Well, I think I've finally recovered from New Year's Eve...the original plan was to keep things quiet and stay in Ballard - we managed to do the opposite.
We went to Lake Union, and Justin cooked dinner for about 25 people at his friend/partner Mike's houseboat. It was really fun - we sat Moroccan style around long tables dotted with magnums of Barabaresco! The center piece was a Serrano ham from Spain, with the hoof - who needs flowers?!? (pictured in my photo album). We celebrated midnight with the corner-suite lake view of the fireworks and a magnum of 1996 Drappier - which was even "taken to the head" by those who shall remain nameless - though I'm sure there are a few pictures floating around somewhere... (at some point early on - perhaps after my 2nd aperitivi of Lillet and blood oranges - I put my camera down, and never picked it back up - hopefully I can get more pics from someone). This picture is a New Years gift I made for Mike - I took an empty bottle of Barbaresco and filled it with "good luck" lentils - a tradition in Italy. I lost the cork so I stuffed the top of the bottle with fresh bay leaves - which made it pretty and fragrant!
Justin's New Year's Eve Menu:
- Antipasti - serrano ham, sottocenere cheese, parmigiano reggiano
- Salad of King Crab, avocado, and arugula
- Pian Pianino lasagne
- Roasted leg of lamb with bagna cauda and cardoons
- Grilled skirt steak with baby turnips
- imported tiramisu
Why do we do it???
I think we just like to torture ourselves... Justin and I went to the Hi-Life again for breakfast on New Years Day. Besides Mother's Day, New Year's Day is the busiest brunch day of the year. I am very aware of this, and I walked into the hi-life knowing that we were going to have to wait. Unfortunately, even though I was trying to have a good attitude about it, our hostess was not... in fact, she was being a total bitch to every customer there. If we weren't so hungry, we would have just left. It was like we were putting her out just by giving our name for a table - I didn't even ask how long the wait was going to be! She finally disappeared for about 15 minutes, and obviously took some "happy pills", because I think I actually saw her smile at someone. If you hate dealing with people that much, please go work in the back of the house! We did manage to think ahead a little and avoid the usual coffee debacle - we went to Verite across the street - so smart!
We were in that extreme grease-needin' hungover state, so we ordered a cheeseburger and the Italian Farmhouse Scramble (the only breakfast dish that is consistently good - except this time the toast wasn't toasted, just warmed). The burger came adorned with 2 white, hard as rocks tomatoes, and limp, half-cooked fries. We also had 2 bloody marys (a little hair of the dog). The celery in mine was dirty. Again, I know its a busy day, but please don't give me crap! The cooks didn't look like they were sweatin' too hard, so I think they could have spent an extra 10 seconds looking at the food they were sending out, and saying to themseves, "does that look delicious?" The answer would have been NO.
3 for the price of one
After brunch, we went over to Majestic Bay to see King Kong. I was really looking foward to it, as I hadn't heard one bad review. We were pretty disappointed. It was like 3 movies rolled into one: Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and a splash of King Kong. After I was finished being grossed out by some of the fight scenes, I just started laughing, because they were so ridiculously, gratuitously long! And, as much as I like Jack Black, the delivery of his last line, which was also the last line of the movie, was weak. It really killed it for me. Positive note: Kong, himself, was very realistic and well done.
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