Company was coming over tonight to eat dinner with Eric and Ashley. Ashley and I had spent some time yesterday sorting through cookbooks for recipes and a dinner plan. I kept coming back to some old familiar recipes I had cooked in the past from the Old Country. I couldn't wait to get back in the kitchen....cooking is one of my favorite hobbies without question.
So this morning we headed out to the grocery store for ingredients for two of my favorite dishes to cook, both from Marcella Hazan's book on classic Italian cooking. Now I'm not Italian, at least not in my current life, but it's quite possible I was in another life (I was Mexican too at some point, and I know I lived in Zimbabwe and Cameroon for a time too). Safeway had everything we needed except for the canned Italian plum tomatoes...too important to substitute for. So we found another grocery store where I quickly ran in and found exactly what we needed, tomatoes imported from high mountain countryside in northern Italy.
Returning to the homestead, I got busy in the kitchen getting the homemade Bolognese sauce prepared...a labor of love. The real question was whether or not we could sneak the celery past Eric. I knew the sauce would cook a minimum of five hours, and hoped the celery would blend in nicely with the pork and beef and tomatoes, wine, and milk and my picky brother wouldn't notice. By 1 pm the house was smelling divine, just like an Italian kitchen, and I was feeling like the Godfather himself. Once the final step in the process was done, getting the tomatoes into the sauce for a three hour simmer, I turned to dish number two.
Chicken Scallopine, one of my favorites, was the next dish to prepare. I like using a very sharp knife to thinly slice the chicken breasts rather than beating them with a mallet. I carefully sliced the six breasts into razor thin layers of meat to later be dipped in milk and dredged and powdered lightly in flour. Once the meat was sliced, it went back in the refrigerator and I volunteered the late afternoon hours to help Ashley get the house ready for guests.
Ashley handled all the cleaning, so I assembled a wooden storage bench for her during the late afternoon. I was almost finished with the bench when Lucy decided to steal the wooden plugs that are glued in over the hex screws that hold the bench together. Of course, Lucy had taken them outside to chew up. We were able to retrieve most of them but several have permanent teeth marks. That dog is Eddie Haskell reincarnate!
I got a quick shower around 5 pm then returned to the kitchen to cook the chicken scallopine. Eric arrived just after 6 pm and the guests were just a few minutes behind. Dinner was almost ready by the time they arrived and soon we were all sitting down for an old country Italian dinner. We had Oregon wine to compliment the meal. I stayed busy carrying away dishes and getting the kitchen cleaned up while Ashley and Eric entertained their guests. By the time they left around 10 pm all of the dishes that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher were cleaned and the leftovers were in the fridge. My work was done and I had earned my keep for the day!
The incision on the foot still doesn't seem to want to close up. Today it continued to ooze a little, maybe a function of me being on my feet all day. But I can't imagine staying off the feet completely for any additional length of time. Should I ever lose my legs....may as well take me out back to the wood pile and shoot me and chunk me in the ground to put me out of my misery!
I miss the trail and still can't wait to get back out there...as soon as the body cooperates!
Oh yeah....one more thing. He noticed the celery. And I made him eat some anyway. And he didn't get sick, at least not that I'm aware of.
