Chapter 21 (A Rainy-Day Dinner continued)

How It Tasted

Browned Hash

Filip: This tastes like hot beef jerky.

Hash [as defined by Oxford Living Dictionary]: A dish of cooked meat cut into small pieces and cooked again, usually with potatoes.

A dish of cooked meat cut into small pieces and cooked again, usually with potatoes.

A dish of cooked meat cut into small pieces and cooked again, usually with potatoes.

Ha. These cubes of beef and potatoes certainly qualified as leftovers—like bits scavenged from a Lego factory after a four-alarm fire. They tasted awful, looked worse, and my

Ha.Thesecubesofbeefandpotatoescertainlyqualifiedasleftovers—likebitsscavengedfromaLegofactoryafterafour-alarmfire.Theytastedawful,lookedworse,andmyHa. These cubes of beef and potatoes certainly qualified as leftovers--like bits scavenged from a Lego factory after a four-alarm fire. They tasted awful, looked worse, and my son and I were reduced to picking semi-edible nuggets of potato out of the mess on our plates.

Creamed Cauliflower

Neither Filip nor I are huge fans of cauliflower, but after struggling with that monstrous hash this dish was positively soothing. The white sauce effectively hid the strong taste of the vegetable, and we both had two servings.

Date Muffins

These muffins were surprisingly good—not at all rich despite the dried fruit in them. I never would have believed that sweet muffins would work as a meal’s main breadstuff, but these did—and a smear of butter made them even better.

Vegetable Salad with Celery Seed Dressing

One of the nicest things about this salad was that it livened up the inescapable beige-and-brown tone of all the other dishes.

The dressing itself was light and snappy, but it was something of a mistake using slabs rather than strips of (regrettably under ripe) green pepper as the salad’s base. Both Filip and I needed steak knives to hack the peppers to bits, and that alone made it almost more trouble than it was worth.

Apple Sauce Cake

This drab-looking cake was in fact very good, but by the time we arrived at this course my son and I were too full to eat more than a few bites.

Still, thanks to the applesauce and raisins the cake kept well, and over the next few days the whole dessert go eaten.

[Hot] Chocolate

Filip: Hot chocolate? Really?

Finding a steaming beverage on the table was something of a head scratcher for my son (it really was an incredibly warm day). But the chocolate was tasty despite the fact that I forgot to whip it with an eggbeater before serving—forgot too that a scoop of ice would made it perfectly suitable for such a hot and humid day.

Would I Make This Again?

Well…[shades of Ethel Mertz]

Of course the hash was an absolute disaster but, as so often happens, I feel strangely impelled to try again in an attempt to get it right.

The muffins and cake were great, and the chocolate would have been too had it not been such a blistering hot day.

In fact the heat put something of a damper on the whole meal. I’m sure we would have enjoyed everything (everything but that hash, of course) more had the weather been cooler. Heat + humidity = no appetite, I’m afraid—I could have saved a lot of time and trouble by just serving iced juice and popsicles.