December 13, lunch dessert. A half of a chocolate cookie.
December 13, dinner. At Casa Vincente with Danny and MaryAnn, and Zobie and her friend Nina, and two other friends. They start there by bringing out little potatoes with a garlic aioli and hot sauce as a quick appetizer. Is "garlic aioli" redundant?
December 13, dinner, Casa Vincente. Breaded shrimp with a dusting of paprika and lemon.
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Lomo, pork loin, skewered with vegetables and grilled, with grilled vegetables under and a red cabbage slaw. Outstanding.
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Calamari in its own ink, filled, and served with rice. Wow. This was very tasty. Even if it was black. Maybe the best dish of the evening.
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Spinach tortilla, with slices of white asparagus
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Tortilla. Very good.
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Special of Chorizo sauteed in cider. Very, very good. Actually, outstanding.
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Monkfish with little shrimp. I actually wasn't overjoyed with this. Maybe I was getting full.
December 13, dinner, Casa Vincente. Sliced chorizo (cold), with pickles and potato salad. Traditional and good.
December 13, dinner. Casa Vincente. Large shrimp with garlic sauteed. Overall, I think that this needed more flavor. The shrimp were large and had a very neutral flavor and so something was needed to bring it up a bit.
December 13, dessert. At Casa Vincente. Chocolate cake. Wow. This was really outstanding. Layers of different cold and room temperature, with a Mexican-like chocolate flavor, caramel, and more. This was really good.
December 14, breakfast. The usual.
December 14, lunch. Challenged by Rose, I made a simple chicken noodle soup. I think it turned out great, even if I needed more stock to compensate for all the great ingredients (chicken, carrot, onion, celery, potatoes, peppers, and papardelle egg noodles)
December 14, lunch dessert. A Lindt dark chocolate truffle. Not really very good. Sorry.
December 14, snack. A bit of Ghiradelli chocolate "Espresso Escape." Pretty darn good, actually. Dark chocolate with finely ground espresso beans.
December 14, dinner. At Don and Barbara's with Jan, Dale, and Mom. Barbara made pork loin, baked potatoes, and asparagus, as well as cranberry sauce. I helped with the gravy. All very good!
December 14, dessert. The ugliest pie on earth. Jan made a home-made banana cream pie for her Dad's birthday and it didn't come out right---the filling did not set up at all. So it was just a gloopy mess. We tried to hide it under whipped cream, a bit of banana star and some decorative peel, but it still was ugly. Tasted good, though.
December 14, dessert. Home-made chocolate covered almonds. Don loves these, and Barbara buys them at Price Club and they're only mediocre with the chocolate they use. We made them at home using Scharffenberger chocolate and they turned out great.
December 14, dessert. A gin and vermouth martini, but no olive.
December 15, breakfast. The usual.
December 15, breakfast. Aboard flight from Tucson to Atlanta. I ate the bagel and fruit, but not the cereal. Boring, and not all that great.
December 15, dinner. At Acadiana, the "Louisiana Fish House" on 901 New York in Washington DC with Haig Colter. Starting with break, which was OK, and a butter that had honey and peppers on it, which was nice.
December 15, Dinner. With Haig at Acadiana. Fried Green Tomatoes, with shrimp and remoulade. Not the best fried green tomatoes I have ever had, but actually I have never had them very good. These were so thinly sliced that I couldn't tell there was much tomato in there. Mostly you taste the shrimp and sauce, and not anything of the tomatoes.
December 15, dinner. Appetizer: we split (along with the tomatoes and balls) this "trio of pies." A very cute idea. One was meat, very very good. One seafood was pretty good. And one was vegetarian, not all that good.
December 15, dinner. Boudin "Gas Station" Balls. Little bits of sausage, deep fried. Over spicy-but-not-hot peppers (good touch). Quite nice, although it's hard to not love deep-fried sausage.
December 15, dinner. At Acadiana with Haig. I had the seafood gumbo. A VERY most excellent roux. I think that this was a fine gumbo; I was thinking that it would be hard to improve it. Maybe more distinct seafood tastes, but that can be hard to do unless you throw them in 10 seconds before serving. Which is not impossible. Otherwise, an excellent choice.
December 15, dessert. An Abita Purple Haze Raspberry Wheat Brew. I felt very Jimmy Hendrix after drinking three of these. Fortunately, almost no taste of raspberries. This was a good beer.
December 16, breakfast. In my hotel room at the Grand Hyatt in Washington. I went downstairs and got a cappuccino and ice from Starbucks, as well as a scone. Made myself an iced cappuccino. Overmilked to be sure.
December 16, lunch. Lordy. The food at IT Roadmap keeps getting worse and worse. This was bad provolone cheese on a soggy roll with ice-cold turkey slices from something that resembled a turkey in another life. Couldn't finish it.