Along for the ride

My friends at work gave me a wonderful cookbook called Cooking From the Heart, which features stories and recipes contributed by 100 well-known chefs as a benefit for Share Our Strength, an anti-hunger organization. Two of my favorite things in one book: food and stories!

In the foreward to the book, Richard Russo (who wrote, among other great books, Empire Falls) wrote this: "Who has not had the experience of being enchanted by a bottle of wine only to discover, the very next time we order it, that it's not what we remember? What made the first bottle special, of course, was that you drank it in the company of good friends. Or your children were visiting. Or your wife, you realize, has never looked more beautiful than tonight. What you were tasting was the flavor of excitement, of intimacy, of sharing, of joy, of well-being, of love. The grapes were just along for the ride."

Reading that paragraph, and looking through the book quickly, reminded me of how much I cherish the wonderful meals we have had with good friends and family. Just last week we spent the evening talking and laughing over a meal of london broil (from Hendricks farm), served with a delicious salad with roasted garlic dressing, spiced pecans, and maytag blue cheese (which I substituted for gorgonzola); and a yummy potato gratin with caramelized onions, which I found in Sally Schneider's A New Way to Cook. We finished it off with one of our favorites, an upside down pear and gingerbread cake.

The food was good. The company was great!

Meanwhile, I've been reading three books without finishing any of them, so I'll catch up on them in the blog shortly.