CityMama™

When my sister comes to visit...

it's delicious.

Perlini mozzarella makes the cutest caprese salad ever. This one has purple basil, parsley, and castelvetrano olives.

 

Meeeeeeat plate with an assortment of my homemade pickles. We try to ration the paté for the girls otherwise they'd be scraping it off the plate with just their fingers. They call it "the cheese that tastes like meat," and they can't get enough. I loved paté as a kid, too, so the fact that they like it gives me great pleasure!

Roasted pork loin with yellow kiwi, white peach, and tomato pico de gallo

It's our 15th wedding anniversary today, and I made this for dinner:

Bunny's dinner plate

Not for us (we went out to the restaurant where we had our wedding reception), but for my sister who volunteered to babysit for us tonight. Sisters who babysit deserve nice food, don't you think?

That's what sisters are for

My Chef Sister came for a little visit (she doesn't live too far) and this was our day yesterday:

• 11:00— dimsum snack (some shrimp dumplings and Shanghai pork balls)
• 1:30—ramen lunch: spicy kimchi ramen for me, BBQ pork ramen for her, shoyu ramen for the girls. While there we emailed pics of our ramen to our brother (who lives in a ramen-free city) who replied snidely, "I don't even like ramen." Liar!
• 6:00—Fresh Choice (we picked at mediocre salads and ate lots of soft-serve. We sucked it up because Bunny and Wallie love going there.)
• 10:00—a charcuterie sampler, sunchoke soup with black truffle emulsion, and a cheese plate at the Village Pub.  Plus a couple glasses of white wine, some 20 year old port, and two glasses of Tokaj from the friendly (female) bartender on the house. Best quote of the night: "Do you work in the restaurant industry?..We can tell by the way you ordered..." (It's the way we always order.)

As we sat at the bar we realized that we had eaten our way through the whole day. And we laughed. And we decided that no one else would get how awesome that is.

Then we rolled home and watched Tampopo. Cuz that's what you do if you are my sister and me.

And about 5:00 am I realized (or rather it was my stomach telling me) that perhaps that wasn't such an awesome day after all. (Or maybe the "Choice" wasn't so "Fresh" after all...) I sucked it up and did all the mom things I had on tap this morning and when I came home still feeling awful, I asked my sister if she wouldn't mind cooking two chickens for me to help me stock my fridge.

As I type this, there is a finished and yummy-smelling stewy chicken cacciatore on the back burner ready for the freezer, a roasted chicken sitting on the counter (we'll eat this tonight), and chicken stock at a bare simmer on the stove.

I love my sister!  ...and wish I got to see the rest of my family more.