Finger licking

A couple of nights ago, it was simply gorgeous out so my beau and I decided to go for a walk along with dinner and a movie.

I love picking a spot spur of the moment.  Because I spend so much of my time picking out restaurants, what I’ll have, etc., this is a real treat for me.  Even better if my fella gets to choose for once .**

The area of town we were in was a fantastic mecca of choices – Would we have El Salvadorian or Korean?  Chinese or Hungarian?

We decided on Malabari cuisine, as it’s few and far between here.  Scott picked some lovely dishes.  We started with beef samosas with a tamarind sauce and then moved onto traditional Kerala dishes – Kingfish curry and crab curry, along with vegetables in a cashew coconut sauce, hot, buttery roti and plain rice.

Good stuff, but then the crab arrives.  There are a couple of whole crabs covered in a dark date-like paste.  We are not given any tools, nor was it described to have the shell on. It simply said, “Crab Curry.”

My guy, ever the trooper, dug in, brown fingers and all.  I had a couple of legs, but that was it was me.

Our night was memorable for a lot of reasons, but I’ll never forget Scott heading to the washroom to wash up afterwards and the owner rushing over to open the white door leading downstairs for him.

** When we go out to dinner with friends, they almost never choose the place because they say that I’ll know all of the best places to go.  Sure, I’ve been to many places, but that doesn’t make it any better than a place you’ll choose.

Before the guests arrive

There are many problems I’ve been able to overcome throughout my years of cooking and entertaining.

But one that still eludes me is trying to eat before having people over for a party.

See, if it’s a dinner party, that problem is immediately solved – you get to eat with everyone – but when you’re just having people over for drinks, it’s difficult.

After all, I’ve just spent hours cleaning everything – you don’t want to have more dishes to do.  And do you really want people smelling lamb chops or curried fish as they come through the door?  I’ve spent the day trying to eliminate any odours – I don’t want to add any.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to a dear friend’s for birthday drinks and a movie.  I asked what they did about supper beforehand.  Lovely Jill sighed and furrowed her brow.  “Pizza slices, while we were out getting a cake.”  She certainly wasn’t happy about it, but had given in to the combination of need and time pressure.

Which happens every time we entertain and I’m not serving dinner (Even on these nights, I often cook up 7 -10 appetizers but because everyone was coming and going – long weekend plans – I resisted, but it was hard.  Really, really hard).

So last night we didn’t have dinner at all.  I had a muffin from the batch I’d made on the weekend and an apple.  Scott didn’t eat at all.  By the time 9 pm rolled around, I was ravenous, but party snacks just don’t fill the void.

What do you do to eat and not have to reclean the kitchen, etc. before your guests arrive?

Ad hoc

Sometimes I have the best laid plans for dinner.

I take some meat out, think about what vegetables I’ll comprise, do I want to marinate anything, and well, that kind of thinking goes on pretty much all day.

But sometimes the best laid plans go awry.

And it’s not entirely a bad thing.

I had planned out dinner early in the morning, but by mid afternoon, I’d sat down to have a quick  lunch with my mom, as we were out for a long walk and famished all of a sudden (That’s how it always happens, doesn’t it?  All of a sudden like that?  Must eat now, your body screams).

We shared an unbelievably great hearty sandwich (pulled pork), burger and sweet potato fries with 2 types of mayo (pesto and chipotle).  Needless to say, I was bursting at my jean seams on our way out.

So, 6 hours later and huge city blocks conquered, we got home and weren’t the least bit interested in food.

My fella hadn’t eaten yet, though, and it was already 9:30 pm.  Having just come home from a work function, he was hungry.

So instead of carefully composing dinner like I planned, I whipped things together quickly while a good friend stood in our doorway, regaling us of the morning he slept in this week and the comedy that ensued.

And it all turned out beautifully – organic pork chops with basil pesto, sesame and poppy seeds, wilted arugula and cremini mushrooms in a balsamic reduction, quinoa with red peppers, celery and green onions and nappa cabbage drizzled with sesame oil.

I probably couldn’t have done such a good job had I spent all that planned time on it.

Huh.