1. As planned yesterday, I did turn Thursday night's tostado into Friday morning's hash. I forgot to include bacon, but I thought the combination of sesame seeded fried potatoes, southwest seasoned black beans with onion and green peppers, and a fried egg on top was delicious. I hope next time I'll remember the bacon.
2. I had a grand old time in uptown Kellogg, starting around 4:30 when Ed picked me up and we joined John H., Tim and Cindy S, and Doug and Eileen J for burgers at the Elks. After we finished our dinner, we all migrated across McKinley and took a table together at The Lounge and had a rousing time with stories about everything from Cindy's cheerleader accident at the Univ of Idaho to Ed's, Mike's, and my good fortune in New York City to that harrowing day when Ed fell off the roof at the Tall Pine.
3. Back home, I watched another episode of Chopped from about four years ago.
One of the competing chefs, the Korean owner of White Tiger, a Korean restaurant in Brooklyn, paid homage in the entree round to her German husband by preparing a plate of pork prepared in a German style.
She made it through the entree round, but in the final assessment of hers and the other contestant's three plates, the judges agreed that her German entree plate had been too heavy and they chopped her.
This got me thinking about the history of meals, stretching back to my childhood, in our family and where I'm at with food today.
I've been thinking a lot about contrasts in flavors and mouth feel the last few days -- contrasting, say, sweet with salty, cool with spicy heat, soft with crunchy, etc.
Now I'm thinking a lot about dinners with light and heavy food. It's a continuing concern of the judge's on Chopped. They never critique an appetizer, entree, or dessert for being too light, but are quick to criticize a plate of food that is too heavy.
For me, heaviness in food is not only a matter of the food's weight, but also it richness. While the flavors of rich foods like prime rib, cheesy potatoes, and, say, macaroni and cheese are wonderful, when there's too much richness, I leave the table feeling more sluggish than nourished, more sleepy than energized.
I enjoy rich (heavy) foods more in the colder months, but even in the winter, I enjoy meals much more that either lean toward lighter foods or are nicely balanced between the heavy and the light.
While we're on the subject of food, here's a limerick by Stu:
No way that this food is a dud.
Grows better from dirt than the mud. Loaded up it’s a treat,
Goes with eggs, fish or meat.
Cannot beat the great taste of the spud!
National Potato Day
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