July 2009 - Adams (dt)

A thank you goes to Tim & Judy for all your efforts. More food kept piling onto the table, and we other six appreciate the caring, preparation and details that go into hosting our event.

  Summer 2009 Menu

Hors d’oeuvres

  
  • cheese (3 types)
  • crackers (3 types)
  • veggie (5) tray with dip
  •  red & green grapes
  • peanut butter filled pretzels
  • deviled eggs

Salad

  
  • a Teator salad with mixed greens, red cabbage, carrot shards, mushroom slices, dried cranberries, almond slices, beet slices, onion rings – dressed with Wild Thyme (Medusa) Mediterranean Balsamic

Main Course

  
  • pork tenderloin w/ BBQ sauce & blackberry jam marinade
  • flank steak w/ Catalina dressing marinade
  • a Monteverd eggy potato salad
  • green beans almondine
  • corn pudding (Aunt Claribel’s recipe)
  • finger rolls
  •  fresh made banana bread

Dessert
(a Deb Karnes splendor)

  
  • fresh made raspberry sorbet
  • turtle trifle (brownie chunks, Heath bars, pecans, caramel, whipped cream) (of course, a trifle dish presentation)

Drinks

  
  • wine (CS, PN)
  • Tanqueray & tonic
  • Heineken
  • soda

Laid back, relaxing, feel good, rewarding.
              The menu tells part of the story. The meats were grilled to our liking. The potato salad could have been the main course. The desserts, again, Deb Karnes, were top-notch, rivaling the best of what we see during DP8 dates. It all was home-made, country good.
              The other side is the fun that our company is. Our compatibility, even with all our different stories and inputs, is a quality we all treasure. Although the exploration of food experiences is what brings us together, it is clear that the “joie de vivre” is contributed and shared by each, and has become a benefit that beams in our re-tellings of what we do and are.

OK, a few more details.
             Tim and Judy hosted the Summer 2009 DP8 event. A forecast of rain to coincide with the start of our meeting came true and, thus, we gave up the idea of the deck’s lounge chairs. Even Chief Griller Tim, along with Assistant Chief Deb K, retreated to the garage door opening, with the smoke wafting into the wall of rain.
              As usual, we caught up on news of the past few weeks. The teaching crowd bemoaned that two summer weeks had evaporated and September was nudging just around the corner! Other topics included graduation parties, a new roof for the Monteverds, Deb working at Nathan’s (with pics available), vacations coming up soon, busy schedules, work, day trips, and on it went, with a whole list of stuff that is our lives. Some where in there ...
              Innuendoes ... The guffaws and giggles would have put middle-schoolers to shame!
             Somewhere, we took time to recall the most memorable moments of our 80 dates, culinary (only two of the 11) or otherwise. So, the eleven Top Ten were:

·      the bikers at Point Lookout, who did not scare the waitress as much as her boss
·      the humungous plate of chateaubriand delivered head high at the Bears’
·      Mrs. “Bears” little black book
·      the extra hors d’oeuvres at Aubergine
·      Chay’s thoughtful delivery of tulips at American Hotel
·      bugs crawling over everything (including inside the salt shakers) at Palmer House
·      games of chance at Last Chance
·      the Caesar salad (or not a Caesar salad) at Fernwood
·      Stewart’s coming to the rescue for dessert (at least three times)
·      Magnolias and South Carolina – the bike ride in the thunderstorm
·      wet hors d’oeuvres, and swimmers staying in the Monteverd pool during a thunderstorm

Somewhere around local news time, our 80th date broke up and we drove home into the next round of thunderstorms.