Mother's Day

started out with a return to church for Pentecost; lovely flowers in red and white on the altar. Not red for Pentecost, but red and white for Mother's Day. I didn't realize this, but you wear a red corsage on the right if your mother is living , but white on the left (over your heart) if your mother has died. I had never heard of this tradition, but did see someone in the pew in front of me wearing a white one.

I did my altar guild duties and was rewarded with some fresh pineapple at coffee hour. (We had a lively altar guild luncheon on Saturday, during which I learned some interesting tidbits about local lore, local notable gossip, and where the best bars around town used to be.)

Then home, where I began to make an incredibly aromatic sauce (using giblets, cracked wings, red wine, carrots, onion, bay leaf, thyme, etc.) for my much-anticipated Mother's Day duck dinner, to be accompanied by sumptuous butternut squash, creamy mashed potatoes, and green beans with a squeeze of lemon.

Or so I thought.

Just as I began the oven heating, the ENTIRE house was sunk into darkness, all machines sighing off. We called the electric company (no idea, ma'am . . .), waited an hour, then went out for Mother's Day pizza. Sigh. And returned to the evening gloaming, still in darkness.

Dinner last night

About a month ago I spied Tyler's Ultimate in the library and, having seen him on the Foodnetwork, decided to take it out. Nothing to lose with a library book. We watch some of these food shows regularly, although D always gets Tyler and Bobbie Flay confused, Tyler being the "nice Bobbie Flay."

Anyway, we made several things from this book, and sadly had to return it. We ended up buying a copy, and last night we made Scallop Saltimbocca, which tasted amazing.
We followed the recipe, which included sauteing apples at the end (what?) and had a very tedious prep of wrapping each scallop in a piece of prosciutto and then tying it on with a string. If you have a spare half hour during which you don't mind doing this, I heartily recommend this recipe.

Second in a series:

Dinner: broiled salmon, rice, green beans, bean and celery salad, lime pickle