use real butter

Perfect morning. Not too cold, the four days of wind we’d endured finally died down, and sunshine. No crowds to speak of, we never waited in line. And from the top, we could see tons of great places to hike and ski and all of that good stuff.

A day to unwind, quilt, rent movies, and cook.
Tonight I made seared scallops for dinner. I made bouillabaisse too, but this is something that takes a day to age the flavors, so we’ll be having it for xmas dinner, without all of the work.

Tomorrow is Christmas AND a Sunday. You know what that means… Empty slopes in the morning – except for all of the other heathens.

Wow, what a day. I had a phone meeting at 10 am and then at 11:15 an email goes out from our president telling us that our offices will close at noon so everyone should go home. Those of us who came to work sort of felt like it was a freebie. Jeremy drove down to get me and we set off for a small lunch and running of errands including getting an All Clad 3-quart saucepan (something I’ve been eyeing for over 8 years) and buying a lot of seafood for our bouillabaisse. That seafood would be: grouper filet, two lobster tails, six giant shrimp (I mean giant as in mini-lobster or langoustine size), 1/2 lb. wild manila clams, 1/2 lb. black mussels, 1 lb. giant dry scallops (don’t ever buy water-injected – that is just gross). We brought coolers to keep all of the perishables on ice while we wandered over to L’Absinthe for our restaurant review.

Jeremy told me tonight that the act of “reviewing” our dining experience really makes him appreciate the food and concentrate on details that he might otherwise ignore if we were just “eating out”. The analysis doesn’t seem to get in the way of the pure pleasure of eating well-prepared foods.