Vile Weed!

It's been quite some time since I've done any real cooking. Since well before the holidays, even, I've been making very simple stuff. Pasta with store sauce, quickie grilled chicken. And those were the fancy meals. There have been many servings of buttered noodles and grille cheese.

So this was an itch I've been meaning to scratch. Luckily Zina, Sarah & Paul, and Jane were able to come over tonight for dinner and give it a sense of occasion. This did require some adaptation on my part; I had to add some vegetarian options, and even made a bowl of foul broccoli. But it all worked out pretty well; I went so far as to get wine, which I almost never drink myself (though it was left untouched this time).

It was a surprisingly easy meal to make. The entree was Monster Pork Chops, accompanied by Coconut Rice, Fettuccine with Brussels Sprouts and Pine Nuts, apple apricot sauce from Trader Joe's, and the aforementioned vile weed. Dessert was Gingersnap crumble ice-cream tart, with reinforcements from various other cookies. It seemed like the entire meal was well-received. But I especially enjoyed the evening for the company; it's been a while since I've had people over, and it was a welcome change. It helps that this was an especially fun group of people to bring together - very similar senses of humor, and all quite clever.

On a more professional note, I've started looking for symposia and calls for papers that I could submit my (still hypothetical) paper to. One good candidate came up in the latest Naval Engineers Journal: the West Coast Combats Systems Symposium. I checked the Call for Papers, and it says abstracts are due on February 31st. I assume that means they must be in their offices by a quarter past Never on the Eleventeenth of the next Triple Leap Year.