Dins

I don't cook as well when J. is not around.

I'm still trying to figure out how to do justice to the enormous 1.5-inch steaks that are now the norm at places like Pusateris and Whole Foods -- I know thick is supposed to be good, but thick isn't easy to carry off in a saute pan. I eventually got something to work with 6 minutes per side and some sitting time between plates while the veggies were finishing cooking.

I also tried to saute a large quantity of broccolini for veggie. Didn't quite work out -- not enough steaming so the stalks were still kind of tough. Not too bad though and kind of offsets the unhealthiness of Too Much Red Meat.

Best part of the whole thing was the cheese and the wine. I bought a small French cheese called Brillat-Savarin at Pusateri's. Opened it up, and realized it has the creaminess of butter. So I put about 2/3 back into the fridge but the other 1/3 was very yummy. The wine was the Nemean (Greek) wine I mentioned earlier -- a really interesting wine, sort of a cross between a mature Rioja and an Aglianico, all for $16.95. Will enjoy the rest of it on Monday...

Saturday

Gabriel, predictably enough, woke me up at 5:00 this morning. Kicked him out, in the nicest possible way, and slept in till 9:00 or so at which point his plaintive meows caught up with me and I decided to get up and feed him (and myself, too). Read the Globe too, starting with Saturday. Eventually I will get to Friday.

Feeling a bit unbalanced this morning... was much better Thursday/Friday. Will see what Dr. Ling has to say on Tues. Perhaps a bit too much New World vino chez P&C. They served a Catena Malbec with dinner which is really nice though -- mind you I looked at the price on WineAlign and at 19.95 it ought to be nice. The new Winealign recommendations update from John Szabo came out yesterday, nicely timed to coincide with the new Vintages brochure. Focus is on wines of central and southern Italy. Hard to go wrong there. Interesting tidbit: Szabo is wine consultant for Terroni. Maybe that's why all their wines are good.

Was going to get an Autoshare and run some errands but the nearest available car is way out of the way. So I walked the empties back to Summerhill this morning and of course also popped into the LCBO. They seem to have nothing by way of decent sherry which is distressing. I bought a bottle of Nemean (!) red for dinner tonight -- will drink half the bottle with an alarmingly big rib eye that was the smallest steak at Puseteri's yesterday, and save the rest for Monday I think. Winealign said nice things about it and I was in a mood for something different. Had lunch at MBCO on the way back.

Now about to load and organize the new iPod. Brahms and a quietly sleeping cat in the background.