1. Because of the heat we've experienced since the end of June and because I traveled some earlier in June, I honestly don't remember the last time I did anything in the kitchen beyond boil water, sauté or steam vegetables, and fry some eggs or potatoes.
So, tonight, it was particularly satisfying to get a real cooking project underway in preparation for Sunday's family dinner.
Earlier, I'd bought a whole chicken, and, using a recipe from my book, Zaitoun: Recipes from the Palestinian Kitchen, I started to prepare the entree, Roasted Chicken with Raisins and Pine Nuts.
My effort, however, would be called Roasted Chicken with Raisins and Sesame Seeds.
To begin, I gathered the marinade ingredients: olive oil, allspice, sumac, fresh squeezed lemon juice, crushed garlic cloves, salt, and pepper and combined them in a bowl. I put the chicken in our larger Dutch oven, poured the marinade over it, covered the chicken in the pot with plastic wrap, and put it in the refrigerator to sit until Sunday afternoon.
Then I made stuffing for the chicken, knowing Sunday would be busy with a Zoom get together in the morning and house cleaning to do before family dinner.
The dressing was simple. It called for pine nuts, which I didn't find at Yoke's, so I subbed sesame seeds.
To make the dressing, I decided not to use onion but chopped up celery instead and cooked it in olive oil about ten minutes until it was soft. I added crushed garlic, cinnamon, and allspice to the celery, stirred it up, and cooked it for a few minutes. To this mixture, I added the sesame seeds and raisins and cooked this mixture until the sesame seeds began to brown. I added chicken stock to the pot along with jasmine rice, brought it to a boil, and then covered the pot and cooked this stuffing on a low heat until the rice absorbed the liquid and the stuffing was done. I put it in a bowl with a lid and refrigerated it.
I loved doing these preparatory things in the cool of the evening and left myself in great shape to finish cooking my part of family dinner on Sunday afternoon.
2. Not only do I not remember when I last cooked a meal that involved more than steaming, boiling, or frying, I also have no memory of when I last bought a six pack of beer. I'm almost positive that I haven't bought a six pack since Debbie left for New York a year ago. I simply don't drink much beer, or anything else, when I'm alone at home. I like to drink alcohol socially; I'm not legalistic about this, but, most of the time, I rarely drink alone.
But, for some reason, today I picked up a six pack of Wallace Brewing's Red Light, their red ale.
It's cooler out. We've had some rain. I wasn't looking for a lighter beer to refresh myself from the heat nor was I looking to drink either a juicy or a hoppy IPA.
I wanted a maltier beer, a sweeter beer, a slightly warming beer.
So I bought a sixer of Red Ale -- a very, in my humble opinion, underrated, overlooked, and under appreciated beer style. The Red Light Ale came through winningly.
Debbie called me before I started my kitchen project and she was blissing out on a New England 2IPA brewed near Valley Cottage at the superb District 96 Brewery, and I wanted to join the party and poured myself a Red Light Ale.
We continued our ongoing discussion of how and when we might join up back east to pile into the new Camry and drive with Gibbs back to Idaho. We didn't really get anywhere with this discussion (no problem!), but it's fun to think about what we might possibly do once the time comes for Debbie to return to Idaho.
After our conversation, because I do like to have a little drink on hand while I cook, I took out a small glass, filled it with ice, poured myself some Trail's End bourbon, added just a splash of club soda, and topped it off with orange bitters just for fun and this was a really pleasing little pour to sip on until I finished cooking the dressing.
3. Should I buy some cat-themed glassware? Would it be kind of fun to make an impractical purchase but pay homage to my pals Copper and Luna and have some cocktail glasses or beer glasses with images of cats etched in them?
Well, I haven't decided, but, on a lark, I made my first ever plunge into the world of Etsy and looked at a wide variety of cat-themed glassware. I was most attracted to glasses with no writing on them and thought the glasses featuring black cats in silhouette looked handsome.
I think I'll poke around a little more online and see what all I find and, yes, I think some cat-themed glassware sits out there in my future somewhere.
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