My plate runneth over.

[rivka]

Lots of good food happening in the last day or two. curiousangel and I went to the Purple Orchid last night and had their notorious cream of crab soup, followed by some decent but forgettable sushi and a truly glorious mango creme brulee.

(I can never have creme brulee without wishing I had one of those little torches. It's not even my favorite dessert - although the mango version was delicious - but having the torch would be so cool.)

This afternoon I took minnaleigh around to look at apartments in Gaithersburg. On the way back we stopped at Niwano Hana, a sushi bar that therealjae had found in Zagat's. (I Googled for "Niwano Hana" to see if I could link to a review, only to find that it appears to be owned by the Unification Church. Huh.) They had some really fun, imaginative rolls - for example, the "dynamite roll," with spicy tuna, salmon, yellowtail, and something else, was rolled into narrow cylinders and dusted with red pepper, with a sprout for the "fuse." Unfortunately, we didn't see the "greenpeace roll" on the list of specials until after we'd ordered. It had, of all things, kiwi, cream cheese, and tuna. We were really curious, but when we tried to order it afterwards the waitress refused to put the order in, claiming that they were already closed.

(We considered going to Jeepers, because their slogan - "Food, fun, and a monkey!" - simultaneously terrified and intrigued us. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out just how monkeys might figure into their service. I still think it's a great concept. As someone named Newsgoat says,

"Food, fun, and a monkey!" Talk about marketing genius! You can go anywhere for food, or fun, or some combination of the two. But, throw in a monkey, and now you've got something! It makes me wonder how many years they struggled, only offering food and fun, until someone with some business sense thought, "...And a monkey!" And, all of a sudden, they're living the American dream...

Also, Jeepers had something called the "Tiny Rhino Diner," which was hard to resist. But we weren't sorry that we had sushi instead.)

Now I'm home. wcg and curiousangel are both napping. I've got a chicken roasting in the oven, stuffed with two lemon quarters, six large peeled cloves of garlic, and four sprigs of rosemary. I don't think I've ever cooked a whole chicken before - I'm usually just cooking for two people, and besides, whole chickens are so animal-shaped - so I'm not sure how much flavor will be imparted by the seasonings. I'm planning to make a pan sauce with the juices and a little white wine. It smells soooo good.

Comments

[papersky.livejournal.com]

If you just put them to sit inside, some, but not all that much. Better would have been to rub the garlic and rosemary into the skin, prick the skin all over with a fork, and after about fifteen minutes cooking squeeze the lemon juice over it. And lime is even better... and it cooks faster without stuffing. But it'll be fine the way it is, and the garlic will be delicious to eat. I hope the sauce goes well.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

It turned out well enough. The rosemary flavor came through to the chicken strongly, the lemon and garlic more subtly. Next time I'll try rubbing them into the skin as well.

Another thing I've done (with chicken pieces, mostly split breast halves) is mixing seasonings into a sort of a paste, lifting the edge of the skin, and spreading the paste underneath. A mixture of grated fresh ginger, minced garlic, and lime or lemon juice works very well for that. Mmmm.