Playing with Fire

Tuesday night, a few people came over for dinner. I had asked Hugh what he wanted, since I didn't have any ideas, and he said pasta. I had some smoked salmon at home my parents brought me from Alaska, so I decided to use that. I found a recipe online for pasta with a smoked salmon vodka cream sauce, which sounded really good. And even better, you got to light the vodka on fire, which sounded fun in a sort of dangerous kind of way. So I chose that one.

Around 7:30, I realized I didn't really know how to light the vodka on fire without killing myself or setting other things on fire, too, so I called my mom. She said to take it off the heat, and use a long match. I didn't have any long matches, so I called Hugh and asked him to stop at the store on his way over and get some. Even with the long matches, I was still a bit nervous about lighting the thing on fire. So Hugh did it. And he did not light himself or anything else on fire, which is fantastic.

The instructions said to let the flame burn until it went out. But it just seemed to be getting bigger, not going out. And things like tomatoes that were already in the sauce seemed to be burning. So Jan took control, and he decided to blow the flame out.

I swear, I did the rest of the cooking, and did not make my guests cook their own dinners! I think it turned out ok, but maybe I shouldn't pick recipes because they sound dangerous anymore.

Ze Pigs with Ze Black Feets

Last night, I went to dinner with two others who are in town from the Washington office as well. We went to a restaurant I have been to several times before, specifically chosen by me for their delicious chocolate mousse.

Anyway. One of the others wanted the pork, but I wasn't sure of the exact translation of some of the items listed as being on the plate, so she asked the waiter when he took our order.

In English, he says, "Oh, you know, it's ze pig. Ze pigs from Spain. With ze feets. [he makes a little hoof out of his hand] Ze feets are black. Is very good."

I thought at first that he was saying the dish was made out of pigs' feet. My colleague apparently did too, because her eyes got pretty big. But she bravely ordered it anyway. I finally realized that what he meant was the MEAT came from these pigs with the black feet, not that they would be serving feet.

There were no feet on her plate.