Too Much (Amelia) Cook in the Kitchen

My brother’s birthday, as it does every so often, fell on Father’s Day this year (so did my father-in-law’s birthday, but we are celebrating that next weekend) and my parents were in town, so we had a lot to celebrate yesterday.  I don’t know how it is in your family, but in mine, celebrations generally require food.  Good food, and lots of it. 

 

Being his birthday, Leland got to choose the dessert, and he chose lemon meringue pie.  Tony, being one of the dads in the equation, chose dinner, and he chose steak and garlic mashed potatoes.  My parents were in Hawaii until Saturday night, so my dad didn’t really get a say in the preparation, but he loves garlic mashed potatoes so I knew it would all be okay with him.

 

I married into a good last name, because I LOVE to cook.  Before those rascally kids who demand so much of my attention came along, I cooked elaborate meals all the time (Tony and I also ate a TON of pasta, though, so it wasn’t all gourmet up in here).  And baked goods.  I’ve never been great at making bready things, like cinnamon rolls, but I have a talent for pies and cakes and cookies.

 

But do you know how time-consuming it is to make a lemon meringue pie?  And then to cook a meal for five adults and two children on top of that?  I had mom’s help, and I was still in the kitchen all day long! (It all turned out perfectly, by the way.)

 

Today, I am cooking in quantity once again, but this time it’s for charity.  For the first year, our Rotary club offered a dinner-a-month-a-year item at our annual auction, and I volunteered to cover one of the months.  Two dinner-a-month-a-years were sold, and I’m doing them both on the same day to save myself some time and effort.  Here’s the menu:

 

Salad with chevre, almonds, blueberries, and a honey-balsamic vinaigrette

Pork Ragu (recipe here, scroll to the second from the bottom) with polenta

Molten chocolate cakes

 

Sounds pretty good, right?  The ragu is one of my favorite recipes, something I could eat all the time, and it looks really good, too.  But oh boy, it takes a long time.  I’m going to be cooking for the rest of the afternoon.