Mother's Day Menu

In honor of my newfound cooking skills, I made dinner for my family for Mother's Day.

The menu:

Starter -- Salt-crusted fingerling potatoes
Main -- Skirt steak with shallot-thyme butter served with asparagus with morels and tarragon
Dessert -- French apple tart

Order of cooking:

1. French apple tart
2. Salt-crusted fingerling potatoes
3. Asparagus with morels and tarragon
4. Skirt steak with shallot-thyme butter

My thoughts: Everything came out great except for the asparagus which was overcooked and the sauce did not thicken very much. I think I prefer a more simple asparagus dish but the sauce is very good for the mushrooms.

I used pre-made frozen dough (Pepperidge Farm) instead of making it myself. It came out perfectly. For the Pepperidge Farm frozen dough, the recipe should be cut in half.

Thank you, Mark Bittman

Some people are whizzes at cooking. They know what flavors go well together, what seasonings to add to enhance flavor, etc. I am not a cooking whiz. I am a cooking idiot. Once I almost set my kitchen on fire while boiling water (luckily the sink was next to the stove). I can barely decipher recipes. There's always some ingredient I've never heard of, a technique I have no clue about, or some kitchen appliance or dish I can never find in the store. For most of my life, my two "homemade" dishes were spaghetti (with sauce out of a jar) and steak.

Then, one day, I came across Mark Bittman's Bitten blog at The New York Times. Oh, happy day! Finally I was able to leave the land of spaghetti and steak! The recipes were simple. I knew what the ingredients were AND I could find them at my local grocery store. I didn't need new equipment. Not matter how hard I tried, even I couldn't mess it up. Since then, I've tried a number of the recipes on the blog and every one of them has been a success. Thank you, Mark Bittman, for helping me enter the world of cooking.

Desert island and books

The other day I was thinking about the books I'd like to have with me if I was stuck on a desert island (this is a recurring daydream of mine). I realized that a book being a "favorite" didn't necessarily mean that I would take it with me. Even though Crime and Punishment is one of my favorite books, I wouldn't want to have that with me on a desert island -- that would probably drive me mental within a few days. For a book to qualify, it had to be one that I would never tire of. So, without further ado, below are the top ten books I'd like to have with me on a desert island (in no particular order):

1. The Bible -- Okay, an exception right off the bat. I've never read the Bible from beginning to end and would like to do so. What better time than when I'm stuck on an island?
   
2. Persuasion (Jane Austen) -- No Pride and Prejudice? I know. Sacrilege for a girl. But Persuasion is my favorite. The older heroine. The bittersweetness of the story. And the letter that Captain Wentworth writes gets me every single time.
   
3. As You Desire (Connie Brockway) -- The first chapter made me fall in love with this book.
   
4. A Duke of Her Own (Lorraine Heath) -- A really romantic story.
5. Three Men in a Boat (Jerome K. Jerome) -- One of the funniest books I've ever read.
   
6. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (John Le Carre) -- Even though I already know what happens at the end, just the writing itself makes it worthwhile to read again and again.
   
7. Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (Louise Rennison) -- The female version of Adrian Mole.
   
8. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 (Sue Townsend) -- Before there was Bridget Jones, there was Adrian Mole. Here's a snippet: "Thursday January 21st, My brain is hurting. I have just had two pages of Macbeth to translate into English." Hilarious.
9. My Life and Hard Times (James Thurber) -- Another hilarious book.
   
10. Any omnibus of P. G. Wodehouse -- An omnibus is a bit of cheating but P. G Wodehouse is my favorite author. Ever. Doesn't matter if it's a collection of stories with Jeeves and Wooster, Uncle Fred, or Mr. Mulliner -- as long as I have one, I'll be fine.

Lots of humor. Some romance. A little mystery. But what they all have in common is good writing which I think trumps everything. No matter how good the plot is, I can't read a story repeatedly if the writing isn't good (I'm looking at you, Dan Brown!).

What do you think of the list? What would you take with you?