Skip to main content

Day 11: Happy Birthday to Jeff!

We found ways to celebrate, despite being homebound.  The last time I was in a store with birthday cards was PetSmart for dog food.  Protip: if you're looking for silly animal cards, they have a bonanza.

The birthday dessert was a Boston Cream Pie.  The pastry cream turned out a little loose, so the final effect was not a looker.  But it was delicious!  And if you've not seen Nailed It, watch it for a laugh.

Lentils with Mirepoix and Kielbasa
It may be a bit of a secret on the street, but Jeff is an amazing prep chef.  The man knows how to do a consistent dice or mince.  Mirepoix is his meditation. 
We riff on this David Liebovitz French Lentil Salad probably twice a month, and it was the request of the birthday man.  The current favorite adds in sauteed kielbasa.  While the lentils simmer away (bay leaf, dried thyme), saute the kielbasa.  Remove from skillet. Sautee the mirepoix in the kielbasa grease, adding a little salt and pepper.  It's basically like you're in Provence!

Lentils can stand up to a substantial dressing.  Here, we use a Dijon vinaigrette with shallots and sherry vinegar.  Any vinegar would do, but my second choice would be red wine vinegar.  Add to the lentils while they are warm, so that they soak it up and get tasty.  Delicious for lunch up to several days later.

Wontons, Part Deux
The pasta falls apart a bit on reheat, but tasty none-the-less.  And you're right, Dr. Pepper.  I DO deserve this.



Egg on Toast
This classic is... classic for a reason, and sometimes white toast is the way to go.  Like when it's what you have on hand!  Want a lot of butter taste, without a lot of butter?  We're hot on Finlandia, which our neighborhood grocery regularly carries.

Jeff made a big pot of the good coffee, and made it beautiful.  A lovely start to the morning, before I headed off to work.  Upstairs.


Hope you had a chance to have something delicious today, friends.  Second Monday in distance, done.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Constructivist Crap

Reading this post was like deja vu for me! I took a class just like this as an undergrad... (surprise, surprise) in the education department. I made it through that semester by taking solace in two facts: (a) I was also taking The Sociology of Education in the soc department, with a professor who actually taught the material and (b) most of us in my little liberal arts bubble wouldn't end up teachers, thus wouldn't have an opportunity to inflict such pedagogical torture on kids who needed to actually learn stuff. It would appear that Newoldschoolteacher has neither of those to help her out. God save her. The professor in my class repeatedly insisted that we were a "democratic classroom" and that she wasn't any more of an expert on the material than us. WHAT? I paid good money for that course, money that employed her to teach me. I hope that she was more expert on the material than I was! Also, when I "took responsibility for myself" and said that ...
5 comments
Read more

Privilege of Being

Robert Hass Many are making love. Up above, the angels in the unshaken ether and crystal of human longing are braiding one another's hair, which is strawberry blond and the texture of cold rivers. They glance down from time to time at the awkward ecstasy-- it must look to them like featherless birds splashing in the spring puddle of a bed-- and then one woman, she is about to come, peels back the man's shut eyelids and says, look at me, and he does. Or is it the man tugging the curtain rope in that dark theater? Anyway, they do, they look at each other; two beings with evolved eyes, rapacious, startled, connected at the belly in an unbelievably sweet lubricious glue, stare at each other, and the angels are desolate. They hate it. They shudder pathetically like lithographs of Victorian beggars with perfect features and alabaster skin hawking rags in the lewd alleys of the novel. All of creation is offended by this distress. It is like the keening sound the moon makes sometimes, ...
5 comments
Read more

Singing Metro Man

This morning on the Orange Line train to work, Singing Metro Man made an appearance. If you ride the Orange or the Blue Line, you may know of him...I’ve heard from other passengers that he’s been around for years, though I can only confirm the last three. He’s an elderly Asian gentleman, well-dressed, who steps onto the train right before the doors close. Once the train begins to move, he clears his throat, says a polite but insistent “Excuse me,” and begins to sing a hymn from his songbook. The effect is eerie. The silent morning train, everyone still half-asleep before their first cup of coffee. The whoosh of the tunnel. The man’s gentle, earnest voice singing a capella (he’s not half bad) about how we should trust in Jesus. As he reached his crescendo this morning, I half expected the train to explode or something—the moment just felt very... cinematic. Luckily, life is not a movie, and after the song was done, he wished us all a good day, exited the train and moved to the n...
2 comments
Read more