Dinner came out fabulous last night -- tasty and elegant and it only took
an hour to put together. First, I marinated the salmon in teriyaki sauce.
While that was marinating, I cooked long-grain rice with a little peanut
oil; when the rice was cooked, I added toasted sesame seeds, black poppy
seeds (for color -- the recipe called for black sesame seeds, which I
didn't have) and chopped chives. Then I peanut-oiled six 4 oz timbales
and packed the rice into them. When I was ready to serve, they very
easily and neatly unmolded onto the plates, as you can see. Then I made
rolled sweet omelettes -- basically egg, sugar, salt, soy sauce and water
(dashi would have been better, but I didn't have any), mixed together.
Pour about half onto a frying pan, thinly -- if you have a square or
rectangular one, that'll make the next step easier. When eggs are set,
roll them up to one end. Grease the pan again, pour the rest of the eggs
in, and roll up the first roll inside the second. (Theoretically, you're
supposed to do this three times for really thin rolls, but I decided twice
was sufficient for me. :-) When it's all cooked, pull it off, press the
roll tight, and slice it in little rounds. Very pretty. I garnished
the plates with sliced pickled ginger left over from my last sushi
extravaganza. At this point, Paul and Marcia had arrived, bearing snap
peas -- perfect! While I grilled the salmon, Marcia first boiled the
peas, then tossed them with toasted almonds and garlic sauteed in butter
(plus salt and pepper, of course). So tasty! It all finished at about
the same time, and we sat down to a nice meal with candles, napkins, and
wine. The Hogue gewurtztraminer went beautifully with the meal; cold and
clear and slightly fruity. I haven't had even a semi-elegant dinner in so
long; it was lovely. I should do this more often -- it makes me feel more
sane and civilized. I forget that sometimes.
We got a little tipsy and enjoyed watching Star Trek; afterwards, they
lingered for some more silly tv. I showed them the books I was working
on and convinced Marcia to take the mistakes off my hands -- she's very
good at finding uses for seemingly useless things. Eventually, they
headed out, and soon after that Karina called; I talked to her until I
fell asleep.
This morning, I spent putting together a chapbook for my students. They're going to include their favorite pieces of what they've written this semester -- so far 12 have sent me material, but I'm hoping that I can coax a few more into adding stuff today. It was fun putting it together, and some of the pieces are really quite good -- or at least, quite promising. It's been so much fun teaching creative writing -- to be honest, I'm not sure they'd actually have to pay me to teach this class. :-) But don't tell them that, please...
Off to campus now, to discuss The House of Seven Gables, which I thought was really funny; sadly, only a few people in the class agreed with me on Tuesday. Hopefully more will agree with me today. I'm going to try to be quiet in classes today -- I talked too much Tuesday; I was in a sort of hectic mood. It's snowing again today, so I'm going to try to be quiet and mellow, like the snow. Drifting down peacefully and gently...well, actually, it's quite blustery and frenzied at the moment. But I can be a different kind of snow than what's actually falling, right?