Dinner with a Friend

As I shared a few posts ago, we had dinner with our dear friend Chuck last evening.  Chuck is an excellent cook, and so it's always fun to see what's for dinner when he makes it.

Mike and Chuck met way back in 1982 when they were both working for the same company.  The company never really amounted to much, and since it's still in existence, I won't mention the name of it.  In any case, they were building one of the first head-up display systems for landing aircraft in zero visibility conditions.  This involved the use of some of the first holographic technology, and their little company (with fewer than 100 employees) ended up as a part of the cover story for National Geographic magazine.  Pretty cool, huh?  I just did a search of the NatGeo website to see if I could find any reference to it, but things that happened during the 14th Century don't generally make the cut.  Unless it involves something you read about in your high school history textbook.  Generally, that falls under the category of things involving killing and maiming entire populations of people because of their religion.  But I won't go there.

This is Chuck.

And that's Mike's head.  He's such a camera hog.

I told him to sit back and pour himself another glass of wine.

This is Chuck's cat, Felix.  He's a Bengal and he has the softest coat.  And beautiful eyes!  A friend of ours was breeding Bengals for a while and so Chuck ended up with one of her kittens.  Felix is such a sweety, but he is quick!  I took about ten pictures with my phone just trying to get one that was in focus.  Here's one of the rejects:

Yeah.  You can see why there aren't more pictures of Felix in this post.  

In any case, Chuck is the recipient of the Dave's Not Here quilt that I made last summer.

So this is what Chuck made for dinner last night.  He called it Bangkok Bird . . . it's a chicken quarter in a delicious marinade.  Also, we had a curry rice dish and some kale sauteed in garlic and olive oil.  The whole meal was really delicious.  And I loved the way he prepared the kale.  I'm going to try that at home.  So simple, yummy, and healthy!  (I don't know about you, but I'm especially fond of healthy food that is also yummy.  Such a rare find.  Yummy food is generally not healthy.  The mind reels with what else I could say about unhealthy but yummy food.  But I won't go there.)  

Say hello to our food, just before we devoured it:

And . . . just to show you that I am the queen of unhealthy but yummy foods, here is the Key Lime Tart I made . . . now cut to show you how you can't mess up a crust when you bake something in a tart pan.

Pretty, huh?  We each ate two pieces, and then there were two pieces left.  Those were in Chuck's refrigerator last time I saw them.  I don't think I'll be seeing them again.

Now I had this up and published on my blog, and then remembered I had forgotten one little item, to wit:  A few of you took issue with my use of regular limes in my "Key Lime" tart.  One of you has issued something of a challenge about the taste of regular limes vs. Key limes.  And since this one of you just happens to have lime connections, she's talking about sending me a bag of Key limes so that we can see which tastes better.  So, if she comes through with the drugs limes, I'll host a Lime Smackdown Event.  I'll make two Key Lime Tarts so that we can do a side-by-side taste test.  I just know you'll be marking your calendars for that eventuality.  More later.

So there you go.  The Farmer's Market and Dinner With Chuck, all in the same day!  I just got up, but thinking about all that excitement makes me so tired that I think I need a nap.  Or maybe just another cup of coffee.