey in the brine, out of the brine, and air-drying in fridge
2. stuffing prepped
3. stock for gravy made
4. loaf of bread baked
5. red sauce with sausage made

Strangeness for the day - I ran out of onions because there was about 2 onions worth of loss to 'old onions'. Since I was near there having supped at Marcello's I made the required trip to Whole Foods. It was amazing because it wasn't insane. In fact, I got out of there faster than usual. Needed 2 onions, bought 4 (and firewood, and bacon, and egg noodles to go with red sauce because that's better than what I was going to pull from my pantry).

Still needed to do tonight:
Clear the dining and living rooms so they're useful for a group of 21 guests. This may wait for the promised help tomorrow morning.

Right now I'm going to go get myself some pumpkin pie.

Yay for foodie holiday!!!

Today I went to the farmer's market in the U-district and picked up the makings for quiche along with some ripe tomatoes, basil, etc etc etc.

While I waited for my guests to come I made a very nice tomato/mozzarella/basil salad, sauteed the leek, chantrel mushrooms, and broccoli, and thought about what else I needed to do. When they got here she started in on the crust while he brushed off his Excite Truck game :).

We started the crusts around 14:00 and dined around 17:00. Not only did 2 quiches get made (both had all the veggies along with a farmer's cheese with chives. One also had bacon) but she also made an apple pie.

The quiche came out quite nice though as expected the farmer's cheese was a bit moist so the custard was challenged. It mostly set though so that was a win. It was even more a win when you consider the last time I made quiche was 1997 or 1998.

It was all delicious. Don't you wish you could have been here?

Tonight, on a whim I went to St. Clouds for dinner. This is a place Becky introduced me to several years ago. I go there maybe once a month or so. This month was, special, as tonight was my second visit there. I went there a few weeks ago for Brunch with Becky while she was in town. We were supposed to be joined by a friend of hers but said friend wasn't able to make it.

Tonight, as I got up from my char having finished my very fine dinner the lady who had just sat down next to me at the counter asked if my name is Lee. I looked over and ... there was the lady who hadn't been able to join us for brunch a few weeks ago. Neither of us lives "close" to St. Clouds - we're each at least 20-30 minutes away in good traffic. And yet, there we both were.

I'm not sure if I should have sappy Disney music or the theme from Twilight Zone as the Music attached to this post.

ljtourist came over for dinner tonight. It was my inaugural firing of the outdoor gas grill for the year (actually, the first time in a year - I ran out of propane at last year's Memday grilling party and didn't get around to getting a refill until this morning.) I made a t-bone I'd bought at the Farmer's Market (yay, grass-fed beef!), grilled asparagus, and some baked potatoes and he made a salad.

As we were finishing up dinner were talking about dessert and he mentioned he'd meant to stop at Peaks Frozen Custard (caution, flash) to pick up some for us to try. After a few minutes of discussion he ran over there while I cleaned up the kitchen a bit.

Oh. Dear. I am in so much trouble. They're much too close to where I live for as good as their frozen custard is. Thankfully it isn't walking or biking distance or I'd be dooooomed.

I was listening to last week's Splendid Table (13 FEB) on a whim and the first segment was yet another Jane & Michael Stern find in Portland, OR. Sahagun Chocolates. I plan to be in Portland soon and will most certainly check this place out.

Yesterday was Robert Burns's 250th Birthday, cause for much celebration.

Schultzy's, my favorite "Ave restaurant" did a Burns's Night party but I couldn't go because I was in Canada. They served Scotch Eggs (hard boiled eggs, shelled, coated in sausage & deep fried. MMMMMMmmmm). The owner had told me about the party and I told him I wasn't going to be able to make it.

He saved me two eggs. Isn't he nice?

I'm now on the outside of one of them. The other is sitting in a to-go box, calling my name.

I wonder if the statins are up to this challenge? Maybe I should whip up some mayo to go on it?