First to arrive were Ali and PJ, who drove up from Ft. Lauderdale. Mariel and I had been puttering around the kitchen trading off use of the stove/sink/oven while listening to The Moth podcasts (highly recommended if you like hearing people talk about interesting/funny/thoughtful/live-changing moments), a calm environment where we were both happily cooking away and occasionally commenting on the stories we were listening to. With the new company, it was suddenly a much more energetic house, with all of us talking and laughing and putting new ingredients into the fridge and pointing out the quirks of the house while trying to decide on dinner details like where to sit everyone. I'd made another batch of marshmallows and was thinking of sticking them on top of graham crackers and putting them under the broiler to make almost s'mores, but PJ wisely suggested taking advantage of the little metal fire pit outside and making real ones!
I had attempted to make caramel swirl marshmallows but I didn't have any cream or milk to mix with the burnt sugar, and my attempt with almond milk had been decidedly unsuccessful. So I thought, "why not just make caramelized sugar and mix it into the regular sugar syrup to make a caramel flavored marshmallow?" The sugar syrup has to come to a particular temperature (240 F, specifically) in order to have that fluffy marshmallow texture - any higher and it starts to turn into hard candy. Did I think about that when I didn't stabilize the caramel (which reaches a much higher temperature than 240) and instead added it directly to my (lower temperature) marshmallow sugar? No I did not. It was pretty evident that the marshmallow was different than usual - much much thicker and stickier - I kept getting stuck to it! I was pretty worried that they would harden and be inedible. They did set denser and chewier than usual, but in the end it worked out perfectly for s'mores because they stayed on the skewers and didn't slide off into the fire like regular ones have a tendency to do! I love it when not-thought-out decisions turn out for the best, experimentation at it's least-planned finest :)
Mariel made arepas, little round corn cakes made from a special pre-cooked corn flour (masarepa), prepared with water or milk and anise seeds, and then fried and baked to give it a crisp exterior and a soft, slightly chewy interior. Once Lou and John arrived, she served them as appetizers, stuffed with a black bean and onions, diced mushrooms, and plain greek yogurt, served with a little guacamole and homemade vinaigrette. Delicious! Kerry and Darid were joining us but were running a bit late, so the rest of us went ahead and started and just stared longingly at the two reserved plates waiting on the counter ;)
Dinner was a mixture of many things, all of them delicious. I made a mango salsa wrapped in butter lettuce leaves as a fun finger-food side dish, and a spicy lemon kale, black bean, and rice salad, both of which I would absolutely make again, maybe with quinoa instead of rice. Mariel made mussels and shrimp in a spiced tomato sauce, and mussels steamed in a white wine and butter broth, both of which turned out wonderfully. I'm very inexperienced at cooking meat and seafood, so I find it particularly impressive when other people know how to properly prepare them. Served with a little extra rice and some fresh French bread, it was a tasty and filling dinner. It was such a pleasure to sit back with John and watch everyone interacting and catching up - Mariel, Ali, PJ, and Lou have all known each other for many years, and Kerry and Darid's arrival only added to the fun.
Ali and PJ were really the driving forces behind the fire, although I also took my turn moving things around to try to keep it going. I got to pull out a Burkina trick of fanning the glowing embers really quickly to make it burst back into flame, which then resulted in all of us probably looking pretty funny as we flapped manically at the fire from various sides with whatever newspaper leaflets we could get our hands on. The s'mores turned out pretty well if I do say so myself, and we found out that a homemade marshmallow dropped into the fire is much more entertaining and continues oozing and expanding and burning much longer than a store bought one. We sat by the pool chatting, and after we said goodnight to Kerry and Darid, the rest of us pulled our chairs away from the house so we could stare at the sky and watch for shooting stars from the meteor shower - we didn't see many, but there were a few really good ones!
PJ, Mariel, and Ali with the fire
I totally failed to take any photos of the food or the whole group! I'll see if I can get some more pictures of the evening besides these
The pool! Tragically it was just a bit too cold all week to make swimming a very appealing prospect
The pool house with the neat attic crawl space. Ali investigated and found the whole little building to be nicely packed with mold, so we left it alone.
Darid, Kerry, Mariel, and Ali making s'mores :)
No comments:
Post a Comment