All day dinner

Caramelized onions are a beautiful thing. They can't be rushed. I woke at 6am, and got to work on the evening meal at 6:30. First thing up was caramelized onions. Wide slice, 9 onions, enough to crowd a 12" pan. A heaping dollop of the chicken fat I rendered the night before, and the flame the notch above low -- and then I went about my business, coming back to it every 10-15 minutes to move the onions around the pan.

Before leaving for the market at 12:30, I made a flourless chocolate cake, churned mint ice cream, made a large quantity of vegetable stock, rehydrated dried morrels and porcinis for risotto (and made a deep mushroom stock that went into the same dish), and made a batch of pasta. The meal didn't have pasta, but I wanted the chicken soup to be alphabet soup, with all the names of the guests:


I guess it was a lot of work for little payoff, but it was fun, and I have 4 servings of fresh linguine in the freezer to eat on for the next few weeks. After we got home from market, I prepped the mise for the soup (slivered nappa cabbage and carrot coins, diced parsley), cooked off the the red chard in a water bath and combined with the 4-hour onions and diced olives and got the whole thing into the warm oven to hold until dinner time. Then I did the full risotto method, which demanded me standing in front of the oven for a full hour, washing dishes between strokes of stirring.

By the time my guests arrived, risotto and chard were in the oven, the soup was ready to go with each person's name in a separate strainer, and the meat trimmed, prepped and pan heated. The meal went off without a hitch, though I slightly overcooked the chicken, slightly under seasoned the soup and the flourless chocolate cake came out unexpectedly dense. However, the risotto was on point and the chard surprised me -- between the sweetness and depth of flavor of the fatty soft pillowy onions and the brininess of the olive shards, the chard just glowed like a hero.

I had two friends who were coworkers at the restaurant, really good to see them and Edie really got on swell. I miss the comraderie and community that working in that pressurized no-BS situation brought.

I think Edie likes dreads. Maybe she'll be the Jewish white dread girl in high school!!

Today was all about the cooking, tomorrow back to Edieworld....

BREAKFAST: 10am, rice & beans, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 12:30pm, 1 slice of streetza, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, 2 wholefoods cookies, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, glass of apple cider, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, chicken soup, sauteed chicken breast with pan sauce, triple mushroom risotto, chard with caramelized onion and kalamata olives, flourless chocolate cake and mint ice cream, some mint lemonade/sweet tea concoction, 2 glasses wine, glass of homemade ginger ale, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, risotto, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5