Also, I've been cooking chicken like crazy. The Episcopal Presiding Bishop of North America is in Lexington for a Diocesan convention and I'm part of the lunch cooking team for Sunday when she is preaching at Christ Church Cathedral. We're making Chicken Divan for 200+ people and I'm in charge of the chicken. No, I do not have a commercial kitchen in my house. I have two rather large crockpots. My house smells decidedly like roasting chicken and the dogs are in heaven (or maybe that's hell when you can smell the chicken but can't have any). They sit under the counter ever hopeful that someone might accidentally knock one of the crockpots onto the floor. Meanwhile, I seem to have lost any appetite I might ever have had for chicken.
However, in April, His Excellency Abdul Kalam, former president of India, is coming to dinner. No, not at my house but for a special fundraiser dinner for the International Book Project. I am on the committee though but fortunately Masala, a great Indian restaurant in town, will be doing the cooking for that and not me. Want to know more? Visit the International Book Project's website at http://www.internationalbookproject.org/ ! Tickets are limited and it should be a wonderful event. How often do you get to have dinner with a former head of state afterall?
P.S. Howie looks forlorn. Maybe I will paint that picture.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I would like to go to that dinner! Are you going to get a table? I am going to check my calendar as was looking for a weekend to visit Lex.
ReplyDeleteCan I come too? I want to sit at the table with you and Mere and Howie!
ReplyDeleteAre you serious? I'm the Board VP this year and on the dinner committe so I did buy a table and had invited some friends to join us. I may have one extra ticket though at this point. We could definitely buy more tickets plus Dad announced that he wanted to go too. We're pretty sure that it's going to be a big sell-out so let me know quickly if you're serious. It's the Wednesday after Easter (when we'll have been in Charleston) so you could drive back with us and fly home if you wanted!
ReplyDeleteWill you have room for me and my framed pictures on the way back?
ReplyDeleteBut, of course! We would be packing light anyway for our mid-week flight to New York. Plus we go to Costco in Louisville & Cincinnati now.
ReplyDeleteAre you leaving the pictures at my house though?
I should probably not go, even though it sounds GREAT! David and I have a special anniversary that weekend - and it's a weekday :(
ReplyDeleteMere should go, though!!!
Hehe...is that the anniversary of Mary Rollins becoming a vegetarian? Just kidding -- your wedding weekend was the last time she ate meat though! That's how we mark the days. Can't believe it's been almost a year! Wow!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the WOWs. Save me a seat Gwennie. Just curious but what meat did MR eat that she remembers it was that weekend?
ReplyDeleteDear Mere, I actually will need you to commit to a seat if you want to come! It really is limited seating.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't any specific meat but she had decided to go vegetarian earlier and used Isabug's wedding as her final deadline. She's thinking that at the 1-year mark she might reincorporate a few meat items back into her diet like Chick-Fil-A and the occasional hamburger.
My favorite comment from her during her meat-free year has been "gee, this isn't that difficult." To which I think, yeah...that's because you're not the one cooking both a carnivore meal and a vegeterian meal every night for dinner. I was thinking I ought to start another blog for meat-eating moms of vegetarians. However, when the Mathews boys are out and it's just the girls, I go totally vegetarian.
I'm getting quite good with tofu these days and I've perfected my vegetarian chili! Wish I could find veggie duck in Lexington. Yummmm...or maybe some delicious General Tsao's Soy Protein...
Yumm.. I agree with your cooking statements. And to push it further - if anybody was cooking my meals now - be it vegetarian, vegan, carnivorous, etc - I would eat it happily.
ReplyDeleteAh, to go back to the days of somebody else cooking... I need to hire a chef.
In a stream of consciousness moment, I'm just thinking that my refrigerator contents look so interesting...I have one full-sized pork loin sandwiched next to packages of tofu and "baked ham- style protein slices" or "faux ham" as I like to call it.
ReplyDeleteI have a jar of salsa in my refrigerator.
ReplyDeleteI need to go to the grocery store!
the Iz refrigerator makes me think of Bridget Jones. What would she say about all this veggieness in her diary?
ReplyDeleteThat's funny because her champagne reception with Chris Cleave mentioned on what2readnext.blogspot.com made me think of Bridget as well!
ReplyDeleteHhe... I forgot to hit the "email follow up comments" button... you guys do that too, right? mussagic!
ReplyDeleteOk, I love the fact that that (despite their annoying taking up space-ness) the little "you might like" blog reference at the bottom led me here! I can't believe I missed this stream of comments up till now! Here are my comments:
ReplyDelete1) Mom, you need to paint MR watching Harry Potter at the lake house with both Cleo and Howie on the couch. I swear I gave those pictures to you already, but since I imagine you cannot find them, I will give them to you A SECOND TIME! (like a monty python taunt ;)
2) My friends once were talking about borrowing food and then came on to the subject of my refrigerator and how disappoint that was. I usually have eggs and some sauces or marmalades that people gave me whenever the last break was, that I never use.
3) Indian food.... mmmmmmm. How was the dinner? I seriously miss Kashmir. Ooh - that can go on my pro-Lexington list!
4) Isabelle met Chris Cleave?!?!?!?!? at a Champagne reception?! Did she get to say his name wrong?!
Claire,
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I'm just now reading these comments...
On number 2, I have stuff in my garage refrigerator from when a friend of mine left her husband and took the contents of their refrigerator and stored it at my house. When she went back to him, she forgot to take those things with her (including a bottle of Absolut in the freezer).
3. The dinner was *interesting*. I summed it up that IBP is great at shipping books, not so great at dinners. And, his excellency's accent was VERY hard to understand. One of my friend's described it as like being at church listening to a sermon that you aren't really following but such a pleasant feeling washes over you anyway. All in all, it was, yes, interesting...
xoxo