Schneier

Not true. I once used the phone there. Bruce

Sbarro's pizza at the airport. And I have that damn apple with me. Bruce

I've been munching on grapes. Not much of a lunch, but we're flying off to Venice today. The final meal of this blog will be in Business Class on American Airlines. I won't be able to post about it until after I land, but I will post. This has been surprisingly fun. Bruce

Monday breakfast: spelt flakes and milk. Apple cider. (Back to boring.) I'm going to finish out the day. For this week, I hearby tag tammylc. Bruce

I'm going to blog through Monday, but we need to figure out who is going to be next. Anyone volunteer? Is there a list of previous victims? Should I just pick someone at random? Whose in charge, here? Bruce

Sunday dinner: lamb vindaloo, vegetable marsala, and other assorted foods at a medeocre Indian restaurant. We went for a friend's birthday dinner. We really were too tired, but it's important to attend friends' celebrations. Good company. Not so good food. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to pack. Bruce

Smelt flakes? Ewww. Spelt. Although with some of those Japanese dried fish snacks, you can't be too sure. Bruce

I didn't. They arrived late, and I figured that dried fish would keep for our next party. I will probably like them. I often bring back weird foods from Japan for parties. Last time I brought back an assortment of nicely packaged desserts from those stores that sell them in Tokyo Station. BTW, everything in the second posting of a food list were things that other people brought to the party. There were more, but I didn't keep accurate track. Bruce

Today started late. Sunday brunch: Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast and jams, apple cider. About a year and a half ago we joined the Bacon-of-the-Month Club. Every month we received, in the mail, a pound of interesting bacon. It ended up being too much bacon--we just don't eat it that often--so we didn't renew. This was either the last shipment of bacon from that club, or some regular interesting bacon we bought from Costco. We opened three interesting jams from France. (I wrote about buying them here.) Syrah jam, vigonier jam, and lilac jam. There's not a lot of cleaning up to do. Karen and I clean as we go. We did two loads of dishes during the party, and slowly put things away as people leave. We washed wineglasses. I started the third dishwasher load with the last of the dishes, and the washing machine with the various towels and tablecloths, before I went to sleep. When we woke up you could barely tell there were sixty people here last night. Our houseguests are still here. They fly out at 5:00 PM. I have no idea what we're doing for dinner. Bruce

Wow. I'm impressed. We have impressive parties. Music started about 10:00. It's a music circle jam party, and we get a lot of good people. They stopped playing at about 3:00, and then there was another hour of winding down. Bruce

so what made it delightful? Nothing, near as I can tell. I'm not a big fan of it; Karen is. Bruce

Actually, I don't. Every crackpot doesn't deserve the ability to waste the time of professionals. But as long as people are interested and willing to give this an objective test, I'm interested in the results. Bruce

Surdyk's cheese shop is okay. It's not Artesinal in New York, but it's what we have. I did pretty well cheese shopping for my party. They didn't have everything I wanted, but I did pretty well. Bruce

Before I go to sleep? The last guest left at 4:00 AM. This wasn't a dinner party. This was one of our regular irregular non-dinner parties. There were about 60 people, total. I'll post a full report when I finish waking up. Bruce

I've given parties where I spend a lot of money for foods and etc, and I've given parties where I spend next to nothing and count on the guest bringing most of the foods and etc. Both have been equally successful. This party was particularly expensive. Karen and I noticed that when we eyeballed the credit card reciepts. I don't know why. There are all kinds on eGullet, but I have always considered Chowhound to be more of the "cheap eats" site. I would agree that most people on this site have a lot of money to toss around on food and etc. Bruce

More party food: Chocolate cake. M&Ms. Apple crisp. Shrimp and coctail sauce. Weird-ass Japanes dried fish stuff. Turkish delight. Rabbit pate (from France). Two home grown watermelons. Walnut potica roll. Apple crisp. And a whole bunch of other things I can't recall right now. Music is starting soon. I need to run the dishwasher. (These two facts are not related.) Bruce

Party Food Inventory: An assortment of cheese: Roquefort, Abbyue de Bel Loc (raw-milk semi-soft goat cheese from Basque France), Morbier, Comte, St. Marcellin, Reblochon, Cypress Grove Midnight Moon (see our dinner picnic, above). Baguettes, crackers. Pates: Forrestier, duck rilettes. Cornichons. Hummos, baba ganouj. Plain and whole wheat pita. Dried dates. Olives of various sorts. Chips and a really good local salsa. Chocolate cake. Assortment of Middle Eastern sweets. Grapes. Stuffed grape leaves (vegetarian) Vegetables: celery, carrots, cucumbers, bell peppers of varying colors, brocolli, mushrooms, snap peas. Ground cherries. Some dip that I don't understand because I wasn't responsible for. Snail pate (from France). Terrine de Lapin a l/Armagnac, also from France. Apples. Caramel fruit dip. Beer and soft drinks in the basement. Wine upstairs. People will bring more stuff, I know. Bruce

Party prep humming along. Guests are scheduled to arrive five minutes ago. I'll post a food list in a second. Bruce

2000? Wow. Now all you need is a central index. Bruce

the original, or NYC? if i'm not mistaken, isn't the original supposed to be closed for renovations while most of the staff is opening NYC FL? The original resaurant in Napa. The New York restaurant is going to have a different name. (I have no idea why; you'd think they'd want to keep the PR value of the name.) The California restaurant will close in the beginning of the year for renovations, when Keller comes to New York to open his restaurant there. Bruce

Cool. Bruce

Wow. That looks really good. I'll make it for Thanksgiving, too. Thanks. Bruce

Saturday Lunch: Bahn mi sandwiches. Pho Tau Bay is our favorite Vietnamese restaurant in the Twin Cities. (Karen and I wrote a review about it in 2001, which I have just posted here.) Bahn mi sandwiches are the best fast food you'll ever have. You'll be in and out faster than McDonald's, and its orders of magnitude better. We ordered four for the four of us (and four cans of soursop juice) and went down to Minnehaha Falls and had ourselves a little picnic. It's about 55 degrees today, way warmer than our dinner picnic earlier in the week. Then we went grocery shopping for the party tonight. Stinky cheeses, vegetables, delicacies from a Labenese deli, and a bunch of other stuff. I'll post an inventory later. Now I have to slice, chop, and put things away. Guests arrive in 105 minutes. Bruce

Um; no. This really is a normal week for me. Is it that abnormal? I have no idea. Bruce

I'm not crazy about Famous Dave's. There's no real good barbecue in Minneapolis. There's okay barbecue, but that's about it. And Famous Dave's isn't even okay. The Sofitel restaurants were better five years ago. Goodfellows is still rumored to be excellent, but it never seems to get to the top of my list anymore. I'd much rather have a meal at Vincent. Bruce