Meyer lemons

Yesterday's mail brought us an unexpected and most welcome treat: a box FULL of beautiful Meyers lemons and fresh rosemary in bloom. A good friend and excellent cook who winters in Carmel Valley (although we know her heart is in Juneau in October when it is pelting rain and gusting 30) has, alas, an abundance of fresh lemons. Like kittens, they arrived with just a note that said "we need a home".

We squeezed and shaved some over the plain chicken breasts and added a bit of the rosemary, to serve over basmati rice, with broccoli, with a salad and fruit of course, and a melange of wine. I think I chose the Pinot Grigio, and I don't recall what John was drinking. We spoke of this and that, I think it was last night that John revealed that he'd had a dream that I rented Disneyland for his birthday and you all came and everyone had a wonderful time, which reminds me, his birthday is coming up, and in spite of him claiming that he doesn't want anything, I think the stakes are higher than a surprise bowling party this year....Although we haven't done that in a while, and maybe, if he doesn't read this, we could pull it off again. Will you come?

This morning I (first photographed the items as you see) bundled many of them up and took them to the Juneau Arts & Culture Center and arranged them decoratively in a basket with the note attached.

The REACH Canvas program uses our Main Hall while their facility is being renovated. This is a program that uses art to integrate folks with a variety of disabilities into the community, in a way I think it is the perfect and highest use of the arts. They do some dang swell stuff: Yesterday ceramic vases, they've been making masks, and banners and paper mache sculptures. Today, I noticed they took some of the lemons and arranged them in a colander and drew pictures of them that were just delightful.

At the end of the day, as I was locking up, I noticed all the lemons had found a home, just a couple of sprigs of rosemary remained. I put them in a vase and hope they will root, and hope that spring, which seemed very close today with the sun shining brightly, is indeed near at hand. Last year, we were at 6 feet and still digging as I recall.

Veal Chops and Shepherd's Pie

Not in the same evening, of course.

John found veal chops unbelievably enough, marked down even. He sauteed them nicely, put some mushroomy sauce over, and we had salad and fruit. Enough leftover for.....

Shepherd's Pie last night made from all the baby animals, lamb & veal. Good friends over for dinner after safely and successfully seeing the Flamenco Vivo troupe off on the airplane. Whew! Delicious! there was Marques de Caceres in their honor, and Lindemans Reserve Shiraz, and lots of conversations about movies we liked (Rear Window, Grace Kelly is gorgeous, it all started by trying to describe someone as being like the principal in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was filmed in our friends community, but perhaps the likening is not really a complimentary description) which led to discussion of Mad Magazine and what a swell publication that was in the day, even though John's dad opposed it (wasn't that the whole idea?) and can be still pretty funny.

A lovely evening topped off by a little walk with the dog and a hot bath.

Popcorn & Beer

The doctor my mother had when she was pregnant with my brother told her that beer and popcorn are a perfectly balanced meal. Handy information.

John is off at a Rotary Wine Tasting/fundraiser tonight, I have been completely worried and stressing about the Flamenco Dance event coming on Sunday, worked late tonight getting the Hall set up for a children's fundraising (do we do anything else but fundraisers?) concert tomorrow, so came home, walked the dog, put on my big fuzzy bathrobe and big fuzzy slippers, and had popcorn (cooked over medium heat in a heavy metal pot, then finished with a drizzle of butter, salt and some butterkase) and a beer in a frosted glass (Birra Moretti, not much of a head, but pleasantly bitter and refreshing) with a honeysweet Bosc pear and Carla Cook on the stereo.

Off to read Plato and the Platypus. Maybe I'll sleep tonight.

Good Cod! Great Rack!

Fresh, tender, moist, lightly breaded and fried in butter with a squeeze of lemon, parsley and capers, over quinoa and rice. Fresh green salad, the exquisite blood oranges, was it Argiolas? I think that was Monday.

Was the chicken on Tuesday?

Wednesday we worked a 50th birthday for a friend (she had a fundraising wine tasting and silent auction to benefit Cancer Connection, in our facility), came home late and had leftovers. I had a dish of comfort ice cream too. There was wine.

Valentine's Day is Lamb for sure. A perfectly done rack of lamb cooked "simply" in some wonderful red winey and herbed sauce, risotto, snap peas with many mushrooms, Romaine salad. blood oranges, and really good apples and pears. A variety of red wines. Lamentations about the state of the world and some particular events during the day, the names will not be mentioned to protect the innocent. Oh My! Lynn blew through with two molten chocolate cakes! Incredible.

A Little Lamb Shall Feed Them...

Continuing the late evening returns idea, Debi had late patients and I had a meeting at seven. So the question was, do I start cooking before I leave? Or do I prep and cook when I get back and both of us are actually home?
Then there was the third option, which was do nothing, go to the meeting, and start everything when I returned.
Number three is the Winna!

We started with a couple of Princeton Cocktails:
1.5 oz gin
.5 oz dry vermouth
.5 oz simple syrup
.5 oz fresh lime juice
Chill cocktail glass. Place ingredients into shaker, fill with ice. Shake oh so vigorously, strain into glass. Repeat as needed or required.

The meal itself was Curried Lamb. We used another of our reliable standby authors, Lorna Sass, and her terrific collection of pressure cooker recipes Cooking Under Pressure, 1989. Served it with kashi and all the usual curry fixin's like raisins, chutney, peanuts, coconut flakes, pepper flakes, sour cream.

Lamb Curry (Pressure Cooker)

1 TBS oil
2 cups coarsely chopped onion
2 tsp finely minced garlic (just a starting point)
1 TBS finely minced ginger
2 cups water
2.5 pounds boned lamb shoulder, trimmed and cut into 2" cubes (that is a lot of lamb, we use 2 pounds and cube to 1")
1 cup unsweetened coconut flakes
2 large carrots, scrubbed and coarsely chopped
.5 cup raisins, preferably golden
1 TBS plus 2 tsp mild curry powder (another starting point, we are up to about 3 TBS of the Madras)
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste (really, an eighth?)
Salt to taste
Garnish: Finely chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)

HEAT the oil in the cooker. SAUTE the onions and garlic until the onions are soft (I add about half of the lamb here to start browning some of it). STIR in the remaining ingredients except the cilantro. LOCK the lid in place and over high heat bring to high pressure. ADJUST heat to maintain high pressure and cook for 12 minutes. Let the pressure drop naturally or use quick-release method. Remove the lid, tilting it away from you to allow any excess steam to escape.
Drain off the liquid, if you wish. (Very soupy, excellent for soaking into rice or just sopping up with bread). Adjust seasonings and garnish with cilantro.

Sass's notes add that you can thicken the sauce by stirring in about 1/3 cup of finely ground almonds while simmering over medium heat. We like the soppiness factor.

Midnight snack

Heavy snow, high wind warnings. All flights to and from Juneau canceled. Juneau Arts & Humanities major fund raiser for the year scheduled for the evening. Carrying stuff across the parking lot from the Arts & Culture Center to the Centennial Hall where it is held required driving the 100 yards. Maybe we'll be shut down by the Fire Dept for inadequate egress due to drifting snow blocking doors and sidewalks. Maybe no one will show, it is too dangerous to be driving.

Miraculously, it all came together, John made it back from Sitka in time for Act II of the Wearable Art Show and went home about 11 to make some form of meal for us: Two slightly freezer burned hamburger patties (left from the off to college BBQ in August?)made cheeseburgers, some crispy oven fired Yukon Golds, a tossed salad, and some Jaja. Also an Advil.

To bed and now back up and rejuvenated for the second show this afternoon. Still snowing with heavy snow warnings still in effect. But it's fluffy and easy for the Mini to just blast through. I hope.

Glassware

An unexpected flight delay gives me the time to answer Alec's question.

I have never actually used one of the tumblers but they are selling a lot of them so there are a bunch of folks out there who don't seem to care.

My guess is that unless you are constantly holding the glass in the palm of your hand and drinking white wine that no having a stem would not make any difference. The stemless glass was discussed at length at one of our staff meetings and it was a little on the controversial side. One person likened it to "drinking out of mason jars" but the boss, who is seldom wrong, differed.

I don't believe they can be machine washed but if you have little kids and dogs running around they might save you a broken glass or two.

Nancy and I have both had busy weeks so we had two fall back position meals. Last Sunday I ran into an old friend of mine at the Ketchikan airport and he gave me some of his homemade sausage. It's very good so on Wednesday we had the dad special of "empty fridge, mix with noodles, cover with cheese and bake".

Last night we had the other dad special of try to empty all of the little jars, mix, pour on chicken and bake. The last version included, cherry bbq sauce, pumpkin butter, oyster sauce, mustard, Thai chili paste and tomato sauce left over from the "mix with noodles and bake" evening. Serve with over roasted potatoes.

JD