Dragonfly of Trill

[ismo]

We're rolling through the onions at a great rate. I put three in yesterday's lamb roast. Today, I made two more recipes from The Supper of the Lamb: Old Man's Hash and Finnan Haddie Rabbit. The Old Man's Hash was for lunch. THREE MORE ONIONS. Holy moly. Cooked in butter until transparent, then add 12 Swedish anchovy fillets, chopped small, 6 hardboiled eggs, also chopped, a couple of tablespoons of cream (was supposed to be three tablespoons of heavy cream, but I only had half and half, so I put less for fear of making it runny), and a bit of the anchovy liquid. He says to serve it warm with brown bread and beer. Didn't have any brown bread, and was not ready to start drinking, so we just had toast instead. And obviously, we only ate half of it, because one and a half onions, three eggs, and six anchovy fillets would be kind of a lot for a light collation. I think this was meant for three or four people, not just two. For the Finnan Haddie Rabbit, which was dinner, I had to take the head and bones out of a smoked herring. My fingers are still aromatic. If we had a cat, the cat would be biting them. Then I made a roux with butter, flour, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and two cups of milk, and stirred a large amount of grated cheddar into it, plus the flaked smoked fish. Et voila. More toast. That was dinner. I did add a salad, because the abstemious meals were a bit short on veggies. I also had some leftover cooked potatoes, which I thought might be good with this rather schloopy sauce-like thing, and they were. It's not unlike a fondue. Now, Robert Farrar Capon says to put A POUND AND A HALF of cheddar into the roux, which I did not do. Come on, that's just too much cheese for anything.

I had the random notion, at one point, to do some kind of Robert Farrar Capon homage, by cooking all the recipes in the book. It's a rather daunting prospect, but could be fun. However, I can see already that it would never be more than an homage, because I am just incorrigible when it comes to toying with the recipe. I follow the spirit more than the letter. Also, these recipes have kind of a 70s Long Island middle-class hipster bobo vibe to them that just cracks me up. They are definitely deficient in vegetables, and also seem meant to be consumed by people who are drinking far more than they should. (As turned out to be the case with Fr./Mr. Capon himself, but that's another story.)

Other than that, I mostly had Phone Day. I talked to Queenie in the morning. She's on Day 8 now, still very congested and very exhausted. She craves ketchup, but can't taste it when she gets it. Her fever comes and goes, and when it spikes, she has horrible body aches and chills. But I think if she can just maintain without getting worse, she'll be able to get through it. So that's what we're all hoping and praying for. Then we Zoomed with Deb and the Prussian, and I had a chat with another friend in the afternoon. It was a still a beautiful day outside, and we were just getting ready for a walk at long last, when yet another friend called. I'm sorry to say that I did not pick up. My fund of conversation was exhausted, and the Sparrowhawk had to do most of the talking as we walked around the woods path.

Comments

[oracne]

Poor Queenie. Hoping and praying here, too.