Anna N

Really? I thought that was the one we called the pope’s nose.

A most unexpected but wildly appreciated gift. This pork chop is currently being gently massaged by my Joule at 60°C. I really debated temperature and did a fair bit of reading around what everyone else was doing. I need to keep better records to know what I like. Anyway I will let my circulator do its thing for 90 minutes and we will see later today whether I like 60° or not.

Don’t know what possessed me to think I could eat a big breakfast this morning. I was haunted by the half tomato that I didn’t use last night so decided that I would have a fry up. I managed to eat it all but one sausage and it will find its way into something in the next day or two.

Perhaps @Kerry Beal would be able to point you to a source,

Kerry noticed the shape of the glass long before I did. My eyesight is such that when I put my hand around the glass I was stunned to discover its shape. I just loved it because if you’re a klutz like me then stemless wine glasses make a lot of sense.

I love my donabe which was a Christmas gift. Donabe weather is just around the corner. I know I have posted some of the dishes I made in this. I love that it is induction compatible since my range is induction. Here is one.

I was given some lovely field tomatoes and while a BLT would have perhaps showcased them perfectly, I have no bacon and no lettuce! Since I had enjoyed a generous lunch, this preparation worked just fine. The tomatoes were generously salted, drizzled with some balsamic vinegar (not the kind that sends your bank manager scrambling to check your credit rating but a little bit up from super market brands) and then I scattered some wood -oven-smoked salami chips over them.

So it is going to be very difficult to do justice to our lunch today. We sat at my house for a while feeding kittens and discussing where we might like to eat. We finally agreed that we would go back to the little Egyptian restaurant that we had visited in the winter time. You might remember the one where we watched a man herd the geese. I thought the liver I was served there was the most amazing dish that I had had that included liver. And as Kerry pointed out, there would be lots of leftovers. So we headed down towards the Lakeshore in Brontë. Disappointment. The restaurant was closed and appeared to be padlocked. There were utility bills stuck into the door handle. Darn it was such a nice little restaurant. But that left us in downtown Brontë which has become incredibly gentrified in the last few years. WASP Heaven you might say! But as we were trying to escape the parking lot that we found ourselves in, we saw a parking spot first and the restaurant second and I’m not sure which of these two made our decision. But there it was — a restaurant we’ve never heard of before called La Parisienne Creperie. Since we have never been to a creperie before and since we like to bring you something new we decided to give it a try. To call the space intimate would be somewhat of an understatement. When the server, built like a rail, was passing a dish to the table next to us. we had a much too much close up of his shapely derrière. (I may be old but I’m not dead.) The walls were decorated with dozens of French movie posters, French views, French tourist attractions etc. etc. The tables were occupied by obviously retired, wealthy, educated WASPS. Kerry was able to discern that the table next to us was occupied by two couples. The husband of one couple was a doctor and of the other couple was a university professor. Kerry had black tea with milk. If you look carefully you can get an idea of how close the tables are to one another! I had a small glass of the Sauvignon Blanc. Just look at that glass. Is it not amazing? Kerry ordered the chicken crêpe And I ordered the mushroom crêpe. The oh so slim server, I believe one of the owners, seemed particularly French as he announc d the menu offerings and placed them in front of us. The food was good and the ambiance inviting if not perhaps a little over the top in terms of its attempt to suggest a French bistro. However, while French women may not get fat, denizens of Brontë and surrounds do, and it was beyond amusing to see these very ample guests being seated in this very small space on these absolutely inadequate chairs! I’m sorry but we had such a great time but I’m just not communicating that at all. Perhaps it was a case of “you had to be there”. I still cannot completely wipe the smile from my face that’s how much I enjoyed myself.

Of course it did.

I put in a grocery order today but the shrimp I ordered, the kielbasa I ordered and the sour cream I ordered were all out of stock. Why am I not surprised? I don’t think I have ever ordered shrimp and actually got them. So I whined to my fairy godmother (@Kerry Beal). She showed up shortly after lunch with not only with missing items but some fresh corn, fresh peaches and fresh green beans. I should know that one cannot whine to Kerry Beal with impunity. Like a fairy godmother she must make things right! So dinner was the famous shrimp with corn and basil recipe which is much discussed and can be found on @Kim Shook‘s website. I know it is meant to be simple but I did want to kick it up this time. It got some garlic, also courtesy of my fairy godmother, some hot pepper flakes and some seasoning (seems to be missing that in the recipe). Wonderful way to bring summer to an end although I do hope it lingers a bit longer. Edited to add: I did add a couple of small tomatoes chopped up and I heated up half a garlic naan.

Very late and very lazy breakfast. I hope to do better since my grocery order was delivered today and I have food that I can actually cook. But I still need fast, easy sources of nourishment in my freezer and so part of my order was a package of Jamaican patties.

Since I have even less ambition than a sloth I’m not sure if this is a snack or a meal. Cream cheese and thick-cut marmalade on Breton crackers.

Send me your husband.

Usually this is breakfast but when I went to make some toast earlier a recently-purchased loaf of rye bread had black mould all the way through it! Damn. And so lunch is spam and egg onigirazu with a dipping sauce which is just a combination of brown sauce (HP) and ketchup.

I am scared that mine is reaching the end of it’s life. It’s becoming very difficult to get it to turn on. You have to push the button many many times before it gets the message.

Pepperoni and egg onigirazu.

But of course. You have been missed.

Definitely looks a bit boring compared to what I’m seeing posted here. But it is what it is. Orzo with everything. Afterwards I fancied toast and marmalade. This did not play well with the red wine I was drinking. Duh.

(Purchased) leek and pork potstickers. I bet they might have been much tastier had they not been in my freezer for considerably longer than they should have been. I ate them with some bottled dipping sauce but next time I would go back to my own mixture of black vinegar and soy sauce. I put the other half of the package back into the freezer and think that I will serve them as part of a Ramen bowl when I get around to it.

I definitely need to steal this.

Something that might be supper or might be lunch or might have to do double duty.

Might be lunch and might be slunch. Leftover spam succotash supplemented by one of the leftover pieces of sliced beef from yesterday‘s restaurant takeout. I found my Timur pepper and used it with abandon. Delicious.

Don’t laugh. Please. Please, please don’t laugh. Pretty soon we will be paying eight dollars for a bunch of celery and all we want to do is make some mirepoix.

Leftover grilled vegetables from lunch. I reheated them and served them on some rye toast. I thought I had discarded all the nasty pieces of eggplant but apparently not. I ate around them.

Yeah it didn’t quite live up to expectations. Probably not a restaurant that will go into our regular routine. I had high hopes.