Dinner tonight - or last night.

Dinner last night was Pizza - with jalapeno peppers, green peppers and green chillies. (I have to maintain my hotness you see )

Dinner tonight is not planned. Am going to a friends house and we will take it from there

Roger came over to Albuquerque and we went out to a favorite restaurant of mine, Vivace. We both had salads: for me, insalata cesare, for him, insalata mista; he had chicken marsala and I had veal marsala (no lectures, per favore). These came with great lumpy mashed potatoes, and sauteed snap peas, sweet red pepper, and onions. Wonderful, and I took home what I couldn't finish there. Long day of driving for him - but a treat. The restaurant's interesting, nice decor, sharp service, good food, great wine list (didn't have any, this time), great people watching. Among the reasons I like it is that the clientele is of mixed ages, all seemingly happy to be there together.

brendalee and I are meeting before we go out to a concert tonight - 1, 3 4 and 5 of the Brandenburgs. Trying to find something interesting/different in the Kensington Market territory to try out. I'm feeling experimental. I hope that works in our favour.

The Prince is here! <thud>

Ouch, that's going to burn twice!!
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We had scallops (simply sauteed in butter) and Brussels sprouts (with parmesan and pine nuts) last night. Today it will be breaded calamari with fennel.

I have to ask. Where does a London gent acquire green chilies? Most places in the world have never heard of them unless you talking about something other than our New Mexico green chili.

Turns out Dys and Diane and George went to Vivace an hour or two later than Roger and I, and had an excellent time, per D & D. This was a first meeting for them.

Trouble is, Dys didn't catch the name of the wine GeorgeOB ordered, which leaves me doing a guessing game and glaring at the Dys (kidding).

I'm leaping toward Montalcino or Montepulciano, based on a memory of M....

Italians have heard of chile, and so has India and Thailand and several parts of China.. so has Mexico and at least some of south America. Check out the Penzey's catalog sometime - it gives a pretty good start at chile types...

In fact the first time I tasted chile as a flavor/spice was from some indian curries in the restaurant downstairs from our art gallery in the mid seventies. I nearly had apoplexy at first taste.

With a fair population in England from India, natch chili(e) would be available.

I forgot Ethiopia/Eritrea. I had a friend from Eritrea who could eat a Wonderbread sandwich lined with habaneros, when he came here to the US. He lost that ability as years passed.

Got green chillies in Oz as well. Didn't know they were restricted!

Green chillies are available a plenty in the Indian areas of London. And for most of the indians, it is almost a staple diet

I was just curious if they are the same thing we refer to as green chili here tho. Could be. Maybe not. I know I can't order green chili even in neighboring West Texas as it is not on any of the menus in the Mexican restaurants I have visited. Former New Mexicans do come back during harvest though to stock up when the chili roasters are operating here and many of us keep a liberal supply in our freezers to use for this and that.

Reminded me years ago though that when we were living in Pittsburg KS (southeast corner--Italian country)--our next door neighbor was a school teacher from Oklahoma. Black-eyed peas were a staple in Oklahoma and Texas but when the local Pittsburg school received some in their school commodities, nobody was familiar with them. So they made chili out of them. I asked my neighbor how it was and she said it was edible.

fish and chips for mothers day

well, actually, our neighbours were defrosting their freezer and gave us a huge filet of trout (about 2 pounds), defrosted, ground some black pepper on the flesh side, about 5 minutes with the flesh down on the grill, then flip to skin side, cover with some foil, turn down heat until cooked through

previous to all that, i'd parboiled some little yellow potatoes (about golf ball size) that i'd cut in half, just before the fish was done, i threw some butter in a pan, tossed the mostly cooked potatoes in, sprinkled some pepper and basil on and quick fired them

to top it all off, some asparagus, some of it wild that i found on a walk in the country behind the property, the wild stuff tasted much better than the farm grown we'd already bought, luckily i've got about two more meals worth of the wild, and am going to check next week for more (season just about ending here, lots of the asparagus had already stretched and gone to seed)

Well, it was a change from chicken soup. I was given chicken pot pie . I cant taste anything JEEZUS H Chrise

that's one of the worst things about being sick with a cold or sinus problems

I know, I know, farmer .....
Can't smell anything either. If I closed my eyes I could easily believe I'm eating tennis balls, or Kleenex tissues .....
What a drag.

I ordered way too much food yesterday when brendalee and I went out. So tonight was leftovers here. Well, mostly leftovers - with kinda weird sides/starters.

Greek salad from the grocery store to start. Then Set cooked rice while I heated up the leftovers - fried cellophane noodles with beef, bbq pork slices, and beef with ginger and onion. Had some 'sparagus on the side. Pretty tasty, but not a combo I'd plan for.

Ha! I had something I'd charitably call a "fritatta" last night, that served its purpose, anyway ... getting rid of many leftover bits & pieces in the fridge. Can't really say whether it was any good or not as I couldn't taste it. It may have been brilliant, for all I know!

Well lets see. Lunch today was flavorful fork tender brisket with a marvelous homemade barbque sauce, fresh melon and berry salad, spinach souffle, marinated mushroom salad, a wonderfully seasoned german potato salad, deviled eggs, great potato rolls, and a sliver of decadent cheesecake.

That was also dinner but in somewhat smaller portions that my cousin sneaked into my take home sack.

(Mother's Day family potluck luncheon. I come from a family of really great cooks.)

spicy tuna and fried noodles with a side of broccoli