Christmas Eve Fare, How and Why:
2. More Prelude: Foodie Son spends three months touring Asia after graduate school, before he begins his post-doc. He keeps a food blog, takes cooking classes, and especially likes and learns the delights of Vietnamese and Thai cuisine.
3. After the family takes a visit to the farm, 8 O'clock Ranch, (see yesterday's blog, Day 17, A (Converted) Carnivore's Christmas: Part One), Foodie Son designs menu:
First Course: Vietnamese dip sandwich: pork terrine with sriracha aioli and pickles, pho broth.
Main Dish: Ras al hanout rubbed lamb shoulder, smoked onion purée, boulangerie potatoes, lamb jus, arugula salad.
Dessert: Sticky toffee pudding, vanilla ice cream (an homage to his father's British roots)
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| Flashback to the visit to 8 o'clock ranch, and the sheep and goat crossing. |
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| The baguette for the sandwich was also homemade. The pork was made into a terrine and then covered with home-made coleslaw and cilantro. The dipping broth involved hours of work as well. Pho, the Vietnamese soup, was a favorite of Food Son's as a student because it's cheap and good. Yum! |
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| Lamb Shoulder from 8 o'clock ranch, fresh from the oven, waiting to be carved |
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| Main Course, but you can't really see the creamy onion sauce which entailed Foodie Son's creating a kind of smoker by putting wood pieces in the wok and steaming onion over it. Then it gets the cream and more. The arugula was fresh and delicious as a side. The lamb was beyond sublime. The whole time I ate, Zoe leaned against my knee, as did the two other cute dogs in attendance. Since I only have two knees, this involved a lot of pup repositioning beneath the table. I try not to teach visiting dogs bad behavior, so I waited until the end of the meal for Zoe to have her taste. |
Zoe is hyper-alert throughout the meal. Perhaps the smell of lamb recalls an ancestral memory. |
| Finger licking good! |
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