Friday, December 23, 2011

turkey -

so a while back I decided to buy a post thanksgiving turkey, since they are dirt cheap and I never made a turkey in my life before. So it was time to give it a shot...

So originally I wanted to smoke the turkey, since I consider this to be a delicious meal. But it turns out that there are size restriction. Basically it's considered unsafe to smoke a turkey over 15 lbs. Ours was 25 lbs, so plan b) was put into action and we roasted it.

before it went in the oven...

5 hours later, slightly overcooked, since the 'turkey popper' got stuck to the bag and so didn't go off...

dinner time, with stuffing and cranberry sauce
after several hours of sniffing and waiting a slightly overcooked turkey came out of the oven. For some reason the turkey popper got stuck to our cooking bag and so didn't go off in time. Lesson learned I guess...

Thursday, December 08, 2011

saint Nicholas and preparing for Christmas...

so the festive time of the year has begun and I'm slowly training robin in the Christmas and pre-Christmas rules and traditions. Like always obey your hubby and give him all your chocolate..

So first of all we are proud to announce that we have our first Christmas tree together and my first 'Christmas tree in my house' ever.

yip it's a tree
Now as you can see in this picture that this is not a normal tree. No everything and I mean everything in our house has currently little pink labels on it, to ease Robin into the German language.

Now who knows me, knows that my favorite colors are red and blue. More tending towards red for some reason and so I was pleasantry surprised that the most Christmas ornaments were red too. It's always amazes me how similar Robin and I are.

Another important custom Robin had to learn, was the custom of Saint Nicolas. A brief overview, who are not familiar with this custom:

In Germany, Nikolaus is usually celebrated on a small scale. Many children put a boot called Nikolaus-Stiefel (Nikolaus boot) outside the front door on the night of 5 December. St. Nicholas fills the boot with gifts and sweets overnight, and at the same time checks up on the children to see if they were good, polite and helpful the last year. If they were not, they will have a tree branch (Rute) in their boots instead. Sometimes a disguised Nikolaus also visits the children at school or in their homes and asks them if they have been good (sometimes ostensibly checking his golden book for their record), handing out presents on the basis of their behavior. This has become more lenient in recent decades.
So we both found something little under the tree in the early morning.


And as you can see in the pictures, I managed to get my camera working again. Turned out both of my rechargeable batteries were dead and it worked with normal once just fine. Happily I got a battery on sale at amazon and so we will be able to take more pictures again.

Saturday, December 03, 2011

robins birthday party,

since she was getting rather nervous the last couple of month's, after she is turning 24+n and supposed to behave like a grownup, I decided to take her out to a nice grownup dinner where there are no crayons to draw on the table with.

So I went ahead and booked a table for 2, at the sacramento firehouse for my 'little' girl. And told her to order what ever she wants from the menu.

highland park 12 for me and a lemon drop
After the standard wait period was over we started ordering our food. Like a grownup we did this ala carte.

Appetizer:

  • oysters on the half shelf (R)
    • served with champagne mignonette
  • smoked tenderloin carpaccio(G)
    • herbed chèvre croquette and baguette crostini, capers, onions, Parmigiano-Reggiano and white truffle oil

Second Course:

  • Hearts of Roamine Caesar Salad(R)
    • whole leaves of crisp lettuce, house-made dressing, anchovies and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano
  • Heirloom Squash-Lentil Soup(G)
    • warm spice-roasted winter squash, caramelized shallots and leeks, roasted root vegetables and stewed lentils
Third Course:
  • Fruiti di Mare(R)
    • pan-roasted Nigerian salt water prawn and a 6-oz Maine lobster tail, pan-seared sea scallop and butternut squash risotto 
  • Cherry Chocolate Duck(G)
    • house-made confit of Sonoma Saveur artisan duck leg, pan seared with a dark cherry glaze and almond milk foam, polenta cake and chili-chocolate “mole” paint
Desert:

classic vanilla bean crème brûlée, cinnamon apple confiture and almond lace tuile

We paired this with a nice fruity Cabernet and several glasses of champagne for robin.

I do have to say, we looked rather handsome.