It was legendary, mostly because I was stunned at how kind an old friend of mine and his girlfriend were to us. I met Jesse a few years ago when we were neighbors. I was at the end of my firefighting involvement, just before law school started, and he was relatively new on the St. Paul Fire Department, a coveted full-time job.
They live in a beautiful condo overlooking Lake Minnetonka, and made a point of insisting that we joined them for dinner. I was sort of embarassed to limit their dinner choices, but they didn't miss a step. When I called Jesse a couple hours before leaving, I could hear the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the checkout at the grocery store. They put together some delicious sangria full of fruit, and four massive plates of pineapple, snap peas, apples, avocado, red pepper, grapes and oranges.
The point: The art of hosting is not dead.
Jesse had to leave for work at 6:30 a.m. this morning, but stayed up past 2:00 a.m. with us, cycling through rapid rounds of our favorite card game, 500.
Lunch Yesterday
This is a sympathy post. I work for a local district court judge. He's my Batman, and I'm his Robin. Minutes after getting out of a nasty divorce proceeding in the morning, he insisted that I join him for a family law education session at a nearby restaurant. My mind was still spinning from the thunder my judge slapped on an embittered, deadbeat dad who had been making a habit of using his seven year old child as a messenger with his wife, effectively throwing the kid into their pathetic, lingering mess (a big no-no).
The session fee included a lunch. On the drive over, and in between our debate about Tiger Woods' return to golf, our discussion was punctured by a sharp internal debate over what I'd do about lunch.
At noon, I was given a small salad and a mouth-watering combo of turkey, cheese, avocado and bacon, nuzzled between two almost sensuous pieces of multi-grain bread. My nose salivated. And to illustrate what a raw food drone I've become, I pushed off my croutons and ate only the raw ingredients of my salad. The sandwich, cut diagonally, looked like a sneering mouth, a pursed set of lips, fully aware it was safe in the face of a would-be carnivor. It was an image of a laughing hyena, trotting in circles around a toothless old lion.
I'm being dramatic, but I don't think I can understate the tension that existed while my sandwich lust drowned out the four seasoned female attorneys who lectured about the old ass-slapping, skirt-wearing days that they've come a long way from (baby).
Food Today
My menu today is mostly still a mystery, but I began the day with an odd smoothie, some of the chocolate cake Kelly made, and some grapes:
FUZZY NAVEL SMOOTHIE
Ingredients
- One Orange
- 1/2 cup pecans
- 1/4 cup pitted dates
- 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup filtered water
- 6 ice cubes or so
I think this would have been better with more orange. I feel like I'm drinking a cup of drizzly cookie dough, but I'm comforted by the fact that it should keep my appetite in control. Kelly thinks it's great.
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