1. My assignment for tonight's birthday dinner in Christy and Everett's back yard was to make a rice dish. I immediately thought that I'd like to serve some kind of dish from the Middle East and so I consulted the cookbook Zoe gave me last Christmas, Zaitoun, a collection of Palestinian recipes. Sure enough, I found a delicious looking possibility: Brown Rice Lentil Pilaf with Crispy Fried Onions. It's simple. I cooked a pot of brown rice and a batch of lentils, drained, and combined them. In the cast iron skillet, I toasted cumin and coriander seeds and crushed them with my mortar and pestle and added cinnamon and allspice to them. I melted butter and cooked the spice mixture in the butter and poured it over rice and lentils and, following the recipe's instructions, put some more water in the pot of rice/lentils, placed a dish towel over the pot, and cooked it at a medium to low heat for fifteen minutes.
Coincidentally, at the end of fifteen minutes the dish towel caught on fire.
That wasn't in the recipe's directions.
I transferred the rice and lentils into an our oblong glassware pan.
Then I thinly sliced three onions and cut the slices in half, covered the onion with all-purpose flour, and fried the pieces in hot oil in several batches, put the pieces on paper towels to soak up the excess oil, and topped the rice and lentils with the onions. I'm not sure the onion pieces were crispy, but they were well cooked.
I thought this dish would have tasted good with raisins and sliced almonds and I might add those ingredients in next time I make this.
2. Our dinner was superb. Christy cooked aluminum foil packets of perfectly seasoned salmon and zucchini with lemon slices on the grill. She also served a tasty bread. Debbie made a shrimp cocktail appetizer and one of her brilliantly imagined and executed green salads, this one featuring arugula. We enjoyed a selection of wines with dinner and, as requested by Carol for her birthday, Christy baked a delicious lemon cheesecake and served it with Limoncello.
3. I'll end with a not that beautiful of a thing that had a good conclusion, eventually. I want a written record of what happened as a reminder to myself to be more careful when it's sunny out.
I sat in the sun during dinner to keep physical distance. After dinner and dessert, we realized Gibbs hadn't had his dinner and I took him next door to our house to feed him. I suddenly realized, upon getting out of my chair and moving around a bit, that the sun had done a number on me.
I was rubber kneed and dehydrated and felt hot all over. I had planned to return to the party after feeding Gibbs, but I couldn't. I felt too lousy and needed to cool off, drink water, and rest. I tried to sleep, but the exposure to the sun had produced an adrenaline surge and I had to wait until that slowed down.
It took about three hours of sitting in the cool living room and drinking water and then going to bed and working a crossword puzzle with a window open and a fan running, but eventually my system got back into balance and fell into a comfortable sleep, interrupted only by trips to the kitchen to drink more water and some trips to the bathroom.
Stu says in a limerick, Happy Birthday, Ringo Starr!
His name is the formal of Rick.
Had a hard time at first, was so sick.
Met his mates in Liverpool,
Uses sticks for his tool.
And his song of a “Sub” is a kick.
Richard Starkey, a.k.a. Ringo Starr turns 80 today.
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