Guests

[snousle]

We had a full house this weekend. A couple of grad students from Germany, one of whom has been working with John at Vitalea Science, came and stayed on Saturday night, and they were joined by sinnabor and growler_south on Sunday night. Boy, Growler sure knows how to make things work in a kitchen. I got myself slightly impaired before dinner and he was a great assistant, particularly since all my running around had left me feeling pretty flattened to begin with.

I defrosted an abalone we had been given as a gift. Not the best example of its species, it had been in someone's freezer a rather LONG time, but breading and frying can rescue just about anything. Some of it was quite nice, about the texture of calamari, but about a third of it - the upper portion - was more like shoe leather. Thinking about what I might do with the other half, it came to me last night: mock tripe soup. Heh.

Having guests right now is highly educational though kind of odd. I'm constantly thinking about how it's going to work for paying clients, but that seems at odds with the way you want to host your friends. It's a curious tension, because there may not always be a clear distinction between the two. Ideally, there would be no difference; I'm trying to create an effortless, graceful, super-luxury environment, while keeping it completely non-intimidating so that everyone feels at home. Everything should seem to happen as if by magic, with no apparent effort on my part. (That might make someone feel guilty!) I'm particularly keen on figuring out how to arrange and provision the residential kitchen so that guests, whether they be friends or strangers, feel at ease foraging for themselves at breakfast and lunch. Anyway, the people that have visited so far have been excellent guinea pigs, and there are lots of little improvements to be made that become more obvious when you see them through other people's eyes. It's wonderful that so many people are willing to suffer on our behalf - getting through it all must be grueling. ;-)

Gotta do some software work this week, the days are going by really fast and there's a lot to get done.

Comments

[chefxh.livejournal.com]

getting through it all must be grueling. ;-)


yeah, call the waaaaahmbulance!

[gloeden.livejournal.com]

It seems like you want the experience to be like staying at the most wonderful private house, with the most gracious and discreet of hosts, whose staff is invisible but perfection.
I'd pay for that.