Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Pigs, both literally and figuratively

This weekend I had a trial run of the pork shoulder for the dinner party on the 21st. I just put it in a big cast iron Dutch oven and let it slow cook at 250 for about 9 hours. It came out drippingly tender, and I got a couple of gallons of pork broth out of the leftovers. It was a little bland on its own, though. This weekend I'm going to experiment with some sauces; I'm considering a pork demiglace (in which I would reduce those gallons of pork broth by about 2/3 on a slow simmer, to a deep concentrated essence-of-pork brown sauce) or a bacon chimichurri.

I'm also going to give the planned salad a pass--I'm sure I'll want to spend the time hanging out with my old friends, rather than plating salad. I think I'll just do a batch of my chicken liver pate, the old standby, with a big round homemade loaf of peasant bread.

Speaking of pigs, I rejoined match.com last week. And who should crop up immediately but all my exes from match. It's a sign from God, I know it. That was almost enough for me to cancel the whole thing. Fortunately I've managed to ignore the little voice in my head that's screaming "Run for the hills!" and have parlayed my anxieties into two very nice and perfectly acceptable dates. Which really, under the circumstances, is the best-case scenario. Now I'm battling what I call the girl part of my brain, in which I torment myself with questions like, "He hasn't emailed back. What does that mean? Should I email him? Wait, aren't I supposed to wait 24 hours? No, I'm supposed to wait for him to make the first move...he still hasn't called. What does that mean?"

Dating rules piss me off.

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