What are you eating right now?

This is mine.

Gratuitous closeup.

It’s a riff on a cuban sandwich – ham, tomatoes, dill pickle slices, cheese, and deli-style mustard, but naked (no bread, as bread is a little too much for me right now). I layered the ingredients, minus the mustard, then nuked it in the microwave for about 20 seconds. A line of mustard down it afterward, and we’re ready to go.

And yes, I did eat earlier. I made dinner for myself, my mom, and a dear friend: roasted boneless pork chops with my homemade bbq sauce on the side, corn on the cob – my mom always requests corn on the cob throughout the season, and it’s a bit of a staple – and oven roasted zucchini with olive oil, salt, peper, and shredded parm-reg. No pictures of any of that, unfortunately. I also ate part of the last slice of one of the chocolate cakes someone had brought, with a little milk. Surprisingly, I got hungry again, hence the naked cuban.

Someone did take my camera around on Sunday during the latter portion of the Bash and got some pics of the little bit of food that was left by that time, so I’ll upload those at some point.

Oh my. I’ve just started on a couple of ribs, the first of my own ribs I’ve tasted since I started smoking them. These are damn tasty, I must say. The meat is tender, but not disintegrating off the bone, with a nice smokiness permeating throughout. Some people were saying yesterday that the rubs (both the spicy and sweet) were pretty spicy, but I’m not tasting that – or maybe my taste buds are still so dead that it doesn’t affect me as much. It starts sweet and finishes with a bit of a kick at the end, which in my opinion is just how it should be. I’m also taste testing the barbeque sauce, and it’s fabulous. Maybe I’ll start packaging the rubs and the sauce for sale. Of course, this means I’d have to actually write down the proportions in the recipes in order to make them consistently.

Let’s talk for a moment about Mother Nature.

We’re in a bit of a drought situation around here. It hasn’t really rained here in weeks. Oh, there have been the occasional drops here and there, and sometimes the distant rumble of thunder makes those who don’t know any better hopeful for a washing of the air and a soaking of the ground. But we’re minus on rain, and will be until the real summer rainy season starts.

Until today, that is – the one day when clear (or slightly overcast) skies would have been most welcome, we get a typhoon. And I mean that, literally. The storm that rolled in brought lightning, hail, and wind that blew over tables and chairs outside. It was a nice change, and cooled things down pretty well, but of all the days, it was the day of the Big Bash. But some good came of it: everyone was driven inside, and it gave people a chance to talk with one another and eat more food.

Speaking of food, did you know that one serving of Publix prepared spinach dip is 2 tablespoons, 90 calories (80 of which are from fat)? the reason i mention this is only because I happen to be munching my way through some crackers with that dip, plus a lot of water.

The food. Goodness.

Got up this morning and got a fire started in the smoker, then tossed the ribs on. I had picked up a couple of rib racks, and let me tell you, those are the handiest things. All the slabs went on the grill in one shot, and they smoked away for just under four hours. This morning, the skies were clear and it was hot, so the ribs finished a bit fster than usual. While those were going, I made and prepped a bunch of other things, and when 2 PM rolled around, people started flowing in. Several people brought more food – desserts and a fruit salsa/dip, specifically. For the most part, though, the food was that we had prepared for everyone else.

And it was a blast.

I counted 30 adults and half a dozen or so kids, so our estimates of 30-40 people were spot on.

People started drifting out the door around 6:30 or so. I had prepared 12 pounds of shrimp, boiled, and another 4 pounds in a marinade (honey, soy sauce, chili-garlic sauce, and lime juice), only about 1.5 pounds of which was actually grilled before the torrential rains came. All 13.5 pounds were gone by the time the first guests departed. Since there was still another 4 pounds in the freezer, and the remainder of the marinated shrimp, I went ahead and prepared the rest, boiling the 4 pounds and sauteeing the marinated shrimp since it was still raining off and on and the open charcoal was now soaked. That batch vanished before the last of the guests left, and we are left with exactly zero leftover shrimp.

Of the ribs, there are a few chunks left. I told myself I would taste my ribs for the first time since I started making them, but I did not do that this afternoon. I’ll get to it on the leftovers. The guacamole was, if I must say so myself, excellent. It takes me awhile, and a lot of water, to eat an entire chip with some guacamole, but I had some, and could actually taste it.

I added a crab dip to the menu this afternoon, and had a taste of that – good stuff. That disappeared fairly rapidly, and there is none left for midnight snacking. However, I do have more crab and the other ingredients that go into it, so I may just have to make another batch tomorrow and have a more expansive tasting.

My brother requested zucchini at about the same time I was getting the remainder of the shrimp done, so I had him slice it lengthwise into flat strips, drizzled it with olive oil, gave it some salt and pepper, and then sprinkled shredded parm-reg on it. Alas, I did not get a taste of that, as it was all eaten while I was putting the shrimp into a steam tray. But, as with the crab, there’s another batch of zucchini in the fridge, and may be just the thing to eat beside a freshly made round of dip.

And then, there were the people. I think we had a good mix of people, both family and not, and although I had to endure lectures and nagging from certain parties about my eating issues (I did dump a cup of formula down the tube during the festivities), it was great to talk to everyone and listen to them talk to one another. It seemed to me that everyone had a good time and enjoyed themselves, and that really is the point, isn’t it?

My eating tally for the day: four shrimp. A few crackers and spinach dip. A chunk of watermelon. Three cucumber slices in a creamy dill sauce. A few tortillas and guacamole. A grape, peeled (unfortunately, I have no one to peel grapes and feed them to me, so I had to do this myself). A tomato wedge. A small piece of fried grouper. A small amount of crab dip. A cup of formula.

Before any lecturers start making the rounds of their circuits, I’ll be the first to admit this is not enough. As I pointed out to a dear friend when getting another one of Those Looks, all of this will get better. The moving-in phase of the move is over and things are fairly normal, the Big Bash has come and gone, and I’ll be getting back to a more normal schedule, so my eating will follow suit. But, until I can eat sufficiently, I’ll have to keep the tube as a fallback position, as the most recent weigh in bothered even me and my lackadaisacal attitude toward my fluctuating weight.

Today after a series of shopping trips for the previously mentioned supplies, I took my sister to dinner at Biscotti’s. She had to work this evening, so I figured I better feed her before she went. Since there was no way I was cooking anything (well, not anything that could qualify as a “dinner”), off we went.

The sweet potato-roasted red pepper soup was, as always, delicious. She had the beer cheese soup and pronounced it quite good. For dinner: parmesan crusted scallops with risotto and a lemon thyme buerre blanc for me, gemelli pasta with a cauliflower veloute for her. The scallops were excellent (so say us both), the pasta only so-so (according to her, but a gentleman sitting next to us said he liked it, so I suppose that qualifies as a mixed review). They also had a hazelnut-boursin crusted tenderloin on the menu, and that looked excellent, but I didn’t think my abilities would have matched my ambition on that. When my sister went to work, I stayed and had a capuccino to ensure that I maintained the proper caffeine level in my body.

Now, it’s time to begin work on some of the things we’ll be enjoying on Sunday. In the wee hours of the morning, I’m doing some maintenance work and replacing an application we’re using, and this damn server is giving me fits about moving the last four accounts, so I can tell this day is going to be another long one. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the four servers we have inbound did not arrive today, which means Tuesday for the setup of those. Plenty of recovery time from the Bash before then.

Usually – at least in some places – when you say you’re laying in supplies, you’re either preparing for winter or for a long siege (if you’re one of those nutbag militant types). In our case, however, it’s for the Big Bash. Food, accompaniments, and the supporting cast are rapidly filling up the fridge, freezer, and pantries. Since the painting I wanted done is done, it was time to turn my attention to laying in the supplies. This is done, of course, around handling some business-related items, including moving the final few accounts from my problem child server.

So, those who will be in attendance and not ask, what’s planned?

Thus far, we have:

20 pounds of shrimp
10 pounds of grouper
27 pounds of ribs (which seems like a lot, but is really six slabs of about 4.5 pounds each)
4-5 pounds of chicken breast
Burgers, dogs

I am still on the hunt for someone who can supply me with live blue crab on Sunday.

Beginning a little later today, I’m making cookies and brownies, mixing up the rub for the ribs, and making the barbeque sauce. Saturday’s plan:

Smoking the ribs
Making the guacamole, no doubt with assorted taste testers giving immediate feedback so it can be served appropriately on Sunday
Making the mango-papaya salsa, again with taste testers poking their noses into it
Making the fruit salad
Making the cocktail and remoulade sauces
Making the coleslaw
I might be able to sneak in a batch or two of bread and butter pickles as well

Then Sunday, it will just be putting it all out and firing up the grills.

Still unclear is just how many people will be here. We had roughly estimated somewhere between 30 and 40. Yesterday and today have both brought mentions of additional people coming along. No matter how many people are here, I think it will be great fun. If you’re in the area and at loose ends, feel free to join us. Email me at museATmusable.com for directions.

I had already decided not to cook today, giving myself over to other issues like work, cleaning, and a doctor’s appointment with one of the ENTs.

Work? Did some, took care of some paperwork, etc. Never ends.

Cleaning? Not so much, because of work.

Doctor? Check. My appointment was at 2:30, I finally saw him around 3:30 or so. He didn’t like the way the tissue looked on the left side of my tongue, so took a couple of samples to be biopsied. He also didn’t like the fact that when he poked and prodded it, I couldn’t really feel it. I’m sure it’s more of the same as with the last biopsy, and he said as much, but better to be sure, I suppose. Both the biopsy samples were done without any numbing or anesthetic agents, which was a little interesting, but it wasn’t terribly painful and the bleeding stopped on its own after about 10 minutes or so with no cauterizing agents required. I have to go back in a week so he can have another look, we can talk about the biopsy, and so on. What a way to end the month.

Then, one of my sisters calls. She wants tilapia. No problem, says I, I’ll pick some up on my way back. And so I do, also picking up some grape tomatoes, some mushrooms and bleu cheese-stuffed olives for my mom, some more fresh mozzarella, and some other odds and ends. While I’m wandering about the store, I message my sister: would she like me to pan sear it and make that chile-lime butter again? She calls me, and says no, she wants it breaded (sort of) and baked, the way she does it. I suggest that she cook it, then, leaving me to work. Then the truth comes out: she didn’t really want to cook it. She wants me to do it, but her way, and fix the remainder of the meal as well. I pass. Instead, it’s a do it yourself sort of meal, with a family style serve yourself from the stove and counter, then sit down at the table: tilapia, lightly breaded but heavily seasoned and baked, corn on the cob, and salad. I had a bit of the fish and some corn. I tried some lettuce, but the taste is…off in some way that I can’t quite describe. I imagine if I were like one of the cats and ate grass or the houseplants, that the taste would be similar. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, but it was both hard to eat and tasted strangely, so no salad for me. I’m currently on my second serving of post-dinner ice cream, because I am just craving something sweet this evening for some reason.

Oh, and did I mention that I weighed myself and I’m at 112? Well, there we are. This is one of those rare times where you drop weight faster than you put it on – but I wouldn’t recommend the cancer diet to anyone, really. I’m sure as things settle down this will even out as well.

Tomorrow, no cooking, period. Since the painter we had lined up has bailed out, the next few days will be a painting frenzy to finish up the high points before the bash. I also have new mattresses arriving – and found out this evening that the movers lost one of the pieces of my bed frame, so that has to be addressed – and a speech therapy appointment in the afternoon. I need to start laying in supplies for the Big Bash. Oh, and work, of course, setting up a couple new servers, ordering several more, running payroll, and on and on. There is always too much to do and never enough time in a day.

With that, I’ve finished off the last of the ice cream, cleaned the kitchen, done some billing, and overall I’m just ready for a nap. Some days feel very productive. Today was not one of those days. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

I was really in the mood for chicken-apple sausage tonight. Alas, I got a late start to head out for the food, took one look at the traffic, and decided that a trip over the bridge to Fresh Market would have to wait for another day. Instead, mild pork sausages in casings from Publix – they do make quite good sausage. I picked up some peppers and a nice, sweet Vidalia onion to go along with it. I’d had a request for burgers, too, so grilling tonight was quite the treat for me.

Some people have issues with grilling. They let whatever they’re grilling become hard, dry shells of their former selves. I don’t have that particular problem. I’m not sure why. When it seems done, off the grill it comes.

What’s sausage without peppers and onions? Green and orange bells, Vidalia onion, sauteed in a touch of olive oil.

Sliced a couple of tomatoes and flattened out several small balls of fresh mozzarella.

When you put everything together, you get something a bit like this. Yes, I did manage to eat that entire ear of corn, on the cob. It took me almost 50 minutes to finish eating tonight, and that was without actually eating the entire sausage link.

I’ve really lucked out with the tomatoes, as they’ve not been hard, tasteless orbs of nothingness.

The sausage, peppers, and onion was quite tasty.

The burgers were good as well, according to those who ate them. I probably will not be cooking for the next couple of days – too much to do, doctors’ appointments, speech therapy, cleaning, working to get this joint in order before the Big Bash. Besides, there are leftovers, like the bit of sausage and sauteed veggies that I downed before typing this out and posting the photos…

I always used to wonder who it was, exactly, that came up with the bright idea that lobsters would be something good to eat. After all, they have claws. They’re not pretty. They can be hard to catch. They can be very heavy and not yield a lot of meat relative to that heaviness.

Still, there’s something sublime about lobster when it’s done right. Broiled, grilled, boiled, sauteed – I can’t think of any way I’ve eaten lobster that has been bad unless it has been cooked to death or drowned in some sauce that hides the natural sweetness of the meat.

And tonight? Another successful meal that had as its focus the big bug of the sea.

Split lobster tails, angel hair pasta, salad – a work in progess.

Some of the split tails that remained after everyone had been served the first round.

The rest of dinner. The orangey stuff in the front is a chili vinaigrette that was quite tasty on the lobster and the pasta. My water. I go through a great deal of water during a meal, to help get the food down.

The beginning of my plate. Alas, I still have to skip the salad, as I just cannot manage lettuce at all. I did, however, eat quite a bit of the pasta and both halves of this particular lobster tail.

Gratuitous sleeping kitty photos from earlier today.

And then, there was dessert, after we sat around outside by the pool for awhile, talking and digesting the main course. This was my first time making a chocolate-hazelnut tart, and the recipe was sort of made up as I went along. Unfortunately, I failed to write down the proportion of the ingredients. That should make it even more interesting to try and recreate this for the bash next Sunday.

Hazelnuts (or filberts, if you prefer) need to be toasted and the skin peeled before you use them. These were roasted in a 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes, then wrapped in a dish towel to steam for a few minutes. Some vigorous rubbing in the towel, and the skins pop right off.

The other ingredients were mixed and the hazelnuts added.

Then the lot was dumped into a deep dish pie crust (didn’t make this – I was trying to neaten up the place a little for our dinner guest so they wouldn’t think us total slobs).

Baked at about 275/280 for an hour and a half. This leads nicely to the dessert course, with a tall glass of milk.

There was one lobster tail left over. I do believe I hear it calling my name, along with one of the leftover cobs of corn…

Tomorrow? Mom has requested hamburgers and more corn on the cob. So those will be grilled, but I’m thinking about sausage. On the grill. Perhaps some chicken-apple sausage. With a side of zucchini, done some way. That would be nice.

That’s what a friend of mine says to me from time to time.

But chicken was on the menu tonight, so it popped right into my head as I was pounding out chicken breasts to prepare them for slathering and rolling. The slather? After sprinkling the newly-flattened breasts with salt and pepper, I layered on some spinach and some gruyere, then rolled them up and secured them with toothpicks. Those went into the oven while some long grain rice bubbled on the stovetop. Since my brother and his son were surprise guests this evening, I broke out one of those ubiquitous blue boxes of mac and cheese for the kidlet, since he is not a big rice eater. Add some sliced tomatoes, and presto, a meal is made. It was good enough – the eaters ate it very well – but unfortunately, I could not really taste the chicken very well. The healing continues.

I also came to the realization today that the remainder of the painting will have to be done by someone else. Between the moving, the painting, the cooking, and the work of setting up new servers, switches, and reboot ports, I’m achy and exhausted, so something has to give. Since it certainly won’t be the cooking, and my real work must take precedence, that means paying someone to finish the cutting and trim in the living room/foyer (which is almost completed and which looks great in this color) and to paint the kitchen. I don’t suppose it helps that I stepped on the edge of something while coming down off the ladder this afternoon and managed to fall – but managed not to land the roller on the floor. Small victories.

Something amusing about hazelnuts. I’ve been having a hard time finding them at the local stores, so went to Fresh Market, which certainly should carry them, right? However, the first person I asked, who happened to have a significant southern drawl, had no idea what hazelnuts looked like. I thought for a moment. “Filberts,” I said. “Have any of those?” They certainly did. Now I have hazelnuts for the chocolate-hazelnut tart that will be part of Sunday’s dinner. Let that be a lesson: when in doubt, remember where you are and name things accordingly.

Dinner Sunday: grilled wild Maine lobster with drawn butter and a chili vinaigrette (for those so inclined) atop a small bed of angel hair pasta, salad, corn on the cob, chocolate-hazelnut tart.