1. I experienced today as a BIG day in our family. Christy decided to plan what I thought was an ambitious family dinner centered on the cuisine of Kentucky since this was Kentucky Derby weekend. Christy assigned us each a course for tonight's dinner and it was up to each of us to read up on Kentucky food and drink and figure out what we wanted to make.
Christy assigned me to make tonight's cocktail.
I thought making mint juleps seemed too predictable.
I looked at Kentucky cocktail recipes and liked what I read about a Maple-Bourbon Smash.
It was a moderately involved cocktail, requiring me to squeeze fresh orange and lemon juice and to muddle orange wheels, but I made the drinks at home and carried them to Christy's house, using a casserole baking pan as a tray.
Here's what I did: in each glass I combined maple syrup, orange juice, lemon juice, and bitters. I stirred these ingredients before dropping a half an orange wheel into each glass and muddling it. I then added a couple ounces of Bulleit Kentucky Straight Bourbon, put ice cubes in the glasses, and topped each cocktail with seltzer water.
2. I have trouble keeping track of every detail of the food offerings at family dinner. I always depend on Christy's family dinner Facebook photos and descriptions to get things straight.
As I write this post, Christy hasn't posted her family dinner pictures and descriptions, so I'll do the best I can, but I'm sure to have some details either mixed up or wrong!
To our Kentucky family dinner, Molly contributed just a bit larger than bite-sized crustless sourdough sandwiches featuring a blend of cream cheese, dill, sour cream(?), and other tasty ingredients. Her contribution got dinner off to a delicious start.
Soon, it was time to dive into the main course featuring Debbie's butter lettuce salad with bourbon vinaigrette dressing, Paul's cheese wafers, Christy's spinach cheese bread, and, the heart and soul of this meal, Christy's Kentucky Hot Brown Macaroni and Cheese.
If my memory serves me correctly, Christy originally wanted to make a popular Kentucky Derby Day entree called Hot Brown, a combination of turkey, bacon, and cheese sauce served over Texas toast -- it's a kind of Kentucky version of Welsh Rarebit. If I heard Christy correctly, she concluded this dish was too complicated for her to make in her small kitchen -- and maybe too complicated to fix for six people.
Therefore, Christy learned about another "Hot Brown" Kentucky dish: Kentucky Hot Brown Macaroni and Cheese. She made it. It, along with the salad, wafers, and bread, was awesome, combining to make this one of my favorite family dinners ever. I'd love to return to a similar dinner one day -- but maybe we'll have to wait for next year's Kentucky Derby!
But, wait!
We weren't done yet! For dessert, Carol made a splendid butter cake with a bourbon icing. So we had a bourbon cocktail, bourbon vinaigrette on our salad, and a bourbon-y dessert.
Especially for us bourbon lovers, this whole meal was out of sight, but it was out of sight for all the rest of the food, too. This dinner was flavorful, comforting, and innovative.
Let's just say IT WORKED!
(My apologies in advance to the other family members if I got anything wrong in this summary. If I learn I did, I'll go back and make corrections, but for those of you reading this post via email, you won't see the corrections unless you were to go to my blog at www.kelloggbloggin.blogspot.com -- but why would you do that! Just trust my description is pretty close to accurate!)
3. Do you have an internal voice in your head that you listen to, that tells you to be quiet some times, that advises, admonishes, encourages, and does other things in your mind?
This was a topic of an involved conversation at dinner tonight.
So was the Fitness Center. And the evolution (some would say the devolution) of language. We talked a little bit about the Kentucky Derby. Debbie talked some about her work. We told stories, both fictional and non-fictional, about the history of our food offerings. (Okay. I'll own up. I'm the only one who made up a fiction about my offering.)
As always, our discussions were wide-ranging, peppered with laughter at times, but also serious.
There's always a lot going on for the six of us enjoying dinner in Christy's living room.
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