Text 4517, 71 rader
Skriven 2013-09-10 21:00:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Herdic execution 140
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Heather the bartender looked a bit put upon as the Million
Dollar Cocktails and Singapore Slings poured out of there.
Liz had suggested Slings, and the MDC was my countersuggestion
to make life easier behind the bar. It's dead easy - gin, a
splash each of dry and sweet vermouth, fill with pineapple
juice, shake with egg, pour and garnish, bingo, done in 30
seconds. Liz, whose will is uncontradictable, required both
drinks to be made, so my suggestion increased rather than
decreased the work, for which I was sorry.

I'd arrived at 1 to do the prep. Prepping for 30 covers is
pretty easy, if one doesn't have anyone in one's way.
Unfortunately, they had a catering gig next day, so people
went around making crabcakes (too much filler), tenderloin
appetizers, and other stuff while I did my thing.

I made the base for the mussels - red curry paste of the
normal sort with extra galanga and tons of coconut milk -
what could be bad? and made the lentil curry, while Liz
made the roti dough.

We did the chicken, white meat into strips with yellow
Indian-style curry, dark in pieces with the usual soy,
ginger, garlic, sugar thing; then I made the peanut and
sweet soy sauces while Liz cut up the beef. I think this was
a mistake - I had my idea how to do the beef (sheets on the
bias and then strips), but she did crosscut, with too much
meat per serving. Also, her favorite purveyor, Cattle Hill
Farm, had sold her on eye rounds, which as you know I don't
like and think require very special handling to forestall
toughness. These were kind of tough in the end, and I took
the heat for that (there was one complaint, from Annie,
among twenty to thirty other sales - maybe I am too hard on
eye round, but myself, I can't eat the stuff except raw).

Cucumber salad (just as I have made for echo picnics in the
past, only just slightly less sweet, with lime juice instead
of rice vinegar), and plain steamed rice to side the satays,
along with 2 oz of peanut goo and 1 oz of sweet soy per plate.
As I was doing the salt sweating on the cucumbers, with a plate
covering them, Liz swung by and took a taste as I screamed
noooo ... .

Around 4 I strung the satays (forgetting to soak the skewers),
and these were ready around 5. 120 skewers in an hour, counting
a break or two for Pepsi, not bad. After which I made a couple
servings for the staff to taste, cooked for the first two
customers, and then that was it: as people started to show up
around 6, the full-time staff took over with my instructions,
and I went out to wander among the tables and play host.

I tried one of the Million Dollar Cocktails, which was bland
compared to the way Raffles made them - I think that canned
pineapple juice cannot hold a candle to fresh; thereafter I stuck
to gin and tonics, most without much gin in them in case my
services were required in the back of the house, which they were
not, as I had nothing to do with dessert.

As far as my food went, I'd give it a B+ and an I'd go back, but
for my own dinner I chose the pork tenderloin in tarragon sauce
that they'd made for a party of 19 in the banquet room that
night, followed by a dish of the coconut ice cream which, being
zapped with saffron, tasted sort of like something my friend Gus
would make on a bad day.

Good notices from the diners, and the roti canai and the
mussels sold out.

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