Last night was pleasant -- I'd invited David and Heather to dinner, sort of spur of the moment, and then Jed called, and so I invited him along too, and then, well, Ian and El came home, and there was enough food, so what the heck....we ended up being six. Very nice time had by all, I think, though I was tremendously tired by 9 and chatted with Jed for a while and then crashed into bed and didn't get up 'til 9 this morning. So much for 5 a.m. :-)
Dinner menu: Carabaccia (sweet onion soup), spinach and tomato salad with sweet readymade dressing, veggie sandwiches, sorbet (brought by Jed) and honeybread (made by Heather), and a rather silly light wine.
Heather really likes the soup, so here's the recipe -- it's a rather dressed up version of French onion soup:
Carabaccia (sweet onion soup)
Serves six
- 4 oz blanched almonds (buy them readymade)
- 2/3 c. white wine vinegar
- cinnamon stick
- 2 lbs onions
- 4 T olive oil
- 1 t sugar
- 1 t salt
- 32 oz. vegetable stock
- 6 slices French or Italian bread
- a few ounces Gruyere (or Emmentaller or Swiss) cheese
- Crush the almonds (in mortar or food chopper) and leave them to soak in the vinegar with the cinnamon stick for about one hour.
- One hour later: finely chop the onions and fry in the oil until translucent.
- Rinse the almonds in a sieve and add to the onions.
- Add the sugar, salt and stock, bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for half an hour. Soup's done at this point -- if you're not ready to serve, just set it aside and reheat it just before the next step. Careful not to cook it down so much that you're left with mostly onions. :-)
- Toast the slices of bread (putting them in a 350 degree oven for a few minutes works fine), place a slice in each dish and pour over the onion soup.
- Sprinkle grated cheese on top of each bowl and serve. Good with salad and sandwiches!
The sandwiches were marinated, grilled portobello mushrooms, mozzarella (the fresher, the better), roasted red peppers (buy them readymade unless you want to do a lot of work), and capers. If you're not cooking veggie, grilled chicken with black pepper will work well in these.
Okay, enough talk about food. I'm getting hungry. :-) Maybe you can persuade Heather to put up the honey bread recipe on her page (she's started updating her journal again, huzzah!).
I should get back to work on Clean Sheets, but before that, I'll leave you with a song I wrote during the trip. (Wrote two, actually, both surprisingly country-ish, break-your-heart type songs.) Some day I'll get the music up here, but for now, just the lyrics. (If someone wanted to donate a good Mac program that would translate notes to printed sheet music, that would be lovely).
Saturation
Oh, I can't listen to the radio no more,Too many broken hearts, singing their blues,
Cursing the day their love went away,
And I am so far from you.
- Refrain:
My chest is so tight, my throat is so dry,
I've chewed up my lips 'til they're sore;
I think I've got a fly caught in my eye,
And I can't sing this love song no more.
See the story of a love so strong and true;
And I'm sobbing in my seat with my arms around my knees
'Cause I am so far from you.
- Refrain
Or if they don't, I pretend, that they do;
Though I'm not looking still I find, lovers in my mind,
'Cause, baby, I am so far from you.
- Refrain
Can't hear nobody singing their songs.
But I listen every night, a moth burning up in light --
Being so far away from you is wrong.
- Final refrain
Aug 14, 1998
Have a good day, y'all.
12:30 -- Just wanted to note that I'll be reading in Berkeley next week, in case any of you were
local and wanted to stop by.
Also wanted to thank R.L. for his kind review over at
Amazon
-- those lovely words sell books, and I'm most appreciative. So if you're
reading, thanks...