Three things I fell in love with at the Renaissance Faire last weekend:

A stunningly expressive belly dancer with long hair the color of cinnamon. The dangerously swelling bosom of the fresh-faced young wench selling roast turkey legs. And the new love of my gustatory life� sauteed garlic mushrooms.

I haven�t written about the Ren Faire for a couple of reasons� the main one being that the Fuzzmoms weren�t able to go because the luscious Lady wasn�t feeling well, and I just missed them a whole lot and didn�t feel like going on about it. The other reason I haven�t written about it is that I lack the gift of colorful description and simply would not have been able to do justice to such an amazingly varied and entertaining event.

We did have a good time. There is so much to see and do, and there is no better place on earth to people-watch. You can�t believe the wild get-ups that people will wear out in public! In addition to those in actual Renaissance dress, we saw people in belly dance costume, chain mail, angel wings and joker hats. I swear I even saw Ghengis Khan at one point! It was great fun to watch the weird ones, and some of these folks were sexy as hell in their garb, so it was good for ogling purposes as well.

The Faire food was surprisingly South Beach friendly. Oh, we could have cheated a bazillion different ways, but there was so much we were actually allowed to eat that I didn�t feel too bad about missing out on all the carby stuff. My favorite thing of the day had to be the garlic mushrooms. I discovered these by chance when I struck out on a brief excursion of my own, having gotten bored at the third weapons demonstration we�d encountered in an hour. I left the Prince to oooooh and ahhhhh at the sharp and pointy and explody things all by his lonesome while I set out across the bridge in search of something more interesting, like food or prominent cleavage.

My nose drew me to the mushroom booth where I received a generous helping in a paper bowl and proceeded to swoon. Swimming in a buttery, garlicky wine sauce and served with bread for dipping, these are the most marvelous culinary creations this side of tiramisu. The Prince doesn�t even LIKE mushrooms, and he helped me scarf down two big bowls of these.

Since last weekend, I have been craving these addictive little shrooms like mad, so I�ve been on an internet quest for a recipe. I found something that sounded similar, so tonight for supper I fiddled around with a couple of recipes and came up with a right tasty dish of braised pork chops smothered with garlic mushrooms. I didn�t QUITE hit it, as I didn�t wind up with nearly as much broth as I wanted with the mushrooms, but it still turned out extremely well. I love it when a man makes little involuntary �mmmmm� noises while he�s on his THIRD helping� hehehe.

Served with some good french bread and a bottle of white wine, it was the best supper I�ve thrown together in a while. The wine even had a nice little kick to it which is a plus nowadays seeing as how we�re only allowed one glass. �Goats Do Roam� is the name� I�ve given up the idea of being a wine snob and now I just pick my wines by the cuteness of the name. It�s been working pretty well so far! I�ve liked pretty much everything I�ve chosen by that method, although the �Red Truck� I picked up because it had my maiden name on the license plate of the truck in the picture was just a tad sweet for my taste. I've got a bottle of "Toasted Head" waiting it's turn for next week.

So my cooking today was much to the Prince�s great relief, because for the last week he has gotten chili for supper almost every night. I made up a HUGE potful last weekend when the Evil Childe�s horde of always-starving teenage friends were here, but they all up and left before it was done and no one has been back since, because the Evil One has been grounded all week in a battle of wills over the state of her room. So guess who got stuck eating up all the chili? It�s been pretty nice for me, coming home from work every night and not having to cook. Too bad I can�t get away with that shit every week! But I think I�d kind of like to stay married.

My other big accomplishment for the day is, I finished my shawl! I�ve worked on it at odd moments all week, and ripped out probably three times as much work as I kept, and it still went faster than I�d expected. It�s not quite as large as I wanted, and there are a few mistakes that probably no one would notice but me, but all in all it�s cute and hopefully I learned a few things NOT to do when I make the next one. This one is burgundy and made of nubbly yarn; the next one I'm making for myself is going to be black, not-nubbly and a little bigger than the first. Then if I�m not sick of it I may start making one for my mother-in-law.

Wow� what with all the cooking and crocheting, I feel like quite a girly girl today! Well, at least I would if I didn�t stink like a monkey�s middle finger from not showering this morning because I wanted to start right in on the crocheting. What, like the Prince even notices? He�s got his face stuck in some video game. Besides, today he loves me for my cooking. I�ll have to shower tonight, and maybe in the morning I�ll remind him of what ELSE I�m good for.

6 felt the need to share

Previous - Next
Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

Designed by So-Charming.
Technical assistance provided by The Prince.