Sue and I went up to fix lunch for her Aunt Carol Saturday 03/23/19. It was her 83rd birthday, and Sue had told her we'd come up and cook a nice dinner for her.
Sue and her Aunt Carol.
We took Beau with us, and as soon as I pulled the car onto her street, he started to go crazy in the back seat. He knew exactly where we were. When I let him out of the car, he just bolted for the door, barking his fool head off. Too smart....
I visited with Carol just for a little while as I needed to get on to the cooking. We had bought a couple of ham slices, but I had no idea what I was going to do with them; just going to make it up as I went. So, what came to me was to rub them down with black pepper, sage, and brown sugar. I let them sit while I cut up the carrots, which would be sauteed in a mix of brown sugar, basil, black pepper, sherry, and scallions. Once I got those going, I pan cooked the ham in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. Just before they were done, I sprinkled more of the spices on them, and then poured sherry and half and half into the pan. Both dishes came out great regardless of how lame the description is because it's not so much what you put into something as it is how you do it. And I just wing it....
We headed out around 3:00 pm and were home by just after 4:00 pm. I got a fire going in the wood stove as it was getting pretty chilly out, and that gave a nice warmth to the living room. We sipped a glass of wine and played backgammon before going in the kitchen to fix dinner. Because of the large lunch/dinner at Carol's, I just cooked up a prepared meal of pasta, pesto, and cherry tomatoes.
We watched a couple of cute movies as we got an early start after dinner, and Sue was keen on going out later that evening anyway to see if we could catch the possible display of the Northern Lights that were supposed to be visible from this far away tonight. We watched the really cute 2017 Dakota Fanning movie, Please Stand by, and then the compelling true story of Amberley Snyder, a nationally ranked rodeo barrel racer who defies the odds after barely surviving a car accident that leaves her paralyzed from the waist down, in the 2019 Netflix movie, Walk. Ride. Rodeo.
We stuffed Beau in the car around 10:00 pm, and drove up to an area that had a clear view North. We piled to the side of the road with another car, shut the lights down, and just waited to see if anything would show. Unfortunately, after about 40 minutes, we hadn't seen anything - probably because there was some remaining overcast in the sky north of us. However, Sue caught a great shot through the trees of the rising of the current almost full moon.
We got up around 1:00 am to check the sky, but it had clouded over so much that you couldn't even see a single star. Too bad because I've never seen the Northern Lights. Back to bed!
