![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
First off, I think I should get this out of the way...
( My Fundie is Showing... )
Okay, now I feel better. This is just a little update because I had a good day. I spent half of yesterday and most of today working on a birthday present for my dad, who turned 50 this week. I made him, and my family, a really really nice dinner tonight. I made a really fancy tossed salad with all sorts of vegetables and nuts and that salad dressing you make in a cruet for starters. For the entree, I made four cheese lasagna (parmesean, ricotta, mozzarella and romano) with fresh herbs and garlic. I even made the sauce from scratch. And the piece de resistance, for dessert, I made a triple chocolate bundt cake, which is about the richest cake on the face of the planet, from dark chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding mix, a bag of chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, and Tia Maria liqueur. I served it with real whipped cream that I whipped myself, and fresh strawberries. I cleaned the dining room, put on a cloth tablecloth and a candle, and set the table with the good china. I really wanted my dad to like this meal, because he was sick this weekend, when his party was supposed to happen, and it got cancelled. I know he was really disappointed, seeing as how this is one of the big birthdays. But I didn't tell him ahead of time that I was doing this, I just told him to not make any plans for supper tonight, and be home by six.
When he came home from work tonight, he was really surprised and delighted by the way everything looked (and smelled too, with the lasagna in the oven!) I managed to get everything done by 5 after 6, even after a very unfortunate hang-up midafternoon at the acupuncture clinic. I poured sparkling white grape juice into flutes for everyone, and we toasted my dad. Then I served the salad. After one bite, my dad said it was the best salad he'd ever had in this house (and he grew up in the house we live in now, so that's saying something!) Even Kirsten, who usually hates salad, ate all of hers and had seconds. My mom and I cleared off the plates and served the lasagna and garlic bread (the garlic bread was the only thing I made that was already prepared, it was a last minute thing so the lasagna wouldn't be the only food in the main course.) By the time I got back to the table, everyone else had already started in, and they said it was better than in most restaurants. It was so rich and thick, and the sauce was fantastic. I had been really worried about the noodles, because I have no clue what the hell "al dente" means, but they turned out great.
Finally, we had the cake, I put two candles in it, the number candles that said 5-0, and lit them while my mom took pictures. Kirsten and I blew them out, because my dad didn't want to get residual flu germs on the cake. I cut for everyone, small pieces to start, which was good because it was so rich that everyone was stuffed afterwards. We ate it with the cream and strawberries, and put whipped cream in our coffee as well, and it was just fantastic. My dad was so happy, he just kept saying what a good birthday present it was, and how touched he was that I went to so much work for him. It was a new high point in my heretofore limited cooking career. =)
After supper, my mom and I took a plate to Allie, who had to work through dinner, and to my grandma and Aunt Jo, because Grandma went to some trouble to find the bundt pan for me to borrow. They all thought the food was fantastic too. I think this gives Grandma some hope that I will be a good wife someday, even though I am a pathetic housekeeper. And there's still enough for everyone to have lasagna and cake tomorrow for lunch. Happy day!
Tonight I am cleaning out the liquor cabinet in our house. This is no small undertaking, because many of the things in it are there from my grandparents' tenure in the house, and it's very cluttered. I dug my way through it to find liqueur for the cake, and found a bottle of Tia Maria, still unopened, that my folks won in a tennis tournament in Jamaica ten years ago. It tasted very nice in the cake. There's a lot of stuff like that in there. I have persuaded my mom to trade goods for services; I clean that sucker out, and I come away with valuable prizes in the form of an unopened bottle of Amaretto and all the shot glasses I can eat. Or something like that.
One very funny thing I found while cleaning out the liquor cabinet... Our cabinet is set into the wall in our hallway, underneath a little shelf area that's kind of a nook between dining room and hallway. My mom usually has some sort of cloth there with decorations on top. When I was cleaning out the cabinet, I realized that there was some sort of rectangular metal recess in the shelf, like a secret compartment. I was intruiged. I took off all the decorations and the cloth, and pried up the piece of wood on top of the cabinet, something I'd never thought to do before. Inside... dirt. Very old dirt. Turns out that way long time ago, that was a largeish planter, very much like the one in Post Lobby. At some point, no one wanted to bother with it anymore, so they covered it with a piece of wood and never looked back. I was astonished, and I've lived in this house two-thirds of my life. I guess it just goes to show, you never know as much as you think you do.
( My Fundie is Showing... )
Okay, now I feel better. This is just a little update because I had a good day. I spent half of yesterday and most of today working on a birthday present for my dad, who turned 50 this week. I made him, and my family, a really really nice dinner tonight. I made a really fancy tossed salad with all sorts of vegetables and nuts and that salad dressing you make in a cruet for starters. For the entree, I made four cheese lasagna (parmesean, ricotta, mozzarella and romano) with fresh herbs and garlic. I even made the sauce from scratch. And the piece de resistance, for dessert, I made a triple chocolate bundt cake, which is about the richest cake on the face of the planet, from dark chocolate cake mix, chocolate pudding mix, a bag of chocolate chips, chocolate syrup, and Tia Maria liqueur. I served it with real whipped cream that I whipped myself, and fresh strawberries. I cleaned the dining room, put on a cloth tablecloth and a candle, and set the table with the good china. I really wanted my dad to like this meal, because he was sick this weekend, when his party was supposed to happen, and it got cancelled. I know he was really disappointed, seeing as how this is one of the big birthdays. But I didn't tell him ahead of time that I was doing this, I just told him to not make any plans for supper tonight, and be home by six.
When he came home from work tonight, he was really surprised and delighted by the way everything looked (and smelled too, with the lasagna in the oven!) I managed to get everything done by 5 after 6, even after a very unfortunate hang-up midafternoon at the acupuncture clinic. I poured sparkling white grape juice into flutes for everyone, and we toasted my dad. Then I served the salad. After one bite, my dad said it was the best salad he'd ever had in this house (and he grew up in the house we live in now, so that's saying something!) Even Kirsten, who usually hates salad, ate all of hers and had seconds. My mom and I cleared off the plates and served the lasagna and garlic bread (the garlic bread was the only thing I made that was already prepared, it was a last minute thing so the lasagna wouldn't be the only food in the main course.) By the time I got back to the table, everyone else had already started in, and they said it was better than in most restaurants. It was so rich and thick, and the sauce was fantastic. I had been really worried about the noodles, because I have no clue what the hell "al dente" means, but they turned out great.
Finally, we had the cake, I put two candles in it, the number candles that said 5-0, and lit them while my mom took pictures. Kirsten and I blew them out, because my dad didn't want to get residual flu germs on the cake. I cut for everyone, small pieces to start, which was good because it was so rich that everyone was stuffed afterwards. We ate it with the cream and strawberries, and put whipped cream in our coffee as well, and it was just fantastic. My dad was so happy, he just kept saying what a good birthday present it was, and how touched he was that I went to so much work for him. It was a new high point in my heretofore limited cooking career. =)
After supper, my mom and I took a plate to Allie, who had to work through dinner, and to my grandma and Aunt Jo, because Grandma went to some trouble to find the bundt pan for me to borrow. They all thought the food was fantastic too. I think this gives Grandma some hope that I will be a good wife someday, even though I am a pathetic housekeeper. And there's still enough for everyone to have lasagna and cake tomorrow for lunch. Happy day!
Tonight I am cleaning out the liquor cabinet in our house. This is no small undertaking, because many of the things in it are there from my grandparents' tenure in the house, and it's very cluttered. I dug my way through it to find liqueur for the cake, and found a bottle of Tia Maria, still unopened, that my folks won in a tennis tournament in Jamaica ten years ago. It tasted very nice in the cake. There's a lot of stuff like that in there. I have persuaded my mom to trade goods for services; I clean that sucker out, and I come away with valuable prizes in the form of an unopened bottle of Amaretto and all the shot glasses I can eat. Or something like that.
One very funny thing I found while cleaning out the liquor cabinet... Our cabinet is set into the wall in our hallway, underneath a little shelf area that's kind of a nook between dining room and hallway. My mom usually has some sort of cloth there with decorations on top. When I was cleaning out the cabinet, I realized that there was some sort of rectangular metal recess in the shelf, like a secret compartment. I was intruiged. I took off all the decorations and the cloth, and pried up the piece of wood on top of the cabinet, something I'd never thought to do before. Inside... dirt. Very old dirt. Turns out that way long time ago, that was a largeish planter, very much like the one in Post Lobby. At some point, no one wanted to bother with it anymore, so they covered it with a piece of wood and never looked back. I was astonished, and I've lived in this house two-thirds of my life. I guess it just goes to show, you never know as much as you think you do.
