John-B’s blog

In this post I asked for some suggestions/feedback for a menu and MEK asked "how did it go?"

In advance, it was a great evening, we laughed a lot, had much fun and ate a lot... but for me, it was a medium desaster. :O I made some mistakes, maybe due to some inexperience. So here are my 5 rules and the story of getting them follows:

1. Purchase everything you need at your trusted merchant in time

2. Never believe in someone's opinion in view of ingridients who is not as affine to cooking and food as you are

3 . Never ask, what people like, just ask, what they don't like

4. If you're not experienced: First cook the menu for yourself

5. If something failes: grin and bear it

But let begin from the start.

We, four in number, met at my best friends new girlfriend (few weeks fresh love^^) (the 4th has been a fellow/friend of my friend). She (the girlfriend) lives in a small village (I didn't think THAT small) and I asked my friend, if I could get all the ingridients there and so I mailed him my list, because I wanted to get everything very fresh. "Sure, there's a big supermarket, they should have everything" was his answer and I bought his opinion. ALERT ALERT mistake no.1! Since he's not as affin to cooking and food as I am he had no clue. Here starts part my personal desaster... the supermarket had no
- fresh basil
- satay sauce
- fish sauce
- small carrots
- great tomatoes (I love the intensive aroma, but those just smelled weak)
- good mangos
- strawberrys (oh, they had some, but who likes them with fur, huh?)
- herbs
- nice garpes
- ... (maybe I forgot sth)

The basil was brown in big parts and I had to buy several pots of basil to get some good looking basil leaves. Without satay fish sauce I had to improvise and tried to make an alternative on my own (her I totally failed *g*). The lasagna didn't taste bad, but you may imagine, that it wasn't like intended. As I expected something like this, I tried to arrange a big antipasti plate made of aubergines, red/yellow pepper, olives, zucchini, bruschetta, feta, tomato salad. Nothing difficult here ("baking" the vergetables, mixing up with herbs and good olive-oil etc.) and everyone ate hungry and with pleasure.
Due to the missing small carrots I bought three bundels of regular ones, just picking the tiny ones out of it. But the  stems (is it the right word? I mean the green at the end...) were weak and dirty and... *sigh* I just peeled them, tried to fit the stems, cooked and blanched them. For the non-veggies I enwraped them with some spanish ham, roasted them and quenched them with some balsamico. There were not perfect looking but great at taste.
I will keep quite about the lasagna desaster (you imagine from above), since I don't want to suffer again. ;)

As dessert I prepared a choco-fondue, but the lack of great fruits reduced it to some pieces of mango (you know how to prepare a mango regular? Cut some lines and turn them inside out... those mangos were to hard/green for it. :( ), bananas, grapes... but since chocholate is a win-win-dessert (for women), I got a point here nonetheless. ;)

All in all, I've to repeat: great evening and cooking together is one of the best things you can do. But I just can conjure you: follow those 5 rules!

So long,
JohnB

Saturday I´ve to cook for some friends (don't ask what I did, but this is an VERY acceptable punishment ;)). I'm trained in cooking (not an expert though) and the menu shouldn't be tooo difficult, since I won't cook at home, but outwards and I don't know the kitchen´s equipment. We're all about 30y and it will be a leger sit together, one veggie will be there and my first ideas are

bread: Bruschetta (with tomatos, onion, garlic, basil etc.)

appetizer
tuna carpaccio. Problem: no idea, if I can get proper fresh tuna... :-/

main course
a variation of this great sounding Vegetarian Peanut Lasagna.
(Big thanks to Rebecka for this inspiration. :) )

dessert
chocolate fondue
(some fruits are still prepared with black and white chocolate)
I know, the dessert isn't something BIG, but I know, there will be two girls loving chocolate and fruits. Of course the plates with fruits will be well prepared/decorated.

Ideas and suggestions are very welcome. ;)

Thought about weed? Shame on you, this posts topic is soccer! But before explaining the "weed with or without you grass" thingy, I'd like to thank MEK for his "waking me up"-comment in my first post, chapeau! :)

So, for the ones who didn't guess what "w or w/o grass" means:
With grass
Tonight my favorite soccer club plays the second leg against FC Getafe in the UEFA-Cup. First leg ends 1:1 and tonights game will be pretty exciting.
Without grass
Few days ago we got a tabletop soccer (I prefer the German word Kicker) at the office and yep, productivity went down (a bit). I'm predecting slight decreasing for the next month, followed by get crapped on and a rampant productivity for  at least 2 weeks. ;)

First big "Kicker-work out" will be tonight, for everyone getting the chop at our office-poker-night. Yep, we're playing Texas Hold'em w/o rebuy-in (I like that rule as I love to use the power of all-in *g*).

In short and correct time lapse:
Having some beer
Poker with my collegues (going to lose a fistful of Dollars ;) )
Having some beer
Kick it like Beckham anyone else could at the foosball.
Having some beer
Cheering for Munich

(but if things go well, I won't join the Kicker party and will have some extra bucks in my pants :D)

Polly will einen Cracker

...as any first post.

I'm going to spare you with this crap and just post sth I can laugh about.

What are you thinking about me right now, hm? :)