Dinner Party

Tonight I decided to pretend to be grown-up. I hosted a "dinner party" at my flat and served:

Starter
Fresh Mesclun Salad with diced apples and home-made lemon vinaigrette

Dressing:
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Dollop of Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp olive oil
Splash vinegar (I used wine vinegar—it has a distinctive fruity flavor, less salty than reg. vinegar)

*This dressing went over quite well, and is a tasty citrusy match for the apple. I will make two points about it:
1.) When trying to replicate a similar dressing without fresh lemons (or any lemon juice) at hand, I improvised and used 100% orange juice instead, with olive oil and the wine vinegar (no mustard, though I'd be curious to try it..). This formula went over really well with the kids! The orange juice has a similar citrus tang that they are used to, but less of a bite and a little more sweetness (it is important not to use too much wine vinegar, or else the formula will be too sweet).
2.)With the recipe I used tonight (with lemon) described above, I would like to play a little more with the salad. In my opinion, the greens I used were an absolutely perfect match for the dressing — perhaps I would consider adding some arugula or a little baby spinach (maybe I should try it as a sauteeing sauce for fresh spinach! That sounds kind of good..), but next time, with a little more preparation, I would like to go slightly more Greek. I am thinking that this dressing (either the original or the one mentioned in Note #1) would go quite well with a mesclun salad with halved seedless red grapes, crumbled either bleu, feta, or chevre cheese (depending on your audience's tastes), and yes, some diced apple of the sweet variety — considering the cheese, a sprinkling of freshly ground black pepper might be appropriate.
Wine pairing: Bitch (seriously, it's called Bitch--a sweetish red good to be opened before beginning the feast, and a nice accompaniment to the salad)

Entree

Eggplant Parmesan:
It is always a little different each time I make it. But this is one of the few times people were taking seconds, and thirds, at the dinner table. As usual, I sweated the eggplant slices (sprinkle salt on each slice, layer them in a colander and let them stand. After (ideally) an hour or two (or however much time you have, preferably at least 30 mins), pat them off with paper towels. Then coat them in scrambled raw egg, and cover them in (my version) mixture of panko bread crumbs, coarse salt, and black pepper (I have sometimes included some smoked paprika in this mixture, when I plan to be feeding those used to eating meat) spread out on a dinner plate. Fry these in olive oil, ideally, but veggie oil will do.

I have actually found it is best to do this frying and prep work the night before 1) so that you are not sweaty, gross, and stressed the evening you are serving up this delicious food, but also 2) because when you fry them up the next day (after they have cooled in the fridge overnight) they crisp up better — they already have a bready coating, so don't absorb so much oil, and can just sit in the frying pan without really burning and get nice and crispy.
This time, I used Newman's Own tomato basil pasta sauce--spread a thin layer on the bottom of a baking dish (ideally for a casserole dish, but used what I had), put on the first layer of eggplants, covered those with a smearing of sauce, sprinkled on a shredded cheese mixture of mozzarella, Parmesan, reggiano, and provolone; next layer: same until the cheese, which was a little of the cheese mixture, plus some freshly grated smoked Gouda (see! my substitute for smoked paprika — I find it gives a more substantial flavor for meat-eaters). Third layer was again eggplant, sauce, a minor sprinkling of the shredded cheese mixture, and then some conservative slices of fresh mozzarella, plus all the leftover breadcrumbs in the pan. If by some good fortune you don't have any strays, it would be delicious to sautee some extra (panko) bread crumbs in either olive oil (healthy) or salted butter (decadent!!), and sprinkle a layer on the very top, to add some more texture. I also sprinkled a bit of coarse salt, plus the tiniest bit of freshly ground black pepper (would have done more, but I am a pepper fiend and my friends are not...).
I baked the whole thing for 40 minutes at 325, but I suggest checking in regularly after 30 mins, or if you know your oven to be strong, safely at 300.

A lot of people serve this with a side carb, especially angelhair pasta, but I think if anything it would be best with a light veggie, such as edamame (we did not do this, as one of my friends is allergic to soy)

Wine pairing: Casillero del Diablo — a strong red that stands up to the full bodied flavors of the eggplant parm.


Dessert

Home-made whipped cream with fresh berries

To allow yourself more time with your guests, it is best to prepare the whipped cream immediately before you expect your guests to arrive, then stick it in the fridge. It took me about 7 minutes or so with a manual beater, though probably less with an electric. I added a tiny bit of cream honey, a couple drops of pure vanilla extract, and a sprinkling of cinnamon to about half of one of those school-sized mini cartons of organic heavy whipping cream. It is best to stir in your flavorings with a spoon first, so that they are evenly distributed, then go at it with a beater.
For the berries, one of my guests brought amazing blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries (which we quartered). A refreshing end to a fairly heavy meal.

Wine pairing: Scuttlehole Chardonnay, a fairly delicate white


Surprise palate cleanser

Green tea ice cream with fresh strawberry

While we were watching the Ricky Gervais Show, I ran to the kitchen and served each about two teaspoons full of some lovely green tea ice cream (although any sorbet or peppermint without the chocolate chips would do) that went well with some of the remaining strawberry. They were pleasantly surprised, and it is quite a light and slightly exotic/pleasantly surprising end to the food portion of the evening.

Super tip!! If you are the one left holding the excess eggplant parm, it is actually pretty delicious if you heat it up and put it on a baguette as a sandwich, or eat it cold gradually out of its dish in the fridge--also delicious. Perhaps why it is my favorite to make--it is almost as good as leftovers as it was the night you first served it.

Holy crap, just looked over and realized the puppy was on my bed--was wondering what that giant black blob was...

Disappointment and enchantment with Obama

There are a lot of reasons I am disappointed with Obama, but I must admit that not all of them have been his fault. I also blame the Senate, and the most partisan people of all: pigheaded Republicans who are ready to stage a coup just because one of their own isn't in the executive anymore. It is really easy to cry "partisan politics" every time something doesn't go your way. Much easier than admitting that you need to suck it up and wait your turn in the minority for once, as if it isn't enough to control most of the wealth in this country and use it to suppress foreign populations.

What the hell can be evil about guaranteeing that people in your own country can see a doctor if they need to? What is this culture of angry, vicious selfishness and how did they manage to convincingly wrap it in a cloak of Christian morality? To tell the truth, I have issues with giving people money on the subway. I feel bad about it, but after naively giving a fiver to a sad homeless lady in DC who had been following me for a while and realizing that she was undoubtedly a crackhead, I don't feel much like supporting those types of habits anymore. If I have extra food I happily give it away, and in the summer I gave a woman inexplicably wrapped in blankets a bottle of water I bought specifically for her...but universal health insurance is nothing like that. When there is clear evidence of healthier and more productive societies with this system overseas (i.e. the Scandinavians, Switzerland, and other pinnacles of Western development known for chocolate, watches, and beer), why would we prefer to group ourselves with developing countries?

Which brings up another question: why do we seem to enjoy being in the company of Somalia when it comes to our human rights record?? The Convention on the Rights of the Child has been ratified by every other UN member but the US and Somalia. Balls. And now we have yet to sign something newer and extremely important (although for obvious reasons): the International Convention against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED). They have a very good website. Well I must say if we want to keep up this practice of disappearing people ourselves because of the "war on terror" it would be a bit hypocritical to sign this. But perhaps we should just change our ways, no? Even Guatemala has sign on, for chrissake.

Enough of my annoyed blathering on...here is one of the most lovely things I heard about this week, which ensures that, despite all this nonsense, Obama still holds my heart:

*This is a translation from Watching America of an article originally in French from La Presse, please to find it on the WA website here here.

Obama 10, Harper 0

By Nathalie Petrowski

Translated By Andrew Lusztyk

6 March 2010

Edited by Brigid Burt

Click here for the original

Every second Monday for the past three years, almost religiously, the author Yann Martel sends a letter and a book to Stephen Harper. Rather than educate him, the books are meant to accompany his moments of silence, as Martel explains on his Web site [See here].

So far, 76 books have been sent to the prime minister, each accompanied by a polite and comely letter, in which the author explains his current literary selection and what the prime minister should look out for in the book.

With the exception of five letters of acknowledgment, the first sent by an assistant and the remaining four by correspondents, Martel has never received a letter, note or single word from Harper. Nothing in three years — a great epistolary silence.

In addition, Martel recently experienced quite a shock when checking his mail. Rather than finding a dispatch from Harper waiting in his mailbox, he found an envelope sent from the White House. Inside, there was a note that addressed him personally, handwritten by President Obama himself.

Imagine his astonishment. Snubbed for the past three years by his own prime minister, Martel is now receiving consolation from the most powerful man in the West without ever having asked for it. What delicious irony …

“Mr. Martel,” wrote President Obama, “My daughter and I just finished reading Life of Pi together. It is a lovely book — an elegant proof of God and the power of storytelling.”

Martel nearly fainted from joy. His heart skipped a beat as he wrote back, adding that the selfless gesture was what had stunned him the most. How, indeed! Barack Obama had effectively nothing to gain politically, financially or even diplomatically by writing to a Canadian author who lives in the deep end of Saskatchewan. Martel wouldn’t help Obama get reelected, pass his health care reform or regain full control of the Senate.

Obama had nothing to benefit from his gesture. And yet, he wanted to do it anyway. He wanted to write this little handwritten note in person, which says everything. Before this, he wanted to read a book that wasn’t a thriller or a bestseller sold in airports, but a beautiful philosophical story — one that was deep and complex. Lastly, he wanted to share this story with his daughter.

Do you know many presidents who read books with their children? Does Harper do the same with his children? I certainly hope that it happens from time to time. After all, Harper is also a father. Except that, so far, he’s been a father who gives his children a handshake rather than a kiss when dropping them off at school. He’s also a man who recently admitted that if he had had the choice to become a prime minister or a hockey player, he would have rather been a hockey player.

This coming June, it will be exactly five years since Harper told us that he was writing a book on the history of hockey. At this point, writing the book seems to be a laborious process that consumes all of the prime minister’s free time. We could suppose that this is the real reason why Harper never replies to Martel. Otherwise, how can we explain that the prime minister of Canada — who, moreover, recently enjoyed an extended vacation from Parliament — hasn’t taken the time to write three sentences to one of his country’s important authors and winner of the prestigious Man Booker Prize when, on the other side of the border, the most powerful and busiest man in the free world could do so? If it isn’t a question of time, then I can only think of two reasons for Stephen Harper’s epistolary silence: arrogance and a lack of class. How worrying.

Today I went to the playground with one of the girls. A good way to enjoy the glorious weather, and I got to make a lovely fool out of myself. There is a large silver dome-like object protruding from the recycled tire playground floor, which is ostensibly for climbing but is effectively a source of frustration for small children, the parents (or babysitters) who have to push those children as far to the top as possible, and obese kids. It took me about five or six tries, with large running starts, to scale the slippery surface. I was chiefly motivated by the setting sun and my eight-year-old charge, who was taunting me from the top and threatening to not come down unless I "got" her.

Earlier, when she was on some sort of ultra-modern Miro-esque jungle gym, I had a strange encounter with a young mother. Out of the blue, she began asking me all sorts of questions, starting with identifying my relationship to the little one. When she realized I was a nanny, she asked what else I do. Perhaps she was foreign, because when I told her I was in intern and what that entailed, she bluntly asked, "Why do you do that?" Kind of a good question, although from a strange source. She also asked what my ambitions were, had no idea what an NGO is, and then seemed to vanish into thin air. Even the youngster was dubious.

Random note: The other evening, my friend and I ventured down the street from my apartment to get some pizza. Outside of a very expensive, and quite famous Italian restaurant, a well-dressed and seemingly sober man said to us as we passed, "Hello ladies, meowgrrrr."

Upset I did not get to the Danielson show last night, but was not relieved of homework assisting duties on time, and was far too exhausted anyway. This Friday looking forward to the Real Estate show.

At times I think I'm working for a relatively unconventional nanny-having family, and it's true that they are not the traditionally stiff UES types they show in the movies, but the extent that the parents financially dote on their children is nearing the insanity mark.

for one: buying a 9-year-old a $1000 laptop. It's pretty gross at this point; it has food and grease and all kinds of other stains all over it.

a $125 hair brush [keep in mind that this is for children who are routinely exposed to lice outbreaks]

most recently: a highly expensive pair of sewing scissors

Yesterday alone the youngest received two dresses, one of silk; two t-shirts; and four bathing suits. They get a new clothing item or gift at least every day. It sounds like it would be a fun childhood, but I wonder if I'd be bored getting everything I wanted. I guess you just have to find new things to want.