Hair of the Dog Party Report

For herring, the herring selection this year was slim at Ingebretsen's and here. I only had: Pickled, Pickled with dill, picked with dill and sour cream, pickled with sour cream, and pickled with wine sauce. No pickled herring in curry, tomato, or mustard sauce! They all vanished except for some sauce and some onions. I bought new square bowls for the herring to prevent a tipping problem that I've observed. I had no idea that pickled fish could be so active, but no spillage occurred this year.

For olives, the olive selection was a bit the same, six or seven types.

For veggies, Lund's had cauliflower, which I usually don't buy because it's rather dear, at 2 for $6, so I bought two. Guess what nobody ate during the day? Along with that, radish, baby carrots, celery, fennel, cucumbers, and red and yellow peppers, and green onions, which I like with pate. I also pickled carrots and daikon. Tamzen cut up the celery, fennel, and more, which I picked up during the morning bread and duck run. Thanks, Tamzen! There wuz Brussels sprouts, but they never made it to the stove or the table. Nor did the baby multi-colored taters. (I never did get any little sweet peppers that I love roasted in duck fat.)

For people, everybody that arrived at three helped load the table. That'll learn 'em. Most people left around ten, which is the customary, O I Wuz Up Late Last Night, time. One person arrived around ten and so I stayed up until Quite Late drinking green Portuguese wine. One person left a pair of shoes, but they were picked up today. How they got to their car, I'll never know.

For dips, I had the usual: guacamole, dill, taramasalata (tater base), hummus, fava bean pâté, and clam/crab. (The fava pâté might have been a wee bit heavy on the garlic.) I labeled all of the dips, and all that was left of the taramasalata was a bit holding up the label. I ran through six avocados worth o' guacamole. (Nobody ran screaming from the house and shoved their face in the snow, so I guess the second batch wasn't that much hotter than the first.)

For bread, I had two large loaves and a baguette from the French Meadow, a boule and a baguette from Lunds, with two bake-to-finish loaves from Lunds if we ran short. Early in the day, I toasted off some pita bread. Lime corn chips, red hot blue corn chips, and a wide selection of crackers and digestive biscuits provided backup. I had two packs o' gluten free, which I coulda used today, but nobody asked for them. The two backup baguettes and about half a large loaf are the survivors.

For pâté, I had a two-pint batch of my chicken liver mousse. (I did take some of it over to friends the night before.) About two-thirds got eaten. I also had duck mousse and pâté de campagne from Surdyk's, but it remained forgotten in the backup cheese bag. The forgotten liver pâté from Ingebretsen's remained with the other smoked whitefish in the upstairs upstairs fridge. It's quite good.

For meat, two store bought juicy ducks (without juice) and one duck, whirled all from Shuang Hur. No oven door incident this year, and only one piece o' duck left at the end of the night. I made one batch of Swedish meatballs with dill sauce. A few meatballs were left at the end of the night. (A juicy duck, I finally figured out after a long time o' duck eating, is sewn up and filled with spiced liquid while it's roasted. You can also buy them spatchcocked, but they ain't as juicy. Somebody only likes juicy or whirled duck.)

For fish, I put out one piece of smoked salmon early in the day, and the first smoked whitefish at some point. (All from Ingebretsen's) It got mostly picked clean, except for a few bits around the gills, which I ate quite late in the night. The second smoked whitefish remained in the upstairs upstairs fridge with the forgotten pâté. I had, but did not put out, smoked mussels and oysters.

For cheese, I had the cheese from Bill's Imported Foods and the Lake Wine & Spirits Cheese Shop put out first: Truffled goat, aged manchego, goat gouda, aged gouda, Roquefort, Montrechet, and a cheddar. Somehow, looking at the cheddar caused me to forget the Sparkenhoe Red Leicester that was hiding in the backup bag, along with the Comte Doux Reserve, Delice de Bourgogne, black truffle gouda, Fromager d'Affinois goat, and Livarot Coupe, that was in the backup bag with duck mousse and pâté de campagne.

For munchies, I made a ginormous batch of Chex Mix and scattered it all over the house. A bag of mixed nuts made it out to the table, and somebody filled a bowl with peanuts.

For dessert, I made a Clementine cake in the morning. I baked in the surviving 10" spring-form cake pan. The cake vanished at some point during the day, along with Pamela's shortbread, half of a quite large chocolate panettone, and most of a large plate of Xmas cookies. The cake and shortbread vanished before I got a piece, and you people will pay for this! (I'm just now sure how...)

For drinks, there was a lotta soda, a bunch of, err, inexpensive wine, some bubbly, a case of Woodchuck Cider I bought that never got touched, a case of Angry Orchard Cider that rvrjoe775 and Drewan brought, my Guinness, and some rather well aged bheer in the upstairs upstairs fridge that I don't think anybody found. At least one bottle o' Guinness was consumed. For a brief flurry, Someone made coffee drinks with a rum that Susan brought. I had been harvesting the main fridge ice, so I had a ton and the upstairs upstairs fridge was full of ice too. So, of course, like the cauliflower, we never used any...

For labels, I used my label printer, now that the driver works. I stuck a toothpick in between the label backing and the label. It worked fine. today I figured out that I could put pictures of ducks, goats, and cows on the labels. Good for fhans, I thought, although we read everything.

The late, lost, and forgotten, somehow, besides being late as always, I left the backup cheese in the fridge. Along with the two pâtés from Surdyks, and I left the pâté from Ingebretsen's in the upstairs upstairs fridge with the smoked whitefish. Smoked oysters. Smoked mussels. Sesame Brussels sprouts. Baby Taters. Baby Peppers in duck fat. The goat butter, which I usually buy at Bill's Imported Foods, had morphed into Gjetost, or at least that's what Mrs. Bill pointed me toward. The backup cheese was served at the backup Christmas party today, and is on the way to a theater where, I hope, thespians will consume it away. The pate and the second whitefish also went, but I brought them back, and I'm eating the pâté right now on crackers, or at least I was before I started adding all these goddamned links and things... I'm hoping davidschroth will stop by so I can load him up with a gallon (-) o' whole milk and a boatload of Diet Coke.