Category: <span>General</span>
You know what that is, right? Reading? Yes, reading. The kind where the book isn’t a magazine. Because magazines aren’t reading — they are perusing/skimming. Anyway, reading has become quite a luxury and I indulged in it heavily last week.
I indulged in two books, the first called A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and the second one is Autobiography by Ben Franklin. The latter surprisingly good but the former was extraordinary.
Hosseini’s book explores complex relationships of mothers and daughters. It especially highlights the way these universal concepts play out in an austere society. I won’t give away the story but am quite happy I don’t wear a burqa and have the right to education. Even happier, I took advantage of the privilege right.
Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography while not yet finished serves as a refresher course for how to conduct oneself. What it means to respect and be respected and how to conduct your daily interactions with all people. Also highly recommended.
It is official, the husband has reviewed my menu for the family BBQ and said it is “a bit ambitious”. That’s good — I like a challenge. Here is how I plan on spreading out the cooking to make sure that I don’t cook late into the night on Friday AND am able to enjoy Saturday morning and the party in the afternoon.
Friday:
- Bake chocolate chip and oatmeal cookies
- Cook strawberry and rhubarb blondes
- Bake cupcakes
- Cut the pineapple for the grilling
- Make vanilla ice cream for grilled pineapple
- Make court-bouillon and cook shrimp
- Make cocktail sauce
- Make hummus
- Cut veggies and make dip
- Make truffled mushroom mac & cheese
- Marinate chicken two ways (in yoghurt and spices and in olive oil and herbs de provence)
Saturday:
- Grill pineapple
- Grill chicken and sausage
- Make guacamole
- Prep and grill vegetables
- Prep and roast asparagus
- Prep and roast potatoes (two ways)
- Prep and grill veggie burgers
- Serve everything
Since the weekend is fast approaching and with it our family BBQ, I decided that I should better develop a menu or face serious panic while grocery shopping Thursday afternoon.
Usually, I find menu planning rather fun, creative and relaxing. I am keen on making sure that all the guests’ dietary restrictions are accomodated such that noone feels like they are limited in their options and everyone can eat almost everything. For example, a guest at the party has a treet nut allergy and I am planning for the menu to be completely free of tree nuts. Another set of guests observe kosher dietary rules and I am making sure they can have both a main and a dessert (no easy feat considering most entrees are proteins and great desserts are typically loaded with butter)). Kids almost always are picky eaters and a BBQ is no place to try and coax a child to get diverse with food… I am including something cheesey, white and delicious. Lastly, I unite the menu with plenty of fruits and vegetables that most everyone loves.
So… here is the menu as I envision it now. I may change parts of it depending on what looks great at the grocery mart and how much time I have as I tackle the cooking process.
- Shrimp cooked in Court-bouillon and Cocktail Sauce
- Guacamole and Chips
- Hummus and Pita Chips
- Veggies and Dip
- Roasted Vegetables
- Oven Roasted Asparagus with Garlic and Balsamic Drizzle
- Oven Roasted Potatoes (Fiery and Plain)
- Veggie Burgers and Fixings (Lettuce, Onions, Tomatoes)
- Truffled Mushroom Mac & Cheese
- Grilled Chicken Marinated in Yoghurt, Ginger, Garlic and Spices
- Grilled Chicken Marinated in Olive Oil and Herbs de Provence (dairy free)
- Grilled Sausage
- Grilled Pineapple served with (maybe homemade) Vanilla Ice Cream
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Cookies
- Cupcakes (Vanilla)
- Strawberry and Rhubarb Blondes
- My Mother In-Law’s Famous Chocolate Cake (dairy free)
{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
If you’ve stumbled on this blog and read the About page, you may wonder how and why anyone would become so passionate as to share their stories on a blog.
My passion for travel, for good food was instilled many, many years ago and is continually reinforced by my own family. I grew up in the former Soviet Union, in a family where warm, sweet aromas were always wafting out of my mother’s kitchen. My mother learned her craft of cookery from my grandmother with whom my sister and I spent a majority of every summer.
My family traveled around a fair bit and while I was born in Ukraine, I spent the first nine years of my life in Baku, Azerbaijan. My mother cooks predominately Russian food but has an excellent handle on Azerbaijani/Middle Eastern dishes such as Dolma, Shish Kebab, Qutab, Dovga, Shirin Plov and many others.
My sister and I were never picky eaters. Perhaps, this is because the food was always so good or perhaps because we connected food with being together as a family. Nevertheless, I aspire to do the same for my daughter and will document my trials and tribulations here.