Red Snapper, Pork Roast and Shopping

Holy freakin' crap! I've been cooking up a storm, starting with a 4 lb. red snapper that our house guests brought. Fortunately, this was not a surprise and I had a simple recipe with garlic, lemon and thyme printed out. The fish was huge and we didn't have a platter that big, so we served it in the baking dish. This was Friday, and for lunch today S.O. and I had cold fish with a mustard-mayonnaise sauce with capers. With the fish Friday we had cherry tomatoes provencal, tiny new Yukon gold potatoes and a fancy salad with iceberg lettuce. I made pumpkin tarts for dessert, with wonderful flaky crust and light as a feather filling.

Did I mention that due to the ugly storm we had, the power was off almost all Saturday morning? I had to use a match to get the burners going, and chilled the tarts in a chest with ice. Was dreading beating the egg white by hand when, yowza, the light blinked on again.

Saturday we visited the Wrentham Mall, and I'm happy to report that the parking lot (acres and acres) was full, the stores were full, with lines to checkout, and people had bags and bags of purchases. Now this is a discount mall, but nonethless, there were crowds of shoppers. Good sales, too, and we left Eddie Bauer and Williams Sonoma with big shopping bags. The Lindt Chocolate store had ever-so-yummy offerings.

Came home and made the New York Times old standby pork roast with lemon, garlic, and thyme, carrying on a good weekend tradition of seasonings. More of the same salad, 4 more tarts for desserts, but I made the Thanksgiving hit of a gratin of cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.

Our friend brought a cranberry orange cake that we had for breakfast and in mid-afternoon. Very tasty and seasonal with red berries. We watched an old (1980) Walter Matthau movie called Hop Scotch. He was a spy in from the cold who went back to work and caused grief to his old employers. Much fun and cleverness.

This morning I made oeufs au beurre noir. Again from the New York Times Cookbook, always a trustworthy source.

In the afternoon we read the Sunday papers and are watching the Patriots, who are winning.

I love the weekly NY Times Style section. In spite of former aspirations to style, I have become totally unstylish. This was brought home by a perusal of some 1977 photos of a vacation trip where I wore one cool outfit after another. Can't imagine the size of the suitcase, and this was on a small boat yet, and moi size 4 and legs a mile long. Could this be me? In the Terrific T-shirt. Man, that was some cool shirt. Hard to believe,doing the Hustle with some guy in a bar on Fisher's Island. Ah, the days of our youth. . . .

So. We fed the cows yesterday and Iris's baby has definitely been shipped off to other pastures. Iris is still distraught and bawls and picks fights with the other cows. Baby is probably even more distraught. Poor little thing. Such big trusting eyes.

Thisbe is out from under the bed now the our company has gone. I stuck my finger giving her insulin shot and hope it wasn't me who got the insulin. Nursing is not my strong suit.

Back to the kitchen to heat up many yummy leftovers. The upside of cooking. Yep.

Onward,

Grapeshot