March 08, 2004
Spring dinner
A visit to Berkeley Bowl meant I couldn't resist the gorgeous seasonal offerings and had to make dinner that evening. On the menu:
Sauteéd Mushrooms
Steamed Pencil Asparagus
Skillet Pork Chops
Sauteéd Mushrooms: melt butter & olive oil in heavy pan, sauteé 4 large cloves garlic & 2 enormous shallots until soft and slightly browned. Add about 1 lb crimini mushrooms, and about 1/4 lb. hedgehog and chantrelle mushrooms. Stir until soft. Add some sherry, thyme, additional butter to taste.
Pencil Asparagus: Steam asparagus until bright green; rinse or plunge into cold water to stop cooking, Make dressing of olive oil, champagne, balsamic vinegar & shallots. Pour over asparagus and top with finely diced tomatoes.
Pork Chops: marinate with scrambled eggs, soysauce & pepper (old family recipe). Cook in large skillet, lowering heat and covering halfway through the process until cooked through. (Of course, if this had been a real spring dinner I would have served lamb chops, but somehow I didn't quite feel like being Little Bo Peep yesternight...)
I also made olive oil mashed potatoes with some Yukon Golds, and served a really good Rosenblum Vintner's Cuvee Zinfandel. It was a productive evening - Nora & I got home from all the photo-taking around 430pm, and then I started preparations while Snores headed back to Jeff's to walk Lucky. Somewhere in between boiling the potatoes and stirring the mushrooms I even managed to throw in a small load of laundry (mostly my capoeira whites). And during dinner, perhaps because of the food and the warmth and the soft halogen light, Nora & I became held in thrall by the TeeVee, and we watched in seemingly quickly languid succession, Phone Booth the season opener of the Sopranos, and the 1997 never-ride-through-the-middle-of-America-if-you-can-help-it flick, Breakdown. I appreciated the fact that Colin Farrell, when he is not bald and crazy and shooting poisoned darts at a blind lawyer, is remarkably easy on the eyes, even when stuck for hours on end in a box slightly larger than the average human body.
Posted by claudine at March 8, 2004 01:00 PM