use real butter

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.

l’absinthe

**Jump for more butter**

Being relatively new to the Boulder restaurant scene, I had polled my coworkers about good places to eat in town. Nicole immediately piped up and said, “I love Jax!” If someone else had said that, I might be take that recommendation with a grain of doubt, but not with Nicole – she is that rare being who says what she means, knows what she likes and dislikes, and doesn’t waste time in between. Righto then!

jax fish house

**Jump for more butter**

We have begun our orange cream soda research and already, I am about to pass out from the sugar rush…

Unfortunately, the first three candidates were all natural. Although I love natural and organic foods, when you are looking for orange cream soda, you are very obviously not giving a damn about the amount of artificial ingredients pumped into the bubbling liquid. And of the two most recent acquisitions (pictured above) one is a Tangerine Cream and the other sucked. I’ll have to formalize all of this at some point. I’ve had better orange cream sodas – I know they are out there.

masago with quail egg, rock cod nigiri

Dinner out tonight – at Ai! Hiro was working (which he didn’t used to on weekends). Fumito did up some beauties for us and made them extra pretty b/c he knew I was photographing the food for my sushi page. I love those guys.