Day before New Year’s Eve and I can actually say with total exuberation: Welcome New Year!
Last night, a friend of mine threw a pre-New Years’ Eve Party. How cool is that? As a single woman with plans to hang out with my 24 year old daughter and her boyfriend New Years’ Eve (and I am actually looking forward to that), I can tell you ~ it really was quite the gift! I mean, we all want to attend a party, don’t we? And to not be forced to kiss someone you don’t know or maybe don’t like? A GIFT I tell you! A gift!
So you know, Chef Marian comes to a party…… dressed with an apron over the fancy outfit ready to help. And lucky for my dear friend (keeping her name private, to respect her privacy), whose hair and makeup were in the process of fixing, I came, I saw, I conquered! lol
And before I knew it the food was set on platters, all the prep work was done, and my friend had a little breathing space…. for actually moments at a time!
There was eating. There was drinking. There was music. There was dancing. THIS was a party my friends!
Luckily, the rainy night didn’t stop people from coming. And lucky for me in particular, I got an ‘invite’ to spend the night! So we had a great time and at the end there were 6 of us left, to finish getting the house and kitchen back into order. As we cleaned, I started harmonizing and singing xmas carols and as you might guess, everyone joined in. What a wonderful way to end an evening.
This morning…. I made a beautiful frittata with potatoes, onions and tomatoes. (I linked this frittata to Martha Stewart…. hey! It’s a good thing! But my recipe is somewhere on this blog. You’ve heard of ‘Where’s Waldo’? Well this is…… “Where’s the Chef’s Frittata”. Go look for it)!
As we all sat around the table (people were blurred to protect their privacy) we had that wonderful feeling of next day hangovers… umm…. I mean, of a job well done. We all had a ‘real good’ time!
The conversation turned to ice cream. Yeah. All I had to do is start talking about the fact that I am doing a ‘cleanse’…. (which to me is eating well -Protein, Fruits and Veggies)…. and YES! Of course! The next logical topic was ice cream. It was very funny how one couple reacted. The wife said: “My husband’s favorite thing is ice cream”. He responded: “I don’t eat ice cream that much”. But as the conversation progressed and he went into the detail of how a pint, or it might have been a quart of ice cream is eaten and totally disappears in one sitting, you knew he was the expert. This was NOT his first rodeo!
Here’s what he said: “Once you take a spoonful, you have to keep eating to even off the rest of what’s inside the container”. Really? Really? Is that how the ice cream disappears? With intention of ‘pretty’ for the next guy? If in fact, you don’t make it thru the entire container? lol
And after you’ve ‘leveled off’, then what? One more bite is not just one more bite, because it’s a ‘go around’ to make sure the rest of the carton is leveled off! What a racket! (And it sounds so yum)!
But my friend Larry, who I met with later today took this to another level…. another ‘planet’ of bad health!
Looks like the cat that swallowed the canary…. yes? —–>
That’s how joyful Larry is, thinking about a Banana Split. We all know that ice cream has a significant place in our childhood, and he’s no exception!
When I told him about the party and the ice cream he said: “Of course! But you have to eat around the edges because it gets softer first, then make your way to the middle”.
Who knew?
With that, I proceeded to tell him about my childhood and Mallowmars. “We would crack the chocolate top and eat that off, then pull off the marshmellow top (that was below it) and eat that. THEN, we would eat around the bottom cookies edges because there was a chocolate edging from where the marshmellow joined the cookie. Then, take the cookie dip it in milk and eat it. YES my friends! It too was a process!
But back to Larry: his thing is Banana Splits.
Here’s how he tells it: ” The perfect banana split has a pineapple topping. The banana should be cut up into little pieces on the bottom – definitely NOT layering it, because the ice cream needs to nestle in between the pieces. So you’ve got your 3 scoops of ice cream (vanilla, strawberry and chocolate, right)”?
But not Larry. He prefers Vanilla, Chocolate Chip Mint and Chocolate. Are we talkin’ Baskin Robbins here? And can you take me next time? lol
So then we have the next dilemma: Do we put the scoops in order of lightest to darkest? Or does chocolate take center stage? And I really love a little brownie underneath and hot fudge on top of my chocolate chip mint. A new creation? Well, this one will have to wait for another day.
Long ‘fun’ spoons and the ‘duel’ is on! En garde!
(Did you ever hear someone talk about NOTHING for sooo long? Hey! I could have written Seinfeld)! lol
Happy Eating!
See you next year!
Chef Marian
mm@chefmarian.com