Every other Tuesday my bi-weekly dinner guest shows up for dinner. Always invited, even though I always tell her she is welcome to just show up, no invitation needed. She never makes requests for a particular dish, or theme, and always brings either a bottle of wine or dessert. The perfect guest, no?
As I recently finished reading Ruth Reichl's "Comfort Me With Apples," I was inspired to cook the 'Channing Way Shrimp Curry' for tonight's dinner. Something about that chapter moved me enough to hang dinner on a recipe found at the end of the chapter, a recipe I never tried. Granted, I knew just by reading it that it would work and that it did. My friend loved it. So did my partner. My only regret is not making the original recipe that served 6 -- I had cut it down to serve 3 since, you guessed it, there were only three of us. I served it on a bed of aromatic basmati rice with a green pea and tofu curried side-dish. We washed it all down with some berry lassi. Ok, if I am being honest, we washed it down with a Chilean Chardonnay, the lassi came after! (I was initially thinking of making a mango lassi but the idea came at the last minute and left no time for a run back out to the grocery store to buy mango. So... berry lassi it was)
Ruth's Curry (as we might start calling it) will definitely be making a repeat appearance. It was such a simple dish to put together and it yield such delicious results. The cooking of the basmati takes longer than the curry.
After dinner -- and I know this is not fascinating for any of you but it is, after all, my blog -- we were going to watch "No Reservations" (you know, the one with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart and Abigail Breslin) but paused for a moment to watch "At the Table with ... Elizabeth Falkner" on Food Tv. Well, hello hot looking San Fran lesbian Chef lady! I'll be Googling you as soon as I get a chance.
"At the table with..." lead to an interesting discussion on what I should do with my future. Since I am at what I hope to be the beginning of a culinary career I have some decisions to make. Do I take a recent offer to work at an opening-soon restaurant 40 minutes away from home where I might learn new things? Do I go to a nearby sports bar/pub type establishment while I go to culinary school? Where will I learn more? Will the sports bar be good for my resume and what will I learn there? So far I have gotten advice belonging to two different schools of thought:
1) At the beginning of your career is when you want to be choosy as it will dictate the path you take in the future
2) At this point in your career, you shouldn't turn anything down, it's all about building experience and learning as much as you can, about anything and everything.
If I had a poll button here (if there is one, I don't know how to use it) I'd let you all vote as I'm pretty stumped about what I should do. You know what they say though, "when in doubt, do nothing!"
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