1. It turned out that Hotel Ruby was a semi-quasi-bed and breakfast. Right next to Hotel Ruby is an eatery called Incrediburger and Eggs. When I registered for my room, the friendly employee who handed me my room keys also handed me two vouchers, each worth five dollars, at Incrediburger and Eggs. You can see the menu, here.) I balked temporarily this morning about using my vouchers, thinking I didn't really want a breakfast sandwich. I'm glad I changed my mind. I got myself a cup of coffee and soon a modestly sized sandwich appeared on a tray wrapped in brown paper. I was relieved it wasn't humongous. My sandwich was made with hardwood smoked bacon, an egg over easy, house cheese (very delicious), maple syrup (unexpected pleasure) and something called French toast mayo. This sandwich perfectly balanced the savory with the sweet and the bun it was served in was fresh, a very little bit sweet, and tasty. As a bonus -- I didn't plan this -- my two vouchers covered the cost of my breakfast.
2. Back in Kellogg, I picked up Charly at Carol and Paul's. They assured me that Charly had been an easy, well-behaved guest. I spent much of the afternoon getting ready to host family dinner. On Friday, I had put a rack of pork spare ribs in the slow cooker with pork stock I had frozen several months ago. I added in chopped onion, celery, carrots, and mushrooms. When the meat was cooked, I took out the spare ribs, removed the bones, chopped up the meat and put the meat back in the soup. I wasn't 100 percent pleased with the way the soup's broth tasted. I wanted to deepen it. I decided to add soy sauce. I let the soup cool, put it in the fridge, and got it back out today. The soy sauce improved the soup, but even when I served it today, I was certain I could do something to further improve it. I fixed rice and served the soup over rice. That worked. But, I have leftover soup and I'm going to experiment with it in ways I didn't feel comfortable doing before I served it to family and see if I can deepen this soup's flavor.
3. With the soup ready to serve, I cleaned the kitchen, living room, and bathroom. I went to the store and bought a bagged chopped Asian salad and added opal apple slices to it when I prepared it at home. Earlier, I had baked cornbread muffins, but I wanted more bread to serve with the soup, so I bought a sourdough baguette. I also bought some Baked Apple cider -- I thought it might be a good match with the soup I'd made.
Carol, Paul, Christy, and Everett all arrived at 6:00 and I fixed each of them a gin and tonic and Christy was excited to talk about the birthday party for Dawn that she and Carol attended yesterday at Chris Meyer's home. The party's food theme was hot lunch and replete with trays, tickets, and small cartons of milk, Dawn's friends did their best to replicate entrees from our hot lunch days in Kellogg School District #391. As an added treat, they also took Dawn down memory lane by serving Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill. Believe me, Boone's Farm never got served at hot lunch, but I wondered if, on some days, for some of our fellow students, it was consumed in the parking lot or on The Trail. I honestly have no idea.
Everyone enjoyed the dinner I prepared (to my relief) and, as the evening wore down, Paul talked about what's happening in the World Cultures course he's teaching and I got excited talking about the olden days at LCC when I taught World Literature and for the first time in a long time yakked (maybe too much) about my love of movies from Iran, Israel, and other countries in the Middle East and fondly recalled showing my students the Mongolian movie, The Story of the Weeping Camel.
Talking about these movies reminded me that Netflix is currently showing Asghar Farhadi's movie, A Separation. Quite a while back, I watched Farhadi's very sobering and unsettling movie, The Salesman and it's time for me watch another of his movies and see what other Iranian movies are available to stream or rent.
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