I had the loveliest of birthdays. Woke up to a sweet and funny text from Owen, had lunch with Pam (WHY SO MANY DRIED CRANBERRIES IN SALADS, RESTAURANTS?), sweet hugs from Leo when he came home for lunch, Owen and Trinity showed up with hugs and flowers, and then drinks at Fries and Peanuts with friends….and we saw so many other friends it felt like before times.
Lovely. Plus millions of sweet messages online. Thanks to all.
I’d gotten some shrimp for dinner and I thought I was being all clever about it. I figured that if we were going out for drinks before dinner that I needed to keep it very simple or I wouldn’t want to do it. So, the plan was all I needed to do was slice tomato, cook corn, saute shrimp and then douse it with the fennel seed/anchovy/red pepper flake oil I had made the night before. Guess what? It still seemed like too much work so we feasted on the gluten free oatmeal blueberry bars Ernie had made for dessert. All in all, a lovely day.
On Saturday, we had absolutely no plans and I went with it. I poked around online and read some news. Ernie made me the best eggs and spinach with peppered bacon ever and then I curled up with a book. Later we watched more Australian MasterChef, a couple of the McCartney 321 episodes (very good) and sat outside and watched the storm roll in until a particularly close crack of lightning drove us inside. Dinner was a partial success. The fennel/anchovy/red pepper dressing was from an Alison Roman newsletter and it was meant for just the tomatoes. I used it on the sweet shrimp and corn too, and although it was good, it needed the acidity of the tomatoes to really shine. Lesson learned. I loved the dressing though…I’m becoming quite the anchovy lover.
Today, some prep for our upcoming Big Boy trip and some more reading before a very busy week ahead.
Onward.