THIRD WEEK:
I cook. I do. Not as often as I or my bank account would like, but I have been known to produce pretty unexpectedly awesome stuff from the kitchen when I put my mind to it (cinnamon burgers and Pineapple Thingie to name two).
But one thing I’ve never done is made an X-course meal, where X is some number larger than, say, 3 (appetizer, entrée, dessert. Done.)
So, Monday at noon, I emailed 6 friends and invited them to an 8-course dinner at 830PM. After sending invitations, I decided on the 8 dishes that I wanted to prepare. (Yes, I invited people to an 8-course dinner that I hadn’t planned yet. What of it? I’m an improviser; surely it couldn’t be that difficult to improvise an 8-course meal!)
The Menu:
Soup course: Green Pea Vichyssoise
Salad course: Caribbean-Chicken Salad (NOT Caribbean Chicken-Salad; ugh)
Pasta course: Creamy Bacon Carbonara
Fowl course: Grilled Chicken with Watermelon Salsa
Meat course: Maple-Bourbon Steak Tips on Roma Tomato Petals
Dessert course: Peppermint Ice Cream
Fruit course: Cranberry Relish
Cheese course: Grapes with Cubed Cheddar and That Marbly-Kind of Cheese, You Know the Kind I’m Talking About
A couple of things about these dishes:
The Plan:
Feel free to take a moment here to laugh at my naiveté.
Hubris has always been my heroic flaw.
First of all, I got out of work at 530PM. And then I spent a half-hour rushing around the produce section of Harris Teeter, cursing under my breath. At one point, I realized I had just spent 3 minutes walking up and down the organic produce aisle, mumbling, “Cilantro, cilantro, wherefore art thou, cilantro?”
…I don’t often cook things with more than four ingredients. Don’t judge me.
And all that was before I got to the rest of my shopping list. I finally got out of the grocery store at 6:35PM, and that was only because I had to get to The Meat House before they closed at 7PM, and so I gave up on several ingredients I just couldn’t find.
COOL FACTOID: You can’t buy fresh cranberries right now at Harris Teeter OR Food Lion.
Fruit Course: CHANGED.
I got home with all of my ingredients at 7:10PM:
No worries, I thought, I’m only 70 minutes off-schedule. How bad could it be? I pulled out my six full pages of recipes and began on the vichyssoise.
COOL FACTOID: I chose vichyssoise because I’ve been wondering about it ever since I saw this scene from Batman Returns.
A short while later, two separate guests showed up early, asking if I needed any help. And I smiled casually, shook my head, and said, “…Yes. Yes, right now, yes.”
Thus, the evening suddenly changed from Kit cooking 8 courses for his friends…to Kit cooking 8 courses WITH his friends. I have really awesome friends.
More guests showed up, and they had decided to further derail my plans by potlucking it up. Bringing a dish to an 8-course dinner? What were they thinking? Well, to make them happy (and for no other reason), I begrudgingly replaced two of my planned courses with these new additions.
Fowl course: CHANGED.
Dessert course: CHANGED.
Menu Update:
Soup course: Green Pea Vichyssoise
Salad course: Caribbean-Chicken Salad
Pasta course: Creamy Bacon Carbonara
Fowl course: Chicken Stir-Fry
Meat course: Maple-Bourbon Steak Tips with Watermelon Salsa on Roma Tomato Petals
Dessert course: Cherry Pie and Hand-whipped Cream
Fruit course: Berry-Apple Smoothies
Cheese course: Grapes with Cubed Cheddar and That Marbly-Kind of Cheese, You Know the Kind I’m Talking About
With the seven of us all collaborating, everything went smoothly (although my friend Sylvia did give me a dirty look when I asked her to blanch, peel and quarter a dozen Roma tomatoes, and my friend Ted did give me an exasperated sigh when I asked him to zest orange peels and then discovered the closest thing I own to a zester is a fruit knife, and my roommate Aaron did give me a smack upside the head when I referred to him throughout this column as ‘a friend I invited over’).
Anyway.
The rest of the evening was spent madly half-preparing a dish, running to the table to eat the previous course, finishing the next course, and repeating the process. Here are the results:
Note: I bet I’m the only person ever to make vichyssoise in a Ninja Blender.
Secondary Note: Also, we ate the soup course so fast, I didn’t get a photo of the finished product. These are the bowls after they’d been cleaned. It was the best I could do. It was really good. Although, due to time constraints, I didn’t serve it completely cold, which, as that clip from Batman Returns mentioned, is the entire point of vichyssoise.
Note: I don’t eat salads very often, but I’d make an exception for this one.
COOL FACTOID: I’ve never had vinaigrette dressing before. It’s really good with strawberries.
Note: Probably the long-term winner of the evening. I’m sure I’ll make watermelon salsa again, and vichyssoise is definitely a keeper, but this was both delicious and the kind of easy that defines my nightly dinner choices. Also, bacon. ‘Nuff said.
Note: My friends Sylvia and Matt brought this. It fit very well with all the other dishes, which vaguely makes me feel like they somehow cheated. Not complaining.
Note: Watermelon salsa sounds insane. Ignore that; it’s like tomato salsa without the acid. Also –a personal recommendation– use, like, a quarter of the recommended cilantro.
Secondary Note: It was, I admit, a little too much sweet for one dish. If I did it again, I’d go back to my original plan: savory grilled chicken with the sweet watermelon salsa, and sweet Maple-Bourbon Steak Tips with the salt-and-peppery Roma Tomato Petals.
Note: My friends Colin and Julia brought pie and a carton of heavy cream. Colin whipped the cream, and he gave me a disappointed look when I told him we didn’t have vanilla. I’m buying vanilla today. Don’t judge me.
Note: I make a lot of smoothies. This was one of the better ones. My secret: Use more strawberries than seems healthy. It hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
Secondary Note: That crazy thing in the middle is the blade-stem from my Ninja Blender.
…I own a thing called a Ninja Blender. Seriously, how cool is that?
Note: By this point in the evening, everybody was full and tired. We all just had one piece of marbly cheese each (Who eats the cheddar first? Weirdos, that’s who.) and headed home (Aaron had a shorter drive than most).
Quickly, Lessons Learned:
Now, on to a ten-course meal!
I, Kit FitzSimons, am an aspiring Experience Junkie; I’ll try anything once. Every week, something new. If you have suggestions for me, stories of your own, or want to join me on an adventure, let me know via email here.
http://chapelboro.com/columns/just-try-and-stop-me/8-course-is-8-course-of-course-of-courseIt’s true what KIit FitzSimons said in his article Climb It Control.
I have taken a Fifth Ape class. Yes – right there in the Forest Theatre, I ran and skipped and jumped up and down and across. And after at least twenty tries, succeeded in jumping off a wall and landing on a 2 by 4 without falling off of it. Yes – I stuck it. Like a gymnast. Well – sort of.
After that, I picked up a tree, put it on my shoulder and walked across the stage at Forest Theatre.
The crowd roared. Or it would have had there been one.
By the way – that’s not me in the photo but I looked kind of like that. Maybe a tad older.
And you know who else was there that day?
Chapelboro Fashion Plate blogger – Kristin Tucker.
Of course, her outfit was far more stylish than mine, but she stuck it too. And she carried a tree across the stage and once again the crowd roared.
From there we did loop-the-loops in a tree like monkeys.
It’s not fair though. We did NOT go to Coldstone Creamery for ice cream the way Kit’s class did. So that means I must go back!
Talk about good business….
Colin Pistell is mixing work and play – doing business he loves. Offering little tastes of it for free each Saturday morning. Building a community with his various meetups and potluck suppers.
And what about Kit?! What a fabulous way to celebrate life – with his commitment to trying a new experience each week and share it with the Chapelboro community.
In case you missed them, in his article, Kit shared these seven tenets of the official Experience Junkie:
What about trying a version of this in your business?
You could try a new process, a new package combo, a new kind of coffee in the coffee machine or a different color marker on the white board.
Or do something new like celebrate National Ice Cream Day on Monday. Or Lollipop Day on Friday. Or National Pickle Month. Ideas and more celebrations for July listed here.
What about sharing Kit’s article with your entire team? And then inviting them to share any new experiences they try at an upcoming staff meeting. Maybe some of them will decide to try something new together.
Or maybe the whole team could do something like attend a Fifth Ape session on Saturday morning, celebrate Stick Out Your Tongue Day (July 19) or climb a wall at The Triangle Training Center.
You wouldn’t have to do something new every week.
You could shoot for once a month.
Or once a quarter.
Or even just once could bring a shift, an aha or even a break through.
Breaking through barriers and boredom.
Bringing a boost in energy, confidence, morale, productivity and overall performance.
So that you and your team can do good business – better business.
Got any ideas for Experience Junkies to try?
Write them below in Comments section or send to Jan@Chapelboro.com
If you are a Chapelboro insider and read your email yesterday, then you already know of at least one person who is celebrating St Patrick’s Day this week.
That would be Digital Media Dynamo, Kit FitzSimons. Here’s an excerpt from his witty e-mail with the witty subject line: “Irish I May, Irish I Might”.
Top’o the morning to ya! St. Patrick’s coming, so you better be good for Guinness sake! …and while I know the big day isn’t until this Saturday, it’s been a while since my last visit to Aveda, so my Irish roots are showing. And that means a whole week of St Patty’s Day spirit for ol’ Christopher Michael Connor Thomas Danger Phelim Bailey FitzSimons! I, myself, will be celebrating by listening to some O.D.B., sipping on gin and uisce beatha, and spitting on Scotsmen. How ’bout yourself?
So — how ’bout yourself? What are you doing to celebrate St Patricks Day?
At my office, we’ve been celebrating by sharing snippets of Irish wisdom like this one:
Later in the week, we’ll be eating shamrock cookies. And with a little luck, drinking some green beer or lime sherbert floats.
Some of this – and some of Kit’s wit – is a bit silly, but you know what people say about laughter: that it’s the shortest distance between two people. And that it’s like a mini-vacation.
What a simple way to boost morale and productivity. And that’s good for business.
So how ’bout yourself? What will you do to celebrate?
Paste a shamrock on your window?
Treat everyone to shamrock cookies?
Share an Irish blessing or two?
If you need some of the latter, let me know. I’d be glad to share — even the ones about my grandmother’s teeth and frogs in your underpants.
If you have any good ones, let me know. I’d love to add them to our stash.
And if you are serving lime sherbert floats, let me know when to come over.
Luck of the Irish to you.
And a lot of laughter too.
PS Back in January, I wrote about the UNC Surplus Store and how they usually have athletic shoes in August. They have some NOW. Or at least they did yesterday around noon. 27 pair of Nike football shoes. Brand New. Sizes 13-16. Marked down to $15 per pair!!! This is bound to be lucky news for someone. So be sure to spread the word!
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