Why I like David so much, #456,983 in a series:
One plain frozen cheese pizza begging to be dressed up. On one side he adds golden raisins, sliced bananas, vindaloo and garam masala. On the other half he puts onion/garlic pistachios, artichoke spread, sliced boiled egg and spicy paprika.
It sounds terrible. If he’d mentioned it to me before he made it I would have given him the look.
But he experiments and you know what? Both sides were good! Weird in their own way, but very good.
I like that David experiments and the experiments turn out so well.
puttah
On we go with the party planning. Tentative menu is as follows:
* Spiced ham with rolls
* Salmon and lemon cream crostini
* Crostini with hazelnut pesto and roasted butternut squash
* Croissants stuffed with feta/dill/spinach and/or curried veggies
* Mini crabcakes with cilantro cream
* Veggie sushi
* Stuffed strawberries
* Veggie platter with dip (dip suggestions or ideas? hummus?)
* Cheese plate with 2 kinds of homemade bread, olives, spiced nuts, homemade cherry ginger jam
I’m still tweaking it. I’m still contemplating the lettuce wraps.
In non-food related news, I think I am destined to live a life with dogs who constantly have ear infections (of course it would help if I stopped adopting shar-peis and shar-pei mixes). I looked over at Hippo Head Jones when I got home and was greeted with a sore red ear. Damn. Crocodile Bob’s ear infection cleared up fine. It’s always with the ears. it’s always with the icky Q-Tips and the tube of goo. Luckily the vet gave me extra ear meds so I don’t have to keep coming in.
I’m making congee for our lunches. I should be making bread but I don’t feel like washing measuring cups.
adventures
So it seems the Amazing Adventures of Mavis Potato and Charlie Pumpkin (in which Mavis Potato learns she’s actually pretty normal!) have not been getting much play lately. That’s what happens when there’s another human adult around to talk to, you just don’t have to make up stories to tell the dogs.
But now we’re on to the Super Fun Times of Hippo Head Jones and Crocodile Bob! Hippo Head Jones is the calm, level headed leader of the expedition and Crocodile Bob is her short fused right hand man! Together they are sure to find themselves in many sticky situations!
Yeah, or something…
oh, what’s to say, I make up stories about my dogs, for my dogs.
A friend of mine is going to have a baby so we spent a lot of time looking at crochet patterns. I’m way more confident now about my abilities and will be making stuffed animals and booties. If the stuffed animals go well, I have a secret project that will make me giggle. If it turns out, I will share it with you.
My head is aswim with menu planning. I’m at the good point where I have too many things picked out and will have to cut back.
And I will leave you with this happiness. When Maddie came to live with us in June she didn’t play. She didn’t play with toys or people or Ghengis. Steadily she’s been playing more and more. I watch her and Ghengis making up games to play, she waits until he is watching her then she steals his toys and plays keep away. They wrestle together all the time. The happiest, though, is watching David jump around on the floor with the two of them. Maddie’s piggy little tail going a mile a minute while they jump and growl and retreat and posture. I laugh so hard my belly hurts and my face is stuck with a smile.
It’s a good thing I’ve got going here. That boy of mine and these two dogs. A pretty damned good thing.
Quicklike
I must do this quickly as I need to sleep soon.
Friday night? Nothing. Watched Sealab 2021. Nothing.
Saturday? Helped the Betsy half of ‘Jetsy’ prepare the food for her birthday party. Got 2 new recipes for my grandfather’s 80’th birthday bash this coming weekend. Word of advice to people…please PLEASE make sure your knives are properly sharpened before you have someone come help you! I generated a blister at the base of my index finger from fine dicing butternut squash and toasted hazelnuts with a dull knife.
I spent all day at Betsy’s dicing and mixing and sauteeing and being the dog advice person. I left early in the evening with enough time to come home, shower, dress and head back over. The party was delightfully fun, Betsy looked fabulous in her dress! And I must say the food was top-notch.
Sunday! Today we went to brunch and made faces at each other and giggled.
Home with a couple hours to spare before heading over to the Lee’s for SuperBowl festivities. The game was not so exciting this year and Mick Jagfer made me want to rip the veins out of my body. The Seahawks suck.
After the SuperBowl proper we watched the PuppyBowl! Holy crap! On one level it’s just a bunch of puppies playing, not terribly exciting. I mean they’re just playing, they’re not racing or doing agility tests or anything. On the other hand IT’S A BUNCH OF PUPPIES PLAYING!!! So damned cute. That poodle puppy was a fucking jackass though.
It’s late. I need to pull out the notebook and get started on my lists for the party. I think the hardest part is going to be coordinating getting everything over to my sister’s place. The party’s over there, but I’m making the food. I don’t really want to cook it over there, I don’t like using other people’s kitchens (not that I don’t like them, it’s just that I know my kitchen, i know where everything is, i know my tools, I know my way around) and I think it would be best if we kept the mess over there to a minimum. We’ll figure it out. I’m not stressing on this at all.
sniffle…cough
In anticipation of the inevitable bird flu infestation that will kill me in the next 6 weeks (I’m sure of it, if NPR mentions something 8.2 billion times then it MUST AFFECT ME) I am re-reading Stephen King’s The Stand. I’d forgotten how much I like this book. I am of the opinion that It was the last good book to come out of the man. We’re not talking high art here or anything, it’s just that everything up to It is scary, creepy, has developed characters and coherent plot lines. Everything after, eh…not so good. Things get cheaper, more fart jokes and scat references, more sodomy allusions and uni-dimensional characters.
I remember when Insomnia came out, I was excited. I read it and when I was finished I thought “what the fuck just happened?”. It just didn’t make sense.
But The Stand, good novel. Cheap thrills and great character development. A story that winds through 1141 pages. A good curl up with the dogs book.
shifting gears…
In a week we celebrate my grandfather’s 80th birthday. We’ll be throwing a party for him. Hosted at my sister and her boyfriend’s place (there must be an easier way to say that). I’ll be doing the food (woo) and all the hard stuff is being taken care of by other people. I just have to do foo. Someone else is doing liquor, plates, glasses, cake, candles whatever. I have the easy part.
It used to be that for years if you wanted me to do the food for the party I had to do EVERYTHING for the party. I was all about flow. You couldn’t contribute SOME food to the effort because I balanced all the foods off one another so they would flow together and not disrupt or overwhelm each other. Then I would also pick the beverages, the dishes, the napkins, the candles, whatever. It all went together. I’ve relaxed a bit. Food’s easy. I can do food.
I’ve got about half the menu figured out in my head right now. I need to sit down and figure out a cheese plate (thanks to Mark and Jessi for my cheese books!). I’ll even try my hand at a homemade jam or two. The real challenge is making stuff that can be restocked constantly through the night but won’t have me trapped in the kitchen.
Anybody up for stuffing and rolling croissants? I can make a metric buttload of those. I’m also pondering veggie sushi, I can make a lot of it, but it takes so long to make.
Anybody who’s been to one of my parties and had a favorite finger good, let me know!
Tomorrow I am helping Betsy with her birthday party, maybe she will have good ideas for me to steal!