Jordan and
Christian went to take Jacob to camp in East Texas today, and they stopped for
lunch at The Shed in Edom, scene of so many happy family dinners years ago that
the mere mention of it sends me into a bout of teary nostalgia. Knowing this,
Christian sent this picture with the message, “Wish you were here!” I think the
sign is new since I was last at The Shed, probably fifteen years ago. That was
the trip when Christian drove us all over that small town looking for his
grandmother’s house, only to find that it’s right next door to The Shed.
Meanwhile, back in
Fort Worth, I went to church on Facebook, where I could see and hear the service.
Perfectly appropriate, I thought to myself, as I listened to the sermon about
food, specifically about Jesus and the loaves and fish. And I’m cooking with
weekend. Just a bit of a quantity difference.
Yesterday, I did
some menu planning, placed a larger-than-usual order with Central Market, and
went gleefully off to pick it up. By myself. In my car.
Friends came by
last night for happy hour. A high school classmates of Jordan’s, who has
remained like family to us, and his fiancée, with an October wedding in the
offing. I should be at the “older generation” shower today but begged off, and
they came to pick up my shower gift. We had a good visit—perhaps the highlight
was listening to the chickens cackle, which reminded them of laughter. Jordan
swears she’ll never again hear that sound without laughing.
It was late for
supper when they left, so I fixed myself an easy and quick meal: sautéed some
pre-cooked green beans in butter with salt and pepper (I had overcooked them a
bit in that pre-boil, but they were still so delicious) and sautéed two small
filets of Dover sole in butter with salt, pepper, and lemon. It always amazes
me that restaurants charge such high dollar for Dover sole when you can buy it
so reasonably in the fish market. My dinner was delicious. Jordan wandered out
just as I plated it and said, “Yum.” But there wasn’t enough to share.
I’ve been wanting
to try a recipe for creamed spinach, so I made it a lunchtime today. Easy as
could be, with a sauce of butter, onion, garlic, cream cheese and milk. And
plenty of time to let the spinach cool so I could squeeze it dry. My own touch
not called for in the recipe: this was fresh spinach, so after I squeezed it, I
made some crosswise cuts in that tight ball of leaves, so it became chopped
spinach. So much easier to eat. The recipe called for four bunches of spinach
and I, naturally, had only bought one, so I had to make the sauce by guess and
by-golly.
Tonight’s menu was
seared sirloin strips in white wine, twice-baked potato (bought from Central Market)
and the creamed spinach. Since I made the spinach at noon, all I had to do was
pop it and the potato in the toaster oven for thirty minutes. As soon as it
went off, I browned slices of sirloin, tossed with flour, salt and pepper. When
they barely lost their pink, I removed them, sautéed garlic and rosemary, added
white wine, and put the meat into warm. After the first couple of bites of
steak, I realized a spritz of lemon would be a great addition and got a half lemon
out of the fridge. All so good but, as my mom used to say, my eyes were bigger
than my stomach. I had to ask myself for a doggie bag—tomorrow’s lunch.
A satisfying day
of cooking and reading.
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