I wish I was the Naked Chef

Perhaps I should start off to say that Kev’s B-day was a nice, low-key intimate affair.

I spent Friday evening dressing $60 CDN Prime Rib Roast. Triple A, Canadian Beef, Baby!

In hindsight, I wished I had taken some before and after pictures of the food.

I showed Jen my workplace on the way to meet Clem and Leo (and John, Ann and Dominic) at Spezzo’s. They were finally graduating from Kinesiology at Waterloo. Congrats to both of them! Clement is in Chiropractic College and Leo is in Medical School.

On the menu for Saturday evening:

• Salad: Baby spinach leaves and a spring melange, topped with Sautéed Red Pepper, Canadian Chevré (Goat Cheese), and Walnuts. Dressed in a Balsamic Vinegrette
• Main Course: Garlic and Butter Stuffed Prime Rib Roast with Honey-Red Wine Deglaze, served with roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes, roasted honey-glazed Butternut Squash, and French-style asparagus (wrapped in Bacon).
• Dessert: (prepared by Ruth Tshin) Hand-made Chocolate Truffles and Birthday Cupcakes with lemon icing.

I have to admit, I really did outdo myself.

I also avoided some near-disasters (well, culinary disasters at least).

I had intended to make Mashed Potatoes. However, I realised that I had forgotten to bring milk after I had boiled the potatoes. You can’t have mash without milk or cream. So I decided to roast the potatoes in the bacon drippings from the asparagus (French-Style).

The second “near-miss” was the deglaze. Normally I make the “gravy” with beef-stock. However, I wanted to get fancy and used Red Wine (that Nirvan had been so kind to purchase at my request) instead. Once the alcohol had been boiled off. I was left with a red-wine, mashed onion, baked garlic-reduction. It tasted horrible! Very bitter and acerbic. So out of desparation, I added about 4 good squeezes of honey. That really “mellowed” the taste. Hence the “honey and red-wine” deglaze. In hindsight, perhaps something like Quantro or Cherry would have been a better choice. Hmmm..

The roast turned out spectacular. Nice and pink, but not overly red.

The only thing that I didn’t really like was the aparagus. The bacon really overpowered the asparagus. It really weighed down the pallette in my opinion. A better choice would have been to go with steamed/blanched aspargus in butter. We could have had the bacon for breakfast.

Here are some pics of the food:

Special thanks to Ruth for making dessert (she wasn’t able to stay for dinner). Special thanks to Nirvan and Florence for putting the salad to plate.

My Temperamental Mistress

Kev, Flo, Cris and I played golf immediately after check-in. It was an 18-hole course, par 4. It was DAMN COLD to play golf. Not only that, but we were sucking eggs out there.

We only played 9 holes of golf, and had a dubious “challenge” hole on the 10th. If your count only 1/2 course, I would have won. However, with the 10 hole, I got stuck in the “mother of sand traps” and added about 12 strokes to my game.

So the B-day boy won.

The challenge hole was at first “doing cartwheels”—I’m quite good at that, having done many when I was young. I even atempted a one-arm cartwheel. We decided to spin around our clubs until dizzy and then take our shot. We all shot poorly, except for Cris who had a great shot (dead straight) and ended hitting her best hole that round with a double-bogey.

I have some video tape of the “challenge”. I’ll upload that as soon as I can.

They want me to join the “boys” class

Sunday was a rush to Jen’s dance class (I did not go willingly). I sat through the entire dance class. With all of Jen’s balance bar work, I now realise why she always wants me to massage her calves after dance practice. Damn…I definitely can’t do what she was doing. I’m especially impressed with the women in the class…they range from mid-30s to late 40s. They’re in great shape…extremely flexible.

While I was there, the dance instructor tried to convince to join the “boys” class.

Uh, no.

-T