Breakfast for dinner

I have celebrated Mardi Gras a few times before. Until last night I'd never celebrated Shrove Tuesday.

I've had more than my share of pancakes in church, granted. It was part of the understanding by which my Boy Scout troop could use the church facilities; we'd do brunches after church a few times a year. Last night was also the first night I've had pancakes and sausages in a church building.

An entire room, half-empty, a number of people I don't know, introversion, what to do? Gamer wisdom kicked in: Sit with my back to a wall. And so I did, as best I could. (Gamer wisdom is actually sit with your back to a corner. There weren't nearly enough.)

I chose an empty table. Simply by showing up I'd left H. stranded at the health office; not having anybody directly sit next to me would give me an excuse should I suddenly need to excuse myself. So of course it filled up incredibly quickly.

Shrove Tuesday dinner was quite enjoyable. The only hitch came in turning off the fire alarm at the end; I'm not sure if the church was able to before the fire department arrived.

Baked potatoes

Shortly after the groom-to-be left the premises, the rest of us realized that we had no plans for dining that night - and all of us were hungry. To prevent any dithering, R. quickly suggested a baked potato bar. And so we did.

Idaho potatoes, wrapped in foil, baked for half an hour... and then another ten... and then maybe another ten, to be sure the biggest ones were completely cooked through. Sour cream, shredded cheese, chopped scallions in the absence of seasonal chives... and bacon, per R.'s request (although I suspect that he was the only person to actually have any, or maybe he and the bride-to-be.) Probably a bit too fattening, but altogether satisfying.

I didn't know the baked potato bar existed before that night. I'll have to remember it for the future.

Burger, cider, yogurt, Coke

It was the first time I had seen her in just under a year. The first time any of us had seen her in that time; for some of us, maybe for even longer. Too long for all of us. Too long for her.

So of course the first course of the night was burgers.

Thai food

There were two of us for dinner that night, only two of us.
And despite eating naught but leftovers for two days, we couldn't find an appetite for much.
In the end we ordered a tureen of chicken-coconut soup and a plate of pad thai.
But the soup was creamy, and the noodles were cellophaney, and the rice crackers still sizzled when you dipped them in any kind of liquid.

Thank you, Bangkok, for being there after all these years.
Thank you, for being as delicious as I've always remembered.

A winter picnic

We went to see Skyfall in Wilton (the showings closer to home were all way too late for our tastes; we'd be getting home at midnight.) It was completely sold out.

Then we doubled back to the theater in Danbury, and I hopped out and bought some tickets. For tomorrow, because it was too late for tonight. And when I came outside, and passed Mom the tickets, we ate.

Dinner tonight was served on a red plate, wrapped in plastic wrap, wrapped in tin foil. A sandwich, cold turkey and cold sambal oelek to heat it up. Too-tart cranberry sauce. A banana, because I hadn't had one in too long.

And we ate out there, sitting in the car, the oddest packed dinner I ever remember having.

Thanksgiving dinner

The turkey was a twenty-pound behemoth that Mom bought because it was the smallest one she could afford. It was brined this year. It was also butchered; I did a disgraceful job of carving it. Dad taught me better, and I was genuinely ashamed of the hatchet job I did on the beast.

The guests were two in number, an old couple that Mom met from somewhere (I think the UU meeting.) The husband was the quieter one. The wife was an old German woman, a former teacher; we hit it off instantly, and talked through a bottle of champagne about Andalusada. (It's very nice to have somebody else who knows what Low German is, and can talk intelligently about it, even though she spoke Hochdeutsch herself.)

Dinner wine was white, with a nose so soft it was almost watery. Dry, yes, but fruity for all that, and fruity without being citric, which is a nice change of pace. (Why I say that I'm not sure, because I don't drink wine on my own. Maybe because most of the beers I've had this year that described their subtle fruit notes had overpowering ones instead.)

The non-meat parts of the meal were actually the best, at least to my taste. There was an enormous amount of spinach - collard greens, mustard greens, a few other greens, at least three pounds of them, all of which I'd shredded myself the night before, but growing up I'd still call it "spinach" and I'd still hate it - with what was supposed to be a cream sauce, but wasn't, because Mom didn't make it after all; and there were steamed walnuts mixed in. Perfect. There was chow-chow (totally out of place with the rest of the meal, and cold.) Sweet potatoes, as ever, and they had been baked faultlessly; I didn't even think to butter them. And there was lingonberry sauce, brought by the guests. Lingonberries.

Pies for dessert, pies and creme de cassis for me. And ice cream. Apparently there are two places on the planet that make chocolate lace ice cream; came as a hell of a surprise to me.

A memorable meal.

Mall Chinese food

I can't remember the last time I had mall Chinese food before last night.

It was the usual, in some ways. White rice - always white rice. Mall beef teriyaki, because it's savory and has a lot of onions and capsicums in there... and a spring roll, mostly for the grease. ...and some barbecue pork which isn't even plausibly authentically Chinese, because it's artificial-coloring red and sweet. In a lot of ways, the usual.

What set it apart was that I can't remember the last interesting meal I made in awhile... and, more than that, that the cashier asked if I want something to drink with that, and before I caught myself I said yes, water would be fine.

A small cup of water with small mall-food-court ice cubes came with the meal, and chopsticks. No Sriracha this time, because I didn't think for it. And somehow that made all the difference.

One memorable meal

My father died on February 10, 2012. His funeral was the next week.

At the memorial service, one of his lifelong friends - Aaron - spoke about the morning that he met my father. He also mentioned a detail about my father that I'd never known before.

Every day, throughout his life, one of my late father's hard and fast rules of life was to have one memorable meal. It was an important part of his ethos; he'd spend an inordinate of time driving out of his way, in every state of the Union, to get to somewhere that would allow him to have at least one memorable meal.

It was brilliant. A worldly thing, but a brilliant and beautiful rule of life anyways.

And, because it's not something I actually abide by very much - and it occurs to me that I should write about other things here than Andalusada and miseries - I've established a new tag, "a memorable meal," to prompt me to write about the ones that I've had.

And also, maybe to eat them more often. Thou shalt not live by Concerta and water alone, Edo.

Dinner, 9/27/2012

I lied. My hair wasn't remotely cut, the way I said that it was on the phone. And when I went to get it cut, the first thing I did was to drive home to see if I'd just left my debit card there or bothered to lose it properly. (I'd just left it there.)

I pulled $60 out of the bank today. $20 went straight into the gas tank, $16 went into the haircut, and the rest went into a vegetable platter, a large lemon, and $8.99 worth of fiery chrysanthemums. And then it was off to the party.

Orders were very strict: I was to be there no later than 5:15 if I wanted to remain in good standing. I was fifteen minutes late. The traffic across the bridge to Northampton was awful, stop and go every minute of the way.

Dinner was superb. Crudités, a quiche and a half, a bottle of champagne, caviar (which was meh), a random scattering of pastries for dessert... the single richest meal that I've had in months.

And then, driving home, there was "Gangnam Style" on the radio. I nearly drove off the road.