(no subject)

I took the morning off so that curiousangel and I could visit potential hotels for alt.polycon 12. We had fun, and gathered a ton of information, and refined our hotel criteria. (Thanks, tammylc, for giving us ideas about what to look for.)

So far, we've crossed four potentials off our list - two for inadequate meeting space, one for the wrong kind of meeting space combined with lack of flexibility on the part of the sales manager, and one for failing to return our phone calls. We've requested quotes from two others, one of which seems very likely indeed. The other one is probably going to be too expensive, but I suppose it can't hurt to try - after all, apc9 was held in a Westin. Because it makes me nervous to only have two active options, we've got calls in to two more hotels.

It's nice to see salespeople's faces light up when you explain that you want to have a convention and a catered meal in their hotel in January. Hopefully we'll be able to get some good deals. I'm still a little nervous about negotiating a hotel contract - even though I know that negotiation is expected, part of me kind of expects them to be offended if I ask them to lower a price or comp something. We'll see what happens.

Experimental food corner: turkey piccata

It's been a looong time since I made an Experimental Food Corner post.

Tonight was definitely an EFC kind of night - it's been a long time since I've been to the grocery store, and I had no intention of going to the store before making dinner. So I knew that I'd be throwing dinner together out of whatever happened to be in the fridge.

I did have some meat: about a pound of "turkey cutlets," or slices of turkey breast meat about 1/4 inch thick. I formed a vague idea about the kinds of things that go into turkey piccata, started some rice, and began:

I mixed some flour, salt and pepper, and a handful of grated parmesan cheese in a shallow dish, and dredged the turkey cutlets in it as thoroughly as possible. Then I dropped them, two at a time, into a generous skosh of olive oil that was sitting in a skillet over medium-high heat. In contrast to my usual habit of anxiously turning food again and again, I let them sit in the oil until they were crisp and brown on one side, and then turned them. When they were crispy golden brown on both sides, and cooked through, I removed them to my toaster oven to keep warm.

Most of the oil cooked away by the time I finished the second pair of cutlets, so I dropped a chunk of butter into the pan - about a tablespoon and a half, I guess. I turned down the heat a little, but the butter melted and browned very quickly. I whisked in a handful of the leftover flour-and-parmesan-cheese mixture I had dredged the turkey pieces in. It didn't make a smooth paste, of course, because of the cheese pieces, but when I judged that the flour had dissolved I added a half-cup of chicken broth and two tablespoons of lemon juice. I let it boil for a few minutes, whisking, until the sauce was smooth and thick and the cheese was mostly melted. (There were still little concentrated nubbets of parmesan, though.)

Then I served up dinner: rice spread over the bottom of the plate, turkey cutlets on top, and some sugar snap peas blanched in the rest of the can of chicken broth, on the side. Just before eating we ladled some sauce over the top of the turkey.

It was really good. The sauce was a rich brown from the pan drippings, and had an intense lemon punch. The parmesan cheese in the sauce gave it a lovely rich mouthfeel, and the crunchy parmesan in the turkey cutlet coating was delicious. It was very satisfying for a quick weeknight dinner. (The total cooking time was just under half an hour.)

I've been interested in developing sauces and marinades for the last year or so, and I'm always really happy when I get a sauce right.