The Pampered Chef
Had a great birthday - talked to Bojan and Sue on the phone for ages, and caught Tony online - had been missing them all so terribly much. Drove to Flint to catch a friend for lunch too, so I felt connected very pleasantly for the day. Andrea got me another Preacher, two Korean cookery books (today I made my first 'bibimbop'), The Thing for XBOX, my second Yorkie and Panda Go Panda! (still coming)* Tony got me Jedi Academy and Red Dead Revolver and my parents got me a book on Presocratic Philosophers, a DVD of Al Di Meola, Ponty and Clarke, trousers and swimmies and the Star Wars Trilogy. The third film is just out, but we're trying to catch the first two - caught the Phantom Menace already. I had a beef roast and was greedy - marinaded it in yoghurt, plum sauce and sesame oil, with slivers of garlic pushed into it. Cake was omitted, wisely, and made up later.
The weather being warmer, we took a sub and sausage dinner to Hawk Island and ate it by the water's edge. We got a DVD player from Amazon that can play my English and copied disks. Bender came round for dinner - she passed her year to all our (and her) relief! She brought me a cool pot from New Mexico and nursed it through a flight. Bender brought spring rolls and rhubarb crumble, and we made pad thai and chili pork ribs from Ken Hom's Chinese cooking book. The food was all very good and we shared dinner while watching a photo CD on the telly of reception pictures, trip pictures and pics of Bojan and Sue's garden. After dinner we played scrabble with Bender's new scrabble board. Bender won.
We have acquired new fish for our aquarium after the death of our black angel fish, Mercucio. The tank is currently stocked with four black fin tetras, three hatchet fish, three rasberas, three rummy nosed tetras, a copper corriadore, and a clown pleco. We also found some new plastic plants to fill out the background a bit more and hide the thermometer.
Today we went to a Pampered Chef bridal shower for Michelle Hein, one of my school friends. Curiously, her affianced was not present for the event. We solved the gift or no gift dilema by bringing a bottle of St Julian's Cherry wine and a bar of Dark Cadburry chocolate that we had around the apartment. We wrote out the recipe for Ken Hom's pork and green onions on the provided card. We car-pooled with Bender. The party was perhaps surreal even for a pre-nuptial event. A squirrley, nervous, ex vet student brought a borderline fear to all present. She demonstrated how to make a "chicken cordon bleu" croissant ring and a sort of fruit chutney. We felt like the critics on Cooking Under Fire evaluating the food. The chicken was oily and lacked defining flavor - a major insult to the Cordon Bleu schools. The fruit desperately needed lemon juice and sugar. The tools for sale seemed gimmicky.
* manufacturer discontinued and we never did get our copy
The weather being warmer, we took a sub and sausage dinner to Hawk Island and ate it by the water's edge. We got a DVD player from Amazon that can play my English and copied disks. Bender came round for dinner - she passed her year to all our (and her) relief! She brought me a cool pot from New Mexico and nursed it through a flight. Bender brought spring rolls and rhubarb crumble, and we made pad thai and chili pork ribs from Ken Hom's Chinese cooking book. The food was all very good and we shared dinner while watching a photo CD on the telly of reception pictures, trip pictures and pics of Bojan and Sue's garden. After dinner we played scrabble with Bender's new scrabble board. Bender won.
We have acquired new fish for our aquarium after the death of our black angel fish, Mercucio. The tank is currently stocked with four black fin tetras, three hatchet fish, three rasberas, three rummy nosed tetras, a copper corriadore, and a clown pleco. We also found some new plastic plants to fill out the background a bit more and hide the thermometer.
Today we went to a Pampered Chef bridal shower for Michelle Hein, one of my school friends. Curiously, her affianced was not present for the event. We solved the gift or no gift dilema by bringing a bottle of St Julian's Cherry wine and a bar of Dark Cadburry chocolate that we had around the apartment. We wrote out the recipe for Ken Hom's pork and green onions on the provided card. We car-pooled with Bender. The party was perhaps surreal even for a pre-nuptial event. A squirrley, nervous, ex vet student brought a borderline fear to all present. She demonstrated how to make a "chicken cordon bleu" croissant ring and a sort of fruit chutney. We felt like the critics on Cooking Under Fire evaluating the food. The chicken was oily and lacked defining flavor - a major insult to the Cordon Bleu schools. The fruit desperately needed lemon juice and sugar. The tools for sale seemed gimmicky.
* manufacturer discontinued and we never did get our copy