07.13.08
My, “I swore I wasn’t going to write about food today!”, post, but we had lunch at Pumpernick’s.
Ok I am breaking my own promise to myself – later.
Today, Daniel and I stopped at a local garden center/florist and picked up two bay plants, yes like the trees and herb used in soups, stews, sauces, and seafood, and to make those exorbitantly expensive holiday wreaths. Can you believe companies charge over one-hundred dollars for those things? This same florist had one on sale last Christmas for $275.00. It was over three feet in diameter. I looked at it and couldn’t imagine using that much bay in my lifetime. Sorry, back to my story.
We were on our way to the grocery store when Daniel mentioned a new coworker who just moved into a new condo. She mentioned to him that she wanted a bay plant for her kitchen, but hadn’t been able to find one. Since our three inch pot bay tree from last year died over the winter, I thought it might be a good idea to replace it, so we stopped along the way. The seven bay leaves I salvaged from it before it went “dormant”, or so I thought, had lasted the entire winter season. We were looking for two of the same small three inch pots,. They were all gone. The florist must have know we were coming because they had a dozen, two foot bay trees planted in seven inch pots for $25.00 each, only one row from the cash register. There were so many bay leaves on these trees that I thought, even if we get the smallest tree for ourselves, I’m going to be including a jar of bay leaves with every gift I give this Christmas, with plenty left over for next Christmas. Of course we spent twenty minutes going over each tree before we selected the two most handsome specimens. By this time it was 1:30 in the afternoon and we were hungry, so we diverted and drove directly to a local Jewish Deli/Restaurant called Pumpernick’s. Here’s where I’m breaking my own promise to myself.
After waiting about five minutes, we were seated in a booth and ordered just a few minutes later. We both ordered Rachel’s, Daniel’s was pastrami, and I ordered Kosher salami simply because I had never tried it. The sandwiches were delicious, smothered in coleslaw, russian dressing, melted swiss cheese and grilled to perfection, Mine was open faced, Daniel’s was stacked. Daniel tried mine and told me it tasted like bologna. I tasted a piece of the meat with nothing else on it and agreed, but then I didn’t know what Kosher salami should taste like.
We still had grocery shopping to do so, we took half our sandwiches with us, besides, we couldn’t finish them. On the way out, after paying, we passed the large deli case and sure enough, there in front of us were logs of Kosher bologna sitting right next to logs of Kosher salami, one log of each was partially sliced. There’s no way to confuse the two. I got bologna. We were in a hurry and the line to pay was 10 people deep. I decided to call the Deli owner when we got home, remember, we still had grocery shopping to do, but I was annoyed to say the least. With our leftover sandwiches in the car, we were in and out of the grocery store in 20 minutes.
After putting the sandwiches and groceries away, I started the grill to cook four pounds of chicken breasts for part of our dinners for the week, and for Daniel for lunches. While the chicken was cooking, I made a marinade for the london broil we’re going to have later in the week. It will marinade for four days, turning once every twelve hours. If anyone wants the recipe, just send me a note or post a request in comments.
While I waited for the chicken to finish, Daniel started repotting the bay trees. They were so pot bound we had to break the pots. Inside were solid balls of roots with no earth visible. Daniel selected two nice larger twelve inch pots and replanted them. During the repotting, the chicken had finished cooking and after allowing it to cool for thirty minutes in a covered bowl, I put it away in the ‘frig. I then did a load of laundry and started my two hour routine of caring for the pond and feeding the fish. By this time it was going on 8:00 and the sun was beginning to set. While I was busy with laundry and the pond, Daniel cleaned the front porch and put away a stack of flower pots that had accumulated there since last fall, along with multiple garden tools. When we came in, we ate dinner. Daniel finished his Rachel and had a salad, and I had left over’s from the end of last week to finish them up. I realized later this evening, while we were watching a movie, that I had forgotten to call Pumpernick’s. I’ll do that tomorrow. I’ll let you know how this story turns out.
O.P.W.